How to Prepare for a Job Interview

We have worked on this guide with the aim of giving you a comprehensive vision of how to prepare for a job interview, in its complete cycle. Everything you need to know to pass an interview from the start of the selection process, going through the different phases, up to the application and hiring monitoring phase. To select in first interview you just have to focus on your resume so check how to do resume writing.

Surely you have already heard many times that "looking for a job is a job", and it is certainly so, due to the time you must invest and the development of the strategy that you must execute. However, this is only part of it, as you will also need to research, rehearse, and prepare your answers before going to the job interview.

The idea is not to discourage you with what we have said, on the contrary, rather that you understand that if you comply with this guide that we have prepared for you, you will have better results. And what does this mean? Well, the chances of getting a job are greater if you focus your search well on a few companies and interviews, than if you attend many interviews, but without any focus or preparation.

So is it worth preparing and investing time and effort? Of course yes! Since you will have much better results.

In this guide we explain in detail what to do in the job interview , how to prepare before attending, how to behave and respond "during", how to sell yourself in the interview , and what to do after having attended the interview.

Successfully pass job interviews . Through practical and simple advice, you will see how your chances of reaching the job you want in fewer interviews will increase. So go for it!

What to do before the job interview: 5 tips

To prepare for the interview, it is convenient to understand what a job interview is, an interview is a meeting between you and the company to which you aspire, which lasts no more than 60 minutes. During this time, you must expose all your experience, show your interest in the company and demonstrate that you have the necessary skills for the challenges you will face in the new role.

All this in just 60 minutes! For this reason, preparation is so important since every word, every gesture and every explanation you offer will determine whether or not you pass this selection phase.

It doesn't sound simple, right? But don't worry, for that we have organized everything you must do "before" attending the interview in 5 simple but very practical tips that will facilitate your preparation.

We have wanted to describe each piece of advice so that it applies to different sectors and areas, but of course, you must adapt it to your own reality and to the characteristics of the job interview you will face; however, you will see that they are very clear and precise advice that will leave you no room for doubt about how to apply them.

Let's review each of these 5 tips for before doing the interview below :

Tip #1: Research the company

This first piece of advice is a key piece in preparing for the interview and even so, many people underestimate it. Knowing or researching about the company goes beyond entering its website and doing a superficial reading that will only give you a general idea of what the company does.

There are 9 main reasons why it is important to previously research the company before attending the interview:

Know, with some degree of accuracy, the type of company you will work for
Guarantee that your values and those of the company are aligned, with which you will achieve harmony between what is important to you and the objectives of the company.
Ensure that it will meet your professional development expectations.
Better understand the information that the recruiter can offer about the company, its products/services, and policies.
Prepare appropriate questions to ask the recruiter at the end of the interview
Prepare clear answers, especially when the recruiter asks what you know about the company.
Tailor your responses to the organization's pain points.
Assess whether the company interests you as a future professional project.
Show interest and professionalism.

Now, you will ask yourself "Where do I start?".

Starting the research process without a clear structure will only confuse you, when you really need clarity, so here are 3 basic steps to do good research on the company:

Step 1: Who is the company?

This is the first question you should ask yourself because you not only need to ensure that you are well prepared, but also that you want to guarantee that it is a company that meets the expectations that you have set for yourself. To do this, the first step is to enter its website and obtain information on:

Mission and vision

Usually, under a tab called Who we are, About, Us, The company , etc. you will easily find this information. Knowing this, you will have a broad vision of the organization's purpose and identify how much your interests align with those of the company.

It will also be very useful for questions such as: “ Why are you interested in our company? ”, or “Why did you decide to seek employment with our company'?”. If you know the mission well and have already identified how your professional objectives go hand in hand with it, you will then be able to give a much clearer answer in which you demonstrate to the recruiter that from your profession and your career objectives, you align yourself with the objectives themselves. of the company

Organizational values

The values of the company you are investigating carry even more weight than the company's mission and vision itself. This is so since they represent the culture of the organization, day to day, what is "breathed" in it and the environment in which you will find yourself working.

If you do not feel identified with the company's values, or those indicated are not exactly the most important to you, there will be no compatibility, so sooner or later, you will be looking for other employment options.

To demonstrate such compatibility, offer an answer where you reference the research you did on their website and relate the value to some past experience where it was present.

The recruiter will clearly identify that you will truly be able to "live" the company's values and thereby guarantee stability and motivation in the organization.

Products and/or services offered

Arrive at the interview and ask: “What does the company do?” It's like asking where the exit is.

Although the recruiter does not expect you to know its products in detail , or the way in which it offers its services, if at least it aspires -at least- that you know what it does, the sector to which it belongs, some products it produces or sells, etc.

You will find this information in great detail on the internet, including comments from suppliers, customers, their position in the market and other aspects related to their level of development. The information you gather will help you prepare some answers.

Organizational structure

Not all companies describe their organizational structure within their web pages; however, a general idea you may have. For example, if it is a very hierarchical company or not; your role within which area it is located or to whom you would report; and even the name of the responsible person who will do the interview.

This information can be very useful to identify possible career paths that you could pursue within the company, or if the role represents a challenge due to its location within the organizational structure.

In addition, it will give you input to ask questions in the interview , comment on it or even compare with other companies in which you have worked in the past, and in this way refer to your ability to adapt or the challenges that you are willing to assume, etc. . That is, achieve a kind of "sale" of your profile adapted to that structure.

Affiliations or other activities that it develops

Beyond their products and services, some companies carry out volunteer activities, have a foundation, have an alliance with an NGO, etc.

You can also find this information on its website and it will offer you another face of the company that may be of interest to you, and also, express it like this in the interview. If you have participated in similar activities in the past, commenting on it will make the recruiter align your profile much more with that of the employees they aspire to have within their organization.

Step 2: What happens in the company?

In a globalized world like the one we find ourselves in, information is very valuable, therefore, understanding the latest news from the company you will be interviewing will guarantee you to identify it as the place where you want to work, and also better understand the present and the future that awaits you within it.

To obtain this information, just place the name of the company in any search engine, click the "news" button and you will immediately have a clear vision of its positioning (if it has achieved good results and profitability you will see a news item about it), public information (good and maybe not so good) or your future plans (news about buying, mergers, expansion, etc.)

You may be wondering what the above helps you to position yourself better in the interview . Well, in addition to helping you make decisions about whether or not it is the type of company you want to work for, the news gives you the input to prepare questions such as: "I understand that they are in an expansion process, is the role at What aspiration is directly related to the expansion project?

This is an interesting question and at the same time strategic because it leads to obtaining a lot of information that, otherwise, the recruiter might not have shared with you.

T ip #2: Analyze the job offer

Perhaps you have read many job advertisements, but surely few have managed to analyze enough to get more information from there than only with a superficial reading you can obtain. Let's review below the key aspects that I recommend analyzing in a job offer for better preparation for the interview.

Job requirements:

They are the conditions, requirements or minimum characteristics that must be present in the candidate to ensure their passage to the selection process. This means that, if you do not comply with them, it will be difficult for you to go to the interview itself. In this sense, there are two important aspects that you should take into account:

Level of fulfillment of the requirement: if, for example, a requirement indicated is the command of another language, you must be able to indicate the real level in which you are on a scale that is easy for the recruiter to understand. For example, it is not worth saying that you have a "medium" level of English, you must indicate if it is A2 or B1.
"Compensatory" requirements: in the event that you do NOT meet any requirement, try to identify if you meet any other that can serve as a basis to achieve the one required by the company.

For example, if domain of the SAP tool is required for a specific module, but your experience has been in another module, then you must prepare your answer to the question of whether you have worked with SAP in the module they request. A good answer could be: "I have not worked directly on that SAP module but I have worked on the X module, for which I consider that my learning for the required module could be quite fast"

Functions of the vacancy:

We rarely find an advertisement that indicates exactly this word. In general, the ads indicate "Position description", "What will you do with us", "What we expect from you", since they are more attractive phrases for the candidate.

In any case, they will always refer to the responsibilities of the role. As you read, ask yourself the following questions:

"What do I know how to do?": identify the functions that you have developed in previous positions and look for examples in your experience on how you performed them.
"What NOT to do?": Obviously this will be a safe question ( "Have you done X function in the past?"), as it will not be on your CV but the recruiter will want to make sure if you really do not have any experience in this regard. Here you must identify other functions that may be similar and indicate it, expressing firmly that you will guarantee your learning in a very short time.
Skills:

Like the functions, companies rarely list the expected competencies for the position. In order to make it more attractive, they will be found under the heading "Other requirements", "What we are looking for", etc.

This section is very interesting because in it you will find keywords that you can use to search for sample questions that the recruiter can ask you . For example, if you read something like "We are looking for a candidate with initiative", you can then enter any search engine on the internet and place "questions for initiative competence" and this will yield many results with types of questions that you can prepare for the interview.

Take into account that, both from the description of the responsibilities and the competencies of the position, you will find phrases that will reveal the areas on which the recruiter will inquire to better understand your profile. You only need to search for questions by competence associated with that area and you will then have examples of what they can ask you.

T ip #3: Identify examples from the past

One of the most used interview models is that of questions by competencies based on the STAR model. With this interview model, the recruiter seeks to know how you behaved in the past in difficult situations, in making decisions, when facing challenges, etc., to infer, from there, how you will do it in the future.

Therefore, it is essential that you try to remember specific events or situations within your work experience in which, for example:

You solved a problem (troubleshooting)
You made a complex decision (decision making)
You served a difficult customer (customer service)
You developed a project (Innovation, results orientation)
You led a work team (leadership)
You organized an activity or a job (organization and planning)

You should not necessarily remember the example with all the details, since it is understood that you may not remember some things. However, it is important that you at least indicate for each example the components of the STAR model:

Situation : what was happening at the time, the context

Assignment : what was your assignment, your objective or what you had to do

A ction: your behavior, what you did to resolve the situation

Outcome : Closure of the example indicating the final impact or resolution