Why You Are Getting Interviews But Not Offers

Many students and young professionals are unsure why they are getting interviews but fail to convert those opportunities to offers. In this hyper-competitive market for internships, entry-level, and early career jobs, you must be able to stand out in a large pool of candidates. While your technical capabilities may be a factor in the skills-first hiring environment, helping you get the interview, your ability to articulate your soft skills will likely make the difference in getting an offer. At Priority Candidates, our career coaches are experts in interview preparation and we meticulously prepare our clients to get hired (we even have specialized interview coaching programs for Investment Banking & Financial Services, Management Consulting, and Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations).

In the workplace, soft skills are non-technical capabilities that can help you succeed in your job. While it is important to research a company and the people you are meeting to prepare successfully for an interview, it is critical to understand the soft skills that employers prioritize in the workplace. By carefully reviewing the qualifications on the job description, you can start to assess what technical and soft skills will help you succeed in the role, and how to best articulate them in your interviews.

Why are soft skills so important?

Employers value soft skills because they can often predict success in the workplace. According to the NACE Job Outlook 2022 survey, here are the top 5 skills, ranked according to the percentage of respondents:

• Problem-solving (85.5%)
• Analytical/Quantitative (78.6%)
• Teamwork (76.3%)
• Written Communication (73.3%)
• Initiative/Leadership (72.5%)

At Priority Candidates, we emphasize using the STAR Method to support your specific soft skills. This entails providing real-life examples of how you have demonstrated each skill, enabling the interviewer to understand your fit for their culture and your ability to be successful in the job you are pursuing within their organization.

Communicating your soft skill competencies takes practice. Our coaches spend countless hours helping our clients to articulate their capabilities and soft skills to differentiate themselves to an employer. This is one of the many ways strategies we use to help our clients prepare for interviews, and succeed in getting hired.