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Writing about interview experiences
I recently had a not so great interview experience. I wrote an article about it. I am an amateur blogger and have my own blog. If I share the article at my blog would it make me an undesirable candidate in the eyes of the company or the recruiter?
Should I publish the article or should I refrain from doing so?
Hi Kriti,
Yes, this is quite a sensitive issue. My advice would be as follows:
1. Give it time
Similar to the recommendation not to respond to emails when you are angry, you may need to give this some time. Your emotions may still be raw from the experience and this may affect how you write about it.
2. Lessons learned
When you do publish, perhaps you could frame the experience in terms of key things that you took away from it. These could serve to help someone else going through a similar situation. What are some potential red flags that were signaled along the process? What do you wish was different about the experience? Etc.
I say this because I benefitted from someone sharing about a negative interviewing experience where the company was using the process to collect free work samples to use without the intention of hiring the interviewees, and this was after putting them through several rounds of interviews! Her story gave me a couple of red flags to look out for and I was able to quickly remove myself from an interview process where I encountered a similar behavior, saving me from the frustration You could end up doing the same for someone else.
3. Blessing in disguise
Remember, even though this was a negative experience, it gave you some useful information. Perhaps, going through this prior to signing up for the job saved you from a potential toxic work environment.
If your recruiter is open to it, you could have a discussion with them about the things that you did not like from the experience, clarify what you would like to avoid going forward, and jointly work out the best way to help you find experiences and future work prospects that are better aligned with who you are and what you want.