Allison Nicholas, Acxiom’s team leader for college recruiting, suggests that job-seekers keep handy a check-list of questions to ask the recruiter. These include:

1. What sort of questions will be asked?
2. Who will be present at the interview?
3. What role will the recruiter have in the hiring process?

Also, many companies these days conduct preliminary interviews over the telephone, particularly if they have a large pool of good candidates and want to avoid the expense and time of flying all of them in. So you need to be as prepared for the phone interview as you are for the in-person experience.

And even then, the job race may not be over after the first interview. The more responsibility that the job entails, the greater the likelihood you’ll be interviewed several times by several groups of people. The interview process could easily last an entire day or more.

But being prepared for this potential marathon is the surest way to avoid anxiety. As you did when writing your resume and applying for the job, research the company and the position for which you’re applying. A vast amount of information about a business or other potential employer can be found on its Web site. Perform an Internet-wide search on the company, learning all you can. Search the company’s Web site for the job title for which you’re applying. Find out as much as you can about the previous holder of the job.

Nicholas encourages those seeking work to perform an honest self-assessment of his or her strengths and weaknesses.

Kesha Walker, regional recruiting manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car – Southwest, says, “Practice well-thought out answers to anticipated questions. It’s so important to anticipate the very basic questions that will be asked.” They include:
1. Would you tell me (or us) a little bit about yourself?
2. Why are you interested in interviewing with our company?
3. What are your long-term career goals?
4. What are your short-term career goals?
5. What are your strengths?
6. What are your weaknesses?

Nicholas says that job-seekers “need to be prepared to answer any questions that their resumes may present.”

Walker urges job candidates to “answer negative questions with positive points,” and Nicholas stresses that candidates saying “anything negative about their previous employer is not good,” adding, “It’s better to focus on the positive.”

Asked how one answers that basic, but landmine, question, “What are your weaknesses?” in a positive way, Walker says: “You want to make sure that you have thought about what your weaknesses are, and in addition to saying what your weakness is, you want to reflect in your answer what you’re doing to work on or how you overcame your weakness. And it shouldn’t be something that you have to think about for a long period of time.”

She adds reassuringly, “We all have weaknesses and we know what they are.”

Nicholas says the best way to answer the “weakness” question is to “stick with the obvious,” such as areas in which you might need training. She also advises job candidates not to list “procrastination” as a weakness.

Other questions you should be prepared to answer, Walker says, include:

1. What are your expectations of an average work week?
2. What characteristics can you bring to our company?

Many interviewers will ask a job candidate to describe a problem encountered in his or her last job and how he or she solved it. Walker says job-seekers “should be prepared to talk about specific situations and be able to take that interviewer from start to finish and they should be able to [describe] them briefly. It shouldn’t be long and drawn out.”

As important as the answers you give are the questions you ask. “Ask intelligent questions that show you’re interested in joining the organization,” Walker says. Among them:

1. Where do you see the company going in the next, say, five years?
2. What training do you provide?
3. What will be my responsibilities?
4. What are the promotional opportunities?
5. How quickly can I advance?
6.What is the next step in this — the hiring — process?

Nicholas echoes Walker’s suggested questions but also says that candidates should ask what the time frame is for filling the position sought, why the position is available, and, in clarifying the next step, ask recruiters whether they want samples of their work or “What else can I provide?”

lthough recent grads may not be a match for one particular job, they may be appropriate for another, Nicholas emphasizes. She says, “I want the students to know that recruiters are their advocate.”

Following Up

“It’s so important to send a thank-you note,” Nicholas says. “It really helps them [job candidates] stand out.” For Acxiom, an e-mailed note is perfectly appropriate, particularly because the company is a high-tech business, as is a typed note, as long as it is written in a businesslike, professional manner.

Walker says that a thank-you letter should be sent promptly to everyone involved in the interview process and that it should focus on the candidate’s strengths and enthusiasm for the position “because you’re still selling yourself.”

Nicholas urges job-seekers to remember that the job search is a “two-way street. That is the goal of every recruiter and every employer — to find the right match.”