Tips for Interview

The Boy Scouts have it right, "Be Prepared."

Pre-Interview Preparation Tips
Dominique Koukol

If you have prepared your resume via the Job Seekers Gold recommendations, you already are well on your way to being prepared for the interview. There are 4 areas you need to do your homework in. These are:

Yourself:
Your strengths, areas for improvement, your preferences and what motivates you.

The Company:
Its vision, products/ services, values and culture, structure, financial status.

The Position:
What are the responsibilities, critical success factors (both technical and attributes), what is the reporting structure, how are targets determined and measured?

Your Future Boss:
What is their reputation? What is their management style? How do their direct reports receive feedback?

This research is completed from the framework of putting together a positive package in the form of an interview.

To be successful in this you must prepare yourself with as much knowledge and understanding as possible about the above 4 elements. It is important to remember the interview, as much as the resume, is about the company and meeting it’s needs, in the form of yourself as the solution.

Here are some more tips on how to research this information….

Yourself: Take an objective look at your strengths, and areas for improvement. Talk to your spouse or a close friend. Review previous performance reviews or your “warm fuzzy file”.

The Company:
If you have taken any personality or social style assessments such as the MBTI (Meyers – Briggs), DISC or “What color is my parachute” assessment, review those. Know your basic personality traits and personal preferences.
Read the company’s website. Look for their mission, values, strategic plan and any other information on it. Read their financial statements and biographies of their board members and executives. Talk to any one you know who works there. Find out the perceived culture versus the stated values.

Visit the site prior to the interviews and walk the halls and read the postings and bulletin boards and pamphlets. Notice how folks dress and note where your interview is taking place.

The Position: Ask for a job description ahead of time. Review it and identify the Critical success factors for the position. Find out who you will be reporting to and what their position is. What is the size of the department you are working in? What other areas will you work closely with?

Your Future Boss:
If their position is of director or executive status, you may find a bio of them on the company’s web. Other company’s have “meet the staff” areas of their web and you might get lucky in finding your future boss.

Ask folks you know who works there about the person. Google them. You might find them on the web and find out personal interests or articles or blogs they’ve written.

If all else fails, when you get in the interview, if it is held in their office take a quick glance at their shelves for book titles and other items which may give you some insight to who they are or their management style. You may also be able to glean some of those biases from their interview questions.

Successful interviewers will use their knowledge to formulate their answers from a framework of what is important to the employer. In my next article I will help you to learn how to formulate your answers from the perspective of the employer, while accurately representing yourself and highlighting your ability to meet their needs.

If you wish to receive personalized interview coaching, Join the Gold Club at www.JobSeekersGold.com or contact me at Dominique@JobSeekersGold.com for individual interview preparation and coaching rates.

For more tips for interview preparation, read on or drop me a line with your specific question.

To Your Success,
Dominique

Interview Preparation. The Big Day
Dominique Koukol

Well, today is the big day. Some of you are aware that as I’ve been working with many laid off employees from SkyBus and ATA, ABX and DHL, and......in the midst of this, my husband was part of a global lay off as well.

We’ve employed my skills for ourselves! And so far with great results.

My husband has submitted 4 resumes so far and has had 3 employers call for interviews. All have been phone interviews up until today. Today is the “big one”. He is scheduled for 6 hours of interviews with 9 different individuals over the course of the day from 8a.m. to 2 p.m.

So, how have we prepared for this? …… Well, the same as what I do for my customers. We’ve done nothing different from what I coach.

My husband, Dave, has spent hours researching the company and each individual he is meeting with. He knows each person’s position in the company and how it relates to the position he is interviewing for. He is familiar with the company’s history and products. He has talked to two people inside the company, along with web and article research and has a feel for its culture.

Last week, I was putting together a volunteer list and noticed someone’s contact info was at the company my husband is interviewing for. You can bet I found a way to schedule myself a slot to volunteer with her and got some great insight from her that will help my husband in the interview today.

So how else have we specifically prepared him for the questions and the interview itself?

As I’ve mentioned before, there is so much to know, it can’t all fit into an article, but I’ll give you one basic aspect for today.

I’ve coached Dave to take all of his knowledge about the company and the position and to answer every question posed to him from the perspective of the employer as it relates to the context of the question.

For example, this company over the past 3 years has undergone a major overhaul in its quality and production processes. They had lost their competitive edge in the market and totally restructured their processes and now are ranked in the top half of the fortune 500. Right now they are really big on the consistency of their processes and about cross functional teams.

So, to apply that, Dave is going to really highlight how he has contributed to consistency of processes in his past positions and his management of cross functional and even cross company and cross global teams. Guess what he’s going to mention if they ask about his strengths? Yup, he’s going to talk about the strengths he has which are most important to that company.

If they ask about problems with subordinates or supervisors, he’s going to “Keep it professional” and not personal, always relating to their culture of importance…. What I mean by that is he is going to talk about elements of his job which the “new company” is strong in which were weak his previous situations and let them know these elements are important to him to fully optimizing his potential.

Get the picture? Are you noticing a theme here? If you’ve read my other articles about resume writing you will notice I’m all about matching yourself from the company’s perspective.

There are specific ways to set up your answers for these kinds of questions as well. I have lots of information how to handle specific types of questions and still keep it about the company's perspective.

For that information, we can set up some coaching. You can receive personal coaching by Joining the Job Seekers Gold Club (Gold Level) at www.JobSeekersGold.com or Contact me at Dominique@JobSeekersGold.com to set up some a la carte personal interview coaching.

PS....Just an update. My husband did get the job, as do many of my clients. This stuff works!

To your Success,
Dominique