At this stage it doesn't matter whether it is for an actual job in the visible market or for prospecting in the hidden job market. It doesn't matter where or how you got your lead or referral. You have an appointment for an interview. And you want to be ready for it.
The first thing you want to do - in any interview - is to put your best foot forward when you tell who you are and explain what you have to offer.
Presenting your background
For years executives have been asking applicants questions, yet they often fail to prepare themselves for interviews when they find themselves on the other side of the desk.
Fortunately presenting your background in an interview is essentially extending your resume. So, which of your homework is already done? The accomplishments and skills that you are going to be talking about will already have been developed in the preparation of your resume.
You cannot expect your accomplishments to speak entirely for themselves. Bragging, on the other hand, can just as surely turn the interviewer off. Get in between.
Some people are more facile in presenting themselves than others. They embellish each accomplishment and make it sound great. Many other people are ineffective in interviews because they do exactly the opposite. They may have been conditioned all their lives not to talk about themselves. Sometimes this is why they are looking for a job in the first place. If you are among the many, who are not effective in selling themselves, you've got to change.
Fortunately, with good preparation, careful strategy and some practice, you should be able to improve your skill in selling yourself. You will have gone a long way toward overcoming this difficulty once you have prepared a complete list of your accomplishments and developed your PARs to help you present most favorably what you've done. To get the maximum mileage out of your PARs, be sure that you analyze each one or each part of it to show the variety of skills involved. For example, if you developed a new system, you can use this fact to show your problem-solving ability, your effectiveness in selling ideas and winning cooperation, and your ability to work under pressure and deliver what's needed on time. A useful way of having your PARs at your fingertips in an interview is to write them on 3 x 5 cards and memorize them.
The general areas you're likely to be asked are about your education, employment history, how you use your leisure time, your health, community activities, personal philosophy, finances, your present family life, and even your early family life.
A good reference can be a great asset; a poor one can hurt you badly. But even a poor reference can usually be defused by using the proper strategy. Be sure you handle your references with care, and remember that they are most effective when an employer is near to making you an offer.
First of all, get your references' permission to use them. Bring to each interview a list of your references including his or her name, title, address, and phone number. If you have any doubts about a particular reference, you may want to have this individual checked by a third party (acting as someone interested in hiring you). Be careful that such a move is not uncovered - it can backfire. This third-party reference check can be valuable, particularly if your prior company is in turmoil. You may find that a person you are using as a reference is no longer there or his or her function has changed and the inquiry is passed on to somebody who doesn't know that much about you.
If you are certain a key reference is going to be unfavorable and yet it is necessary to use it, prepare employers by revealing ahead of time that they probably will get an unfavorable report and explain why. This is far better than having the employer surprised. Try to get the employer to talk to others at your former company who may be more favorable to your cause. For example, if you were the controller and didn't get along with the vice president of finance, perhaps you had a good relationship with the manufacturing or marketing vice presidents, who can make the vice president of finance's reference less damaging.
If an unfavorable reference was from some time ago, you may want to talk to that person. Time has a way of healing wounds. In retrospect, a former boss may have realized later the difficulty of your former position. Seeing such a reference personally will probably be more effective than a phone call.
You may also want to coach the reference by explaining the biases and interests of the person who will be calling.
