Okay in our preparing for the interview series, I want to talk to you about planning your
time and the materials that you need to take with you to the interview.
So to start with, you want to plan to arrive plenty early.
Some people say walking in the office 10-minutes early is appropriate.
Absolutely to show up at the door.
Specially in larger cities and places where you're not familiar.
You definitely don't want to be late.
It may be to your advantage to show up 30 or maybe even 40 minutes early to make certain
you're not caught in the negative traffic.
I'm in Atlanta, Georgia and at any given time of the day, 30-minute commute becomes an hour
and 10, 15-minute commute simply because of traffic patterns.
So again, if you think you can potentially get caught in something like that, plan for
it.
Now, when I said show up, you don't walk in the building that early.
That is a negative in itself.
You may need to remain in your car, so have something with you where you can entertain
yourself and again, possibly potentially continue to prepare for the interview while you're
waiting.
So you can hit that target market showing up 5 to 10 minutes early to the actual office
where you'll be interviewing.
If you find yourself in the unfortunate position that you could potentially be late, call ahead.
Don't call ahead at the time of the interview.
Call 10, 15, 20, 30- minutes early when you immediately become aware that you could be
late.
It shows your preplanning so you have your explanation.
Hey, I'm caught in traffic and I was not for 30 minutes but the way is, it could take me
45 to get there.
Individuals have been in that position before, they would understand that but it looks far
better if you call that far in advance.
It gives them time to prepare so they don't get geared up and then have to sit there and
wait on you.
So that's timing.
Material to bring to the interview.
Well, obviously, you're going to want to have some form of folder or portfolio to hold these
different items.
It doesn't have to be anything expensive but it needs to look nice and it needs to be at
the same formality that you suit is.
So nothing brightly colored.
Avoid canvasses and things like that.
A fake leather or leather portfolio, an imitation leather that looks fine, you can get from
Target or something like that for relatively cheap and of course you get and extremely
expensive one as well.
But the relatively cheap one is fine.
Lots of school and organizations already give this out so you may already have one out.
In that, you obviously going to want to have a notebook so you can jot things down but
aside from the notebook and a reliable writing instrument, you going to want to have things
that you prepared for the interview.
To start with, have your resume and cover letter.
Go over your resume and cover letter again so you can remember the stuff that you put
in there because when they're asking you question, lots of these questions may be drawn specifically
from the information that you put in to that resume or cover later.
First, familiarize yourself with that.
Now, if you've done a good job of preparing your selling points and things like that,
that should be at the forefront of your mind but don't let it slip your mind to review
those individual bullets.
Have your references with you.
The contact information for your references.
Because you likely list it on your resume or cover letter that references are available
upon request.
On this situation, have them with you in case they ask you for at that point in time.
Now, you're going - again, you've done a good bit of research background on the company
and things like that.
When you're interviewing with multiple places, some of that information can start to get
confusing.
So you should have a fact sheet about the company where you've written down in a one-page
format, easy access so you can see the key information that you wanted to recall when
coming in to their organization.
The things like their position in the market, their structure, their corporate officers,
their product lines, business models, things like that.
Just keep things to remind you of talking points.
In some cases, you've already thought of questions.
Logical questions to ask the employer at the end of the interview that hopefully will make
you look more eager, more intelligent, more knowledgeable of the industry and company
itself.
You may need to jot something down about those to remember that.
So again, all of these things can help you move forward in the interview process.
Lastly, if you have had previous correspondence with the company, any information they've
already supplied you, you need to have that.
You need to at least have that information if not a printed form of the previous correspondence
so you can familiarize yourself and make reference because they may have already answered some
of the questions that will be typical like what is the next step etc.
They may have already given you a timeframe for the interview process looks like.
You wouldn't want to risk those questions so again, collectively, all that information
is the material that you're going to want to bring with you.
If you see the need or find the need, you may want to go beyond just the portfolio and
have a small bag or briefcase that again, appears professional generally leather in
this case.
With the briefcase, even a light skinned leather or dark skinned leather is going to be fine
or appropriate.
As long as its professional looking if you have additional materials you have to take
with you.
So collectively, that's it.
That's planning your time and the materials you need to put together to take with you
to the interview.
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