Unemployed For A Long Time? How to Face a Job Interview

Joblessness is one of the most challenging phases in life. It not only cuts off the monetary supply to manage financial obligations and routine expenses, but can also cause emotional stress if the reason for being unemployed was something unpleasant such as being laid off with a short notice. The phase of unemployment can also provoke domestic issues within the family or lead to indulgence in substance abuse.

It aggravates furthermore if the unemployment continues for an extended phase – Long time unemployment. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor, being jobless for more than 27 weeks is considered as long term unemployment. This situation can be taxing. One can be deeply demotivated for not being able to find a job in a long term which can actually hamper your prospects or affect the enthusiasm to continue seeking jobs. This point holds more prominence when you have back to back rejections during interview.

We’ve collated some points to help you in facing the interview positively, especially during long term unemployment.

Be Confident In Explaining Long Term Unemployment

Go there with a positive attitude and brace yourself to answer confronting questions on being unemployment for an extended time or even perhaps, the reason for leaving last job. Hiring managers will scrutinise your resume and personality to ascertain if you’re ready for the job after a brief hiatus. Give them the confidence to make a decision on hiring you.

Convince them than you’ve been trying hard to look up for jobs and also the onus for rejections in previous job interviews was not your fault. You can probably quote instance of an interview that you attended previously and what went wrong. Do not make it sound like a blame game. Be diplomatic and assertive.

Also give them an assurance that you will be a good recruit and that you can harness previous experience/education to add value to the job if you’re hired

Solid Reasoning on Why You Lost Job

This is probably the most critical aspect. Reason for separation from the last job. If you lost the job due to your fault(such as underperformance), be honest. Do not mask to a great extent or cover up facts. The interviewer will either way  find out with your body language that you’re lying. If the job loss was due to voluntary reasons, let them know how you’ve been working to improve yourself and also let them know about any course you’ve undertaken to enhance/add skills to your resume.

If you were laid off, then your job during the process of interview becomes easy. Give them elaborate details of the layoff and talk about your value add’s in the previous company(if any).

Given Them Confidence About Your Industry Knowledge

Long term unemployment may imply that you would slowly be losing the skills, knowledge or the talent for the recruiter. Show them that you’ve not. Let them know about your efforts to stay afloat such as following the latest trends in the industry by discussing with former colleagues, reading news about latest technologies etc.

Tell them about the outstanding tasks that you’ve performed in your last job and how it would add value to the present job profile if you’re hired.

To sum it up, the onus is purely on you to make or break job prospect. Go there are give it your best. Along with your experience and education, finer aspects of personality such as body language, dressing, etiquette and communication is also taken into consideration. Plus, knowing the basics of the company you’re attending an interview for also adds weightage to the discussion.