Interviewing to Take Home the Gold

By Chandra Fox, Vice President, e-resume.net

Interviewing is like being selected to compete in the Olympics: you have outperformed

hundreds or thousands of competitors and are down to the final round. You are now competing with the best of the best. How can you leave with the gold? Here are keys to making your interview a day for the champion.

Research your company. How can you convincingly show interest in a position that will take approximately 25% of the hours in your week with no knowledge of the general job description, the company, its goals, or its current events? You can't. Here is how to understand the company with which you will be interviewing:

• Get the company's annual report from its Web site, if available
• Visit its Web site to read about the direction of the company and any current media coverage
• Look over the Standard and Poors Corporate Records
• For smaller companies, call the city's Chamber of Commerce

For every company, you want the following company information checklist:

• Services and/or products
• Competition
• Sales: any large increase or decrease and why
• New products/services available from the company
• International operations
• Any media information on the company in the last year