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How to Prepare for an Interview

Why do you want to work for this company?

Time to put on display the huge amount of research you did to get ready for this interview. There are now so many sources of information about businesses that you should be able to do a thorough analysis in a fairly short period of time.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

Here are the headings:

industry sector
aims and strategy
company/divisional structure
financial performance last year
main customers and competitors
products and people.

Find the website of someone who analyses this industry sector. That will give you a good overview and identify the organisation's place in the scheme of things. Then phone the company and ask for a hard copy of their annual report - they're used to being asked for them. The hard copy is better than the web version because you can see how glossy the report is, or how thrifty, or how environmentally friendly - all good clues. You'll discover the aims and strategy in the chairman's statement and the chief executive's report. The structure will be clear from the divisional reports that follow in the report. Note the overall structure and then read carefully about the part you're trying to join. It's only high level; but that's exactly what you need to answer this question.

There's a summary of the organisation's financial performance in the chairman's and finance director's statements. It would be good to be able to say, 'Your profitability is still growing well, compared both with last year and with the rest of the industry.' If you're going for a finance job, of course, you'll need to do all the financial ratios.

Most annual reports talk about the main customers they're proud of. It's good to have a success story from among these to talk about: 'You certainly did no harm to your reputation when Powergen spoke about the Dublin project.'

It's easy enough to find out about the company's products and services. You need to know the whole breadth of what they do. It's good if you can find out something about their reputation for treating their people. This helps you to know whether you want to work for them and gives you a nice compliment to pay them during the interview.

We recommend you look at two of their competitors, either by obtaining their annual reports or by visiting their websites. If you can experience the company from a customer's point of view, for example in retail, then you should certainly do so.

RELATE YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE COMPANY TO THE JOB

Start with the sector: 'You're in the gas sector, which is still a pretty exciting place to be. The market's growing and companies in the industry are still jockeying for position in the new competitive environment.' Now move on to the company. It's great to start with a quote: 'Your Chairman said, "The Group's excellent performance has been combined with major progress in the establishment of a culture that seeks continual operational improvements, high service standards and, above all, safety." These are all values I share and, since I'm applying for the job of safety supervisor in Sector 7G, I particularly like the emphasis on safety. The financial strength is attractive too; I want to work somewhere that can afford to keep up with the huge amounts of capital investment you need to put in just to stand still - plus some for innovation.

According to the Gas Producers Council, a lot of investment still needs to go into offshore safety, for example.'

Keep the answer to the company itself; don't go into the attraction of the job unless they ask you to do that. You're trying to keep yourself out of this reply and concentrate on something you know they're vitally interested in - their own company.

Finally, ask a question to get them talking about the same thing: 'I wasn't sure from what I could read about you whether your ventures abroad are likely to expand or not. Can you tell me that?'


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