Dealing with Failure: My First Publishing Interview

Friday. Four days after my interview for an editorial assistant vacancy at Bloomsbury, and I was curled up in bed replaying the interview over and over in my mind after hearing the news that I’d been unsuccessful. ‘Gutted’ was an understatement. Had it really gone that badly? What did I do wrong? With all these thoughts running through my head, I was starting to doubt whether I was capable of ever achieving my goal of a career in publishing.

Then I realised two things. First, that it was time to stop being so harsh on myself and give myself a bit of credit. Applications for the role would definitely have been in the hundreds, so my covering letter and CV must have been pretty impressive to even get me to the interview stage in the first place. Second, that having a meltdown was really not benefiting me at all, so it was time to deal with my interview failure in a more constructive way. This meant being honest with myself about how I felt the interview really went, and led me to writing this blog post.

So, as you’re not always going to get the first publishing job you apply for, here are some steps I took that helped me deal with my interview failure in a more productive way:

Replaying the interview

I got out of bed (eventually) and decided to replay the interview back in my mind – just one more time. This time though, I wrote two lists: one with everything I thought went well, and the other with things that didn’t go so well. I decided to be brutally honest with myself. This meant stopping my tendency to erase the bad bits from my mind and confronting them head on. Unsurprisingly, this process gave me an indication of where I went wrong. On my ‘good’ list I had lots of things relating to the research I’d carried out on the publishing house itself and I was impressed with how I’d been able to talk about some of the titles Bloomsbury’s academic division had recently published. I came to realise, however, that on my ‘good’ list there wasn’t all that much about ME. This quickly gave me the first item for my ‘bad’ list: I didn’t sell myself nearly as well as I could have done.  Although showing my knowledge of the publishing house was great, what I should have done more of was demonstrating my undeniable suitability for the role. The listing process therefore taught me a fundamental lesson about how to better prepare for interviews in the future: practise selling myself!

Moving forward
There’s this great quote from Kamal Ravikant that says, ‘we, as human beings, think we’re thinking. Not true. Most of the time, we’re remembering. We’re re-living memories.’ After all the remembering involved in the previous step, I wanted to stop dwelling on the past and start thinking forward. How could I make myself stand out from all the other candidates I would be up against in my next interview? It was time to try something new. This made me think of a meeting I’d had during one of my editorial internships with the publishing house’s managing director. When given this opportunity I’d decided to ask for some future interview advice, and this was his response: 

“Don’t just research the publishing house on their website. It does show initiative and a certain degree of interest in the company, but it’s also what every other applicant will do. Instead, buy one of their books physically off the shelves, read it, and be prepared to talk about it. Perhaps even bring it along with you to the interview!” 

Ideas like this one really changed my mental approach to interviews; I felt less nervous, more confident, and couldn’t wait to see how interviewers would react to me trying something different. (I actually tested this idea out recently and have just been invited to a second interview – so having the courage to try something different definitely pays off!)

Reminding myself of my worth 
‘Your value does not decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.’ I actually came across this quote the day after I found out I’d been unsuccessful and it definitely put a smile back on my face. Receiving a rejection when you’re pursuing a career you feel passionate about can often make you doubt yourself and your abilities, knock your confidence, and make you want to give up on your dream altogether by running in the other direction. Trust me, I’ve experienced this. But the quotation above reminded me not to do this. It reminded me that as long as I believe in myself, remember my worth, and recognise my value, I will, without doubt, achieve my goal. So what if Bloomsbury couldn’t see my value? I still recognise it, and I will make other publishers recognise it too.

So what have I taken from my first publishing interview experience? Not only have I learnt that the interview process is also very much a learning process, the experience has also made me understand the importance of failing. Although I was no doubt aiming to succeed, experiencing failure has actually taught me a lot about myself, shown me what I need to work on, and fuelled my desire to improve in the future. Perhaps the experience wasn’t such a failure after all!