Things Grads Say in Interviews That Kill Their Chances and Possibly Careers

There are a few phrases graduates use in interviews that sound harmless, even sensible, but they do real damage.

The problem is most grads are not saying these things because they are lazy or unserious. They are saying them because nobody has properly explained how commercial interviews actually work.

I genuinely hate to think how many smart, capable grads miss out on good opportunities, lose confidence, waste a year or two getting rejected, and end up drifting onto a second-rate career path simply because they did not know how to position themselves properly.

It’s crazy that so many come out of uni so underprepared and, in these times, you have about as long as a TikTok reel to engage the interviewers, or else, you’ll be swiped off the CV pile.

Not forever in every case, but every needless rejection dents your chances, unless you wake up, step up and start playing smart.

Here are three of the biggest offenders:

1. “I just want to learn and get exposure to different markets”

It feels like a good thing to say. It sounds humble, curious and eager.
But in a commercial interview, it’s like shooting yourself in the foot.

What the employer hears is:
“I don’t know what I want, and I have researched this much.”
“I will need a lot of investment and training.”
“I am thinking about what I get, not what I give.”

In sales, recruitment and business development, nobody is hiring you purely to give you exposure. They are hiring you because they need output. They need energy, contribution, resilience and eventually revenue.

Of course you will learn. Of course you will build skills. But that is the by-product of doing the job, not the reason they are paying you.

If your opening pitch is about what you want to gain, you’ve already lost ground to someone who can articulate what they’ll deliver.

The shift is small, but it changes everything.

Instead of:
“I want to learn and get exposure”

Try:
“I understand how this business makes money, and here’s how I can contribute quickly while I ramp.”

Commercial awareness isn’t about being perfect and knowing it all, but is is a crucial to understand this in a sales or recruitment interview. 

Understanding this is a game changer. 

2. “I’m open to opportunities”

This is another one that sounds reasonable but usually lands badly.

To a lot of employers, “I’m open to opportunities” translates as:
“You do not really know what you want.”
“You have not done enough research.”
“You are not playing the game well enough to understand what this interview requires.”

It can also come across like you could not be bothered to think properly about why this company, this role and this path make sense for you.

And that is a problem, because good employers want intent.

They do not expect a grad to have their entire life mapped out. But they do expect some evidence of thought and, again, commercial awareness in interviews for commercial roles like recruitment.

They want to see that you have looked at the role, understood the environment, and made a deliberate decision to be there.

You do not need to sound robotic or over-rehearsed, but you do need to sound intentional.

Be sure to know how the career path fits in with your career and life goals.

Have a decent understanding of the role, the day-to-day, and be able to relate this to your attributes, be it communication skills, work ethic or attention to detail.

To land a decent grad role in a commercial environment like recruitment, you need to know what you are striving for and why this is the vehicle that will get you there.

Start off by thinking about what motivates you, intrinsically and extrinsically, and ask yourself: does this career path really fit with me based on the research you have now done?

Employers are judging your fit,  be confident about this before you even apply.

3. “I have transferable skills”

This one can go wrong very quickly. How many times have I heard grads say, “I have transferable skills,” and I ask what they mean, and they say they did sales working in a shop.

Yes, transferable skills exist.

But please do not say in an interview for a high-performance recruitment or sales role and casually imply that working in a shop is basically the same thing.

It is not.

When candidates stretch that comparison too far, it comes off as ignorant and demonstrates they don’t know much about the job they are interviewing for.

That may sound harsh, but it is true.

Working in typically student jobs might show useful traits:

• Work ethic
• Communication
• Handling pressure
• Customer service

All of that can help.

But that is very different from claiming it is equivalent to high-end recruitment, commercial sales, or business development.

Those jobs involve influence, revenue generation, negotiation, qualification, market mapping, process control, objection handling and commercial judgement.

That is a different level of complexity.

Use your past experience properly.

Say:
“I know this is a different environment, but my previous role shows I can work hard, deal with pressure, communicate well and stay sharp in fast-moving situations.”

That sounds sensible.

Saying:
“I worked in a bar, so my skills are directly transferable to recruitment.”

That just sounds like you do not understand the job.

What grads should do instead

Show off your work ethic.

Do enough research — ask AI, use google, watch videos. 

Stop saying things that sound nice in a university careers office but fall flat in a commercial setting.

The goal is not to pretend you know everything.

The goal is to show that you:

• Understand what the company does
• Know how it makes money
• Understand the role to a decent extent
• Have thought about why you fit
• Are ready to contribute and can take on the challenge

Think of an interview as a meeting in which you are asking for an investment. You are saying: give me £50k and I will prove to you I can do it.

If you fail, they lose £50k, which is why you need to be convincing.

Final thought

Failing because you are saying the wrong things, in the wrong way, to the wrong audience, is preventable.

So yes, geek up. 
Yes, be ambitious.
Yes, bring in examples from your past.
But do it with some judgement, research is your friend. 

Good luck out there!