Good Preparation is the key to have a successful, productive interview is. It is vital in turning a one-sided interview into an opportunity for you to show yourself.

The following checklist is not meant as the definitive guide but hopefully will help you think of ways to differentiate yourself, show your fit with the role, company, culture and ethos and hopefully make you ask more questions of your executive consultant so that all your questions can be pre-resolved leaving the interview itself free of discovery and more about your suitability for the role and client:

1. You should ask for confirmation including, date, time, address, and initial details the people that you will be meeting.
2. Is the interview formal, informal, onsite, offsite?
3. Ask the executive search consultant what they think the client might ask, and what kind of person they are looking for?
4. Visit the corporate website to know the company's history, product, competitors etc.
5. Explore beforehand how your skills, experiences, training and education can be employed and add value to the position and company.
6. Practice key interview questions and answers with another person: prepare the answers according to STAR (S= Situation, T= Task, A = the Action you took, R = the Results). Simply is the detail that you solve the problem.
7. Always plan travel arrangements a few days in advance and allow plenty of extra time for potential delays. Enter the employer's offices about 10 - 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled will be consider very polite and punctual.
8. Take extra copies of your resume, certificates, references (just in case) etc.
9. Write down your executive search consultant's number and the company's number in case you have to ask for a delay.
10. Dress smart and professionally, make sure your appearance is clean, professional and neat.
11. Take a pen and paper with your pre-written questions from your research and make notes. Give firm handshakes, maintain eye contact, be interested, and show enthusiasm.
12. Smile, smile, smile, in the right time.
13. Be truthful. Don't rush to simply say the right thing, be honest.
14. Listen, take notes and don't be afraid to ask reasonable questions.
15. It is important to thanks and follow-up with the people you met. A quick email for the interviewer is sufficient.
16. Post interview, call your executive search consultant for discussing the process and follow up, let them know your honest opinion of the interview, the people and your intentions and your motivation to continue in the process.

Some tough questions of the interviewers

We've listed following questions for your preview, please think about the question and prepare the answer very carefully before the interview.

     Part A: General questions: 
             What's your most advantage and weakness? And give me an example
             What's the biggest challenge for your job?
             What's the reason for you to change jobs?
             What do you want to apply for this position? (Or why are you interested in this position?)
             What's your career plan for short-term and long-term?

     Part B: Questions for working experience: 
             How have previous jobs equipped you for greater responsibility?
             What was the hardest decision you ever had to make, and how did you handle it?
             What caused you the most problems in executing your task?

     Part C: Questions for teamwork & stress: 
             What kind of people do you prefer to work with?
             What is one thing a teammate can say to you that is guaranteed to make you lose confidence in him or her?
             What's the reason for you to change jobs?
             How has your tolerance for accepting mistakes from your subordinates changed over the years?
             Say your supervisor left an assignment for you in your in-box, then left town for a week. You can't reach him and you don't fully understand the assignment, what do you do?
             Can you recall a time when you were less than pleased with your performance?
             What risks did you take in your last few jobs? What was the result of those risks?
             How do you explain the diversity of jobs you've had? The positions don't seem to be in a logical progression (for job hoppers).
             Tell me about a time when you were disappointed in your behavior.