What to bring to a job interview?
What to bring to a job interview Some people would tell you going to a job interview is like going to a party or an event, or to an exam: you need to prepare!
Aside from the willingness to take part and the outfit - which I have already talked about before - you need to prepare.
Perhaps “need” isn’t correct, let’s say it’s highly recommended.
Firstly because an interview is an event, it’s not something that happens by chance. You might have sent a resumè, you might have looked for the person to send it to and you may even have tried to get to a certain person through an acquaintance or a former boss.
Being invited to an interview– in the search process for a new employment opportunity – is certainly a goal, but it is part of a battle not the war. So if the aim of the whole process of writing and sending a cv in a targeted manner is commencing an employment relationship it’s best to start as well as possible!
It’s you that goes to the interview in person, so your nature will shine through even when you’re preparing for it, but don’t worry. Make sure that you display the best of yourself and not the “worst” that might result from you being in a stressful situation: i.e. prepare for it!
Firstly get information on the company and person you will be meeting.
If the company is an intermediary, i.e. a head hunter for more important posts, or a recruitment and selection company, it is always appropriate – in terms of your communication strategy – to know who you’re dealing with: what the “core business” is, the history of the company, the “key” people, the offices, the markets, etc.
The person is fundamental. Once upon a time in sales courses you would be taught that “people sell to people”. So if you’re given the name of the person you’ll be meeting, use the means at your disposal (e.g. Google, Linkedin, trade publications, YouTube) to get to know this person: what they look like, how old they are, where they come from, what they studied, what they do, where they work. You’ll need this info to prepare the communication as far as possible, the style and the content. You may have an acquaintance in common, or even a passion in common. This all helps to to create an environment that is more conducive for communication. Or even just for avoiding avoidable and unfortunate blunders you might be remembered for – for all the wrong reasons.
Why is it advisable to know about the company you’re going to meet through one its representatives – what does that really mean?
Apart from a broad knowledge, the point is that you have to aim to be interesting for your interlocutor and so you have to prepare what you’re going to say in response to the questions that you will be asked, in a manner that makes sense for that particular company.
Some examples can help
You may be a manager that has different experience in terms of companies you have worked for, markets and in terms of the actual activities you have dealt with in these various roles. You should prepare a presentation about yourself that underscores the contact points that may be of interest for your interlocutor, by therefore making some logical links between what you have read about the company and the things you have done yourself. For example: you could be in sales and have opened some markets in Eastern Europe. If the company plans to expand its international coverage in some markets you have experience with, you can talk about what you have done in these countries in detail rather than being generic, allowing you to highlight one of your distinctive and competitive features.
You may have been involved in the restructuring of a company and in reading about this company you might have understood that it is about to face a similar transition. So it would be worth referring to the project you were involved in.
The benefits?
By doing this you may derive some fairly big advantages:
you will be remembered because you didn’t just speak in general terms about your role and professionalism, but rather because you told a “story” and stories are a good way of communicating
you referred to the resolution of a problem that the company is facing, so you could be an asset straight from the outset
you demonstrated an interest in the company because you prepared for the interview by looking into what you have to offer your counterparty and this is always effective!
You may not have remembered the good old
fashioned “basics”: knowing what cv you sent the company, in what circumstances
and to whom and when. What is written in your cv (without having to bring a
copy with you and reading out!) and some additional details in the event of you
being asked for organisational charts, who you reported to, the number of
people and resources you managed, projects, customers and then a success story
and a case when you were not so successful.
These are all things that need to be taken seriously when you are preparing for the interview in order to avoid coming out of it and realising that you were asked to provide details about how you managed a success, or that they had asked for numbers and that you should have been able to roll this info out if only you had you prepared for the meeting with a bit more focus.
In this regard I recommend acting as you would for exams: if you have an interview tomorrow you should have started focusing on it yesterday and you should think of nothing other than going there to win, which in selection jargon means getting a second interview!
