Interviewing 101 – B Interview Prep

Ok! So you sent out resumes, you networked, you answered ads, followed up resumes with phone calls and you got a voice mail from XYZ Company wanting you to come in for a face to face interview! Oh my gosh what now!!!

Don’t worry. Remember, practice make perfect. Previously I gave some tips on how to prepare for the initial part of the interview. So now you are well dressed and have something to write on. Plus extra copies of your resume. Now you are going to review your background, education and work history. Why? Almost all interview questions seek to identify specific work experience that demonstrates a persons future potential. Interview questions can be open ended, “tell me about yourself” as an example. These questions are there to see how you communicate and whether you can control how long you talk. Open ended questions do not have a clear answer. Practice questions like this and watch your time.

Close ended questions are more specific. These are the questions you want to knock out of the park! “Give me an example of a project you worked on that was successful.” “Describe a time you made a mistake and had to admit to it? What was the mistake and how did you handle it?”

Notice how much tougher the closed questions are. Its almost impossible to anticipate these kinds of questions but what you CAN do is look back at each job you have had (or college experience in classes if your entry level) and list 3 things your proud of and 3 things that you regret. Knowing this and reviewing them will help you recover those quickly in an interview.

As always, keep track of time. Answering too long is a job killer!

Practice makes perfect. Prepare well for interviews!

Herb Dew