Preparing for follow-up
Once the interview is over, you should write down ALL the information you've gained before you forget it (which will happen much sooner than you think). Even if you took notes, you should clean them up and add other details while they're still fresh in your mind.
PREPARATION LIST-For follow-up
Names of the interviewer(s) and anyone else you met:
Describe: employer's current situation, previous experiences, desired situation, expectations, success criteria, decision-making process.
What concerns did the interviewer (or anyone else) have about your ability to succeed in the position?
What are your advantages and disadvantages relative to the competition for this position?
Do you really want this job? Why?
Lessons learned: doing even better next time
Even with all your preparation, you may later find yourself fighting a case of the "I should have saids." No one thinks or acts perfectly on the fly. It's unreasonable to expect perfection. There's no point in banging your head against a wall, agonizing over every moment that you know you could have handled better.
You can't go back in time, so take what you learn from each interview and apply it to the next. We'll go over what you might do to recover with this employer in the next chapter.
soon as possible after the interview, write down all the questions you were asked and an outline of the answer you gave. You'll quickly forget these details, so it's important to get them down on paper (or disk) right away.
tify the parts of the interview where you think you could have done better. Think of every aspect of the interview, not just your answers. For starters, you can go through the do's and don'ts list on pages 65-66.
3. For each weak spot you identify, figure out how you'll do better the next time. This includes thinking of better answers to questions that you weren't prepared for (but don't spend too much time preparing answers to idiosyncratic questions that you'll probably never be asked again).