Preparing for an interview

re14796

How do you prepare for an interview? How long does it take you to prepare? Do you find it hard to prepare when you been working and just want to relax

Exodi

So there's two types of preparations one must make:

General preparations (questions asked in all interviews): eg, "tell us a bit about yourself", "what could you bring to the role", "tell us your best and worst attributes", etc - depending on the number of interviews one has done may indicate how much time should be spent preparing for this.

Specific preparations (specific questions to the company): eg, "what do you know about us?", "if you could change anything here, what would it be?", "what did you think of our website", eg

As I'm generally well rehearsed on general questions, I would typically only prepare for specific questions. Typically I'd spend 1-2 hours the day before AND an hour on the day (as close to the interview as possible).

Only takes so long as I try to find an interesting answer to "what do you know about us" that isn't the standard "YOU WERE FORMED IN 1945 WHEN YOUR FOUNDER MR SMITH STARTED MAKING THEM IN HIS HOUSE".

TELLIT01

re14796 wrote: »

How do you prepare for an interview? How long does it take you to prepare? Do you find it hard to prepare when you been working and just want to relax

With the internet it shouldn't take long to find out basic information about a company, and if you want to get a new job you have to accept there is some effort involved. If you don't make the effort you can be fairly certain that somebody else will, and they will come across far better at the interview.
How long preparation takes depends to a degree on the type of job, and what you are expected to do at interview. I've had interviews where the whole thing seemed more of an informal chat, all the way through to those where I've had to put together a short presentation.

74jax

I tend to do quite a bit of prep.


I interview in my role and it's really hard to carry on the interview when our first question is 'What steps have you taken to understand our core principles and visions and how do you feel fit in with them?' to be told 'oh I haven't looked them up'. Unfortunately if the person doesn't score a 5 in this they will not get a 2nd interview, but if they don't answer the question we still have to carry on with the interview. Waste of everyone's time!


I have set answers to generic questions so don't need to do much prep for those. However I research the company, (the interview panel if known), memorise some keys headline figures, learn the competitors and how they are different.

re14796

Thanks

I got the interview on Wednesday. I am going to start tonight

fuzzything

74jax wrote: »

'What steps have you taken to understand our core principles and visions and how do you feel fit in with them?'

Those type of questions can really confuse me - as someone with autism - and the company’s information listing them is just as difficult to make sense of, as the values are usually far from concrete concepts.

I personally think this can be a shame as it could be an unfair barrier to someone who would actually be well suited to the tasks and duties needed of the job.

I am curious what you are hoping to find out from their answers - who’s going to say they don’t feel they fit with them?



:staradmin Happy World Autism Awareness Week :staradmin

Exodi

fuzzything wrote: »

74jax wrote: »

'What steps have you taken to understand our core principles and visions and how do you feel fit in with them?'

Those type of questions can really confuse me - as someone with autism - and the company’s information listing them is just as difficult to make sense of, as the values are usually far from concrete concepts.

I personally think this can be a shame as it could be an unfair barrier to someone who would actually be well suited to the tasks and duties needed of the job.

I am curious what you are hoping to find out from their answers - who’s going to say they don’t feel they fit with them?

:staradmin Happy World Autism Awareness Week :staradmin

You misunderstand the point of the question. It goes without saying that anyone interviewing for the role would want the job. It really serves to show who's used their initiative and researched the company (and that question seems to allude to whether you've read their 'about us' page).

Doshwaster

These days there is no excuse for not reading up about the company.
- what are their main products and customers
- what is the company history
- what are their financial results (if a public company)
- have they been in the news recently (hopefully for something good)
- who are their competitors
- what's the current market like for their business


Statement suchs as "Your recent product launch for X went well" or "I was interested to read that you had won an award for Y" shows that you have done your research.

PasturesNew

You are the ideal candidate.... you saw that, it's why you applied. They saw it, it's why they're interviewing you.

Just rock up and let them sell you the job/salary and see if they're lucky enough to get you

That's how it used to work.... it's how I'd still do it.

fuzzything

Exodi wrote: »

You misunderstand the point of the question. It goes without saying that anyone interviewing for the role would want the job. It really serves to show who's used their initiative and researched the company (and that question seems to allude to whether you've read their 'about us' page).

Sorry that doesn’t make sense. How does researching the company address the question of whether I have an understanding of their core principles and visions?

As I say I don’t understand core principles and visions, I just find them confusing. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still do the job job very well.



:staradmin Happy World Autism Awareness Week :staradmin

lincroft1710

fuzzything wrote: »

Sorry that doesn’t make sense. How does researching the company address the question of whether I have an understanding of their core principles and visions?

As I say I don’t understand core principles and visions, I just find them confusing. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still do the job job very well.

If you can't demonstrate in an interview that you understand their core principles and visions, then you're probably not going to be successful. Employers (and I would agree some really haven't a clue when it comes to interviewing and recruiting) decide how best to find the ideal candidate and you have to play the game by their rules