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Reader question: Please explain “the job is yours to lose” in this sentence: Once you have the face-to-face interview, the job is yours to lose My comments: Put it another way: Once they grant you a face-to-face interview, the job is virtually yours. Don’t be intimidated by the word “lose”. “Yours to lose” is an American expression which actually means your chance of winning is great. In our example, to make your feel better, they might have told you simply: “Pass the interview and the job is yours.” Normally they won’t do that and I don’t even know if those encouraging words help even if they do tell you that. Being human, sometimes the closer we’re to the finish line and victory in sight, the more we choke and fail to perform. Anyways, “yours to lose” simply stresses the point that you may still lose it. Why is the face-to-face interview that important? For a number of reasons, the most important of which has to do with the fact that most companies asking to see if you’re fit for their job really mean to give it to you if you’re fit for it. In other words, they’re not advertising for job vacancies that don’t exist just to waste their time and yours. No, when they say they have vacancies, they do have vacancies to fill, and they need you to come to work soon too, or their overall business is affected. | 
