Nervous on the first date with Mills Wilson

And by the first date, I mean the interview.

Let me rewind a little bit. A few weeks ago I started to prepare for the big treasure chase. The treasure was the best possible and most compatible PR internship in town, and the chase was the application process.

It took a while to get everything ready. A PR resume is a showcase, and so I had to make sure that everything I put in there was with careful consideration, and naturally that took a while.

Once I was happy with my application, I compiled and ranked a list of companies that I would approach. I wrote customized cover letters for the favorites and started making calls.

Long story short, I was contacted by Marie Mills the Managing Director of Mills Wilson, inviting me to come in and meet her for an interview.

The interview is a critical aspect of a career of PR. At the end of the day, a bad interview = no job. So I treated this opportunity as my first assignment.

I’m naturally quite a nervous person and so I thought the more preparation I’d do, the more comfortable I would be in that interview room.

Here are a few ways in which I prepared

Dressing for success

First impressions are important and appearance is key, so I put a lot of thought into what I would wear at the interview. I wanted to wear something that would be quite fashionable, yet reserved. That would convey my personality to the “employer” without revealing too much of my personal life. I did a little research on this and came across this interesting article, which you are welcome to read.

The question all employers ask

So tell me about yourself. It’s more a statement than a question and the answer is most critical. Again, first impressions are important, and this part of the interview is where the employer gets a first real snapshot of who you are. The difficulty in answering this is the fact that you could talk about almost any aspect of your life, from where you were born to what you had for dinner last night. But you want to make sure that whatever you say in those few minutes reflects your best possible self. I made sure to prepare and memorize a summary of the facts I wanted to convey about myself in that interview. More information about those interview questions here.

Know your stuff

First impressions are important, but it is likely that the interview will last more than a few minutes so you should prepare adequately and have enough to say to your prospective employer. This is why “knowing your stuff” is vital. For this interview, I made sure that I knew the ins and outs of all the PR projects I had been involved in. I could imagine nothing worse than not being able to properly explain your involvement in an assignment you had. It sounds very basic, but you must know what you are talking about, and you should have worked out a way to accurately but concisely talk about your projects. It’s also important to research the company you are being interviewed for, because chances are they’ll be asking you why you want to work for them. Read about it here.

In the end, I got the internship. Did I make use of all the research I did? No. But did I benefit from being prepared? Greatly.