Preparing For Interview

Preparation is the key to a great interview...

Practice is a must in most areas of life. When it comes to interviews, practice is even more essential. It is a well known fact that the more you practice interviews, and the more interview preparation you do, the better you become.

In fact, by the time you get to the fourth or fifth interview that you have you should be so much in the groove that the answers are at the tip of your tongue and your performance is very polished.

Therefore one interview tactic to use is to ensure that you apply for a couple of jobs you are indifferent about first up just to get some interview practice. This way the pressure is not on so much as if you don't get in then you are not too bothered and you can view it as an academic exercise. Then when a job you really do want comes along you will be honed and in the interview groove as it were, ready to excel and to give your best.

Techniques for Preparing for an Interview

You should research two major things before an interview.

The first of these is about the company that you have applied to. Find out who they are, what they do, what their major successes and challenges are and any press coverage. With the advent of the internet there is no excuse for not being clued up - a few google searches will soon give you a good idea of who they are and what they are about.

Top tip: try to weave in a bit of your knowledge about the company into a couple of your answers.

The second area you should 'research' is in terms of your own career history and what you have done to date. If you are like most people you only update your CV when it comes to applying for a new job. If that is three years down the line it can be hard to recall the projects you have worked on in those three years and you may miss out some great stuff that you could call upon at interview.

Therefore have a real brainstorm and list all you have done. If you have a business diary or a performance plan that you use, dig these out to see what you have delivered each year. Also an email archive can soon remind you of forgotten projects and challenges.

Once you have your list of projects worked on you need to think like one of those who work in HR - often not an easy job! These people are looking for you to demonstrate use of skills and that you are able to deal with the sorts of challanges you might encounter in the new job.

Therefore for each project think about how you could use it to answer a question on leadership, overcoming challenges, project management, conflict with team members, showing strengths, weaknesses, delivering on time and budget, managing workload and so on.

Some examples will naturally lend themselves to some qualities than others, so rank them all. Then you should end up with a couple of examples that really demonstrate admirably each aspect of your skill set.

Once you have that, learn the key points of the examples. This will give you confidence knowing that when you go into the interview you should be able to use these answers. No matter how a question is worded they are usually trying to get at these so-called core competencies, so as long as you answer the main thrust of the question be sure to use your examples.

And the word example is critical - you should never give a generic answer about how you do have a particular skill and leave it there. Always embellish with an example, it can be helpful to think like this "can I describe a situation where I did such and such?" if the answer is yes then always give it.

Good luck - interviews can be a bit of pot luck on the day, the questions, how you are feeling, and the match with the company you are visiting. There is no substitute for doing the job to actually work out the best candidate, but given we don't live in such a world the interview is perhaps the best of the solutions we have for evaluating suitability for a job without doing it.

And if you prepare well and follow the tips above, you will give yourself as good a chance as any to get through that interview with flying colours. Good luck!

Author: Job Expert

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Last Updated: Sep 22nd 2006

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