Lately when I interview, I’ve been asking people about the biggest career-related mistake they’ve made. (It was my stepmother’s idea, so I have to give her credit.) I’ve made a few of my own big mistakes since starting JobTalk. 

But I’m learning from my mistakes. For example, when recording a phone interview, make sure that the earpiece for recording is plugged into the adapter that says “microphone,” not “ear.”

The second and worst mistake I’ve made was being in too much of a rush to post an interview. Deadlines are important, even for blogs. But as a newbie blogger, I imposed too rigid of a deadline. And the beauty of blogging is that you don’t need to have as strict of a deadline as a newspaper has.

Anyway, in an attempt to get out an interview, I went against my gut and didn’t double check some words and phrases that didn’t come across clearly in the interview recording. Oi vey. That was a doozie of a mistake, and I’m still losing sleep over it. I had to take the post down and let the interviewee fix it. That in itself was not so bad, but it was so idiotic of me to post it in the first place. And, quite frankly, it was pretty embarrassing.

The good news is, I’ve corrected those mistakes. I now make sure that my recording earpiece is plugged into the mic before every phone interview. And I now always send a copy of the transcript to my interviewee before I post it. I’ve also decided that if I do have strict deadlines, I always have to be one step ahead. That is, I cannot be transcribing and editing an interview on the day it is supposed to be posted because it leaves no time to double check my work.

What’s your biggest mistake, and what did you learn from it?