How to Prepare for an Interview

Most job applicants don’t know how to prepare for an interview. Nor do many feel the need to adequately prepare for the most important step in the hiring process. Job candidates just show up and rely on their instincts during the interview. This approach puts them at a tremendous disadvantage to those who do prepare thoroughly. There are five common misconceptions that govern this reluctance to put in the effort to improve interviewing preparation skills. Let’s look at each of these misconceptions and compare them with current realities.

1. My interpersonal communication capabilities are excellent. This may be the case, but the communication skills you employ in your daily business activities are quite different from those you will need to perform well in an interview. In an interview you need to, without hesitation, match your past accomplishments to the hiring manager’s priorities. These priorities unfold dynamically during the course of the interview. Candidates who have prepared success stories in advance are in a much better position to deliver a well thought out response.
2. I’ve had many interviews over the course of my business career. You may have been part of many interviews, but if you don’t know how to prepare for an interview you have just been reinforcing bad habits. If you will perform good interview preparation you will set yourself apart from the competition. This is a great advantage in today’s tight job market.
3. I overachieve in my current position. The skills you use daily to excel at your current job are quite different than those needed to convince a potential employer that you are the best candidate for a job. When you gain insight by doing research on a company you can anticipate their questions and formulate engaging responses. This insight will also allow you to formulate thoughtful questions to ask and  provide the basis to create your success stories that will give you the confidence to ace the interview.




4. The interviewers are well prepared and have excellent interviewing skills. This is far from the truth, most hiring managers have received no training on how to get the most out of an interview. They are also very busy with their jobs and put little effort in preparing for an interview. These facts give the prepared candidate an opportunity to control the flow of an interview by asking prepared questions that lead the hiring manager through a conversation the candidate wants to have. The prepared candidate gets to leave the impression of a highly qualified professional. This is a tremendous advantage over those job applicants who just wing it.
5. The most qualified candidate gets the job in most cases. The hiring decision is made on the perception of who the best candidate is not the reality. So the candidate who has prepared thoroughly has a much better opportunity to leave the impression that they are the most qualified of all candidates.

Getting an interview, a significant accomplishment, is only one step in getting a job offer. To close the deal you must employ better interviewing skills than your competition. Knowing how to prepare for an interview is a skill that will provide the edge needed to convince the hiring manager that you are the candidate best suited to help the company.

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