Madeline Mann walks through three essential interview questions to practice and a five-step company research checklist you can do fast. Keep your self-intro under two minutes, never name salary first, and ask the interviewer specific questions that show you've done your homework.
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Lets go. This is the fastest interview prep video I have created yet because last time I did this y' all told me you were showing up to this video hours, even minutes before your interviews. Wow. These quick interview tips you are about to see have led to hundreds of success stories you'll see in all the comments of my previous videos. So let's beat that high score, shall we? Very quickly, if you're new here. Hello. Good to meet you. I'm Madeline Mann. I'm a human resources leader and and job search strategist who turns job seekers into job shoppers. You may recognize me as a top job search coach on Spotify and LinkedIn learning or you may have seen me on ABC, Bloomberg, New York Times and more. Be sure you're subscribed to elevate your career. Here's the agenda I've got for you. First, you're going to learn the top three common interview answers you need to prepare and how to ace them. Then we're going to go into five things you need to research and prepare. This will work for you for a video phone and in person interviews. Let's get this last minute interview prep started and begin with the top three common interview questions to practice. You don't have much time, so let's master these three questions and then we'll do our best to let the rest fall into place. If you do have more time, I put together a video playlist of the top interview questions or if you prefer to have all of that written down of the top 10 interview questions which with the formulas and examples then you can purchase the Job Interview Secrets ebook and all of the proceeds go towards keeping this channel going, keeping it free. Resources for everyone. I'll link both of those down below. So the first question you need to prepare for is Tell me about yourself. Now this can be asked as Walk me through your resume, give me a quick summary of your background or the frustratingly vague what's your story? You must be ready to answer this question flawlessly because nearly everyone insists on asking this question and it sets the tone for the rest of the interview. What is so important here is to keep your answer under two minutes. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen candidates drone on for 5, 10, 15 minutes. This question is not the main event my friend. This is a quick question for them to get warmed up, get their head on straight, to figure out who the heck they're interviewing before they dive into more pertinent questions. Also, make sure your answer is hyper focused on how your background is relevant to this role. We are not trying to give a six part docu series summary of your background. The fastest way to do this is I have a free worksheet. I've linked it below. You can craft your answers with just these three steps I've listed out with examples. We've gotten thousands of emails of people saying that worksheet is so super fast, super helpful. So I'll link that below. The second question you need to prepare for is what are your salary requirements? It is such a simple question, but your answer can change your life. Your answer could lose or gain you tens of thousands of dollars when it comes to the offer stage, so I want you to be ready to address it should it come up from working in human resources and being on the employer side of things, thousands of negotiations and working with my clients to help them achieve a cumulative amount of millions of dollars in salary increases. Trust me when I tell you what I'm about to say. Do everything in your power to not say a number first. When they ask for your requirements, say you're flexible and looking for the best overall package. If they keep pushing, ask for their budget. If they still push, do not say what your previous salary was, but instead give your own researched rang. For more information on how to master this conversation, I will link a video down below. The third question you want to prepare for is what questions do you have for me? I cannot overemphasize how much hiring managers love candidates who ask good questions. The best way to ask questions is to study the job description and do good research, which I'm going to show you how to do that research later in this video. But you should always have a few extra go to questions when in need and I'll give you three right now that you can steal. Since I know you're in a rush. How is performance measured in this role? What are the goals you want this role to accomplish in the first 90 days? What are the top company goals this year and how will this role play a part in achieving them? Granted, you'll likely want more than three questions in your back pocket ready to unholster. So I will link a video with 15 more questions you can ask in in the job interview. I will link that below. Now let's walk through the five steps to quickly and effectively research the company and let me know in the comments. How soon is your interview? Is it a few days away? Hours? Minutes? Let us know in the comments. Step one to effectively research a company for your job interview is make sure you know what the company does and who they do it for. For some companies, this will be painfully obvious, but for others, they they may be in a market niche that you're not that familiar with, or it's a technology that's highly complex. So make sure you can summarize out loud what they do. Step 2 Write down one reason why you want to work for the company and then weave this into the conversation whether they ask you directly or not. Because here's something I know from leading the hiring of thousands of people Hiring managers want you to want the job. I've seen so many hiring managers choose the candidate who is slightly less qualified, but just because they display more passion and interest for the role. Why? Because managers want to hire people who enjoy their jobs and are intrinsically motivated. They have a big fear that you are just going to leave this job once your real dream job comes available. So don't stop researching until you have a specific reason about how this role really fits your career aspirations, what excites you about the product and the company culture, and so on. Step 3 Research the interviewer it's completely normal to ask the recruiter who you will be interviewing with. Sometimes they'll give you that information or you'll see the email of the person who will be interviewing you on the calendar event. Look that person up online. I'd first start with their LinkedIn profile. Notice how how long they've been at the company, the cities they've worked in, places they volunteered, articles they've written. All of these things are ripe for conversation and connection during the interview. Next, do a quick little Google search. If they have kind of a common name, I might put their name plus the company name. This again can surface places where they've been quoted, podcasts they've appeared on, anything again to give you something to connect with them on. They will be very impressed with that you did your research. Step 4 Understand the stats of the business. How big is the company? How much revenue do they have? None of your interview time should be taken up with you asking researchable questions. Use these research tidbits to also customize the way you discuss this opportunity. Step five and almost no one does this is find a current piece of information like a social post. A piece of recent news. They launched a product, they moved offices, they had a recent retreat. Have that news in your back pocket to spur a great conversation. Such as I saw that the company recently decided to adopt a hybrid work model. How has that affected the team? They are going to be so impressed that you did your research because most of your competition is not thinking of doing any of this. Okay? Now hurry. Go rock your interview and let me know how it goes. Please be sure to hit a like on this video and subscribe to this channel. You've got this Wi Fi high five.
