Interview question-previous role

[Anonymous]

I just had an interview for a role using skills from a few companies ago.

I was asked how my current role applies to this role.

I said “My current role doesn’t not apply to this role I’m interviewing for. Roles I had at previous companies apply to this role and those are roles I enjoyed and did well.”

Interviewer did not seem impressed with that.

What should I have said instead?

[Anonymous]

Not knowing the jobs you had, have, or interviewing for, I would have gone with soft skills like collaborating, keeping up with evolving policies, and learning from current challenges and applying lessons learned to different fields. Stuff like that.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think what you said is bad, but it is better to put everything in a positive way. Ie talk about the soft skills etc that are relevant, then segue into “and of course, at x and y I was spearheading our work on z that was very similar to what you are doing here…

[Anonymous]

I would have left off the negative part. Instead of starting with a "no" answer, I'd have just started talking about the previous roles and given very specific examples.

[Anonymous]

I always make a point show how I leveraged experience from a previous job and applied it at a subsequent job especially when it occurs in unique or unexpected ways. I also make a point to show how I picked up new skills at each new job as part of just doing the job.

[Anonymous]

What you say or your qualifications rarely matter. People are usually hired by someone who likes their demeanor or looks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What you say or your qualifications rarely matter. People are usually hired by someone who likes their demeanor or looks.

You haven’t met my colleagues