Interviewing is a Perishable Skill
I'm not advocating job-hopping, but if your first interview in years is for that One Perfect Job, you'll probably fail, because interviewing is a perishable skill. They already believe you can do the work; now they have to like you, and that part comes from practice.
Just stop for a second, first, and realize that I'm not advocating for job-hopping. I also don't want to come across as suggesting that you waste other people's time by interviewing for jobs you don't want. With that said, if the first interview you do in years is for that One Perfect Job, you probably won't succeed because interviewing is a perishable skill.
You've got a job. It's a fine job. You're making good contributions and your work is appreciated. That's all well and good, but you won't score a job offer based on talking about your current work performance. You can't even score an interview based on that. Scoring an interview is a topic for another day though. Let's assume you've scored an interview.
In the worst case scenario, you're going to interview with a bunch of complete strangers. They've reviewed your resume [0], they know what you're capable of doing, and they believe your skills are a good fit – otherwise, they wouldn't interview you – but now they have to like you; like you enough to want to work with you on a daily basis. The “culture fit” as they call it. And they only have a few short hours to make that determination.
