Acing a Job Interview in Five Easy Steps

It's just a matter of months before another wave of capped and gowned graduates armed with diplomas and resumes hit the job market, and with the waning economy, they won't only be competing with each other for jobs. Even the "minimum wage retail monkey" type jobs are being snatched at by far too many eager hands, and there certainly isn't a shortage of qualified candidates everywhere. 

But everyone needs to eat, and keep a roof over his or her head. And pay cell phone bills and car insurance and perhaps even go on a date now and then. Obviously, one needs to have money for such things, and as Grandma was only too fond of saying, money doesn't grow on trees. 

One of the most important steps to bagging that dream job (or even that reasonable, decent, steady-if-boring one) is acing the job interview, and while everyone knows to arrive on time and hide that navel piercing, there are several finer details that are often forgotten, and only too many interviewees are caught unawares when faced with That One Question or That Tiny Detail.

It's really not rocket science, but really, interviewers are looking for some basic things, and as they say, knowledge is half the battle.

I have, through the course of the last year alone, conducted probably close to fifty job interviews, and have seen the gamut from the interviewee from hell to the perfect fit for the position. In my opinion, the former isn't any worse a person than the latter, but there are just small things that separate the men from the mice.

Here below is the Cliffnotes (tm) version of things that matter in a job interview.

1) Present Yourself Professionally From the Start