How To Prepare For An Interview

It doesn’t matter if this is your first job interview or you’ve given a hundred in the past. Job interviews are the most daunting part of the overall hiring process, and it’s a part that has absolutely no room for error. If you’re looking to get a job offer from the interview you’re having soon, you’re in the right place. Here are a few mandatory things to prepare for an interview.

Research the Company

Walking in blind without knowing the company you’re applying for is one of the most common mistakes that candidates are making these days. People are applying to dozens of companies at once, and they don’t prepare for one interview specifically. Almost every recruiter will ask the question, “Why do you think you’re a fit for our company?” How do you expect to reply to this question when you’re not even sure what the company is about?

Learning what the company does isn’t enough. It’s also important to understand their work culture. Every company is on social media, and there’s a pretty good chance they discuss their work culture on their platforms. This helps you in two different ways. First, it gives you some extra knowledge for the interview that other candidates probably won’t have. Secondly, researching their company culture is the perfect method of understanding whether you’d be a good fit for the company.

Formulate Answers to Popular Industry-Specific Questions

Every industry has some rudimentary knowledge that every person that studies/works in that niche is supposed to know about. For instance, if you’re a computer science student, working with data structures and algorithms is one of the first things you will learn. Recruiters are bound to ask you some questions about this subject since it’s a core part of your degree.

You should do some research about the common questions recruiters are asking in your industry and come up with answers for them. If Google doesn’t give you any decent questions, talk to some of your friends or family in the industry. If you don’t know anyone working in the same niche, go to LinkedIn and try talking to some of the people that are in the HR department of a company working in the right industry. That definitely will get you some nice answers.

Think About Questions that You Want to Ask

This is something that a lot of candidates skip out on. They walk in with the intention of answering questions, not asking them. However, they don’t realize that asking questions is just as important as answering them. This tells the recruiter that you actually took the time to do some research about the organization and have a keen interest in working with them. Furthermore, it helps avoid that awkward silence that always fills the room when recruiters ask, “do you have any questions?’

Closing Thoughts...

Interviews will always make you nervous, and that’s perfectly justified. One final tip that will help you calm your nerves when sitting across recruiters is to do mock interviews with someone you’re comfortable with. If this person has some experience conducting interviews, that’s even better. Try to practice any curveball questions (for example, any gap in your resume, mediocre grades, questionable career changes, etc.) and try to have a concrete answer for them. Interviews are unpredictable, but the right preparation will increase your chances of landing a position in your dream company.