Life is funny… in a disquieting way. We are born into a maze that requires right turns and we have an innate predisposition to turn left. We see this perverse process acting out in the lives of countless jobseekers when they are interviewing. Almost all are doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing.

Why? How could such a large, diverse, often well-educated group be so consistently wrong in their interviewing approach? It is because the job interview is one of the many counter-intuitive mazes that we are required to negotiate. We turn left because it is the irresistibly appealing option.

For example, when I ask jobseekers, “Is the hiring decision rational or irrational?” they usually answer, “Rational.” After all, who wants to believe that such an important decision is irrational? So, during the interview, they turn left and bombard the interviewer with 100 reasons why they should be hired. Unfortunately, they should have turned right, because it is an irrational decision. People hire people they like, people they feel comfortable with, and the world of feeling and emotion is not rational.

Here’s another wrong turn. When I ask jobseekers if they sell during an interview they respond, “No way. I hate the idea of selling.” They are turning left in a maze of right turns, because any presentation that promotes a product is a sales presentation, and during the interview they are promoting themselves. Unfortunately, they’ve adopted the worst presentation style imaginable. Their data-dump of achievements and reasons why they should be hired is no different from a salesperson’s presentation of feature after feature. I can still see the horror on their faces when they finally realize they have not only been selling, but selling very badly.

There are other reasons why jobseekers turn left when a right turn is the only correct choice, but if you want to discover what these wrong choices are, and how to fix them, then I would invite you to click on this link http://bit.ly/15BW2DZ and read the first chapter of my book, No Medal for Second Place: How to Finish First in Job Interviews.

Unless you’ve had professional training in the art of interviewing, it is highly likely you will answer the most asked question, “Will you tell me about yourself?” poorly. I’ve coached too many people to believe otherwise. You will likely hurt yourself when you answer the suicide questions–the questions that invite you to commit suicide–like, “What are your weaknesses?”

And I doubt you are employing the most powerful interviewing tool of all: stories. If you are–congratulations–but are you telling well-crafted stories that help your cause?

The bottom line is this: Continually turning left in a maze of right turns is frustrating, maddening and can cause a person to quit. If you are tired of finishing second in the interviewing race, and receiving a canned rejection letter instead of a job offer, then perhaps you need someone to help guide you through this counter-intuitive maze called the job interview.