You’ve breezed through your first in-person interview for the job of your dreams and you are now being invited back to a company for a follow-up in-person interview with the boss, the whole team or the boss’s boss.
Now what?
It’s easy to think the positive vibes you are getting from the company mean that you are a shoo-in for the job and all the rest is just a formality. Not so. Don’t let your guard down and think you are guaranteed the job!
[See: 8 Important Questions to Ask a Job Interviewer — And Yourself.]
No matter how flattering your feedback may be, you should assume that at least one or two other candidates are getting the same positive messages at this point in time. That’s what employers do to keep you “warm” and interested in them while they are still in the process of making up their mind.
Here are four things you should be doing and thinking about before your second interview:
Carefully review the details of your earlier interview. What topics were discussed? Were there things that your interviewer came back to multiple times? If so, that might indicate that they are key issues for them, or that they might be concerned about the level or depth of your knowledge or experience. You should assume that they will want to go even further in-depth in the second interview, and you should make yourself fully prepared and comfortable to go there.
Now that you know more about the rough contours of the job, be prepared for more “How would you …” behavioral questions. Come in to your next interview prepared to talk about how you would go about fulfilling the job requirements and achieving great success.
[See: 7 Ways to Crush a Phone Interview.]
Fine-Tune Your Research. You’ve likely spent some time prior to your first interview researching the company and the key people with whom you were to meet. Now you need to invest time to dig much deeper.
Find out everything you can about the company by reading its financial reports and annual report to stockholders. Check the company out on Google Finance and Yahoo Finance. Go to your local public library and research every time it has been in the news for the last several months. Any good reference librarian should be happy to help with this.
You need to have a clear understanding of what the company wants you to know about itself. Carefully explore its entire website to learn about its products, services and how it markets itself to its clients or customers.
Lastly, you must understand what the company wants you to know about what it is like to work there. In this regard, pay special attention to the employment section of its website, its LinkedIn and Facebook company pages and its Twitter account. Be prepared to share in the conversation something you learned that makes you want to work there.
Fine-Tune Your Table Manners. Often, part of the hiring process for executive and higher-level managerial roles will include some type of dining experience. Depending on the situation, it might be lunch at the corporate cafeteria or dinner at a fine restaurant with key C-level executives.
No matter how appealing anything on the menu might be, forget about ordering any food that would be potentially messy, hard to eat or require you to eat with your hands. Try to figure out what others at the table will be ordering, and don’t go above that price point for whatever you decide to order for yourself.
Be assured that your table manners will say much about you, and they are part and parcel of the interview process. This is especially true if your role will involve eating with colleagues, board members, clients or others important to the organization.
[Read: The 10 Most Common Interview Questions.]
Take advantage of the recruiter’s knowledge. If there is a third-party recruiter involved in the process, you can be certain that the employer will do a debrief with him regarding all the candidates he has sent for consideration. If you get to the recruiter with your impressions and concerns first, he will be enabled to smooth over rough spots for you behind the scenes.
The recruiter will also likely be in a position to find what areas the employer will be probing in the next interview round. While he may be bound by a certain level of confidentiality with the client company, he will likely be able to give you some broad hints of things for which you should be aware, or for which you should carefully prepare.
Take pains to “read between the lines” to get the underlying messages that your recruiter may not be able to specifically articulate, and take the messages to heart as you prepare to move forward.
Remember that you have competition for the position of your dreams until the moment you have a signed offer in your possession. The further down the line you are in the process, the greater the likelihood that every candidate will be well capable of doing a good job, and therefore the competition will be more intense. But, when you take the time to use every tool at your disposal to diligently prepare, you’ll enhance your chances for ultimate career success.
Happy hunting!
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4 Tips for Follow-Up Job Interviews originally appeared on usnews.com
