Preparing for your Interview
So you conducted your job search online. Filtering through the job boards. You searched on www.SimplyHired.com, www.GlassDoor.com and www.Indeed.com. There are no jobs online that you have seen that causes you to apply. Being a person with a disability, you narrow your search even more. Instead of searching simply for jobs, you now search for disabled jobs or jobs for people with disabilities or finance jobs for the disabled. In doing so, you come across our site: www.disABLEDperson.com or if you are a disabled veteran looking for a job you searched for jobs for disabled veterans and Job Opportunities for Disabled Veterans or www.JOFDAV.com showed up. You register for our site so you can apply for it, you are taken to the company’s career site where you fill out the application. You submit the application. Weeks later, you get an email from the company inviting you to an interview. You become extremely excited, giggling even saying to yourself and others that you were chosen for an interview. There must have been hundreds, even thousands of people apply for that job and they asked me to interview for it you say to yourself. You cannot wait for the day to come. You are so excited. You are thinking to yourself that you are going to go into the interview and nail it! Once they talk to you, they will become entranced by you and offer you that job. The interview is on Wednesday the 12th. The Saturday before, you go to the mall and there you meet a friend. Excitedly you tell her that you applied for this position on www.disABLEDperson.com or www.JOFDAV.com and you were called for an interview. “Wow! www.disABLEDperson.com/ www.JOFDAV.com is a is a great site”, she says. You agree. Your friend asks you how are you preparing for the interview? You are confused. Prepare? What do you mean Prepare? I am just going to go in there and tell them about myself. I am going to WOW them. Once they speak to me, they will hire me. I’m sure of it. Your friend shakes her head no. She explains to you that you need to prepare and prepare well for the job interview. You ask her how exactly too you prepare for a job interview? She begins to tell you. The first thing that you need to do is make at least 5 copies of your resume and bring them with you. When you walk into the room for the interview, give each person in the room a resume. If there are more than 5 people in the room, don’t sweat it. Give your resume to the person who invited you and the people who are closest to him/her. Next make sure you dress appropriately. Look appropriately professional and well groomed. Be prepared! The first thing you need to do to become prepared is to study the industry that the company is in. As an example, if you are interviewing for a job in a financial company, regardless of the position you are interviewing for, understand the industry. Obviously is you are interviewing for a receptionist position you would need just a basic understanding while if you interviewing for a financial analyst position, you need to know the industry in depth. Research the company itself. Find out as much as you can about the company. Study it. If the company is publically traded, all of their information is online, if they are not publically traded, look at www.Yelp.com for reviws, look on www.GlassDoor.com for reviews, ask around. You get the drift. Go into the interview with as much knowledge as you can about the company. When was the company founded, its founders, how many employees it has, what kind of revenue it generates, who their clients are, you get my drift. Find out as much as you can about the person who sent you the email. Google them or try to find them on www.LinkedIn.com . Read as much as you can about their background. Here you are looking to a commonality with your interviewer. Maybe you went to the same school or you both like gardening. Knowing this and working that into your interview somehow can possibly give you an advantage. Next go to www.Google.com or www.Bing.com or www.Yahoo.com and search for interview questions that are specific to the industry you are applying into, the job position your are apply for and see if there are any interview questions that is specific to the company you are applying to. Have answers to all the questions you can find. In all, preparing for your interview should take you about 8 hours. Do not skim over anything. In this competitive environment, you need all the information to give yourself that competitive edge. Written By: www.disABLEDperson.com www.JOFDAV.com