There are three key things to do when preparing for an interview:
1.Research the company and the work they do
2.Organise some interview practice hat covers tough and common interview questions
3.Look background information about the individual you are interviewing with
Do your research
Visit the website of the organisation and ensure that you understand the scale and breadth of their operations. Use tools like Vault, Bloomberg or Hoovers to get an overview of the enterprise and its industry profile. Check their social media channels as this may help Identify the skills, values and experiences that the organisation is seeking.
Practice makes perfect
Ask a friend or a group of friends and colleagues to ask you some typical questions. If you can, record the practice sessions and check your body language and verbal presentation. Minimise verbal fillers, like “uh,” and “um” and be aware of habits like gesticulating, head-dipping or defensive posture.
Background information
Check the company website to see if the interviewer has a bio on the site; depending on the size of the company and seniority of the interviewer you may find them on Bloomberg. Don’t forget Google, you may find something useful.
Look for the interviewer on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. Are there contacts who you both know or follow? Think about questions that you might to ask the interviewer; people love talking about themselves, so see if you can do enough research to ask thought-provoking questions about them. LinkedIn may alert you to mutual connections; inside information is always useful so, if you can, talk to people who know your interviewer and who have worked with them in the past.
STAR technique
Finally remember the STAR approach for giving structured, focused and effective answers to interview questions:
Situation (What was the context? Where were you and what were you doing?)
Task (What goal did you set yourself? What was the problem or challenge?)
Action (What action did you take? Be explicit about your role.)
Result (What was the outcome and why? What would you do differently another time?)
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