This is an ongoing series about simple and useful interview tips that work well for candidates.
Collect these tips in the coming year so that it always improves your chances of obtaining the job you want.
Tip #3
Use a nicely timed icebreaker to help engage with interviewers
As you begin to prepare for your interview, do some research on everyone that you will be interviewing with. The reason that you want to do this is to create and use a nice icebreaker when meeting interviewers on your schedule.
For example, if you are interviewing with a CFO who graduated from the University of Wisconsin, your icebreaker could be “I would bet that you are a Packers fan.”
The reason behind this is that it communicates that you did your research to prepare for the interview and it puts people at ease so you can engage better with them.
Using the example above, don’t be surprised if that CFO would spend the first 5 minutes talking about football. That is a great sign that your icebreaker worked and both of you will be ready to truly engage with the interview discussion.
