Interview For Jobs You Don’t Want

This is great advice – every interview is a learning experience, even the ones that are “unsuccessful.” Gaining interview experience gives you an overview of how different organizations operate, helps you tell a good interviewer from a poor one, and helps you formulate better answers to the common questions. The only thing I would add is to always prepare as if you DO want the job, because you never know when an opportunity might turn out to be better than you anticipated!

Julie – Great addition to my post. Thank you! You are absolutely right. If you do not put your heart into it, you will likely not get the value back and may hurt your reputation (especially if you got the opportunity via a recruiter). Come back any time . . .

Interesting advice, Tim, but it does make sense. Furthermore, to add to Julie’s comment, not only will you gain experience from each interview, but having multiple interviews will boost your confidence — an important quality to have when you’re trying to sell a company on the value you bring to them. We all want to be wanted — even if we don’t necessarily want who wants us in return.