Last week I described a job candidate I’ll call Sam, who was flabbergasted to find he’d been eliminated from competition because the interviewer viewed his behavior as unacceptable.

This is Sam’s version of what happened: Sam had a busy morning and as a result, was late getting to his interview. When he arrived, the receptionist asked him to wait for an escort to Human Resources. Several minutes passed before he was accompanied to the interviewer’s office where again he was asked to wait. The interviewer had an emergency that he needed to address.

Sam had scheduled another interview with a company across town and he had one hour remaining to get there on time. As the minutes ticked by Sam grew increasingly concerned that he’d miss it. As his anxiety mounted, so did the edgy attitude he displayed to the HR admin, who was making an effort to placate him. Out of frustration, he tried and failed to gain entrance to the interviewer’s office.  Finally, the interviewer agreed to see him, but didn’t give Sam an opportunity to present anything but his resume, indicating that “he had seen enough”, and over Sam’s heated objections and adamant refusal to leave, had him escorted to the parking lot.

What can you learn from Sam’s debacle? Plenty.

Manage your time wisely. Late arrivals and anxious attitudes are noted by everyone including the interviewer and take the interaction in the wrong direction.

Don’t schedule other appointments within three to four hours of your interview. You need to be available in case your meeting is delayed or the interviewer would like you to meet others on the screening team.

Don’t like to be kept waiting?  Occupy yourself by reading company related materials that are typically provided, or read a business magazine or newspaper.

Don’t cop an attitude and think you can later defend or explain your bad behavior.

It’s understandable that you’re frustrated when you arrive at your scheduled interview, on time, only to find that the interviewer isn’t ready for you. If you want the interview, if you believe you’re a good match to the opportunity, if you believe the company is one where you want to work, let go of your frustration. Let it go or it will reveal itself to those who observe you, even casually, and it can hurt your chances for success.

How you react to a negative situation begins with what you think about it. If you want to respond as someone calm and steady, you’ll need to think yourself that way. Change your perspective by envisioning how you want to (respectfully) treat others, how you want to (candidly) answer tough questions, and how you want to (politely/courageously) ask questions of others. Envision how you want to begin the meeting and how you want it to end.

Throughout this mental exercise, you’re neither irritated by, nor fixated on, how others are treating you badly. If you were to be, you’d lose personal power, energy, and control by turning it over to “them” and they win.

You’re right. Life isn’t fair. Good health, wealth, luck, and happiness aren’t equally distributed. It is what it is. We don’t know what demons those who would appear to have it all, struggle with, and we don’t need to know. It’s enough that we struggle with our own.

Given that, we can only make the best choices we can, realizing that there are consequences for the ones that we make. The next time you’re interviewing and you’re ticked off by a company representative’s actions or lack of them, and you’re itching to say something that will show them how wrong they are, take a deep breath and do something far more constructive: show them how a class act behaves.