Preparing for Your Interview

This is the season of job interviews. I confess that I am alternately amused and appalled at the self-destructive behavior of young people trying to enter the job market. So, I am offering this series on the proper performance of a job interview: preparing for the interview, the actual interview event itself, and what follow-up the candidate must carry-out.

Take Your Resumé

Even if you have already submitted a resumé with an earlier application, set out two or three printed copies of your resumé to take to your interview. The person interviewing you might have six other people to interview the same day as your session. It is not uncommon for an interviewer to accidentally misplace a resumé. You also might be interviewing with multiple persons over several hours, so take extra copies so you will have one for each person you talk with plus one for you to refer to, just in case.

Organize Your Interview Logistics

The following recommendations may seem like overkill, but you will realize how prudent they are when you have two or more interviews in a week, or if the day of your interview turns into pure chaos.

Capture in one location the specific information about each interview:

• The name of the company you are interviewing with
• The date, time, and location of the interview
• The name and position of the person who will be interviewing you, if you know
• A phone number for the person who will be interviewing you, or the Human Resources office (so you can call them if you get delayed in traffic, or get sick)
• Parking information if you will be driving to the location

Research the Company

The single biggest error candidates make in interviews is also the most devastating: they walk in knowing little or nothing about the company whose time and resources they are consuming. Too many people sit down with an attitude that the company is in total control, and the company is the only party making a job decision. Wrong! The interview is a forum just as much for you to decide if this company is right for you, as for them to decide if you are right for them.

Show the interviewers you can do your homework. When you walk into that interview you should have a clear view of the company's locations, branches, product lines and growth profile. Start with the company's own website. Product lines and locations are usually prominent on the site.

For publicly-traded companies you should additionally search the major financial websites for corporate information to validate what you learned on the corporate website. These financial sites include:

• Yahoo Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com)
• Forbes (http://www.forbes.com)
• Money (http://money.cnn.com)
• Google Finance (http://www.google.com/finance)

With this knowledge, even at a high-level, you will be able to ask informed questions when you actually get into the interview, and you will leave a very positive impression.

Dressing Smart

Choose your clothing very, very carefully. The basic rule for both men and women is "dress up one level." This admonition is easy to grasp if you think of it this way: if you dress for your interview in the clothing you will wear on the job, then you are under-dressed for the interview. If you dress one level up from what you would wear if you work for them, you are dressed appropriately.

For example, for a man, if the normal workday clothing is jeans and work boots (as in construction or trades), or just casual clothing (as in a shopping mall retail store) then one level up is a dress shirt and complementary tie, and chinos or Dockers slacks. If the workday rule is business casual (as in most office work) then one level up is a suit.

If you are a woman applying for a professional or management position, wear a neutral- or darker-color suit and high heels. If you are applying for a retail or any customer-facing position you have an almost infinite number of options from dresses to pant suits, and from high-heels to low-heels. Make sure your shoes are polished, and please do not wear any perfume! None! Not even a smidgen! Remember your make-up may have a perfumed scent in it.

Ladies, the quickest path to not even finishing the interview, much less getting a job offer, is to wear clothing that is too tight, too short, too revealing, or just too provocative. In other words, "too anything." If you have any question about whether an item is "too anything," then it probably is.

I have many more observations in Hired! including what you should use to take notes during the interview, the payment etiquette of lunch and lunch-time interviews, and how to prepare your list of references. Don't be unprepared for your interview.