1. Properly preparing for your interview enables you to be more confident, overcome the handicap of interviewing inexperience and to sell yourself and your qualifications.

2. Always try to be informed about a company before you go to an interview. This means knowing a firm's products, markets, number of employees, current stock quotations, growth record, sales, profits, and general reputation. Nothing is more impressive in an interview, or expresses your interest more dramatically than your being knowledgeable about the firm with whom you are interviewing.

3. Information about firms can be found in brokerage houses, annual reports, Fortune's 500 Listing, Moody's Manuals, and special annual issues of trade magazines. Advertising Age and Forbes are two sources which have special information on large corporations once a year.

Dress and act conservative and businesslike. Few employers are impressed by improperly attired candidates.

1. Think of the interview as a sales situation. More depends on your ability to sell yourself as a potential employee than any other factor. Normally, the goal of the first interview is to establish a reason for an offer or for a second interview.

2. Be bright and personable. Let your personality shine. If you can turn the interviewer into a friend in a short period of time, greater success in interviewing is assured.

3. Establish a 2-way interview. Ask questions about the position, location, the company's plans for expansion. If you've done any reading on the company in advance, bring out some of the points learned in the interview. Orient your interview and job objective toward the type of position for which the company is recruiting. Be enthusiastic, confident, and ambitious, but as controlled as the situation demands.  Never present bitter or negative comments about prior employer.  Project a well thought out image of yourself for a given position. In addition, it would probably be wise to convey sincerity, dedication, professionalism, and a high energy level.

4. If after learning as much as possible about the company and the position, and you are interested in pursuing the opportunity further, make sure that you convey this to the interviewer. ASK FOR THE JOB. Your enthusiasm can affect the decision whether or not to arrange a second interview or to extend an offer.  Ask what the next step is in the process.

5. At the end of an interview, get a business card or take down the information as to how you can contact the interviewer.

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