This is part 2 of the 16 post series

Confidence is important; however overconfident can be considered pompous, conceited or pretentious. An employer does not want to hire an employee like this.” ~ @NCWiseman

When you’re confidence and you are exactly the right employee for the company, you need to be careful that you don’t act pompous or conceited.

I interviewed a guy a long time ago who was overly confident, pompous and conceited. I hired him but he only lasted a few months. Not because he couldn’t do the job, but because he rubbed the entire team the wrong way with his arrogance.

How do you show the interviewer that you are confident, capable and able to do the job, without becoming pompous when it’s clear that you have meet all of the requirements (& then some)?

One way is to ask great business questions.

• What are the top one or two business reasons for filling this position, beyond it being an open position?
• What are the biggest business challenges that this employee will have to help solve?
• What are a some of the most important business tasks this employee will have to complete and when?
• How will you measure business success from this employee?

As you ask business questions like these, be ready to respond to their answers with solid business statements and examples of how you can do what they feel is needed to be done. Make sure that they are confident that you are interested in the business’ success and not just a job/direct deposit.

There are many things you could do to lead your interviewer to perceive that you are arrogant, pompous and conceited.

• Don’t start touting your skills, experiences & talents as if no one else in the company has any of them.
• Don’t say things like, “Yeah, sounds like a piece of cake. I can do this in my sleep.”
• Don’t say things like, “What the heck, who hired the last guy that failed doing such a simple task?”
• Don’t say things like, “I know lots of different and better ways to do this work. You should have called me a long time ago.”

Be polite, confident and interested in the success of the organization.  Never act overly confident.