Cool InfoGraphic: “What You Wish You’d Known Before Your Job Interview”

Recently, while surfing around on LinkedIn and exploring articles that seemed to be of interest to job-seekers, I came across a cool InfoGraphic called “What You Wish You’d Known Before Your Job Interview.” It’s filled with various statistics and lists that may be helpful to anyone going out on job interviews. The original source of this InfoGraphic was apparently a website called “Classes and Careers” aimed at students who are picking colleges and/or courses. The website’s stated purpose is to match students with schools and programs.

I tried to poke around and investigate how they came up with these statistics and numbers … but alas, I could not even find this InfoGraphic anywhere on their website, much less any information on how they arrived at these statistics. The actual InfoGraphic was simply re-published on multiple unrelated sites while the original research information supporting it somehow got lost in the viral re-shuffling on the web. Nevertheless, my gut feeling in studying this InfoGraphic is that it has the ring of truth to it. I can’t swear that the numbers are accurate … but based on my own experience as a recruiter who has coached thousands of candidates through interviews and then debriefed countless interviewers, the overall content shown seems pretty right on.

The items contained here that I think are especially apropos are:
► A third of the interviewers surveyed made up their minds about whether or not to hire someone within the first 90 seconds of the interview starting.
► Over half of the first impressions were created NOT by what was said, but rather how the person dressed, walked through the door and acted.
► Almost half of the failed interviews were caused by candidates not knowing enough about the company they were meeting with.
► Over two thirds of the failed interviews were caused by candidates not making eye contact.
► The number one reason for not hiring someone was that they didn’t ask for the job!

Now there’s nothing new or earth-shattering about any of this. I’ve actually written about most of this stuff elsewhere in other articles here on Recruiter Musings. [Check the Index for more specific interviewing advice, tips and tricks.] Still, seeing it all in this graphical format is very entertaining and enlightening. (Oh and yes, the retro sixties-style caricature of the job-seeker is kind of goofy, but I like it anyway! It kind of reminds me of the TV show Mad Men.) I would even say, it’s worth blowing this up, printing it out, and pinning it to a wall near your work desk as a refresher before each interview you have coming up.

So here it is! (You can click on the image below to open a full-sized version in a new tab. Then click it again in the new tab that opens to zoom in.)