This article is written by Ramanuj Mukherjee, Co-Founder and CEO at iPleaders and LawSikho.

“Work hard and you will get what you want”.

This is the mantra we were taught since we were kids.

One of our professors wanted us to remember all the citations of case laws he taught us and he gave marks only if you could write the exact citations in the answer paper. When students questioned him on this strange evaluation criteria, he said “how will you do well in life unless you work hard?” One of the student got up and said “great, I will go down to the university grounds and dig it up. I will work very hard. I hope you will give me top marks for my hard work.”

I understood it quite late into my academic career that hard work is not really the key to success. It was a breakthrough from that day. I worked less and performed better. If hard work was the key to success, the day labourers who carry bricks on their back or maybe farmers will be most successful. But no, they live in poverty.

The problem is that if it is not hard work then what the heck is it? What will make you successful?

There is no one simple answer. Determination helps. Resources help. So does many other factors.

However, one common theme in the life of unsuccessful people, very often, is that they sabotage themselves. One way or the other. It could be through addiction, lethargy, lack of initiative, fears and insecurities, or something else altogether.

Identifying those patterns and eliminating them often produces miracles.

Here are 9 common reasons why young, hard working, intelligent lawyers do not land the jobs they deserve. If they identify these patterns and teach themselves to break the patterns, they can certainly land those jobs. It is not easy though. You will probably need help from mentors and coaches to break them. Read on to know more.

(By the way, if you are a law graduate and struggling to find the kind of job that you want, especially corporate law jobs/jobs at top notch litigation chambers that pay well, please apply to this program which helps law graduates to find their dream jobs. It will prepare you for even the most difficult interviews, help you to get the right interviews and recommendations as you will expand your professional network. As you will learn the science of cracking the job you want, never in your life again you will struggle to bag the jobs you really want.)

You need to defend yourself and prove yourself right

When you graduate out of your law school, and begin to work somewhere, in reality you know nothing. Nothing at all. Even if you know something assume that you know nothing and be willing to learn from people who are successful. It is a huge problem when young lawyers are not coachable. Nobody wants to hire such lawyers.

This tops the list because I was like this for a very long time. I didn’t face hiring problems, in fact, I will always get more offers than I needed. However, it was a big barrier when it came to performing once I got the job. Even as an entrepreneur it was a big drawback I suffered from.

It was several years into my career that I realised what a blunder I am doing, obsessively defending myself. It certainly worked a lot of times if I calculated short term gains, but it always slowed down learning and growth. And it really compromised my very best relationships.

Do you have a mentor? Do you often learn from other people who show you how to do things better, even when your own original work was not necessarily indefensible? If the answer is not yes, you might be suffering from the same syndrome. Do people around you complain that you do not listen? Then you might be in this category.

You need to break free from it to get to the next orbit of growth. And getting a job is going to be very difficult if this trait shows through in your interview.

I myself, and many interviewers I know, will throw around a few questions just to check if the person giving the interview is coachable, how they take correction and if they can work with the inputs given by others. If you are failing at those tests in your interviews, odds are really stacked against you getting a job.

You do not have integrity and your story doesn’t add up

Most experienced hiring managers are very sensitive about integrity issues. It is not only about lying about yourself, but even if there is any mismatch between what you project about yourself and who you actually seem to be, you are likely to get rejected. If they discover any incongruity between how you have projected yourself through your CV or even in the interview, and who you actually seem to be after some probing, then you are toast. Therefore, the story your CV tell, your personality, your actions, your responses to their questions – all of it needs to be aligned and not contradictory.

Let me give you an example. I was hiring for a sales position recently, and I had to hire a lawyer for that position. One of the lawyers I was interviewing vouched that she always wanted to do sales and is very glad to finally get an opportunity around sales. It is a little shocking – as lawyers rarely want to do sales as their first choice. So I asked her if she ever did any sales, or explored or tried anything about sales in the past. She didn’t have any experience. Then I looked at her CV – she seemed to have done a lot of things related to academics – and none of those had anything to do with sales, even remotely. This was an incongruency. I liked the candidate otherwise, but had to get to the bottom of this.

When pressed further it turned out that she wanted to practice law in the court but didn’t have much luck with that. Hence she wants to go for an LLM in a year and wanted to work with us as a stopgap job.

Had she said these things transparently from the beginning, I would have had no problem with that fact. In fact several of our sales people who are lawyers indeed joined us for similar reasons. However, this kind of lack of integrity, if discovered, will destroy a perfectly good interview.

It is not necessary for the interviewer to know for sure that you are lying or hiding something. Even if they have a feeling that you are doing so, you will be rejected without any explanation. Or maybe some other lame reason will be offered.

This is why it is very dangerous to lie to interviewers. They are likely to detect even the remotest uneasiness, behavioural tic or change in voice tonality, and feel uneasy about hiring you. They would often say “I just don’t have the right feeling about this person”. The source of these feelings are almost always some sort of incongruity, even if they can’t place a finger on it.

You are highly sensitive to criticism

Many people are extremely sensitive to criticism, which usually stems from some insecurity or the other. In the modern workplace, if you are not able to deal with some criticism, and sometimes even hostility (from customers, competitors or even co-workers) you are doomed. If you shut down or fire up or just get triggered by some criticism, do not expect to get hired. I have come across such employees and consequently, try to weed them out in the interview process.

To be honest everybody is sensitive to criticism to some extent. The degree is what is most important here. If people can’t criticize you without having to enter a full verbal match then you will find it difficult if the interviewer gets a hint of that in the interview.

You come across as a troublemaker or attention seeker

Many people have strong ideological belief systems that they show off during the interview process. It is a terrible idea. Recently a friend was being interviewed by a top notch media house. She pointed out in the interview how she believed some recent coverage they have been doing is sexist. It is a very legitimate point, but wrong one to make at an interview, if you want that job. Nobody wants ideological conflicts after hiring. If it doesn’t suit your conscience, don’t appear for the interview. However, do not expect to turn around the policy by convincing an interviewer. You may come across as trouble, and you will not get hired.

It is actually not that uncommon. Recently, while hiring for an open position, someone told me how she feels the hiring process is “exploitative”. This is because any person who wants to be selected was required to write an article first, based on which I decide if they should go to the next round of interview. I had specified that the article needs to be at least 2000 words. She felt that I cannot ask for a trial of more than 600 words as sample. Well, I do not quite agree! I am trying to hire someone I will be paying several lakhs per year, and had to select that one person from over hundred applications I received. How do you reckon I can judge them better without seeing their work? If they cannot write a 2000 words article, why should I spend my time on them? And I am certainly not going to hire someone who calls my hiring practice exploitative. Will you?

The other similar issue is of attention seeking through name dropping and fantastic claims. There are others who love to create drama out of nothing. Drawing attention to your strengths is one thing, but if you come across as someone just boasting, gloating or seeking attention – you may not get hired.

You are not sure that you can do the job

If you are going to say in your interview “I will try” please don’t apply and waste everyone’s time. There are too many people who will not confidently say what they can do and what they cannot but come up with a lame “I will try my best”. I will try is always the wrong answer. Nobody hires a professional to try.

If your surgeon says he will “try” will you be willing to go under his knife? We need those who know how to do it. If we can’t find someone who knows it, we will hire someone who is willing to be trained but at least is clear that they don’t know how to do it.

If you don’t have the confidence that you are fit for the job, don’t apply. Spend time preparing yourself for it, instead. Get a course, hire a coach, or find an internship.

You cannot take instructions

There are many good people, who are good at their work – but they have a problem with taking an order/instruction. Somehow it hurts their self-image to take an instruction and they get triggered by it. Some of them will not visibly react to the instruction, but ignore it and try to do things in their own way anyway. If you can’t take instructions from others, you will not succeed at a workplace. Try finding a profession where you don’t have to take anyone’s instructions, and good luck. Else, get very good at taking instructions and actually following them.

You are not spontaneous and cannot deal with the unpredictable

There are many cookie-cutter academic successes who know all the right things to say, till the questions are predictable. Unfortunately, in most jobs, you don’t always deal with the predictable, and you need to apply your creative mind. Given the Indian schooling system, many graduates turn out to be people who are at a loss when they need to deal with something outside the “syllabus”.

Everytime I take an interview, I make it point to ask a question that is related to the field/expertise of the interviewee, but just outside what he or she will already know. It requires some logical deduction. Something that requires them to think a little. For example: So you have been doing contract management for 5 years. Can you tell me what are the top 3 qualities of a contract manager? Alright, let’s say, hypothetically, we ask you to draft a training course on contract management and there can be only 5 modules. What will be the heading of these 5 modules?

Of course, there are no perfect answers here. Even I don’t know what is the right answer. I am just watching out for a streak of logical thinking and ability to come up with an answer which makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense to me I may ask you questions to learn more. But it gives me a way to see if you can think creatively, outside the box.

Many of the interviewees simply can’t do it and comes up with an answer that they can’t think of anything. Some people take it as a challenge and enjoy the intellectual stimulation.

It is not that there are no jobs for those who can’t think creatively, but the best ones are reserved for those who can do that thinking. If you can’t process a new set of information, or engage in a thought experiment, how will you resolve the out of syllabus questions that organizations have to face and resolve almost every day?

You may leave the job soon

We are in a world where new opportunities open up every day. However, recruiters want to hire those whose interests are aligned with that of the organization, and therefore, who may stay in the organization for a long time. If any of the things you say or do or project make them think that you are looking for a stopgap job and not going to stay in this for a long time (think many years) they would have less interest in you unless the other good candidates are also looking for stopgap jobs only. For some positions it is ok to hire people who may stay for a year or two only, and in some cases entire industries are like that. However, as a general rule, people who may leave a job in some time are kept at the bottom of priority list.

Hence, if recruiters think that you might shift cities soon, or going to have a baby or such similar life event which may take you off the job market, or that you are going for higher studies soon, they may pass over you even if you are otherwise a very good candidate.

In some cases it may feel like an unfair disadvantage (especially when you are a woman and planning to have a baby or get married etc.) but that’s how it works. If there is such a situation, make sure you dispel apprehensions by sharing an authentic plan about how you will not discontinue work despite the life event and would not let work get affected.

You do not relate to yourself as a performer

When people talk about candidates who do not have confidence, this is the kind of people they are talking about. If you are scared about the work, if you have a low opinion of yourself, if you have a negative self-image, and if any of this is uncovered in an interview, you may not get hired.

You may think getting a job is about a qualification which entitles you to a job. You may think that it is about having a certain skill which you possess. If you think these things, you will be misguided. In reality, those who are most likely to succeed at the job profile long term are the ones that the recruiter wants to hire. That is why all these personality traits, and especially how you see yourself, become very important to recruiters.

Your career is a result of many years of consistent work, efforts, sleepless nights, accomplishments, failures and a lot of luck. Those things are usually obvious. However, there are these silent career killers – the ones described above. We have told you about 9 – you could discover more.

It may be difficult to identify and then work on the kind of traits discussed above. Here is a full fledged training program for those who want to prepare themselves for the best jobs: the dream job course from iPleaders.

If you can think of any other such impediments that cause self-sabotaging when people are trying to get a job, share in the comments below.