Every once in a while, you will blow an interview, quickly realize what you did wrong, and kick yourself immediately afterward. You might recover from some of these mistakes, but others are fatal, at least as far as that job is concerned. Perhaps you dressed inappropriately. Or perhaps you inadvertently insulted the interviewer. Perhaps you permitted yourself a moment of anger to vent at your current supervisor. Maybe you were late to the interview or were unprepared because you didn't have any questions to ask. By the time you left the interview, you knew it was hopeless. Consider these learning experiences and resolve to conduct yourself more professionally next time.

Ask for advice. Yes, we do know how difficult it is to call and try to find out why because we've all done it. We are not suggesting you do anything we haven't. However, this advice applies mainly to those interviews where you have taken the trouble to identify the right company for you, do preliminary homework, contact the hiring manager directly, and covered the Four Vital Questions. You have therefore already established a relationship of sorts and the interviewer might be prepared to help you. Otherwise you have little, if any, chance of getting feedback as most people are highly concerned about claims of discrimination.

Few of us are the greatest experts in our fields. There is always someone else whose knowledge or point of view may be of benefit to us. The person who interviews you can likely add something valuable to your understanding about yourself, your work, or your profession.

An interviewer may not believe that you are as qualified as you think you are. His decision may save you the agony of working at a job that isn't right for you. Then again, he might be wrong and lose an opportunity to hire an exceptional worker. Such a disagreement does not signify an unsuccessful interview. If it has been decided that you are not going to be hired, you and the inter­viewer can continue your discussion candidly, and your interview can still end successfully.

Relax, take your shoes off, and take a walk through the grass with the interviewer. You're in blue sky country, and you have nothing to lose by taking a chance. Let's look at how this meeting might still pay off.

When at the end of an interview it is clear that you are not going to be hired, force yourself to shift your point of view. The inter­viewer is not your opponent, and he is certainly not your boss if he hasn't made you a job offer. He is not your judge and jury. He is someone trying to get a job done. The two of you have a lot in common. If you can convey this understanding to the interviewer, you will experience a shift in the conversation.

You're not getting the job. If you acknowledge that the interview is over, you can shift to another topic without making the inter­viewer feel you are still trying to convince him to hire you. Thank the interviewer for his time and observations. Tell him that although this isn't a match, you hope he found your discussion as useful as you did.

Ask him if he would be good enough to give you some blunt advice. Be prepared to listen carefully. Don't talk any more. Let him

talk. Start with the question "Can you give me some advice?" People love to give advice, and their advice might be very useful. Continue with one or more of the following questions, depending on how cooperative the interviewer is.

	What would you recommend I do to communicate better in an interview?
	I know that a person's skills and his attitude about his work determine how good a job he can do. What do you think I need to work on?
	Tell me what I need to learn to qualify for this job, if I were to apply for it again next year.
	If I were working for you, and you were firing me right now, what advice would you give me? Knowing what you know About Dianna, if someone called you and asked you to give me a reference, no-holds-barred, what would you tell them?

You may be stunned at the advice you get. You might not like everything you hear, but think about it carefully. After the inter­view, whether you agree with the comments or not, write them all down as accurately as you can remember them. Put them away. Take your notes out in a few days and review them. What do you think? Is there anything about your job search that you should change?

LEVERAGE REJECTION INTO A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

If you get a refusal, think very seriously about asking for feedback. No one likes to be rejected, but if you are serious about your career in the long term, you must learn to embrace rejection. In the course of your career you will get rejected for a lot of reasons-some valid, some not so valid-and sometimes for no reason at all. The challenge of embracing rejection is to accept your limitations, transform hopelessness into action, and learn from each rejection. Allow me to rephrase the celebrated serenity prayer: Grant me the confidence to accept the rejection I cannot change, the determination to change the rejection I can, and the wisdom to learn from each.

When they are rejected, most candidates fold up their tents and slink away. That is understandable, but precisely the wrong strategy. To a salesperson, a no is just the beginning of another conversation. Many candidates have parlayed a rejection into a relationship that led to another job offer, if not for the original job then for another job. Even if you can't do this, a rejection can be beneficial if you can get authentic feedback.

Your first challenge is to find out why you were rejected. Be honest with yourself as you think about it. Oftentimes you will know why. You were underqualified, you were overqualified, or your previous salary was too high or too low. These objections were surely brought out in the interview, so your rejection should have been no major surprise. You can take some comfort from the fact that there was nothing much you could have done to overcome these objections.

Occasionally (especially if you have pre-qualified the company and demonstrated your ability to do the job as suggested in the  Four Vital Questions,  a rejection will come out of left field, and you will feel blindsided because you just didn't see this one coming. You felt you were well qualified for the job. The interviewer seemed to like you and gave you some positive indications that everything was going to work out. You left the interview feeling positive. Then you get a letter or phone call telling you thanks, but no thanks.

UNDERSTANDING REJECTION

This is the time when embracing rejection pays off. You have to understand exactly why you were rejected. There is really only one way to do this. You have to ask the person who rejected you why.

You could send should a short note that conveys the following thoughts: Thank you again for interviewing me. I understand you decided to go with another candidate and I accept your decision. I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me.

Key here is acknowledging that you accept the interviewer's decision. The issue of your application for this position has been decided. You lost. Get over it. No recruiter will help you if he or she thinks you want to argue. 

Unfortunately, many interviewers are not going to tell you what you want to know under any circumstances. The fear of lawsuits by former employees has so traumatized employers that they will almost never give candidates the authentic feedback they need. Some companies are so fearful that an HR person may inadvertently say something that might come back and bite them that they sharply restrict what HR people can say.

Companies checking references on former employees run into this problem all the time. Many companies now reveal only the title of for­mer employees and the dates of their hire and termination. Reluctantly, they may reveal salary information. In fact, a new trend at some com­panies is to have reference checks conducted entirely by a computerized telephone system that gives prospective employers the minimal infor­mation. The idea is to remove the actual HR people from the process.

In this atmosphere it is all but impossible to get a hiring manager or HR person to be honest. It's a shame, because many HR people are educators by nature and desperately want to tell candidates what they could do better next time or how their resume could be improved. But they have absolutely no incentive to do so and lots of incentive to keep mum. For you, that makes getting authentic feedback very difficult.

An HR manager at a Fortune 1000 company who prefers not be identified reported the following exchange with a candidate who had just re­ceived a letter of rejection:  “CANDIDATE: Thanks for taking my call. I got your letter telling me that you won't be making me an offer. I was a little surprised because I left the interview thinking that I was very qualified for the job. Of course, I accept your decision, but I am calling to try to understand why I did not get an offer. I want to learn from any mistakes I may have made. Candidly, can you tell me why I did not get the offer and what I might have done differently to present myself as a stronger candidate?”

WHAT THE INTERVIEWER WANTED TO SAY: I admire you for making a call like this. It takes a thick skin to ask for such details. In fact, you sabotaged yourself in a number of ways that can be easily remedied. You had a couple of misspelled words on your resume and your choice to wear sandals instead of shoes caused some of us to question your professionalism.

WHAT THE INTERVIEWER ACTUALLY SAID: I appreciate your call, and we were impressed by your credentials, but the truth is that another candidate simply had a little more experience in the areas most im­portant to us. Good luck in your job search.

Unless you have a personal relationship with the hiring manager, it's al­most impossible to get honest feedback about the selection process. And the irony is, the more you need brutally honest feedback-the more there's something you can actually do something about-the less chance you will get it. That's because few HR professionals want to come clean on the subjective reasons one candidate is chosen over another.

HR people can afford to be a little more honest about objective standards. Let's say you lost the job because it called for five years of C++ experience and you only had two years. They might tell you that. If the job calls for a commercial driver's license and you don't have one, that they'll tell you. If the job requires a Microsoft certification and you don't have one, that they'll tell you. But you probably knew all that al­ready. If you were rejected on any type of subjective basis, forget it.

Here's where a recruiter intermediary can be helpful. No one likes to give bad news directly to a candidate. But if an interviewer knows the recruiter is willing to communicate the bad news, then the interviewer may be more willing to tell the truth. On interviewer told us that a well-qualified candidate for a position as a hospital administrator was rejected for a particular job for which he was well qualified. When she inquired, the hospital interviewer disclosed that the candi­date asked to smoke during the interview. It was clear that the interviewer would not have revealed that critical fact directly to the candidate. Trainer then had the unenviable task of confronting the can­didate with the costs of his addiction. But the candidate learned, took control of his addiction, and soon got a well-paying position.

Sometimes the subjectivity of hiring managers can be unreasonable. Jason Rodd, senior consultant at TMP Worldwide, Inc., in Tampa, Florida, recalls working with a hiring manager who rejected a perfectly qualified candidate because, well, let Rodd tell it: "I couldn't understand why she was rejected because she could do the job with her eyes closed. After pressing for a reason, the hir­ing manager eventually told me it was because the candidate wore a turtle broach on her suit. Turns out he did not like turtles and questioned her professionalism for wearing a turtle to a job interview. There is no way the candidate would have gotten that feed­back directly. I tell candidates that story from time to time because I want them to know that it is the little things that can get you ruled out late in the game."

CUTTING THROUGH THE PRETENSE

There is one strategy for cutting through the pretense, but it's pretty strong medicine and it doesn't always work. Of course, you have little to lose. I personally have had success with it, so I know it can pay off. After you are rejected for a position and you genuinely don't know why, call the interviewer. The pitch goes something like this: “Thanks for taking my call. I got your letter telling me that you won't be making me an offer and I accept the decision. I need to improve my interviewing skills and I'm asking for your help. I am asking you to be brutally honest about my performance and what I could have done bet­ter. I can make you three promises. I promise I will not interrupt you. I promise I will not defend myself. And I promise I will not contact you or your company for a year. Will you help me?” That last appeal is important. It speaks to the desire of most HR people to be helpful.

"I would be totally impressed with a candidate who came at me like that," says Rich Franklin, HR director at KnowledgePoint in Petaluma, California. Like many HR people, Franklin is an educator. "This is a guy that wants to learn. If an HR person is any good at all, they would jump at that opportunity," he adds.

The key to success with this approach is to give the recruiter enough comfort so that his desire to be honest with you overcomes his reluc­tance to get into trouble. Most interviewers faced with a rejected candidate fear three things: an argument, a sob story, or a pest who might sue. Acknowledging that you accept the recruiter's decision and will not try to appeal it is the first step. The three promises you make up front are further designed to counter these fears. The promise that you will not contact the interviewer is key. That gives a little assurance that what the interviewer tells you won't come back and bite him or her. Don't forget, the company is still free to contact you.

If you're going to try this strategy, I ask only one thing: Demonstrate integrity. If you promise not to interrupt, bite your tongue and don't interrupt. If you promise not to defend yourself, stick to your promise. It won't be easy. Few of us have the constitution to listen to criticism with­out trying to explain or justify. Just listen and say thank you. Take what you learn and do better next time.

Your Time Is Worth a Referral

Just because an interview does not lead to a job does not mean the interviewer does not know of a job for you. You have to judge whether the interviewer sees value in your skills. If you think he does, ask for a referral. More specifically, ask him one or more of the following questions:

	Does the interviewer think you might be able to help the company in some other department or division?
	Are there any other managers he would suggest you talk with?
	What are the company's growth plans? Is there a future place for you?
	When would new positions likely open up? With what managers?

If there is another department you are particularly interested in, this is the time to do some of the research you'll need. Ask about that department.

	What kinds of challenges is the department facing?
	What kinds of help does it need?
	Who manages it?
	Would the interviewer be kind enough to introduce you to the manager on your way out? (If it's not a good time for an introduction, don't fret. You now have a reference when you call that manager later; you were referred by the interviewer you just met. The first manager might even be willing to recommend you.)

No matter what business the interviewer is in, he or she likely knows other people in the same business. This kind of referral often carries the greatest weight.

	Can the interviewer recommend another good company that might benefit from your skills? Does he know a specific man­ager there?
	Is there someone he respects at another company who might be able to advise you?
	Which industry associations does the interviewer think are best? Is there a committee chairperson he knows who might be able to recommend opportunities elsewhere in the industry?

When It's Time to Call It a Day

It's important for you to obtain names of people you can call on. It will help greatly if the manager gives you permission to use his name. Shake the interviewer's hand, and say, "Thank you. Your comments and your advice mean a lot to me. If there's ever any­thing I can do to help you or [the company], please call me." Look him straight in the eye when you say this. Leave your business card and ask for his.

Always follow up with a thank-you letter even after a rejection (and certainly after an interview, when you are waiting to hear back). You'd be surprised how few candidates actually take this simple step. Most recruiters tell rejected applicants they will keep their resumes on file, and a few actually mean it. But if you send a great letter accepting the recruiter's decision and suggesting that if another position more suitable opened up you would very much like for the company to consider you, chances are much greater that the recruiter would follow through.

In addition to a thank-you letter, consider leaving the recruiter better off for having interviewed you. You can enlarge the recruiter's territory-and perhaps put yourself in his or her debt-by taking one or more of these steps:

	If you know of one, recommend another good candidate for the job.
	If you can offer some other relationship like a sales lead, do it.
	If you know of a new Web site or job board, alert the recruiter.
	Send an article or Web link you think the recruiter might find helpful.
	If nothing else, ask if there is anything you can do to help the recruiter or his or her company.

Although you are not doing it solely for this reason, you never know when the person they do end up hiring does not work out and they need to re-hire: the extras you do at the end may just lead them to think of, and contact you.