How to Land the Wrong Job and Sabotage Your Career

You are tired of hearing it. The job market, as you already know, is tight and competition is absurd. You are doing all you can to stand out to recruiters, build your network, dazzle interviewers and ultimately get a position.

But is the role you’re seeking the right one for you? Are you sabotaging your career by not looking past the objective of landing a job?

In the present job environment, it’s easy to focus on getting a job and forget that a new role should be a comprehensively assessed process in your career. Simply put: it’s easy to land the wrong job. Here’s how to do it:

Be 100% agreeable

It’s significant to resist the temptation to avoid topics or questions that are less exciting or which could probably push the conversation into not-so-strong-candidate territory. For instance, when it’s becoming clear the role will require significant teamwork while your preference is to work alone.

Everyone is better off, however, if you’re upfront about your personality from the get-go. The same is true for disclosing your actual strengths and weaknesses.

If you do manage to keep it honest, avoid glossing over the details if it means you’ll be, in the end, taking back what you just said. Don’t follow up an explanation of how a calm, quiet work environment is best for you with a contradicting statement about how you could be quite productive in a fast-paced office because you never miss a deadline. (That may be true, but will you be functioning optimally?)

An interviewer motivated to fill the position might latch on to the part of your answer that indicates you’d do well in the hectic environment and forget the rest in a subconscious effort to make you into the perfect candidate. If this happens, both of you lose.

Be a spectacular presenter

It’s no secret that communication skills are in high demand among employers, and for good reason: in many roles, it’s important to clearly articulate the value of your company’s product or service and to represent your organization professionally.

Hone those communication skills, but superstar communicators, beware: your talent could work against you. Presenting information in the best possible light seems like a smart strategy, and nowhere is this more applicable than in an interview. If you’re a fantastic presenter, you know how to read a room, how to get heads nodding and how to paint the picture of you as the perfect person for the job.

You could walk out of an interview having charmed the pants off of everyone in the conference room and influenced them to vote for your hire—but did you showcase your skills and talents accurately? Is your experience truly a good match for the job’s responsibilities? Did you sell yourself as the best candidate when someone with a different background would actually be a better fit?

It’s best for the employer—and you—to reign in the polish and carefully discuss the facts. Realizing you’re unprepared for the role after you’ve committed to each other is a disaster for both parties.

Be a “Polly Positive”

As you look over your notes after the interview and recount the conversation—the job responsibilities, company culture and anticipated organization and career growth—you must include the negatives in your evaluation. A new job can feel exciting, and it’s fun to look at all the pros associated with the role and imagine the rainbow-filled paths your career can go down.

But it’s crucial you weigh the cons of the situation, too. What seems like an insignificant factor can feel like a huge problem when the newness of a position wears off. As much as possible, try your best to be objective and see beyond the bright side.

Sometimes you don’t have much of a choice and life circumstances dictate how picky (or not) you can be about your next job. When you’re able to, though, move past the “score a gig” goal, and think strategically about your career. It’s exciting to land a position, but it sucks to later realize it’s the wrong one.