If I were to ask you what you’d do if you were in an interview and knew, absolutely knew, that the job was not for you, what would you say? Most job seekers would say, “Finish the interview.” But why would you continue when you know you don’t want the job? Would it stun you to know you could leave?

If you know you don’t want to travel, and suddenly you learn a fact not specified in the ad: the job involves more travel than is acceptable to you, there’s no reason to continue. If your interviewer is rude or patronizing and this is the person to whom you’d be reporting, why submit yourself to it any further?

One person I know was conducting her own job search. Having passed the screening interview, she was to meet with all four of the company’s principles in the same afternoon. The first person was out of town. The second one was rude and insulting. The third one made her wait. She actually stayed to interview with the fourth! The time to leave was somewhere during – or certainly after – meeting with the second person, the one who was insulting. Why they brought her back for these interviews is another subject entirely.

You can say almost anything, as long as you say it in a calm, confident manner with a smile on your face. People get into interviews and worry about whether they’ll pass muster when they should be, concurrently, interviewing the company to see if it’s the kind of place they want to be. And even when red flags pop up all over the place, they still sit pretty, answering questions, hoping for the job.

You need to do your homework before you start your search. You need to know what’s important, what’s not, and where you’re willing to be flexible. Aside from helping you to focus on what you’re looking for, it assists you in recognizing what you’re not looking for.

So if halfway through the interview, you learn it’s not, then leave. Stand up, smile, and politely say, “Thank you very much for bringing me in, but I don’t feel that we’re really going to benefit each other. I appreciate your taking the time to see me, and I’m sure you’ll find someone who is just perfect for your company. ”

When do you do this? When you learn the environment is not what you want. For instance, you thrive on challenge and learning new information, and you’ll be doing repetitive tasks. You want to be trusted to work at your own pace, but you find out that’s it’s an intensely competitive environment. You don’t mind working with numbers as long as it’s not the majority of the responsibilities, and you discover numbers are 80% of the job.

When a definite no, rears its head why waste everyone’s time? Especially yours? When you’re in the middle of a phone interview, and the interviewer continually puts you on hold or calls you back to take a call, it’s time to cut and run. “But it’s a good position,” you say. Maybe so. But what about your boss? If he’s like that on the interview, how accessible will he be when you work there? When he calls you into his office to discuss your poor performance, is it your problem or his that he was never available to answer your questions?

Know what you want. Know how to ask questions to find out if it’s there or not. Learn how to read the signals and understand what’s really going on below the surface. And learn how to walk away if you find something present that you know won’t contribute to your happiness and your perfect job. Finding that takes focus. Finishing an interview that’s going nowhere isn’t focus. It’s a waste of your time.