You only fail when you refuse to learn from a bad experience. At Preppally, we strongly believe applying for jobs is a skill and skills can be learned and taught. Whenever you do a job interview, you should block time in order to reflect and evaluate your performance.
In order to make this process easier, we have created a simple retrospective model, focusing on three questions you should ask yourself after every job interview you have.
Download the template below which you can directly fill in after every interview!
Written by Jeroen
Founder Preppally
June, 07, 2022
Written by Jeroen
Founder Preppally
June, 07, 2022
Ask yourself these 3 questions after every job interview
You only fail when you refuse to learn from a bad experience. At Preppally, we strongly believe applying for jobs is a skill and skills can be learned and taught. Whenever you do a job interview, you should block time in order to reflect and evaluate your performance.
In order to make this process easier, we have created a simple retrospective model, focusing on three questions you should ask yourself after every job interview you have.
Download the template below which you can directly fill in after every interview!
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Retrospective model: 3 proven questions to learn from job interviews
1. What worked well during my job interview
Most coaching models will lead with focusing on what actually worked well and it’s absolutely crucial to note this down. While you might feel gutted after a bad job interview or euphoric after a good one, it’s important to capture things you did well in order to remember these for further interviews.
Hence, per type of interview question, make sure to write down what you excelled at.
2. What could be improved during my job interview
On the flip side, there is what could be improved. In general it’s easier to remember what went bad, but it’s important to stay objective about what elements during your interview you could have improved. Map your answers out to the best practices covered in our programs:
- Could you have used more numbers?
- Did you clearly explain STARRS?
- Did you explain every single step of your thinking process?
Ask yourself multiple in-depth questions in order to understand what you could have improved on during the interview and try to formulate these as actionable as possible.
3. What actions can I take after my job interview
Now you listed what you have done well and what you could improve – you need to think of an immediate action plan. For what went well, the only thing you need to make sure is that you continue doing these.
On the improvement side you want to make sure to assign a timeline of improvement to all elements you noted down in this column and start working on these today. It’s important to be persistent and keep on improving yourself. I applied 18 times before landing my first role in tech and it has been a journey with many ups and downs.
Focus especially on the quick fixes – as it might be that the outcome of your interview is still positive and you want to prevent making these mistakes in the next interview. If you have tremendous knowledge gaps, try to give yourself between three and six months to improve these.
We recommend filling in the retrospective model as soon as possible after your interview, but it should not withhold you from asking additional feedback from your recruiter the moment you get the result of your interview. Even when you get the negative message they decided not to move forward with your application, it’s worth thanking them and asking for feedback.
Recruiters have access to the written feedback about your application, if they have the time they can easily consolidate these and send you potentially additional bullet points you can add to your retrospective model.
Again, you never fail when you eventually learn.
Written by Jeroen
Founder Preppally
June, 07, 2022
