Page 96 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

sure there are absolutely no embarrassing YouTube clips of you
from the last o≤ce party!
Preparation – whether it’s researching on the Web, down-
loading information, studying accounts, doing competitor
analysis, or talking to former colleagues – is fundamental to

the job-finding process. It is absolutely critical. I would almost
say that if you haven’t done the research, don’t bother turning
up for the interview.

But if you have done the right preparation – and if you
have done it well – when the shortlist is being drawn up, the
company will remember you as the applicant who put in an
extraordinary amount of e≠ort and work.
This was a lesson I had to learn. When I first started work,

I didn’t know any of this. I had no concept of the importance
of preparation and research. In the beginning I relied too
heavily on force of personality, rather than substance. When

I walked into an interview, I tried to wing it. And as a result
my hit rate was not that good. I might have gone for seven or
eight di≠erent interviews in order to land one job. But each
time I changed jobs, I tried to learn from the previous experi-
ence and improve my attitude. Part of this was the fact that

I didn’t really know what kind of career I wanted to pursue.
I had an idea in my mind, but I couldn’t identify what it was.
If you’d asked me when I left school which industry I would

go into, recruitment would have been the last one on my
list. In fact, it wouldn’t even have been on my list, because
I didn’t know what it was. When my first job didn’t work out,
I moved on to another sector, and each time I changed jobs

84 get the job you really want