The Invisible Interview: The Interview That Already Happened
Why your next promotion is decided 3 months before the official meeting.
I remember sitting in a fancy glass office in Bangalore about ten years ago. I had a thick folder with me. Inside were all my wins—every project I finished on time and every goal I hit. I was ready to prove why I deserved a promotion.
My boss didn’t even open the folder.
He looked at me and said, “Anand, the decision was actually made back in November. Today is just about the HR paperwork.”
It was February.
I felt a bit sick. While I was working late in December and January trying to “prove” myself, the people upstairs had already made up their minds. They had already decided who I was, and I wasn’t even in the room when they did it.
The expert thinks the meeting is where you win.
The leader knows the meeting is just where they tell you that you’ve already won (or lost).
Most of us are taught that if we work hard, we get promoted. But as you get more senior, that’s not how it works.
You are actually going through an “Invisible Interview” every single day, months before your official appraisal.
It happens during those small chats in the breakroom. It happens in the way you handle a stressful email on a Tuesday morning.
What do they call you when you aren’t there? Imagine your bosses are having a meeting right now and you aren’t invited. Your name comes up. What is the one sentence they use to describe you? Is it: “He’s great with the technical stuff”? Or is it: “He’s the one we trust to lead the team through a crisis”?
If they are still calling you the “tech guy” or the “spreadsheet person,” you’ve already lost the promotion—even if your work is perfect.
How do you act when things go wrong? The “Invisible Interview” isn’t about your best days; it’s about your worst. When a project failed last November, did you spend your time blaming the system? Or did you help the team find a way out? The way you handled that one bad day three months ago is the real reason they’ve already decided your future today.
You don’t get a leadership title and then start acting like a leader. You have to act like the leader first, and then they give you the title to match. If you wait for the meeting to show them who you are, you’re three months too late.
Stop waiting for the room to be ready for you. Start being the person the room is already looking for.
Have you ever felt like a “done deal” was made behind your back—either for or against you? I’d love to hear your observation on that silence.
Ace Every Interview Question — With Real Answers That Work
If you’re preparing for Scrum Master, Agile Coach, or Product Owner interviews, this is your go-to prep pack. New set every week!
📥 Download your free Agile Interview Q&A Set here →
Why Subscribe
Each week, I share battle-tested strategies, messy lessons, and practical tools that help Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and change agents like you make sense of chaos — without sugar-coating it.
If you found this useful, subscribe.
This isn’t theory. It’s real work, made a little easier — one step at a time.
“Just because I understand it, does not mean everyone understands it. And just because I do not understand it, does not mean no one understands it.”
Anand Pandey