Punching below one’s weight, underestimating one’s abilities

Defeatist and unsystematic approach; not really believing one stands a chance; too timid or embarrassed to ask others for pointers

Underselling one’s achievements and skills; putting very little time into CV prep; slow to approach references for permission

Poor body language and self-presentation; use of self-deprecatory humour; feeling like an imposter

Fear of being ‘found out’, of making mistakes; poor planning; lack of initiative

Instinctive pessimism about one’s ability to solve the problem

Haphazard; often one temp job after another; choice of job rarely related directly to ‘dream’ career; no short to medium term criteria for success

Little or no planning or even curiosity

Little care taken due to discomfort and embarrassment at lack of substantial professional achievements

Waffly answers; overtalking; poor listening to questions; over-reliance on humour

Poor delivery, efficiency and reliability; easily distractable from task at hand; lack of basic priority-setting

Flight not fight

Safe option

Restricting one’s research to safe-bet or familiar options

Efficient but dull; geared to giving impression of ‘safe pair of hands’.

Scripted answers; lack of spark; focus on being reassuringly charisma-free.

Routinised; plodding; often letting colleagues walk all over one.

Often clueless, rarely proactive.

Flitting from one thing to another OR getting trapped in one particular low-satisfaction job

Expectation that ‘the right job’ will ‘come to me’ out of the ether; lack of follow-through

Poor attention to detail

Staking all on creating a good ‘vibe’ with interviewer(s); vague style of answering

Little real interest taken or energy invested in specific tasks; running away from logistical challenges; fear of personal accountability

Quick to resign oneself to defeat

Tendency to go for something that is not aligned with values, work motivators and/or soft skills

Tendency to narrow focus down prematurely; discomfort with considering alternative options; skipping over key details

Tendency to rush this phase

Markedly poor listening skills hamper effectiveness of answers; bad pacing of one’s presentation of self

Susceptibility to stress and drama; constantly putting out fires to the neglect of longer range goals

Temptation to short-circuit the process; giving in to frustration and impatience

Guided by advice and expectations of others

Little attention given to one’s own drivers and motivators

Lack of compelling personal narrative

Failure to leave one’s personal mark in the interviewers’ memory

Lack of personal initiative; constantly worrying about approval from others

Over-reliance on other people’s interpretation of what has gone wrong

Setting one’s sights too low; feeling pressurised into going for a particular job

Defensive attitude – mental picture of a hostile world that doesn’t want me to succeed

Allowing a defensive tone to creep in to covering letter and summary of past roles

Giving out about previous job(s); tensing up at questions perceived as hostile

Lack of scrupulosity about own tasks; tendency to envy or feel threatened by more dynamic colleagues

Dwelling on why this happened and who’s to blame rather than how to sort it out

Driven by ego rather than values and meaningful goals

Having a blind-spot to genuinely interesting opportunities

Overselling oneself

Coming across as smarmy, cocky, sleek, over-competitive, over-ambitious; raising flags as to ability to work in a team

Full of oneself and competitive; insincere.

Bawling out the person beneath you

Something which will not impinge on life outside of work even if it means boredom and repetition in role with no scope for development

Being guided exclusively by questions like, ‘Is this role close to home?’, ‘What’s the annual holiday entitlement?’, ‘What are the working hours?’; Comfort-zone priorities rule out chances of finding stimulating work

Bland, factual, no compelling narrative; marked lack of training and upskilling due to reluctance to leave home in the evening to invest in a course

Displaying unease at mention of new tasks in role, i.e. ‘uncharted territory’; too quick to focus on working conditions and how secure the company is

Watching the clock; zero initiative; problems with punctuality

Clueless; ‘Not my problem/ fault’

Being careful and judicious; factoring in worst case scenarios; having a realistically modest sense of one’s talents and qualifications

Healthy suspicion of employers’ recruitment pitches; not romanticising a prospective job; looking carefully before leaping; factoring in worstcase scenarios

Not overselling one’s abilities

Coming across as thoughtful and realistic

Conscientiousness and alertness to problems

Not fleeing into Polyanna mode

Allowing oneself to think big and not settle for a life in Mediocristan

Thinking laterally; not going with the safest or most obvious option; being guided by how excited I feel by a career direction

Coming across as dynamic, enthusiastic and not restricted to comfort-zone thinking

Showing one’s imaginative and creative side; making a real impression

Not allowing each day be a photocopy of the last; bringing fresh thinking to things

Optimism that, with a bit of creative strategising, the setback can be mounted

Not fleeing basic financial commitments; willingness to advance in baby steps

Patient accumulation of data; not rushing into things

Thoroughness in research and preparation

Conveying a sense of unostentatious reliability; coming across as a good team player

Reliable and collegial; not hunting for glory all the time

Ability to think the problem through slowly and systematically

Not being afraid to ask oneself if this role will meet one's deeper needs and vaules as a person

Keeping an eye out for opportunities; having trust that things will come right in the end

Coming across as a thoughtful and rounded person

Being reflective and not given to getting lost in procedural matters

Viewing one's role as more than just a means to an end; investing it with value and meaning

Taking the broad view

Having little tolerance for drift

Impulse to seal the deal rather than get lost in endless reflection

Being brief and to the point

Being brief and to the point; giving the impression that one is enthusiastic about getting going in this new role

Doesn’t mess about; gets things done; places a premium on delivery and meeting deadlines

Focus not on analysis but on (pro)action

Considers the opinion of others before jumping

Canvasses a wide range of viewpoints

Is constantly asking oneself: ‘What impression am I making here?”

Highly alert to the verbal and body-language reactions of interviewers

Excellent team player; knows how to liaise; doesn’t impose own viewpoint all the time

Casts around for solutions and picks the best

Sensitivity to one's own emotions makes one demand a job that is genuinely enjoyable

Always measure data against personal needs

Comes across as a human not a robot

Sensitive to needs and perspectives of interviewers

Notices when colleagues are not having a good day; is in touch with own feelings and moods

Sense of fair play – will stand up to bullies and defend scapegoats

Not afraid to aim high

Not shy about networking

Highly efficient; everything written for maximum impact

Infectious nthusiasm about what one can bring to this role and this organisation

High productivity and efficiency; fearless about thinking outside the box; constantly spotting possibilities others miss

Insists on no-nonsense troubleshooting

Not equating life with work

Being unapologetically fussy about work– life balance implications

Gives impressive sense of a personal ‘hinterland’, i.e. this person is more interesting than any job

Reassuringly normal, BSfree and undesperate about getting the job; isn’t promising the world at interview, so may actually deliver what’s asked

Does what one says on the tin; low maintenance; not an attention seeker; not obsessed with status, because personal centre of gravity lies outside of workplace

Refuses to exaggerate magnitude of problem; ‘At the end of the day, no one’s died’; often a lone sane voice when everyone else is losing all perspective and getting completely stressed out