When it comes to having an interview, it’s a bit of an art, and several things must fall into place, in order to have a realistic chance of landing a job. An interviewer will judge you based on several different types of criteria, including the obvious experience, work history, education, etc.
One area that job candidates sometimes overlook is the words they use during an interview. If you use the wrong ones, you may come across as undesirable, which makes a negative first impression. Here are four words that should be avoided at all costs.
1. Best
While you definitely want to show that you’re confident and would make a capable and talented employee, you don’t want to brag to the point that you come across as being cocky. Even if you feel that you were the best employee at a certain task at your previous job, or the best student in your class, it’s a good idea to stay humble and not use this word during an interview. Instead, it’s better to use words like adept, skilled, and proficient.
2. Perfectionist
It seems that this word has become vastly overused in recent years. If you use it, you stand a good chance of making your interviewer cringe, and it’s not going to help your chances whatsoever. One of the biggest clichés is someone saying that their biggest flaw is being a perfectionist at their job. Using this word is likely to make you come across as being smug and inauthentic, so be sure to stay away from it.
3. Hate
It’s never a good idea to say that you hated any aspect of your previous job or hate a particular task. If an interviewer sees that you have this volatile emotion toward something work related, you’re likely to be labeled as a high-risk candidate. It shows that you could easily develop hostility toward your new job and/or co-workers, and it’s doubtful that you’ll get hired.
4. Amazing
According to the Huffington Post, this is one of the top-12 overused words in the English language, and used so much that it’s lost its meaning. There’s something about the word “amazing” that gets underneath the skin of many interviewers, and can be very annoying. This is mainly because saying something like “you did an amazing job” makes you seem a little too full of yourself and out of touch with things. If you need a word to describe your capabilities, it’s smarter to opt for something with a little more humility behind, such as good or effective.
By avoiding the wrong words during an interview, you can make a better first impression and present yourself in a favorable light. This should make it easier to build solid rapport, and increase your chances of getting hired. To learn more about what recruiters are looking for and how to find the right job, check out our job search tips.
