Interviewing protips.
Strong handshakes, looking people in the eye, being yourself, and making sure you come prepared with copies of resumes and stuff are all good and all, but I'm a huge believer in people getting things when they practice the living crap out of them. So...
1) Know yourself. Brainstorm and come up with 3-5 key ideas, themes, about yourself. Things like ways you overcame adversity or a problem, or examples of how you took a leadership role and succeeded. For those 3-5 key ideas, write out and rehearse the story, anecdote, theme, whatever -- make sure you can take about any one of them in a brief, coherent way (with a good story arc) spontaneously.
2) Find interview questions, ideally those specific to the industry. I know that in the legal field, there are books, websites, resources with lists of typical interview questions. I bet there are the same for the finance industry or whatever.
3) Record yourself reading those interview questions.
4) Sit your ass in front of a mirror.
5) Playback the questions one at a time and answer them in front of the mirror. With the mirror, you can make sure you're maintaining eye contact, not gesticulating too much with your hands, and you can look out for any other weird things.
Pros at interviewing figure out when answering each of the questions (aside from the introductory stuff), how to steer each question into the same 3-5 stories you have. That's the trick. You might get four different questions from four different people and if you have your ish down, you will answer them all with the same story about how you were in a huge crisis but your team looked to you for leadership, you delivered, and the client was thrilled. Of course you're not going to repeat the same story for any one interviewer, but the idea is, with enough preparation, you steer the interview. You know exactly what message you're sending to them (the value you add to the organization), and regardless of the question, you're gonna find a way to hammer that in.
6) If there are any problem areas (gaps, getting fired), you gotta think of a appropriate way to explain it (don't diss former employers) and prepare yourself on cooly and calmy answering it. Prepare this the most.
7) Extreme Interviewing Protip. This is advanced technique, but psych studies show that "mirroring" is a very effective way to get people to instinctively like you. If you generally follow and mime their movements, it sets off subtle positive cues. It has to be subtle and natural though -- that you follow their movements a short time after (and not instantly). If you're not confident you can pull this off naturally, best leave it alone.
