With a focus on interview technique and performance, the importance of effective pre-interview planning is often overlooked: few would fail to prepare for an important client meeting or Board presentation and the next job interview might change the course of your life!

The following check list might help:

• Interview address (worth double checking as many employers have multiple addresses, often in close proximity to each other) and how to get there.
  
  
• Name and job title of the interviewer. Do some research to see if you can find out anything about him/her. Consider their motivation in order to seek areas of empathy and your selling proposition. Do you have contacts/a network in common?
  
  
• Job Specification: consider calling the interviewer or their PA, to check, if you haven’t been sent one or have been told there isn’t one.
  
  
• Research the company/firm: there’s no excuse for not being really well briefed here. In addition to their own website, make sure you are up to date with new financial results, recent wins, senior hires etc. If you don’t know much about them it suggests lack of interest and makes it much more difficult for you to identify what aspects of your skills and profile are most likely to strike a chord with the interviewer. Interviewers are prone to flattery like the rest of us, and are invariably pleased that someone has taken the trouble to do some research.
  
  
• What do you like about the company and role? You might be asked and employers are often looking for an extra level of enthusiasm: they like “volunteers not conscripts”.
  
  
• What do you think the interviewer is most likely to be looking for in a candidate? What specific, concrete examples can you give of your suitability? This can be in part related to experience i.e. specific knowledge of a sector, sales in a specific market etc. but can also be related to a trait or competency ie. “communication skills”, “enthusiasm” “track record of success”. Even if you are not specifically asked for examples of how you can demonstrate those you should still have in mind the interviewer will be evaluating you in relation to them.
  
  
• Linked to the point above, be prepared for a competency based interview which will involve being asked for detailed examples of your approach and behaviour in specific types of situation.
  
  
• Review your CV and anticipate “obvious” questions: why you left/joined employers, why you are moving jobs now, what you are looking for, etc. Think through how your answers might sound if you were the interviewer!
  
  
• Make sure your reasons for looking for a role now “accentuate the positive andeliminate the negative” as far as possible and do not appear to conflict with the role and employer you are interviewing with. Indeed the employer should be left with the impression that there is a close match between what he is offering and you are seeking – but don’t be too obvious about it!
  
  
• What information do you want to get from the meeting: how might this translate into constructive, intelligent questions?
  
  
• Print two copies of your CV: the interviewer may have been supplied with an old one or one that does not sell your experience as it applies to the role you are interviewing for.
  

As ever, psychology is all important and a useful question to have at the back of your mind is “if I were the interviewer what would impress me?”

Even if you are not 100% sure about the role or the company it is most important you approach the preparation, and the interview itself, with the objective of getting to the next stage. If you decide half way through the interview, or on the drive home, that it’s a better prospect than you expected, it’s too late!

Chris Sale is a Director of Prism whose comments are based on twenty years of recruitment experience. For further information please call Chris on 01784 446555 or click here email him.