How to Turn an Interview Mistake into an Opportunity

When every job interview seems like a make-or-break situation, making a mistake in one can feel like a major crisis. Interview mistakes happen to everyone at some point, however. More important than any error of fact or etiquette is your ability to keep the interview going in the right direction. Use these three tips to help get your interviews back on track when they seem derailed.

Offer to Reschedule

One of the key mistakes job seekers make regarding their interviews is not arriving on time. In heading to a new location, it's all too easy to get lost, miss a bus or train or simply get stuck in traffic. Arriving significantly late to an interview can be interpreted by a job interviewer as symptomatic of anything from a lack of respect to unreliability. Head off this interview mistake by planning to leave home with significant time to spare. Give yourself time to get lost, time to park and time to walk from the parking lot to the building, and add in a measure of extra time on top of that.

If, despite all your best efforts, you're still going to be late for the interview, call ahead and offer to reschedule your interview. Don't make excuses, and don't over-explain. Just apologize and be willing to conform your schedule to the interviewer's availability.

Acknowledge Your Errors and Apologize

Sometimes the worst type of interview mistake happens, and you say something utterly wrong in the room. Maybe you mispronounce the interviewer's name, say something derogatory about the company, misstate facts badly, or even just draw a complete blank and can't answer a simple question. Sometimes you don't know what you did wrong, but a glance at the interviewer's facial expression or body language tells you that you blew it.

When this kind of drastic interview mistake occurs, don't end up making things worse by trying to justify what you said. Simply acknowledge that you made a mistake and apologize. Restate the point you should have made, don't make a big deal of it, and try to move the conversation forward.

Be Prepared to Redirect the Conversation

If the conversation grinds to an awkward halt because you've made an interview mistake or because the interviewer seems to have run out of things to say, be ready to jump-start the conversation yourself. Have some questions prepared that you can ask the interviewer about the company or the position. Think on your feet to return to an earlier, more successful part of the interview and to restate your qualifications. You don't have to be completely passive in a job interview; you are allowed to take the initiative to redirect the conversation so as to put yourself in the best possible light.

Don't be too hard on yourself when you make an interview mistake. An experienced job interviewer has seen many such mistakes in her career and probably doesn't consider yours as important as you do. Chalk any bad interview up as experience that you can learn from so you don't make similar mistakes in future, more important interviews.

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