After an interview, candidates usually end up with one of these two feelings: the sense of total failure or the sense of work done successfully, especially when they do it for the first time in their lives and don't know the signs an interview went well. These reactions are in opposition to each other, but there is very little chance you'll feel uncertain about the outcome of the meeting. Want to know whether you got the job offer? Then read our blog article and make sure you did a great job! (Cause we believe you did!)
Please note recruitment is not a science, and there are no rules to it. However, there are some tendencies in the industry that can be used to help you if you wonder how to know if your interview went well. If you think about the recent talk and want to analyze the chances of getting the job, let's try to do it together.
The logic is simple - if you present yourself as a potentially good fit for the job, a hiring manager will spare no time learning more about you. Otherwise, they wouldn't waste precious minutes, and you would feel it is unlikely the recruiter is yawning due to a wild party the night before.
But sometimes situations happen when recruiters need to stop because of some urgent issue that happened at work. So if your meeting was cut short and the company explained it to you, there are no reasons for thinking you couldn't manage to interest a potential employer.
Body language gives away more than it may seem, so pay attention to an interviewer's facial mimicry and gestures. For example, if the person you talked to looked relaxed, wasn't easily distracted by any external stuff, and their eyes were focused on you, then this is a good sign. A slight smile on an interviewer's face also tells that your answers were more than satisfactory. Joking and talking organically about personal topics, like hobbies and interests, are great signs too.
Still, if you saw some sort of inattention in the recruiter's behavior, it might have been caused by some work emergencies or personal thoughts. We're all human, after all. So try not to dive into analyzation of body language too much.
You are not only selling you to the company, but also the recruiter has to present the organization they work for in the best light. So if the interviewer was eloquent about the organization they represented and told a lot about their corporate culture, benefits, and perks, you might consider it as an attempt to sell you on the vacancy, which is one of the signs an interview went well. Worthy candidates usually have a big choice of vacancies and recruiters clearly understand that. If you weren't told about the company in detail, it doesn't necessarily mean an interview went bad. It can be the recruiter was inexperienced or just felt nervous for their own reasons.
One of the encouraging signs interview went good is if you were offered a small office tour to show you the corporate life from the inside and your prospective co-workers. If you had an opportunity to speak to them and feel like you made a good impression, it is even a better sign. You don't think that the hiring manager would introduce you to other people if they didn't like you, right? It is especially true when it comes to senior positions in the company as a director or C-suite executive. The fact that you were introduced to them is good on its own as the seniors probably decided to speed up the hiring process and get to know a good candidate themselves. These people usually make the final hiring decision, so if you feel you left a pleasant impression on them, be sure your chances to land the job are very high!
So, you talked a lot about your experience and the skills you already possess. But when a recruiter is genuinely interested in your candidacy, they will also talk about your possible future in the company. For instance, it may concern the role you might take up after you learn the basics, or how you could advance at this position or the real examples of people who have already made that path in the company.
If an interview went smoothly and you didn't get any questions that would reveal the recruiter's concern, you may think that they made their mind up about your profile without any extra clarifications from your side. It can be both a negative or a positive decision, which is now hopefully apparent to you. Still, if the recruiter showed some concerns about your experience or other answers you gave within the meeting, it's not a bad sign unless you failed to provide them with a good explanation.
The same goes for the gaps in your work history and the reason for leaving the previous role: even if you had these, but you managed to meet the concern and wasn't asked about it anymore, it's a sign the answer was detailed enough for the recruiter.
Another way to know if an interview went well, and it is a strong sign, is to make sure you were asked one of the following questions:
These questions are not necessarily will be asked in the first interview. But if you already had a phone interview or Skype call, you should have gotten such questions at a personal meeting. If not, it is likely, the interview went badly.
Now that you are aware of the signs an interview went well, we want to remind you there aren't any rules and guarantees when it comes to recruitment. Still, you can see and feel what impression you made on a recruiter, both intuitively and rationally. Hope for the best, but ready yourself for the worst - only a few people got their job offer from the first interview.
So if it's the first time you start selling yourself as a specialist, make sure you have armed yourself with a powerful resume! With Resumojo, there is no need to worry. Just pay attention to the voice of professionals - and delegate resume writing or editing to us!