The smart job-seeker needs to get rid of several standard myths about interviewing before starting to pound the pavement looking for a job. What follows is a list of some of these untruths and some tips to help you do your best at your next interview.

　　Myth 1: The aim of interviewing is to obtain a job offer
　　Only half true. The real aim of an interview is to obtain the job you want. That often means rejecting job offers you don't want! Incompetent job-seekers, however, become so used to accommodating employers' expectations that they often easily qualify for jobs they don't want. So, before you do back-flips for an employer, be sure you want the job.

　　Myth 2: Always please the interviewer
　　Not true. Try to please yourself. Giving answers that you think will suit a potential employer, losing touch with your own feelings (in order to get in touch with some other person's feelings) and, in general, practicing an abject policy of appeasement are certain to get you nowhere. Of course, don't be hostile-nobody wants to hire someone disagreeable. But there is plainly a middle ground between being too ingratiating and being hostile. An effective interview (whether you are offered the job or not) is like an exciting encounter in conversation with your seatmate on an airplane.

　　Myth3: Try to control the interview.
　　Nobody "controls" an interview-neither you nor the interviewer-although one or both parties often try. Then it becomes a phony exchange between two human beings; no business is likely to be transacted. When somebody tries to control us, we resent it. When we try to control somebody, they resent us. Remember, you can't control what employers think of you, just as they can't control what you think of them. So hang loose when interviewing: Never dominate the interview. Compulsive behavior turns off your authenticity.

　　Myth 4: Never interrupt the interviewer

　　No dice. "Never talk when I'm interrupting," said McGeorge Bundy.

　　Good advice.

　　Study the style of effective conversationalists: They interrupt and are interrupted! An exciting conversation always makes us feel free-free to interrupt, to disagree, to agree enthusiastically. We feel comfortable with people who allow us to be natural. So, when interviewing, half the responsibility lies with you. Do you seem uptight? Try being yourself for a change. Employers will either like or dislike you, but at least you'll have made an impression. Leaving an employer indifferent is the worst impression you can make. And the way to make an effective impression is to feel free to be yourself, which frees your interviewers to be themselves!

　　Myth 5: Don't disagree with the interviewer
　　Another silly myth. If you don't disagree at times, you become, in effect, a "yes" man or woman. Don't be afraid to disagree with your interviewer-in an agreeable way. And don't hesitate to change your mind. The worst that could happen would be that the interviewer thinks, "There's a person with an open mind!" The conventional wisdom says "be yourself," true enough. But how many people can be themselves if they don't feel free to disagree?

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