When interview feedback hurts…

Interview feedback causes lots of confusion - should I look for it? Will it be useful? How do I improve when I get it anyway? And many teachers feel that even though they look for it - they feel that it’s not useful because it’s too general or seems irrelevant somehow.

Addressing hurtful interview feedback

Worse still, interview feedback can hurt sometimes. How do you stop the feedback from hurting you inside?

If you’ve had many interviews and no job offers and you’ve got lots of feedback, here is some important information.

Please do not use feedback as a stick to beat yourself with. Many teachers are already lacking in confidence and using these new words can help consolidate the fears and negative thoughts that they have about themselves.

What is a better approach to using interview feedback?

• Look at the top 3 common themes that arise. E.g. nerves, preparation, effective communication, relevant examples etc. What can you change and how can you approach that differently?

• Know that interviewers may be having a bad day. Sometimes, the interview questions are long-winded and tricky to comprehend. That may not be your problem, it may be on their side that needs a little adjustment.

• Tap into your strengths to build your self-belief. Use your strengths to create affirmations and repeat them as often as possible as you prepare for the interview. This is an important approach that can make a fantastic difference to interview nerves, confidence and give the interviewee and sense of being grounded.

• Tact: Sometimes (inexperienced or unprofessional) interviewers can give feedback that seems hurtful and tactless. You can decide what to do with that feedback. You can take on board all the hurt or you can take out one useful nugget, discard the rest and forget about the horrible experience and focus on the learning instead. This is the most self-compassionate approach.

The kindest thing you can do for yourself is to take a little nugget of advice to work on, change up your interview strategy approach and move on.

If you would like to work on building up your confidence in time for your next interview, find out more about how I can guide you toward interview confidence here.

Let us know below if you have any advice for those who have been hurt from ill-given interview feedback in the comments. Let’s stay positive and move onto the next one.