Often, you don’t get a lot of valuable feedback from a company after you’ve interviewed with them but have been told you didn’t get the job.

Sometimes they will simply tell you they’ve decided to hire someone else who they felt best suited their requirements, other times they might throw you a bone and give you a hint as to why you didn’t get the job.

The fewer details you get regarding why you didn’t get a job, the harder it becomes to actually figure out how you can improve your performance during interviews in the future.

At the end of the day, job interviews are how you separate yourself from other job searchers and having as much information at your disposal is how you will win the job.

As a recruiter, I’ve taken many phone calls from hiring managers where they have explained why one of my candidates did or didn’t get the job. In many cases where the candidate didn’t get the job, the feedback the hiring manager gives me is often the complete opposite of what the candidate told me after the interview.

In other words, the candidate told me the job interview went great. The hiring manager told me the opposite.

Since you can’t always guarantee being told why you didn’t get the job, here is some typical interview feedback that I get from both job searchers and hiring managers regarding the same interview.

In other words, here are both sides of the story so you can ensure you aren’t making mistakes during interviews that you might not even be aware of:

Job Searcher: I answered all the questions they asked me.
Hiring Manager: They gave vague answers on some questions and couldn’t properly answer several others.

Job Searcher: I arrived for the interview on time.
Hiring Manager: They arrived 30 minutes before the interview started and had me paged the moment they arrived. I was in another interview at the time so this really disrupted things.

Job Searcher: I filled out their application when they asked me to.
Hiring Manager: They complained about having to fill out our application and they didn’t bring a pen and had to ask me for one. They left some important areas blank.

Job Searcher: I wore a nice suit to the interview.
Hiring Manager: They wore an ill-fitting suit and they wore white socks with their dress shoes. They didn’t present very well.

Job Searcher: I have all the skills they are looking for.
Hiring Manager: Many of the skills they have are theoretical ones they learned at school. Some of the others skills aren’t as developed as we require or haven’t been used in several years.

Job Searcher: I asked them some questions regarding the job when I was prompted.
Hiring Manager: They asked about the salary we are offering and asked about the benefits plan. They seem money motivated.

Job Searcher: I felt really confident about this interview. I think it went really well.
Hiring Manager: