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To land job, first master interview

A great resumé won’t get you a great job. A great resumé will get you an interview. It takes a great interview to land that great job.

This is what Lisa Ferns, a career adviser at the University of Rhode Island Office of Career Services, tells the students she advises and why she tells them to make sure they are prepared for their interviews.

Failure to understand the right way to approach a formal interview with a large corporate employer, she explained, can often keep an otherwise qualified candidate from getting the job he or she deserves.

“An interview is the chance to show you are the right personality fit for a job,” Ferns said. “It gives you a chance to tell them how your skills and abilities match a job description.”

Over the course of a year, Ferns advises hundreds of students not only on how to land interviews for highly selective positions, but also on how to put their best foot forward during the interview process. Here is what she tells them.

Interviews usually consist of an employer trying to answer three general questions about an applicant: Why is the candidate interested in the field? Why is he or she interested in the particular position and organization? What relevant skills and experience does the applicant have that would make that person successful if given the job?

As Ferns tells her advisees, it’s an applicant’s job to answer these questions during an interview, whether the interviewer asks them directly or uses a more indirect approach. Good answers to these questions, she said, can give an employer an understanding not only of why you want to work for him but also why he wants to hire you.

The best way to prepare to answer these questions is to do research about the company. “You should be able to tell an interviewer who the major stakeholders in a company are, know if they have any new, very large accounts or any other recent news developments that concern the company,” Ferns said. “The more informed you are, the better able you should be to answer questions about the company.”

Knowing what’s going on in a company will better prepare you to tell an interviewer why you want to work there, how it will help you advance toward your career goals and how your skills can help the company meet its goals. The best way to learn more about a company is to read up on company news, browse the company Web site and talk to anyone you know involved in the industry.

Ferns tells her advisees that just being well-informed and knowing how your experience fits is not enough. You have to be able to deliver that message clearly. One way to practice for an interview, Ferns said, is to talk in concise blocks about your experience, your skills and why you want to work for the company. By knowing the points you want to make beforehand and having a general framework for how to deliver them, you are more likely to say the right thing when the time comes.