Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Interviews Are Precious…Are You Preparing Enough To Get The Job?


1) Did you go to the website of the company and familiarize yourself with their business, products, mission, values, locations, etc.

2) Did you Google the company for recent news, press releases, and any other applicable news about them.

3) Did you get the name of the person/people you were going to interview with?

4) Did you find them on LinkedIn and see if you have any connections in common?  If so, did you contact them to learn more about the interviewer and possibly have them call to give you a recommendation?

5) Did you Google the interviewer(s) to see if there has been anything significant written by them or about them?

6) Did you study the job requirement to make sure you were prepared to explain your experience and how it related to the each required and desired skill?

7) Did you go to their company LinkedIn page and study their stats, demographics, etc.

8)Did you study your resume (I know this one sounds crazy, but when nervous you should leave nothing to chance).

9) Did you prepare questions to ask them?  Many interviewers use your questions as a way of understanding your fact finding skills first hand.

10) Did you ask if their would be time for Q & A at the end of the interview or would they prefer that you ask questions as you think of them?

11) Did you bring a note pad to write down the questions or thoughts during the interview?

12) Most of all, did you try to close them for a decision.  Did you ask for the job?