Now we know better. We know how much power we carry around with us. Still, when you are job-hunting it’s a good idea to keep some pieces of your story to yourself — until after you’ve got the job.  Liz Ryan

One of the first things I noticed when I became an HR person was the incredible amount and variety of personal information job applicants often share in their job interviews.

Job interviews can be scary. When you show up at a job interview, you have no idea what to expect. Will the interviewer be friendly, or awful? Will the setting be warm and inviting, or harsh and cold?

If you get to the interview and the interviewer is even a little bit human with you, you can easily go too far.

Your relief at being able to relax and be yourself on the interview can cause you to say too much.

I would not hold it against a job candidate if they inadvertently shared personal information that could be unfavorable to their cause.

However, I worried about candidates who said too much at their interviews because if my company did not hire them for some reason, their over-sharing could hurt them at the next interview.

At the same time, I never found an appropriate way to say “In case you don’t get this job, I want to give you a bit of advice. Don’t tell an interviewer that you got fired from your last job. Don’t tell an interviewer that you sued your last employer for sexual harassment, and won. Sadly, a lot of companies would reject you from consideration  for employment if you shared details like that.”

I felt it would be out of place for me to tell someone “Don’t tell any other interviewer that your last boss was a bully. Unfortunately, a lot of companies are afraid to hire people who have had bad experiences at past jobs, even if the bad experience was not your fault at all.” How could I tell someone not to tell the truth, because it might hurt them to do so?

People should feel free to tell the truth wherever they are — but in a job interview, that might not be your best plan.

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It is sad but true that you can hurt your job-search chances by speaking too much truth at a job interview.

Here are ten things to keep to yourself!

1. The fact that you got fired from your last job — or any past job.

2. The fact that your last manager (or any past manager) was a jerk, a bully, a lousy manager or an idiot, even if all those things were true.

3. The fact that you are desperate for a job. Some companies will be turned off by this disclosure, and others will use it as a reason to low-ball you.

4. The fact that you feel nervous or insecure about parts of the job if you’re applying for. You don’t want to be cocky and say “I can do this job in my sleep!” but you also don’t want to express the idea that you are worried about walking into the new job. Don’t worry! Everyone is worried about every new job, until you figure out that everyone is faking it anyway so you may as well fake it, too.

5. The fact that you had a clash or conflict with anybody at a past job or that you got written up or put on probation. That’s no one’s business but yours.

6. The fact that you have a personal issue going on that could create scheduling difficulty down the road. Keep that to yourself unless you already know that you need accommodation, and you know what kind of accommodation you need. Otherwise, button your lip. Life takes its own turns. Who knows what will happen a few months from now?

7. The fact you’re pregnant, unless you already telling people you don’t know well (like the checker at the supermarket). A prospective employer has no right to know the contents of your uterus. It is none of their business.

8. The fact that this job pays a lot more than the other jobs you’ve held. That information is not relevant and will only hurt you.

9. The fact that you are only planning to remain in your current city for another year or some other period of time. That fact alone will cause many companies not to hire you. They want to retain the right to fire you for any reason or no reason, at any moment — but they can’t deal with the fact that you have your own plans, too — and that people don’t always take a job with the intention of staying in the job forever.

10. The fact that you know you are overqualified for the job you’re interviewing for, and that your plan is to take the job and quickly get promoted to a better job. For some reason, many interviewers find this information off-putting. I have been to countless HR gatherings where I heard folks complaining about “entitled” or “presumptuous” job applicants who had the nerve to say “This job is just a stepping stone for me.” How dare they!

Slowly the world is changing. Slowly, employers are waking up to the reality that only one thing powers their success — their workforce. Slowly they are realizing that only by hiring amazing people and setting them free to do amazing things can their companies thrive. It’s a culture change — a big one.

Almost all of us were raised with the idea that employers are mighty and job-seekers are ants.

Now we know better. We know how much power we carry around with us. Still, when you are job-hunting it’s a good idea to keep some pieces of your story to yourself — until after you’ve got the job.

Liz Ryan is CEO/founder of Human Workplace and author of Reinvention Roadmap. Follow her on Twitter @humanworkplace and read Forbes columns .