You fashioned the perfect resume to land an interview for your first-choice job. Now comes the frantic searching for interview preparation advice that spirals into spending an hour debating whether to wear a blue or purple shirt.
The color of your shirt is far less important than how you mentally prepare for the interview. Despite the number of hours that folks panic about an upcoming job interview, few correctly prepare to ace the interview. Take it from a perpetual job hopper who has aced many interviews—preparing for an interview is a systematic process that should make you feel more comfortable before you even walk into the interview room.
Much interview advice will discuss which poses to strike before an interview to generate confidence, how to shake hands, or what shoes to wear. Folks worry about confidence and presentation at interviews. Here is the secret: If you prepare for an interview as much as possible, you will feel more confident than if you spend hours worrying about which suit to wear. Preparation = Confidence. Prepare in the following ways, and you will present confidently.
1. Know the Details of the Job Posting
The worst thing you can do walking into a job interview is not knowing the job qualifications for the job to which you applied. Read that job posting ten times. Circle words. Highlight phrases. Read that thing until you could not possibly know anything more about it. If you tailored your resume to the job, you already started this process, but the job posting is still worth revisiting before the interview even if it was the model for your resume.
This point cannot be stressed enough. Come closer to memorizing the job posting than forgetting an important aspect of the job description. This step is important. To take this a step farther, connect the skills and qualities listed in the job description to points on your resume, something that you probably already did when creating your resume.
2. Know the Details of Your Resume
By associating aspects of the job posting with your resume, you can remember both together. This is ideal because the second-biggest mistake going into an interview is to lack knowledge of what is on your resume. This may feel impossible since these are your own experiences. However, particularly if you highlighted fleeting aspects of a job to show the one time you used a skill listed in the job posting, make sure you study your resume and remember the points on the version of your resume submitted to this potential employer.
Going into an interview, your resume and job posting are the two common launch points for both you and your potential employer. Using them to branch into more detailed descriptions of your experience is useful because it grounds your stories in concrete points that the potential employer used to choose you for an interview. Additionally, your potential employer is likely to ask you about the most obscure point on your resume. Be ready to answer their question!
3. Read Everything on Your Potential Employer’s Website
Unless you are applying to a major news organization with archives of stories, read everything on your employer’s website. For example, if you wanted to apply to Phippen Tax & Financial Services (we are not hiring, but hopefully someday soon!), you should read the entire homepage, “About” page, “Services” page, “Contact” page, and “FAQ” page. If your interview was scheduled for 24 hours later, it may be impossible to read everything on the “Resources” page. However, it is a good idea to read the headline resource material and any publications from the last two weeks to month.
You do not have to explore your potential employer’s website in as much detail as the job posting. You certainly do not have to memorize the information. By the end of your website exploration, though, you should have a good feel for the organization including its services, priorities, values, clients, and streams of revenue. This guides you to what is important to that organization as well as how you can help it grow.
4. Research Your Potential Employer’s Work
Depending on the potential employer, it may be worth searching for their work beyond their website. For example, if you are applying to work at an architectural firm, search for their work and read any recent stories that show their design qualities and outline major successes. If your potential employer produced or regularly produces any publications, it is worth reading (or at least skimming if an entire book) them to gain insight into their final products.
In addition to the work your potential employer created and stories about their work, further research anything on their site with which you are unfamiliar. This may be terminology or information about specific processes. Providing yourself with this additional background information will prepare you for potential questions and also guide the questions you have about the potential employer.
5. Prepare for the Standard Interview Questions
This point is pretty basic, but it needs to be said. If you still flounder when asked what your biggest weakness is, figure out your answer because everyone asks the question and expects you to have an answer! You should have crafted answers for “tell me about yourself,” “why does this position interest you,” “why did you leave your last job/why are you looking for a new job,” “if hired, when can you start,” “describe a time when you and a colleague or supervisor did not agree,” and other standard questions. You already know that the interviewer is going to ask these questions, so stop being surprised and start being prepared.
In addition to the universal questions, prepare for the standard questions in your industry. You should know and expect questions like, “can you describe your prior experience with Python?” If the job description mentions something is important, you should be asked to talk about it during the interview. Be prepared to do so with specific examples.
In all my interviews, I have only once received a true gotcha question that required my opinion on a current event and an analysis of it that I felt was above the level of an off-the-top-of-my-head interview question. This was also a very Washington, DC policy/advocacy job, and its existence is industry-specific. (I did not get the job, and I am glad because it likely would have sent me down a career trajectory requesting more hours for less money. Gross!) Even the management consulting firm logic questions are generally predictable if you reflect on the job posting requirements. The more time you take to consider what your potential employer values, the more likely you are to ace their questions.
6. Prepare Thoughtful Questions to Ask Your Potential Employer
When perusing your potential employer’s website, you will likely have questions naturally enter your mind. Write these down to compile a list of authentically generated questions as you go. Questions that show interest in the organization’s work are ideal to include in addition to typical structural and day-to-day work questions. A thoughtful question I like to ask is how success is measured within an organization, since it often reveals whether a potential employer values butts-in-seats or actual work products and creativity. Regardless of the questions that you have, ask what you want to know about the organization in a way that shows you cared enough to research it.
7. Write a Thank You Email that Shows You Listened
After your interview, send a brief email to your interviewer thanking them for the opportunity to interview. In this email, tie your skills to your potential employer’s emphasized priorities in a way that also shows you listened to the information the potential employer provided you during the interview. For example, say, “The objective of Project A is inspiring, and I think my ability to *YOUR SKILL* could help expedite progress towards that objective.” Show your interest and great communication skills while reminding them of your skills and knowledge.
By following these steps, you will ace the interview, and soon be able to start at your new job!
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