[CaptainCrunch]

Interview presearch

Ok, so you treat your search like a job, send out 20 or 30 resumes a day. Then out of the blue you get a call or an email. "Hey so and so, we've seen your application and would like to talk to you, we have a space on x day with x person. We look forward to talking to you."

First of all, its ok to treat this like a triumph, like I've said before this is a unique market. Its hyper competitive, and a lot of businesses aren't completely committed to hiring at the moment, and this is where some frustration lies with candidates. They get interviews, and then they progress, and then suddenly they get told about hiring delays, or freezes or unforeseen business circumstances etc.

I don't have anything positive to say about that. In the old days we used to call recruiting a contact sport, now its a collision sport.

Anyways do your quick fist pump, feel good for a second, and have a smoke. Then its time to work on prep.

First of all, realize that the first interview isn't usually all that deep, its usually handled by a recruiter, or by a person in HR, its rare that you're talking to a key decision maker. In other words the first interview is another filter to reduce those 10 applicants down to 3 or 4 because to be honest, the hiring person doesn't have the time or energy to do 10 interviews, then 3 more, then negotiate deals.

So, you're stuck with a recruiter that's looking at check points against the job description and other filters, or a HR person doing the same thing.

BTW I'm going to swerve to the side of the road and rant for a moment. Modern hiring processes are a pet peeve for me. Instead of the old, 2 interviews to offer and a fairly robust and quick hiring cycle. Its now usually a long draggy process with multiple interviews and tests and home work assignments.

I get it, I do, not only has hiring and on boarding become extremely expensive in terms of selection and on boarding, companies are extremely paranoid about hiring failures and the counterfeit candidate, and recruiters are paranoid about enacting guarantees or worse yet losing a client due to a hiring misfire.

At the same time, a hiring source shouldn't be a source of frustration to a candidate or create a negative first impression for a candidate, conversely any relationship cannot be built on suspicion. Ok, rant off.

First of all now that you have a interview its time to add on to your research. Do a deep dive into the company that you're interview with. Of course this is based on role and level. But knowledge is power.

It used to be that you could dive into a companies website and get the 10,000 foot view of the company that you're interviewing with. You should still do that, but also dive into their other social media platforms. These are essential because you need to get your headspace around the concept of double blind. Not only are they interviewing you, but in reality you have the right to interview them and decide if this is an organization that you want to join.


Twitter is great in terms of seeing how serious their marketing efforts are, Facebook can give you a link into the companies potential culture. LinkedIn is another great tool because you can again see their marketing strategy, but get a sense of the who's who in the zoo and where you're interviewer ranks in the organization.

If you're talking to a publicity traded company its a huge bonus, you can get at their posted annual reports and press releases. Why is it important? Because it can give you an idea of the reason for hire. Is it a company with explosive growth? Is it a company that's stagnated or seeing reduced revenue. These are important questions to try to answer because it allows you to put bullets in your magazine for later.

At the same time, I always will google their product or service to see if there are reviews available and how positive on negative they are. These reviews will range from actually resource reviews from the industry, you can also see if they have a positive or negative customer base. Remember you have a right to decide what kind of situation you're heading into.

On top of it, Glass door is a great resource. First of all because you can look at almost a day in the life of the company. Employee reviews, interview feedback from former candidates are all great tools. If there are lots of interview reviews in glass door, you can start formulating your interview strategies.

Now here I want to split things up.

There is a difference between a recruiter review and an internal asset review.

A recruiter review is definitely a filter interview. Most recruiters on the first interview will work off of a call guide. These call guides will list questions and progressions. If I ask this and say this stop the interview type of questions. Beware of those pitfalls, they're not hard to anticipate those questions and plan your answers.

If its an internal asset interview, they tend to be a little more free flowing and in depth, the internal person will have a more detailed feel for the type of recruit they're looking for and they have a distinct feel for the companies culture and requirements so the questions could be distinctly different from a recruiter review. Still beware, its still a filter interview. The intent again to get from let's say 10 resume's down to 3. Expect these interviews to be a little more free flowing.

Now here's another thing that's important. absolutely research the person that you're interviewing with. If they're in LinkedIn and attached to the company, how long they've been there. Are they a junior or senior role. You can use this to formulate later questions.

If its a recruiter do a quick review of the firm they're with, it will tell you everything about their interview process, what questions they might ask and how good they are in terms of setting benchmarks and next steps and sticking to them.

Once you have done you're health dose of research, its time to whip out the job description and go through and compare and contrast. A job description looks entirely different if you know if a company is in growth mode, if they have a positive public face or a negative reputation.

Then take the job description and do a quick bit of research on the industry understanding of the role, again google is your friend. You can quickly compare and contrast the job description to the expectations of the roles, this can add on to your questions.

Once you've done this, take some time and sit down and put yourself in the recruiter or interviewers role. Start writing down questions that you would ask. Range your questions from the mundane, tell me about yourself, to the detailed, tell me about your experience doing XYZ, why did you leave these companies. Tell me about your salary range. You might not be asked these questions but it good to have contingencies so they don't take you by surprise.

Ok, I know the above sounds like a ton of work, but think of it this way

1) Practice makes perfect, as you keep doing this with your searches you'll get tremendously effective at it. You can also discard unimportant aspects of it.

2) This primary research means that as you progress along your research becomes easier, as your filling the holes instead of planting the lawn.

Practice, Practice Practice.

I can't tell you how many people I've interviewed that are clearly nervous about the interview. Its natural, don't worry about it, however the most important thing in an interview is that you sound confident and relaxed and most importantly not desperate.

So practice is important. Its ok to ask a favor from a friend or a family member. ask them to help you with a mock interview. You've created a list of expected questions. you've got a job description, ask them to interview you. In fact ask them to be a complete jerk in the mock interview, ask them to try to knock you off balance, to dig in on questions, tell them not to do bizarre questions ie if you were an animal what would you be. But get them to ask you questions off of your resume and the job description and your questions script. Ask them to ask the brutal questions. Why did you leave this company? Why have you had so many jobs? What did you like about this job? What ground your gears with this job.

A mock interview should be harder then the real thing. One of the best things that you can do by the way is record the mock interview so you can review it later. It sucks people hate recordings of themselves. But you're not as much looking for the technical aspects of the answer as much as how you sound. Do you hesitate, take a long time between answers, inadvertently use things like, like and um. Did you sound prepared. Did you sound psychotic or robotic.

Then thank your friend or family member and promise them a nice lunch when you get the job.

Again I know this sounds like a lot of work, and normally you could get away with it, but in the hyper competitive market your willingness to prepare and practice can really separate you from the pack.

Then last but not least, the night before the interview and the day of the interview until about an hour before. Relax, don't think about it all that much if you can. you're fully prepared, you have your research, you know who your talking to, and you have a rough idea of what you're going to be asked.

Tomorrow the interview. The pitfalls and the insanity that can occur if you lose control.