How to fail an interview

Abstract

Several years ago a journalist came to see me for some careers counselling because he was repeatedly shortlisted for jobs but failing at the interview stage. As you would hope with somebody in his profession, he had a great way with words, and one phrase of his in particular—catastrophic candour—stuck in my mind long after he had completed the careers counselling. What he was referring to with this term was his tendency in interviews (and actually in other situations as well) to share the contents of his head with all and sundry, rather than being more judicious in deciding what he would say to a given group of people. So, for example, in a previous interview, when asked why he wanted to work on a particular publication, he found himself saying that the salary was high and this would help with the family budget, given that his previous wife was proving expensive …