Which Personality Type is More Prone to Success

Which Personality Type is More Prone to Success There are many different types of quizzes or questionnaires nowadays where you get a result that’ll tell you something about your taste in food, or who your favourite band are. There are then more superstitious things such as horoscopes, where some people read them every month to find out their fortune for the next four weeks. How ever you may feel about these, and whether you believe in horoscopes or not, there are more scientific personality tests which use psychology to determine your personality type based on your personality traits, which have been developed over many years to make sure that they’re as accurate as possible. The psychology behind it This was a theory originated by Carl Jung, a world-renowned psychologist, around 1921. He believed that all individuals have a personality type, and these can be broken down into categories of two: that there are two ways we function which are how we perceive things, and therefore how this affects how we make decisions; that we can either perceive information through our intuition or through our senses; and that we can make decisions based on subjective feelings or objective logic. He then defined eight different personality types from all these factors. Katharine Cook Briggs then developed this idea around 1944, and built upon Jung’s work by exploring the importance of judging and perceiving. She came up with four categories of operation: how we like to make decisions, how we take in information, the normal day-to-day routines and lifestyle we enjoy, and our flow of energy. She then put four categories within each of these initial categories, so that we prefer to be either: thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving, sensing or intuitive, or extraverted or introverted. This theory has been agreed as the modern-day idea of personality types. Personality pigeon-holing? Of course not everyone will strictly fall into a category, hence why each personality type has four different sections to it. However, since there are now sixteen different types it is agreed that these will accurately describe everyone, and the broad spectrum of everyone’s personalities. While there may be some overlaps, these personality types are concerned with our natural strengths, as opposed to our less-preferred functions. It’s important to remember that these personality types are based on how people deal with the external world every day, rather than in extreme circumstances or occasions. Personality  pop quiz There are many practical applications for these personality types, rather than it just being fun to see what result you might get on a quiz. In education, this can determine how you should be taught and what methods will enable you to learn as much as you can, while in the workplace it can determine what types of tasks you should perform, and where you’ll find the most satisfaction in a job. It can therefore be quite important to work out what personality type you are, to help you through various stages of your life, ensuring they are suited to you as much as they can be. This infographic from Colonial Life tells you all there is to know about these different personality types, from the famous names who fall under each one to the personality traits of each type. Did you know that Barack Obama has the ENFJ (Extraversion Intuition Feeling Judging) personality type, which makes him ideal to be the President of the United States, as ENFJs tend to prove to be inspiring leaders. Take a look at the infographic below to find out more about these personality types, and the personality traits of celebrities such as Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Mark Zuckerberg. About the author: Jessie Avery is an insurance agent and representative of Colonial Life. They regularly provide advice and opportunities for small business owners. This infographic was created by Colonial Life.

How to choose between passion and pay

How to choose between passion and pay Everyone wants to feel passion about their job, but passion and pay do not always go hand in hand, and often they are inversely related. The trick for many of us is to figure out how to balance the love of our life with the food on our table. Bill Hewett is the bass player for the band, the Modeles, but he does not consider himself a big risk taker when it comes to putting food on the table. So he knew he was in trouble when fire was banned from street performances on his favorite street for performing. Before that, he had been making $500 in a weekend juggling flaming rings. It wasnt easy work, he says. Id have to stake out my spot at 8 a.m. even though I didnt start juggling until 6 p.m. I used to let other performers have my spot until my show began. The best juggling spot was a place a few jugglers have held for forever, and if you dont get a big enough crowd, they hassle you for wasting their space. So my spot was at a newsstand. After the fire ban, his income fell and he had to supplement it by working at a grocery store. But when the juggling season ended in the fall, the salary of a bagger didnt cut it. So he took a computer job at the New England Foundation for the Arts. Bill didnt really have all the skills the company needed, but the company didnt have the money to pay for the skills they needed, so it worked out well for everyone. Barbara Reinhold, a psychologist and the head of the Career and Executive Development Program at Smith College, encounters people with the passion-pay dilemma at all levels of the workforce. Theres no escaping the need to do what you love as part of your paid or unpaid work, she says. But like so much of life, the secret is in the timing. And Reinhold recommends that people make money first and then follow their dreams, as long as youve been careful not to grow your tastes with your income. Many people spend and spend to try to forget that the lucrative work theyre doing doesnt really fit them. This unfortunate condition usually results in a bad case of the golden handcuffs. Young people who make a deal with themselves about eventually going where their hearts would lead them and live frugally can have a much easier time of it than those who forget the frugality, or those who dont develop the skills and discipline required to make money until later in life. I ask Bill about the possibility of postponing his dreams of being a musician, and he says he cant imagine not making music. Id do it anyway, he says, for myself. So I want to see where I can take it. But its clear that his dream has limits. He makes $34,000 a year as a computer guy, and I ask him if hed leave the job if he could make $40,000 a year touring with his band. He says no. He is certain he could make a lot more money as a computer technician in the future. And he sees it as a job he could keep his whole life, and grow with it. He sees the creativity required to solve computer problems as similar to the creativity involved in music. And he is more skeptical of life on the road: I couldnt live off that $40,000 a year for more than a few years. Right now, I dont worry about food, but sometimes I worry about strings for my bass. It is no small feat to get band members to talk to a career columnist. A bass player explained that it would be death to her image to talk about her job to the press. And Bill himself cited a friend who has actually worked for years as a consultant to save a truckload of money and is now spending six months focusing on his band. Dont mention his band, though. Hed be embarrassed if people knew he owned a condo. Meanwhile, the Modeles continue to make headway in the hyper-competitive world of almost-breaking bands. Bill is a modest guy. When I ask him how he knows his band isnt a dud, he says, When we play in upstate New York, people get excited to see us. Of course, the music industry is not known for signing a band to a label after hearing them in Utica, but one guitar player (who said his band is gaining traction in the underground and therefore cannot be mentioned in an above-ground career column) reports that the Modeles are well-liked by people who have jobs.

A Guide to the Future of Work, with Josh Bersin

A Guide to the Future of Work, with Josh Bersin We recently sat down with Josh Bersin, the Founder of Bersin by Deloitte, to discuss where he believes the future of work is heading towards, and what the most important aspects to consider within that would be. Tell us about Bersin by Deloitte and what you do there. We study all aspects of HR in the workplace, as well as leadership and HR technology from a research perspective. We talk to thousands of companies, we do interviews and surveys, and we try to figure out what are the best practices, and what is really working in companies to drive performance and employee engagement. Every year I do this and something new comes up. So theres always something to talk about because of the impact of technology at work, the impact of business cycles and the way business is operated is changing. We were acquired by Deloitte in 2012, so were now a business inside of Deloitte Human Capital in the Deloitte Consulting Organization. But were still independent, so we do our research on our own, independent of the consulting organization. Why is the future of work important? Right now, theres a huge conversation about this going on and a lot of it is driven by two things.  First is the political issues around income inequality and low productivity, and people are saying, Why is this happening? At the same time, artificial intelligence, robotics, and technology is advancing at an almost exponential rate. So people are saying, What is happening to the workforce and how does the workplace adapt to this new digital world that we live in? What will work look like over the next couple of years? Will we all be replaced by machines? Will we all be talking to our computers all day? Will we even have jobs? Thats really kind of the discussion thats going on. Ive been studying this very, very aggressively for the last year and a half. I had to give a couple of big talks on it.  Jobs are going to change and organizations are getting much flatter and people are getting much more connected. Were all becoming more augmented by technology, whether it be our phone or our computer, or some AI software. They are making our jobs different but theyre not necessarily making them go away. I mean, in the United States, were now reaching a fairly low unemployment rate and the jobs that are being created are actually more human jobs and less technical jobs. You would think that with all this technology entering the workforce that were all going to become software engineers. But actually, the opposite is happening. The jobs that are being created are actually jobs that focus on the essential human skills: listening, convincing, selling, communicating, designing and curating. Actually, there are now jobs being created to monitor and train robots, for example, to help AI systems get smarter. Healthcare is requiring more jobs in the service industry. We just did some research  that shows that there is a really massive influx of technology; 45% of the companies we just surveyed said that they expect our company to be fully automated within the next 3 to 5 years, whatever that means. So theres lots of technology being acquired. But as that happens, new jobs are created. The one example Ill leave you with on this one, and this is the one thats been written about the most but its very relevant. In the 1980s, when I was young, entering the workforce, we had the beginning of the automatic teller machine and the branch bank was expected to go away. They were expected to shut down branches. There would be no more branches. Wed all be doing banking electronically. But what happened is as we learned how to use the automatic teller machine and we became more familiar with online banking, we all started doing many, many more transactions online to the degree that we do thousands of things online with our bank that we never dreamed wed be doing, requiring us to go into a branch to ask people questions when we wanted to buy something, when we wanted to change something and when we had a problem. So there are actually more branches by far than there were in the 1980s, and more tellers, and more jobs. Now theyre not the same jobs. Theyre not transactional jobs, theyre human interface jobs. But thats a perfect example of how technology in the future of work adapts to what the workplace is and how it changes jobs. Theres many, many examples of that. So its a big topic and consulting firms are concerned about it, big businesses are concerned about it. Im getting lots of speeches and talking to lots of clients about it all the time. Is there a way that people can future-proof their careers? The big thing for us as individuals is we have to be comfortable with continuous reinvention and continuous learning. If youre a Java programmer and you were a hot commodity in the year 2000, youre not a hot commodity today. So you had to learn new programming languages, you probably had to become more of a full-stack engineer, you probably need to learn a little bit about AI. If youre a designer and you havent learned about modern design and video, youve fallen behind. So it doesnt matter what your job is. You have to be comfortable continuously learning and reinventing yourself. So I think thats the biggest issue. Its scary for people because if you look at the earnings, the potential you have to make money, something thats hot for a couple of years suddenly isnt hot. You may find yourself in a job where somebody younger than you knows things you dont know and suddenly all of your tenure isnt worth as much as you thought. So were really in a marketplace of continuous learning and continuous reinvention. The place where this is particularly hard is if youre in a geographic location where a company moves or picks up shop and moves a manufacturing plant, maybe shuts it down or outsources it or moves to another city and you cant move, you may find yourself going from being a manufacturing worker to a healthcare worker. Thats difficult to do. I mean, a lot of people are very uncomfortable with that. But that would be my number one recommendation dont be afraid to reinvent yourself. Ive reinvented myself at least five or six times in my career. Its really like surfing. You catch a wave, you ride it into the shore, and then youve got to be able to paddle back up and catch the next one. Were all going through that multiple times in our life now. What should organizations be thinking about? Well, we just wrote a big report on this at Deloitte Human Capital Trends but I would say that there are really two things to consider: One is to redesign the organization around teams and networks, not around a hierarchy. In the world of work today, the digital world we live in, people interact in small teams and they can share information and collaborate instantaneously anywhere. So the idea that you have to go to your boss to get permission to do something and then you have to ask your boss all the time and that your boss actually knows what youre supposed to be doing, thats not actually the way the world works anymore. Theres been a radical change; 88% of the companies we survey, just three months ago, and this is more than 10,000 companies, said that they are trying to redesign their organization for the future, change the roles that people have, change the structure. Basically, what it comes down to is creating more of a networked organization. The second issue is that were in a strange period of time where we havent all figured out how to use the technology we have productively. Were happy to use it and were spending a lot of time on social media whatever it may be. But were not getting more work done. Productivity is only growing at about 1% to 1.5% a year. A lot of people are concerned about that in the U.S. and in Europe. So I think organizations have to do a lot of work to create a meaningful, productive employee experience. In HR, that means doing away with the once a year engagement survey and getting very, very close to all of the employees needs and focusing on the individual journeys and the individual obstacles we have to getting our jobs done. We have a framework for that which we call Simply Irresistible that explains it. I think this is going to be a major theme for HR departments over the next couple of years making the workplace more productive, simpler, and more meaningful to people. That also means focusing on wellness and health and not just business productivity, but human productivity. What can we do to be better, really aligned personally with work so that we dont get fried out from our 24/7 always on work experience? So those are the two things that I think organizations really need to focus on right now. What is the societal impact of the future of work? Theres healthcare, minimum wage and income guarantees. A lot of interesting ideas, theyre floating from different sources: from economists, from politicians, and from business people. So if you could think of thousands of examples of this. Somebody who has to change jobs, change roles, change careers and change cities. Will I have the health care to do that or will I be stuck with my old job because I cant afford to get a new healthcare program? Will I be able to get educated and will I get credentials for my education? Will I be able to afford the education? If I need to go back to school and spend $50,000 on a degree, how am I possibly going to pay for that? Will I get paid a reasonable wage? The fourth point is about inclusion. The future of work is a networked organization where many people work part time and many people work full-time. We all need to listen to each other as equals regardless of race, gender, age, political background, religion. So I think another part of the societal mission is to create an inclusive culture so that the work environment that we live in and work in and make money in supports us no matter who we are. Things are changing very fast and many of the fastest growing economies are in Asia, India, China, and soon Africa.  If we dont have a sense of inclusion of people that are different from us, that will also impact our ability to evolve. So those are big topics on the political agenda. Theyre not easy topics to address but I think many, many people are talking about them now. What are some of the top implications for employers? Well, I think number one is your organization. I hate to use the word best place but is it a place to work where people feel that they can achieve their individual goals? Are you going to be able to achieve your goals in that role? Are you going to make enough money? Are you going to get some healthcare? Are you going to get some training? Is there some future? Is the environment going to fit your lifestyle? Is it flexible? Thats number one. Number two is learning. I dont think there are any companies that will be around for a long time that doesnt provide online digital learning experiences for their employees. I mean, theres the traditional learning of onboarding, learning how to do a new job, learning how to use the systems at work, learning the compliance rules at work. But then theres the, I dont know how to do this job and Id like to get better at it. Who will help me? Who are the people that will help me? Do I have a coaching environment at work to help me? Thats number two. Number three is leadership. Traditionally in many large companies, the way you became a leader was by paying your dues, by putting in the time and you eventually reached a point where you were promoted. That doesnt work anymore. Things happen too fast. We need to promote people into leadership roles based on their expertise, based on their followership, based on their alignment with the culture. It doesnt matter how old they are or how long theyve been in the company. In fact, the way I like to think of it is your credibility is based on your experiences, not your experience. Just because youve been in the company a long time doesnt mean you have the relevant experiences to make you good at the job youre doing or to lead the project that youre leading. So we need to rethink leadership models and create what we call more of a digital leadership model. Digital not meaning technical but more agile, experimental leadership model to allow people who are maybe the subject matter experts or the spiritual leaders of the company to lead where necessary and not only give it to the people that have been around a long time. So those are the three things I think are very relevant right now. What does it imply for employer brand management? I mean, employment brand, even the word brand is a little bit of a misleading term. It used to be that employment brand was building a nice website and building a career page and promoting how great you are. Thats still important but less important than ever. Your employment brand reflects how you treat people because your employees can go on websites like Glassdoor  and they can talk about what its like to work at your company. If its not a good place to work, people can find out about it regardless if its on your website. So I think the essence of a great employment brand is to seriously invest in your people and think about your people as your number one product. I dont think theres a business left where people are not the product. I mean, even if youre an oil company and youre drilling and pumping oil out of the ground, without the right people, without the right safety, without the right culture, youre not going to be successful. Its certainly true in airlines, healthcare, hospitality, retail, in technology industries. If youre not creating a great employment experience, people wont innovate, they wont stay. So employment brand is really a part of thinking about the entire employee experience and making a continuous investment in your people and staying in touch with people when they leave. Were in a world now where 50% of millennials will live into their 100s. So there is a good chance theyre going to leave your company and theyre going to talk about your company and they might come back later to work on a project or they might refer to your company. So part of employment brand today is taking a long-term strategy on the relationship you have with people who have left your company so that they continue to be brand advocates too. Then there are all the wonderful things that weve done for years. Employment branding on your website and having a great employee experience and then promoting that. But I think thats less important today than just being a good employer and making sure youre taking the employee experience seriously. Connect with Josh on LinkedIn.

Clash of Generations at the Workplace - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Clash of Generations at the Workplace - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career The generational gap is getting much bigger nowadays especially at the workplace.  Younger generations want rapid change and more opportunities to show their personal brand while older generations generally prefer to keep the status quo or prefer a slower change after making sure that all of the risks are mitigated. Technology is changing much faster these days compared to thirty-forty years ago. As a result, everything around us is changing and our needs and wants are changing. However, some corporations cannot keep up with the pace of this change and this reflects on their sales as well as on their profits. The number one reason why corporations fail to change rapidly is the mindset of people working in that organization. Some of you may blame the corporate bureaucracy but don’t forget that it is up to the people in that organization to create or eliminate the bureaucracy. Usually if the organization employs younger generations like Gen Y or younger members of Gen X, then that organization is much more courageous and more eager to change. However, if the organization mainly employs baby boomers and elder members of Gen X, then the change can come much slower. If the organization employs all of the three generations, then there is usually a big clash among the members of this organization. In order to avoid these conflicts and to be able to work in harmony, all of the three generations should respect each others’ opinions and try to understand each others’ perspectives.  Older generations should understand that change is necessary and everything cannot always stay the same. For example; the computers that we had in 1980s are much different than the computers we have today. Similar to computers, corporations cannot stay the same as well and they need constant change in order to adapt to the rest of the world. Also, older generations should respect t he fresh ideas of younger generations to old ways of doing things and should not put these ideas aside immediately. On the other hand, younger generations should keep in mind that older generations are more experienced and they can analyze some of the problems better. Moreover, they usually have the know-how due to their experience and this can reduce costs plus improve the process. Both generations have advantages and disadvantages they bring to the table. The key is to find the advantages of each generation over each other and use them effectively in the right place at the right time. Author: Ceren Cubukcu  is a top 5 bestselling author of  Make Your American Dream A Reality: How to Find a Job as an International Student in the United States.  She recently founded her consulting business to help more international students find jobs in the US in addition to her self-service digital event ticketing platform,  Etkinlik Fabrikam  (My Event Factory), to be able to offer her webinars in her home country. You can follow her via  Facebook  or contact her via  www.cerencubukcu.com/contact.

Would You Rather Be a Baseball Team COO Than a Telecomm COO - Executive Career Brandâ„¢

Would You Rather Be a Baseball Team COO Than a Telecomm COO Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didnt do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. â€" Mark Twain Although the thought of transitioning into an entirely new career in mid-life may seem foolish, many people feel compelled to move toward working their passion. Somewhere along the way, progressing up in their careers, they lost their way. Theyre not being true to themselves. Their work may satisfy financial needs, but doesnt fulfill otherwise. Theyre feeling a certain emptiness. A friend told me the other day that her husband was thinking of a drastic career change away from the printing industry. This was what hed always done, and felt it was his career path, but it just wasnt working anymore. His passion â€" making beer. Hed always wanted to be a brew master and was ready to give it a go, but was having a hard time getting a foot in the door. I recommended these two terrific resources to help him explore, dream and discover: 1.   Vocation Vacations Brian Kurth (@BrianKurth on Twitter) created an innovative program that connects career transitioners with mentors working in the exact job they want, so they can test drive the job of their dreams. He has over 300 experts on board, representing over 125 careers, with whom you can partner and receive 2 days of shoulder-to-shoulder mentoring. Some of the dream job vacations offered include: Alpaca Rancher Antiques Dealer Archaeologist Baseball Announcer Boat Captain Brew Master Chocolatier Comedian Fishing Guide Flight Instructor Landscape Architect Pit Crew Member Shoe Designer TV Producer Vineyard Owner Voice-over Artist 2.   My Lifestyle Career Nancy Collamers (@NancyCollamer on Twitter) blogsite is loaded with advice and resources for people who want to make a change but havent reconnected with their passion and what they really want to do next. In a recent Career Reinvention Tip of the Week, Nancy wrote the post, Feeling Stuck? 6 Ways to Ignite Those Aha! Moments, in which she suggested ways to break through clogged brain connections, gain perspective, and find moments of revelation: 1. Quiet yourself â€" Scientific studies confirm that people who consistently practice mind-quieting strategies, enjoy increased self-awareness and creative thinking. 2. Activate all five senses â€" Engage your whole body to help out your head. Your endorphins will flow and act like roto-rooter for your brain. 3. Rewire your brain â€" Fire up your brain by shaking up your normal take a different route to work, try out a new place for lunch, go to a lecture on a topic you know nothing about. 4. Engage your intuition â€" Tap into the power of images and music to stir your soul. The visual and auditory stimuli can help open up your mind to new patterns and possibilities. 5. Reconnect with your inner child â€" If you want to recapture the can-do spirit of your youth, recreate your childhood by engaging in some of your favorite childhood activities. 6. Take a trip â€" Even if you cant go on a full-blown vacation, just a day away from your normal environment can help you gain much needed perspective. Related posts: Boomer Career Trends: The Graying of Americas Work Force Considering an Executive Career Reinvention? FREE eBook Thriving On Less By Leo Babauta 00 0

Buying vs Leasing The Ultimate Budget Battle

Buying vs Leasing The Ultimate Budget Battle Nearly every growing small business knows that one day it has to come out of the spare bedroom and migrate to an actual office space. The big question that these businesses shall face is whether they should spend the money buying an office premises, or whether they should spend their money renting a ready to go space. There are a lot of pros and cons to leasing or buying space, and it can be difficult to decide what to do. ultimately, you have to think about what is going to be the better decision for your business and what will suit your budget the best. You can make this decision with some input from others, but when it comes to your budget it’s got to come down to cold, hard facts. Here are those facts and in the form of pros and cons on whether you should lease or buy your office space. Buying Pros: You can make changes as you see fit. If you don’t like the layout, you can call in the experts at Hin Chong Lift Installation services and get the entire office made more accessible or changes in its layout. You are not limited to the changes that you make beyond your own budget issues. The costs in a buy are more fixed. There is no landlord to tell you that the rent is going to change and suddenly start costing you more money. Owning the office doesn’t mean you’ll be using the whole thing; you could choose to rent out desks to freelancers and earn yourself a little bit of an income. Buying Cons: One day, you could grow beyond your own expectations and end up being forced to sell your office space, which can throw up some difficulties in itself if it doesn’t sell in time. As with buying a house, buying an office has some upfront costs that you may not expect to be paying. This can include maintenance costs and appraisal costs, on top of a large down payment for the deposit. Leasing Pros: You can choose to rent an office space in a prime area to build your business up. If you can’t quite afford an inner city lease, you can move a little to outskirts and still find a lot of customers to sell to. You won’t have any cash tied up in the mortgage of a large office space, which can be crippling. You will, therefore, have more free cash to use. Leasing gives you far more freedom as your business increases or decreases to move where you like; you’re not tied down. Leasing Cons: Leasing can come with rent increases that can be rather crippling to the budget. You don’t need to stick to that, though, as you can move on if you want to. Leasing leaves you without any equity for a future retirement pot. There’s no right or wrong here, as it’s all dictated purely by circumstance. Choose wisely and don’t be afraid to hunt around for the best option for your business.

How to Prepare for a Successful Interview

How to Prepare for a Successful Interview No matter how many times you iron that navy blue suit, you keep finding a wrinkle! That wrinkle threatens to upend your interview as it mocks you with its crinkly wry expression. Spritz a little water on it, and try again. If not, grab another pair of slacks and your favorite dress shirt, and get ready to turn up the charm and confidence. You’ve got skills to sell because you do what you do so well. Here’s every tip to succeed in preparing for interview victory. Getting to Know the Company and Culture First things first â€" you need to know what you’re walking into here. Get to know the company and culture, so the conversation isn’t one way. The Internet Knows All â€" Almost Everything Scour the great wide web for all you can find out about the company, and find real folks to talk to about the company. What are their impressions of the company? Read news releases and articles about the company from multiple sources. Read reviews on Glassdoor from previous interviewees and employees. Don’t just glance at the company website or scan the social media profiles. Dig deep. Learn More About Who Who is the company? What kind of people work for them? Who is your supervisor, and who will make up your team? Lean into the staff listings and search names to see if you can find articles or blogs by the leaders and staff at the company. Read up, and take notes on what interests you most. You also gain insight into what it means to excel at this company. Interview the Product Interview the product before you head right into the meeting. Use and get to know a product the company sells, if you can. Now, you’re entitled to offer feedback and kudos. Glassdoor Reviews Don’t Dish Everything Think of Glassdoor as a guide because previous and current employees will all have mixed feelings about their work experience at the company, and some bad reviews aren’t all they’re chalked up to be. The internet will reveal a bad egg, the more you dig. Take it with a grain of salt. Gain Intel On the Interview Before You Go In Don’t go into a mission â€" interview â€" blind. When preparing for interview, the first step is finding out what you’re getting yourself into before you show up. Call in Advance for an Interviewer List Know who will interview you and other significant employees you will meet along the way, such as the person giving you the tour but not interviewing you. Use your sleuthing skills to learn more about them, and prepare questions for each interviewer to hone in on a common interest or relevant topic, such as their focus at the company. Ask About the Interview Format This is one of the questions you can â€" and should â€" ask before the interview. Know the interview types you’ll participate in since many companies offer different interview structures. You may do a series of single interviews or a group interview. You may get interviewed by your team and then a leadership staff. You may have to take a test. Take time to familiarize yourself with the style they choose. Kiss the Evil Wrinkle Goodbye â€" Selecting Your Perfect Interview Outfit It’s time to iron out your professional fashion woes. Here’s how to select your perfect interview outfit. Innovate the Dress Code Is the company more traditional or eclectic? Consider who you will meet and the environment you’ll be in â€" is the company tour more of a hike? Don’t be afraid to ask: “Should I arrive in a suit, or does the company prefer a more casual style?” While the culture may thrive on a casual vibe, you should still dress up a little more for your interview. For staunch business attire, visit a tailor to get the best cut for you. For men, style up with cuff links, snazzy shoes and a tie. Use a pop of color underneath darker clothes, or let fun patterns and colors show only in your accents. Build on basics. Polish and Pamper Once you select your innovated interview attire, clean, press and tailor it to your perfect, professional fit. Clean your nails. Keep makeup light. One statement piece of jewelry only, please. Nix loose hems and thread. Shine your shoes. The details factor into your first impression, so take the time to pamper yourself and destress, too. Printing and Pre-Game Preparation You have so much paper and no idea what to do with it all. Calm down and focus on printing what you need with these pre-game preparation tips. Five Copy Resume Rule Remember your interview list? Good. Print out a copy of your resume for each interviewer, with an extra copy or two, just in case. Regardless, a good rule of thumb is to print five copies of your resume. Make an Interview Survival Kit Time to make a survival kit. It should hold the everyday essentials and interview musts, such as a notepad and resumes. Printed directions with parking notes are helpful in the event your GPS doesn’t work. Don’t forget a stain stick and breath mints and a water for the ride. Organize your purse or briefcase, but leave what you can in the car. Review Your Career Timeline Don’t stress about memorizing verbatim answers or rehearsing questions too much. Know your story by reviewing your career timeline focusing on characters and setting. You tell your story well on paper, but you need to translate that into real life. Who knows you better than yourself? Study Early and Review Briefly Late Got technical tests to pass or questions to answer? Prepare early on, and limit the time you spend crunching beforehand. Limit reviews to an hour or two in the days leading up to your interview. You’ll stress less. Plan to Stall in Advance You will struggle to answer at least one question. What’s your go-to phrase to skip by dead air and gain more time? Part of it is breathing and pacing yourself â€" don’t be a nervous talker. Say, “That’s a great question. Here are my thoughts” If you need time to answer, just say so. Make a Cheat Sheet Make a list of what you’ll need to remember for your interview. Colored pens work wonders for organization. Put a copy where you’ll find it, such as on your steering wheel or your fridge. Slip one into your survival kit. Sleep Shut those weary eyes to let your brain process all of that information you reviewed. Let your mind ease itself from stress. Don’t go to the interview with bags under your eyes and your lips resembling that wrinkle in your once trusty navy blue suit. Now, stride into that interview with confidence. Follow these tips when preparing for interview success to make your best first impression and get the call you’ve been waiting for. For more interview tips and tricks, subscribe to Punched Clocks. Keep the conversation going by sharing and commenting. Get everything you need to build a career you love by signing up for the newsletter.