What not to do at a job interview

Avoiding certain mistakes during job interviews might appear fairly obvious: don't bring a cockatoo to the interview, don't send your sister in your place, don't make so many spelling mistakes on your resume that the CEO is asking you why he should hire you.

But, those flubs — and other equally bizarre jaw-droppers — were real-life faux pas in the recruitment process, according to eight years of surveys by recruitment company Robert Half.

On Thursday, Robert Half launched a website full of "there but for the grace of God go I" errors potential employees have made in interviews. Robert Half has accumulated these real-life incident during the past eight years of running surveys of interview practices with managers and company recruiters.

It is not that these people are any less capable than the men and women who eventually were hired, head-hunting experts noted.

"A lot of these (mistakes) are caused by the stress of the interview process," people who panic because the conversation is running off-the-rails, said Sari Cantor, a recruitment manager in Robert Half's Ottawa office.

But, one can still question the sanity of the prospective employee who handcuffed himself to the interviewer's desk or the person who arrived for a recruitment session wearing a cat suit.

Cantor said people can try to be too clever in an interview.

"You need to keep its simple," she said.

That probably means that singing your answers to recruitment questions is a no-no.

Some government statistics cite four applicants for every job opening. Thus, job seekers need to handle the pressure of the job talk better, Cantor said.

"They have to be able to work the interview even when it goes awry," Cantor said.

She gives the example of one recruit who made enough spelling errors in her resume that the chief executive officer, who was conducting the interview, launched into the questioning with a sharp "why should I hire you?".

But, the person got the job — by admitting the mistake and moving on to her positive traits, Cantor said.

Things will go wrong in interviews, she said. The key is to not panic and instead get the interview back to your strengths, Cantor said.

"It's not about the yes-no answer. It is about getting the conversation to swing your way," she said.