Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

You are on the right track. You need to do your homework. What online information (traffic, visitors, etc.) can you scrounge? Can you contrast their site to their competitors (again, with any relevant analytics)? What can you discern about "company sentiment" from online social media references? What about comments on their blog (if any)? And don't forget to also ask them for more information about their past efforts, and future plans.

What you'd love to communicate is that (1) you have excellent judgment, and (2) you are willing/eager to take the initiative (to act on your excellent judgment). If you can leave the partners with that understanding you will have done all you can do. Everything else is just a rehash of your skills, knowledge and technical qualifications.

Want more about this? Check out: https://amzn.to/WWp0r4 "Beat--the-Odds Interviews, by Dr. Melvin Sorcher

Of course, as Jay points out, you still have to do your homework and demonstrate that you take this very seriously, as you would the job if you get it.

They asked you to give a short presentation on what I intend to do in the first 150 days. You responded that you would spend that time analyzing the company website and get to know the customer base.

If this is really your dream job and dream company, you really should do whatever analysis you can do before the interview and see what suggestions you would have for digital marketing improvements based on that analysis. Are they on Facebook? Are they on Twitter? Do they have email newsletters? Sign up to follow all of them and see how well they are doing (as best as you can tell from the outside)? Review the website and see how it looks and if anything looks funny or if you'd have suggested improvements. Things like that.

You won't be perfect and you have limited access to the data (being on the outside), but show that you are proactive.

What do you know about the structure of the company and the people you work with and report to? You can use this to add another dimension to your presentation. Good luck!

The interviewer is looking for focus, attention, insight, and vision.

He or she is looking for vitality, commitment, and guile.

This person wants to know if you're the kind of employee who will hit the ground not just running, but sprinting. You need to project the feeling that you get it, that you're all business, and here, I mean ALL business.

You need to show them what you'll do for them, how you'll do it, how you'll deliver it, what value it will add and how soon, and what you've done for other people.

Ten to fifteen slides. Six words of text per slide MAXIMUM. Better still, images that capture and that hold people's attention. Your notes can be on 4" x 6" postcards as bullet points but what you must NOT do is present the same frigging kind of PowerPOint presentation that EVERYONE else does (15 bullet points per slide in type that no one can read, 140 words per bullet point, which the presenter then reads out, word-for-Goddamn-word, as if the audience are imbeciles!) ... please ... if you really want this job, DON'T do this kind of presentation.

Instead, tell them a story. Steve Jobs always did a great presentation. Likewise Seth Godin. Find examples from them and then emulate their style (and that's emulate, NOT copy).