Interviewing: positioning yourself to get the offer; A recruiter offers a series of suggestions and tips about approaching a job interview with a "sales mindset," and what to look for and react to during the process.

• Author: Rennar, Hank S.
• Position: Your career

It is important to understand that every interview, sales presentation or executive board meeting is fundamentally structured the same way. In most corporate meetings, as well as interviews, the participants usually engage in the following process: establish credibility, identify the objective or desired outcome, consider and evaluate options and solutions, evaluate potential shortcomings and concerns, consider ways to resolve concerns and, finally, implement a solution or plan of action.

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If you've ever studied the strategies of selling, you probably recognize a similar pattern in the steps of the sales process: build rapport, identify needs and desired outcome, address the needs, probe for objections, overcome objections, trial close and finally ... close the sale. Although a board meeting, sales presentation and an employment interview may seem like three totally different scenarios, they are very much the same. In each situation, individuals are attempting to influence others to achieve a desired outcome.

To successfully influence, motivate or sell a concept, it is necessary to follow the basic sales process. To properly position yourself in the interview, you must engage the interviewer's mind and heart by uncovering his or her needs and identifying "hot buttons." Successfully addressing the interviewer's hot buttons puts you that much closer to getting an offer, or, in sales terminology, "closing the deal." Before you engage the interviewer, however, you must be properly prepared.

Preparation requires several steps. First, build rapport and become familiar with the company you are interviewing with. Although knowing the composition of corporate assets, amount of debt, approximate size of the organization and other statistical data is important, it is equally important to understand the corporate vision, history, culture, values and how the company measures success.

In other words, you need to know where the company is today in its market, where it came from, how it got there and where it wants to be in the future. You can usually glean most of this information from the company Web site, corporate brochures, annual reports and investor relations. Additionally, Dun and Bradstreet and Hoover's are great sources for company information.

Secondly, it is important to know your resume, your career history and be able to tell your story. This will establish credibility. You should be able to verbalize where you've been...