From the course: Find Your Dream Job: Interview Techniques and Resume Writing

Read, plan, and research

From the course: Find Your Dream Job: Interview Techniques and Resume Writing

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Read, plan, and research

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- What should you prepare for an interview? Well, I've got three points. Read, plan, and research, okay? So first of all, some reading for you. Read "Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions". There are several books with similar titles. They're all good. But just read up about that. I'm going to be talking about this as well on this course, so between the books and me, you should be able to answer any question. But do a bit of reading and prepare answers to all of the classic questions like, what are your faults? Name one achievement. Where do you see yourself in five years? So do a bit of reading about that. More details to follow. Secondly, plan. Plan how you're going to portray yourself, as an achiever but modest, which is a horrible thing. I hate having to say that I'm great while also trying to look modest. I mean it's just a weird thing, but how are you going to do that at the interview? Because that's what you've got to do. And then you got to have real facts to back that up. So plan which facts am I going to use. Which fact will go with each of my claims about myself? How am I going to show I'm creative? How am I going to show that I'm dynamic, or whatever it is. So make a list of all your personal strengths and your best achievements and match those up. I'll come back to that later. And finally, research. Research the company or the organization that you're applying to. Start with their website. Start by googling them, but also then maybe you can research the person who's going to interview you. You can go on LinkedIn and have a look at them there, and you can google them as well. I think it's okay to ask who will I be meeting, which is a clever way to say who's going to interview me? Who will I be meeting? And then you can have a look at them on LinkedIn and find out all about them. So do that research. Maybe you've got some LinkedIn contacts in common, or you've got interests in common. You might find that they worked in a country where you worked, or that they used to work for a company where you used to work. So do you have anything in common? That would be really great research. And, of course, not only does that make you perform better in the interview if you know things about the person, but also it shows that you really want the job because you've made the effort to research them. So those are the three things that you must do before the interview. Read, plan, and research.

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