The Job Interview Question
I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked about how to ace a job interview. But it has been frequent enough that it’s time I summarize much of it. Here is what I do.
First “I do my research.”
Then, I prepare to answer the following questions:
- Why did you leave prior jobs?
- Tell us how you have solved problems and or achieved results in xxxxxxxxx situations in the past or how you would in the future.
- What can we tell you about this job?
Finally, directly before the interview, I do the following:
- Do something fun, like go out to dinner or see a movie or visit with friends.
- Then, get a good night’s sleep.
- Eat a healthy breakfast.
- Give myself an extra half hour more than needed to get to the interview.
- Check in at least 15 minutes early.
- Don’t schedule anything else for the hour after the interview, in case it goes long.
- Turn off my phone or at least silence it before or when I greet the interviewer.
- Be myself.
- Illustrate all my answers with examples from my past, or at least my thought process if I don’t have any specific examples to share.
- Remember that I am interviewing them, as much as they are interviewing me, and act accordingly.
- Bonus points: I don't do this as often as I should but it can be helpful to look up the interviewer(s) ahead of time on LinkedIn and/or other appropriate social media. This will tell me how they want me to think about them, and possibly inform what topics we could discuss.