Lindsay Olson

Job Seekers: Don’t Make These Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes once in a while. No matter how long you’ve been in the workforce or how much you’ve honed your interview skills, you’ll still make the occasional mistake. And when you’re looking for a job, some of those mistakes can be fatal.

Here are five common mistakes candidates make during the interview process and lessons you can learn from each:

1. Writing the wrong company name on your correspondence. Job seekers spend countless hours interviewing before finding the right position, so it’s natural to use some of the same content from a previous follow-up letter. That’s fine—it saves you time. But double-check that you’ve addressed the letter to the company you’re interviewing with. It’s also wise to double-check the spelling of the interviewer’s name.

Lesson: A lack of attention to detail could cost you the job. As a job candidate, you must convince the prospective employer that you truly want to work for their company, not any company.

For the rest of the tips, go see my US News & World Report this week at Job Seekers: Don’t Make These Mistakes