Page 147 - Oscar Adler - Sell Yourself in Any Interview_ Use Proven Sales Techniques to Land Your Dream Job (2008)

HOW TO PREPARE FOR DIFFERENT INTERVIEW SITUATIONS

every person in the room without contradicting yourself or
seeming like you are trying to be all things to all people. A
financial manager’s interest in a candidate, for example, will
be different from a marketing specialist’s—so how can you
provide meaningful benefits to each of them?
If you know in advance that you will be participating in
a group interview, ask your contact for some basic informa-
tion. Recruiters and headhunters can be particularly helpful
in this situation. It is in their best interest for you to do well
during an interview, so feel free to ask direct questions about
the company and the interviewers. Any inside information
you can gather from these professionals will help you to
communicate appropriate benefits during the interview.
A group interview is demanding and will require that
you use all your skills to help determine what benefits are
most important to the individuals in the room, as well as
to the group as a whole. Take a few notes as you go to help
you remember names and important issues. Although you
want to address each individual’s needs with an appropri-
ate benefit, you must take care not to concentrate too much
on any one individual at the expense of others. At the end
of the interview, be sure to make eye contact with each per-
son individually and thank them separately. Afterward,
send individual thank-you notes to each person in the
group. (For more details on writing thank-you notes, see
Chapter 8.)

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
SECOND INTERVIEWS

A second interview is different from an initial interview. In
general, if you are invited back for a second interview, you

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