A job seekers guide to interviews: be prepared, dress well and don't blab.

• Author: Kalytiak, Tracy
• Position: HUMAN RESOURCES

Kari Sleight has talked to scores of job candidates during her nearly 11 years as the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman's publisher. Some impressed, others decidedly did not.

"I called in a candidate for an inside sales position interview," said Sleight, who also works as publisher for the Anchorage Press. "The young woman arrived about 10 minutes late for the interview, with her best friend in tow, and announced they were going to interview together and share the job because each felt the 30-hour work week was just too grueling."

Sleight has endured many other awkward conversations with prospective employees who didn't think ahead about the impression they wanted to give during their interviews, including one with an aspiring receptionist who chomped and smacked her gum so loudly--even while she was talking--that Sleight cut off the interview after 5 minutes.

How should a person prepare in order to make a favorable impression in that all-important conversation?

The most critical thing any hopeful job candidate can remember is that the interview dialogue begins when the company's hiring officer first begins reading a candidate's resume and continues long after the closing handshake in the interview room.

Employers and job-search experts say a candidate should enter an interview prepared to ask intelligent questions about the business and the position being offered. "Do your homework on the company ... and get a general understanding of what their business is," Sleight said.

Diane Bachman, office manager for Alaska Executive Search, in Anchorage, has been placing people in health-care-oriented positions for many of the 18 years she has worked for AES. She has interviewed hundreds of people and estimates that each of AES' five divisions places 10 to 15 people a month.

Candidates she interviews for clients either e-mail or fax their resumes to her. Bachman prefers resumes that are simple, and easy to read.

"People who do recruiting take 30 seconds to look a resume before setting it aside," Bachman said. "I don't want to see a flowery resume or their picture on a resume. I look for people who are articulate, who spell correctly, who use good grammar."

Bachman reviews the resumes that come in, winnows the field of people to a few she calls in to interview and then talks to each candidate, face-to-face.

"What I'm looking for is someone who is conservatively dressed, someone who is comfortable in their skin," she said. "My opinion is when interviewing...