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.
