December 9- Q & A

#9- Get your ammo ready in terms of answers to questions you'll be asked. While you may not know every question that might be posed to you in an interview, you can prepare for a few trusty stand-bys, and those answers can also be used (in full or in part) for other less frequent questions. Before you start preparing your answers, you must *position* your mind with who you want to be, how you'll fit in the role and the company, what you'll be asked to do, and how the you will transition from what you were doing to what you want to be doing. Keeping in mind all my other pieces of advice, here are a few good staples in answering interview questions:

- Stay consistent. If you are representing yourself with a certain reason for wanting a change, and what role you are looking for, make sure all of your answers turn back to that same idea. Make sure the answers accurately and consistently represent you in the correct light and they all make sense together.

- Do not answer blindly. If you're asked about what you do best, or what you like best about your last role, make sure your answer matches with the job description for the job you are meeting about. On the same token, if you are asked to discuss weakness or tasks you dislike, don't mention something that is important in this new role. That's just silly. If you don't properly prepare yourself in knowing what you'll be asked to do, or what the company represents, you could very easily put your foot in your mouth, costing you the job.

- If you are given a more open ended question, consider it a softball and knock it out of the park. Questions like, "tell me about yourself" or "take me through your background" are literally tee-up opportunities, and could make or break your chances. Take these opportunities to highlight the aspects of your experience or personality that will make you the perfect fit for the job or the company, or even the manager. (Side note- I just spoke to a candidate who "clicked" with the person she was interviewing with because she performed in that person's favorite play. If you do your research, you might find out a fun-fact like that before the meeting, and use it to your advantage.) But when you're given an easy "tell me what I need to know" kind of question, do exactly that, and make it easier for everyone.

- Be specific. When you are answering a behavioral based question, picture the behavior you exhibited before beginning to answer. It is often times easier to speak with confidence about "how you respond in X situation..." if you picture a similar experience and describe it, instead of speaking in generalities.