5 Ways to Prepare for an Interview - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

5 Ways to Prepare for an Interview - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Often, the reason people do or dont get a job offer rests on their ability to properly prepare for an interview. Interviewing prep does take work as does applying for a job as well as meeting with the employers.  Therefore, you might as well make the time productive. Try these preparations for your next interview and you will see a huge difference during the interview as well as the feedback you receive following the meeting. 1. Take two hours and go over the website. Any ambitious employee reads their website frequently and knows the ins and outs of their employers product.  Not only will a companys website tell you about their products and services, it will also inform you how they market themselves to their clients and, thus give you an idea as to how you should market yourself when interviewing with the organization. 2. Write down your career goals prior to interviewing. If we dont set firm goals for ourselves, were going to achieve a fraction of what were capable of. The best people as well as the best companies set firm goals and take the actions needed to achieve those goals.  The relentless pursue their dreams even in the face of heavy adversity. 3. Write down 5 of your achievements. Often, we mull over our failures too much even though this type of thinking makes us forget about all that weve done correctly. When we can list what weve accomplished as well as the positive traits that we have, reality becomes much more lucid and we become much more confident. 4. Think of a difficulty youve overcome, write down what it was and what you learned from the situation. Companies like people who are resilient and while many of us are, many of us have a distorted perception as to the extent of our ability to bounce back. When the best managers hire, they look for applicants who have dealt with adversity and have bounced back to become even more successful. 5. Envision success. Take some time and actually envision a successful interview and the results it will bring. Go in with the attitude that you are going to get the job. Be positive. Think to yourself: What type of positive impact will getting this job bring to your career? In the End If youre going to take the time to apply and interview for a job, you might as well make the time to properly prepare for it. We must use each hour wisely and, therefore be able to set aside the necessary time to ensure that we come across as positive, forward thinking, intelligent and ambitious prospective employees. Author: Ken Sundheim is the CEO of  KAS Placement, a sales headhunting firm specializing in recruiting all levels of business development, sales and sales management candidates throughout the United States. You can connect with Ken via  Twitter  or at his  Google+  account.