I\u2019ve been interviewing a lot of people lately: not only because I\u2019ve had numerous roles to fill for a few different clients, but also because I\u2019ve been getting large volumes of applications to advertised vacancies. Which in and of itself isn\u2019t too surprising, as April\/ May is actually one of the peak activity periods during a year where people tend to decide they might like to consider a change in their career (it\u2019s post the fun-loving-don\u2019t-care-about-the-world-summer and the start of oh-crap-its-freezing-I-think-I-hate-my-job-winter). The seasons are changing, it\u2019s getting colder, and it\u2019s not only making it harder for us to get out bed to go to work, but it\u2019s becoming damn near impossible to throw back our warm doonas and get going for a job we don\u2019t particularly like. So if more of us are becoming tempted by other opportunities, it stands to reason that there\u2019s going to be a bit more competition out there for vacant roles. To me that suggests I would have to \u2018up-my-A-game\u2019 to really stand out, but I continue to be surprised at the lack of preparedness some candidates bring to interview.<\/p>\n
Just as you might anticipate a surgeon would have read your patient files prior to operating on you, employers expect you to have done your fair share of preparation before attending interview with them. Aside from looking professional, it illustrates your keenness for their business. I would suggest this preparation to include:<\/p>\n
1. Reviewing their website to get a feel for their core business, values and tone of voice;<\/p>\n
2. Giving them a quick \u2018Google\u2019 for any news articles about them that have been in the media recently so you\u2019re up with the times; and<\/p>\n
3. Maybe also a quick LinkedIn stalk to get to know who\u2019s who.<\/p>\n
And should a prospective employer happen to also invite you to bring certain materials along to interview (such as a grid of images that you feel speak to their brand, or a hypothetical 5-point plan to increase sales figures, or a mood board for a new design space), you should really take this invitation as more of a prerequisite than a suggestion, and enthusiastically front up with the goods.<\/p>\n
If you can\u2019t convincingly answer what you know about the company and why you want to work for the business, demonstrating that you\u2019ve done your homework, well my friend, you\u2019re going to flail. And if you haven\u2019t prepared materials suggested to you purely because you didn\u2019t think you needed to or couldn\u2019t be bothered to, well then that I would call a big interview fail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been interviewing a lot of people lately: not only because I\u2019ve had numerous roles to fill for a few different clients, but also because I\u2019ve been getting large volumes of applications to advertised vacancies. Which in and of itself isn\u2019t too surprising, as April\/ May is actually one of the peak activity periods during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n