In the last year I have interviewed a lot of great candidates with horrible "interviewing" skills. Some off the top of my head:

Don t be late. Period. 5 minutes at least. If you aren t familiar with the area, build in 30 minutes or more. It is much better to sit in your car in the parking lot playing Words with Friends for 20 minutes than 1 second late. Be in the reception area 5-10 minutes early.

Don t be unprepared. Google the company, find out what it is they do. Be aware of what job you are applying for.

Don t be under-dressed. There is no reason to not wear a suit and tie (equivalent for women) to an interview, period. Its an entry level job though . Who cares? Worst case scenario you look good. Best case scenario you impress your hiring manager. But its a tech company, people are wearing shorts! Have you hear the saying Coffee is for Closers , ie perks are for those who win? Shorts are for Employees. There are very rare exceptions to this rule, infrequent as Sasquatch riding Nessie in Atlantis.

Don t be a jerk. This can apply in a couple ways Don t blow off an interview (happened 2 weeks ago, just never showed or bothered to let me know why), don t tell me the position is dumb (happened last year), etc. In a national survey, 85% of HR execs and hiring managers felt that Millennials (born between 1982-2004) feel more entitled than previous generations. The interviewing company owes you nothing and in the first interview, your job is to convince them that you are worth pursuing.

Don t show up empty-handed. Have a copy of your resume at least, and please, let it be the same one you sent me 3 days ago.

Have questions for the interviewer. Let s face it, if you haven t researched the company, don t know exactly which of the 300 jobs you applied for this is, etc., you probably don t know what question to ask.

Turn your cell phone off. Not vibrate. Off. For the next hour there is nothing more important than this interview.

Follow up. They said they would follow up next week, but they didn t. Oh well, I didn t want the job that bad Lies. People are busy, send a quick email or call and let them know you are still interested. I had an interview once that I was really excited for. I got all gussied up, drove over an hour to a big high-rise in downtown Salt Lake City, and did a great job on the interview. At the end I asked what the next steps were. The two ladies looked at each other and said Huh we hadn t thought about that. It will probably be a couple weeks. Needless to say, I didn t expect any response for them. The truth is, the person interviewing you may have this hiring decision as item #25 on their to do list and they may push it off. There is a fine line between persistence and annoyance, find the right balance.

i just published this on my personal blog, There is a little more on the link below:

http://youshouldwrite.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/college-grads-guide-to-interviewing/