It’s been a while hasn’t it? I apologize to my readers as it has been too long since posting anything. I’ll blame my job as I’ve been working countless hours these last few months.
With these countless hours have come many things. We have been hiring like crazy in my human resource office and I’ve seen a lot of people come in for various things. Often, we have people come into our office for interviews. Sometimes HR sets up interviews, other times managers of departments will set them up unbeknownst to us. We love to interview people so it is great to get all of this talent through our doors.
I have one piece of advice for you to take with you on interviews or meeting anyone in person really. Know who they are. Remember their name. Memorize their name.
I cannot tell you how many times I have spoken with someone in the last few weeks that has no idea whom they are to interview with. I promise that not knowing who you need to speak with does not make a very good first impression.
By not knowing who you need to speak with in a company, it makes the secretary or HR in my case hunt down your interviewer. It shows us a lack of responsibility. Now I am expected to know who you need to speak to. With our massive hiring it is hard for us to keep track of so many interviews all the time. If you know who you need to speak with right away it shows your interested and that you can listen. It is awesome hearing that in our office.
To be clear, if you mispronounce a person’s name you’ll probably do just fine. There is always that one person with a difficult or different name that you cannot say correctly. Don’t worry about that, at least provide as many details as possible about the person if you know think you’ll pronounce the name wrong. 
Believe me, I am bad with names so if you are anything like me you’ll need a trick to get around this. If I know that someone could be calling me to set up an interview, I always have paper and pen ready. If you are job seeking, make sure you always had that pen and paper ready, you never know when someone will call.
When you get a phone call make sure you write down the names of those you’ll interview with. Ask the person on the phone, it’s okay to do such. Write their name down and memorize it. Let’s take this a step further…..
Once you get to the interview you will of course recite the name of your interviewer to whoever sits at the main desk. Once you do such keep repeating the name(s) in your head. When your interviewer meets you he/she will always look to introduce themselves to you with a handshake. When the interviewer says their name, repeat it back to them.
Interviewer: ” Hi Kendra, I’m Jeff, nice to meet you”
Me: “Hi Jeff, it is very nice to meet you too”.
I’ve taken the time to not only memorize the person I’d be interviewing with but now I’ve put a name to a face and repeated it out loud to myself (even though it sounds like a pleasant exchange). Now that I’ve verbalized that connection I have made it easier for me to remember their name going forward. Believe me, when you interview with more than one person, this can really come in handy.
Kareer Building with Kendra 