Here are some ultimate guide on how to prepare for an interview — so that you’ll walk in confident and be able to give thoughtful, compelling answers to your interviewer’s questions.
As someone who writes about work and interviewing, I hear regularly from people who say the quality of their job interviews — and their success rate — soared after they changed the way they were preparing for them. In fact, I’m convinced that the best thing you can do ahead of a job interview is to prepare for it about twice as much as you think you might need to.
Before your interview, spend some real time on the employer’s website.
Read about them, their clients, and their products or services. Your goal here isn’t just to learn about what they do but, crucially, to learn about how they see themselves. In reality, there might not be a ton on their website that distinguishes their work from other employers in their field. But you’ll probably get a sense of what they hope makes them different from their competition (whether or not it really does).
That’s useful to know, because if that understanding is reflected in your conversation in the interview, you’ll come across as if you “get” them — and that’s appealing to an interviewer. Plus, the more you understand about the context they work in, the better you’ll be able to tailor your answers in a way that will be relevant to them.
Dig into the job description.
Spend some time going through the job posting line by line and thinking about how your experience and skills equip you to excel at the job. In particular, for each responsibility or qualification listed, try to come up with concrete examples from your past that you can point to as supporting evidence that you’d be great at the job — such as times that you faced similar challenges and how you tackled them, and particular successes you’ve had that you can tie back to what it will take to succeed in this role. Try to come up with at least four or five concrete examples or stories from your past work that you can use to paint a picture of how you operate, what you’ve achieved, and why you’re great at what you do.
Come up with questions of your own to ask.
Toward the end of the interview, your interviewer will probably ask what questions you have for her. Contrary to popular belief, you should not see this time primarily as an additional opportunity to impress your interviewer.
While it’s smart to think about how your questions might reflect on you, this is your time to get the information you need to figure out if this is a job you want and would be good at. So think about what you really want to know when you imagine going to work at this job every day for the next several years.
Examples of questions you might ask: What are the biggest challenges the person in this position will face? Can you describe a typical day or week in the position? What would a successful first year in the position look like? How will the success of the person in this position be measured? (I have more suggested questions here.)
It’s okay to write your questions down and take them with you. It’s very normal for job candidates to pull out a sheet of paper with the questions they want to remember to ask, so don’t worry about memorizing them.