The Perfect Example of What NOT to Do in an Interview
By CareerBuilder blogger on Apr 16, 2009 in Featured, Interviews, News and trends, Resume
Who watched The Hills on Monday? Don’t lie, I know I’m not the only one who’s sucked into the drama that is Speidi.
Whether you watched it or not, Stephanie Pratt — Spencer’s sister — showed the world the best example of a “bad interview” I have seen in a long time.
In this episode, Lauren’s boss at People’s Revolution, Kelly Cutrone, is looking for an intern. She asks Lauren if she knows anyone at fashion school who might be interested. Of course, Lauren mentions the opportunity to Stephanie, a fellow classmate, and Stephanie gets an interview at People’s Revolution.
Here’s where it gets good.
Stephanie shows up for the interview and is clearly very nervous ; she basically shoves her résumé — which is in an envelope (?) — in Kelly’s hands.
She blurts out that her “objective in life is to have my own handbag line so I really wanted to work here just to see, um, you have a lot of really great designers here and the PR that you guys do is really awesome and (gulp) I just wanna like see how I could brand my bags.” Catch that? Me either.
Kelly’s response was appropriate: “So you basically want to use my experience and my clients and their inside knowledge to ultimately leave here and go make your own handbag line?” Stephanie insists that this is not the goal for right now, but in “like, a decade.” Again, Kelly laughs and says, “You should be able to move quicker than that, honey!”
The horrendous interview — dubbed “a folly” by Kelly — continued, and included Stephanie lying about being fluent in French and staring blankly when asked if she knew how to print out labels.
So, what do Stephanie’s multiple flubs teach us about job searching? Well, a lot.
- Tailor your résumé to every job. Stephanie showed up to an interview at a PR company with an objective to own her own handbag line? I don’t think so. She should have had an objective regarding her intentions within the public relations world, and at People’s Revolution.
- Don’t talk about what the company will do for you. Stephanie immediately jumped in with what she was looking for from the job and what working there would do for her. The right move would have been to talk about what YOU can do for the company and the value you bring to the table.
- Don’t lie on your résumé. Stephanie’s résumé boasted that she was fluent in French. But when Kelly started speaking the language during the interview, Stephanie’s only response was to smile, nod and stare blankly – again.
- Have goals. Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t Stephanie saying that she strived to have her own handbag line that was wrong — it was listing it as her objective in a position that wasn’t relevant to that goal. Not only that, but she said her goal was “in like a decade.” Everyone should have goals – for now, in five years and in 10 years. Make sure you can state what your goals are within the company where you are applying as well as down the line.
Click here to see Kelly’s reaction to Stephanie’s interview.


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