You can repeat your mistakes or learn from them. That’s up to you. Life’s lessons are many and varied. Some are easier to understand than others.

When it comes to interviewing it’s hard to know what comment, question, response, smile, frown, or explanation got in the way of your winning first prize. There are too many X’s and Y’s, too many unknowns, and too little opportunity to find out what worked and what didn’t.

To be or not to be: Interviewers base their hiring decisions on a variety of technical and interpersonal statements and impressions that emanate from the applicants’ ability to present skills, strengths, and contributions in cogent, convincing, compelling sound bites. Those who are selected come across as open, goal focused and confident while not appearing assumptive, arrogant, or overly ambitious.

Hiring decisions can be imprecise and difficult to justify, which is why even the most objective interviewers would rather not get into extended discussions about the finer points of their process with applicants who didn’t make the grade.

So what can you do to improve on your ability to make favorable impressions?  Practice with individuals you trust that are willing and able to provide you objective and subjective, constructive, honest, direct feedback and insight regarding how you can improve the style and substance of your interview.

Before you involve appropriate acquaintances, friends or family in your pursuit, assess your level of openness to different perspectives and your willingness to do something with what you hear. If you’re not prepared, don’t start.

If you’re ready and so are they, establish the ground rules: when you’ll meet and how often, what’s fair game and what isn’t, and if compensation is involved, how much? Establish an exit strategy. A great idea can sour quickly if either or both participants aren’t as enamored with the process as they thought they’d be.

What’s your starting point? Your ability to describe the job you want and the experience, strengths and abilities you have that enable you to be successful doing it. If you haven’t figured that out you’re not ready for prime time.

What’s the responsibility of the feedback provider? To play the role of interviewer, asking direct and probing questions about your current expectations, perceived value and future aspirations, asking you to describe your setbacks as well as your successes.

What’s the process? Feedback providers ask the questions, listen to your responses and feed back to you the variety of impressions they derive from what you say. If their impressions are positive, you keep going; if their reactions are mixed or negative, brainstorm and experiment with better ways to respond to the question. Practice your changes, don’t memorize them, and when your interviewer-coach gives you the thumbs up, move to the next set of questions.

For feedback to be helpful it should be specific, behavior based, and descriptive. In other words, you want to see and hear yourself as you are seen and heard. Here’s an example:

When I asked you to describe your worst boss this is what you said:

“He made me angry”; “he made me feel badly”; “there was nothing I could do”.

As you spoke, you slumped in your chair, looked fatigued, and your face crumpled as though you might cry. I had the impression that in that circumstance you saw yourself as a victim; that you felt helpless and unable to choose differently.

If I were an employer I’d want to hire someone with the experience and capability of making mature choices in difficult situations. Try again: how would you describe your worst boss in a way that illustrates your ability to deal effectively under adverse conditions?

If you want to learn from your mistakes, ask for honest feedback.