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Over confidence in interview

  • 09-08-2007 5:54pm
    #1
    Lamps
    Closed Accounts Posts: 205 ✭✭


    I had an interview the other day and reflecting back i think i may have appeared a bit to over confident. I have a lot of self confidence as it is, but im thinking i was maybe a bit to keen to the interviers. Im also very professional and feel i may have intimidated the interviewers a bit.

    Due this i reckon i may not get the job and will be something i watch in future interviews.

    What do you think, would this be a major issue?


Comments

  • #2
    Darragh29
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,097 ✭✭✭Darragh29


    Lamps wrote:
    I had an interview the other day and reflecting back i think i may have appeared a bit to over confident. I have a lot of self confidence as it is, but im thinking i was maybe a bit to keen to the interviers. Im also very professional and feel i may have intimidated the interviewers a bit.

    Due this i reckon i may not get the job and will be something i watch in future interviews.

    What do you think, would this be a major issue?

    I'd say yes and would mitigate against you at interview. If you have a notion that you have intimidated the interviewers with your "professionalism", how on earth could you intimidate someone by being "professional"!?!?!


  • #3
    00112984
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,600 ✭✭✭00112984


    I'm usually involved in interview panels for my company and hate overly cocky candidates. Being confident is one thing but, in interview, it does come across as cockiness. I've interviewed people who make it sound like we should beg them to take the job only to have them become very upset when they've been rejected.

    Not saying you'd do this, Lamps but I'm a senior IT project manager in my company and, being a women, male candidates often presume I'm from HR regardless of the fact that I introduce myself using my job title at the beginning of the interview. I've been asked silly questions like "do you find HR challenging?". Seems like a small thing but, if a candidate is unable to take in the most basic of information, what chance do they have working on a €5m project with clients and vendors screaming down the phone all day?

    I once asked a candidate to outline some additional information about a project he had mentioned, very briefly, in his CV and he very rudely quipped
    "Well, if you could be bothered reading my CV yourself you'd see..."
    I ended the interview there and then.

    I'm not a cocky interviewer (I'm pure IT so I'm very much there from a technical perspective) but it just shocks me to see the attitude some people have in interview. Some act like they're soooo busy that they're gracing you with their valuable presence.

    Lamps, again, this is not aimed at you directly, rather just some examples that came to mind when I got to thinking about overly confident candidates.

    My advice to you would be to try and hold back a little. Focus more on selling youself into the job on what you have done using facts and figures; not what you feel you can do based on your own opinions on your abilities.

    Best of luck!


  • #4
    leeroybrown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,563 ✭✭✭leeroybrown


    Like the previous poster, if I interview someone and they come across as cocky or arrogant then I'm quite likely to think 'what a complete penís, do we really want this person to work here'. Someone very confident who also came across as very professional would be fine, but that's because someone very professional wouldn't be cocky or arrogant, just very confident. If anything I'd assume someone very confident was more likely to know what they were doing than someone cocky or arrogant.


  • #5
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    I think a lot of the time it's a question of showing competence versus selling yourself life you were a door-to-door salesman with one foot in the door needing this sale in order to be able to eat that night.

    Saying "I'm very good at X" is most certainly not the same as saying "I have experience in a, b and c and also hold this and that professional qualification" where a,b,c and all the qualifications are about X.

    It is down to language a lot of the time and you need to keep an eye on it. Just making expansive statements like "I'm a really committed and outgoing person" is never as affective as suggesting it and leaving the interviewer to come to that conclusion on their own.

    Cocky people tell you that they are good, confident people leave you telling yourself that they are good. If that makes sense.


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