Sunday, November 7, 2010

Interview Etiquette

I might have misspelled that word - etiquette...But anyway. Here's a topic few people spend time on, but is nonetheless an important one. For me, it was one of those make or break scenarios during my first interview. Call it silly, but I had forgotten my shaving razor when I was at my very first interview, which I didn't realize until the morning of the interview. By the time I found a store that carried one (apparently, Boston encourages people to grow beards by clearly consciously limiting the number of personal hygiene stores) I was almost late for the interview. I arrived a bit late, hurried and long story short it affected my mood the entire day to the point where I wasn't 100%.

So, let's get back to theory. You have gotten your interview invite. You're stoked. Now what. Let's assume you've researched the types of questions you are asked and you have done EVERYTHING to the max. All you have to do now is show to the adcoms that you are not a gorilla (although they are very gracious creatures) and you are golden. Easy, right? WRONG. I've seen things, interviewing, that made me cringe. I'm not going to give examples. Rather I'll guide you through a day of the interview. Disclaimer: This is my opinion, as usual. You can take it or think I'm crazy.

Dressing up. For girls it's a bit difficult for me to say, because even after living in San Francisco for a couple of years, I'm still not sure as to the standards of women's fashion when it comes to business vs casual vs biz-cas. When it comes to guys, it's simple. Two piece suit and tie. No if's, but's, or anything else. and make sure your tie is the right length. Call me superficial, but when a guy who aspires to be a DDS, where precision of dimensions is everything, comes in a tie which is 5 inches away from the belt, something doesn't sit right with me.

Haircut - the only thing I will say on this matter is that I've sacrificed my pony tail a week before interviews to look professional.

Great...I just got paged. I'll finish this later...cheers