One of the reasons why I came to admire John Krafcik (besides the fact that he’s a tremendous car enthusiast and extremely easy to talk to) is how well prepared he can be for most situations. And I came to find this well before I had the chance to meet him (at the Cars and Coffee meet last year in Irvine, CA) when USA Today wrote a piece on him as he joined Hyundai as their new CEO.
The entire article is quite brilliant, and shows that he’s a true enthusiast at heart and has the know-how and experience to back up his right to the CEO chair at Hyundai Motor America. But when talking to undergrads, his concept of preparing for a job goes far beyond what I’ve personally seen at an entry-level position.
Most people go in with a resume. Some actually research a bit about their company before coming in (which in today’s world should be the minimum that you do before going into an interview). Some even go as far and see some accolades or awards that the company have received in the past to praise the company in its accomplishments. But John Krafcik takes it a step further:
“For the job interview, Krafcik had presented a detailed PowerPoint assessing Hyundai strengths and weaknesses. ‘He had an understanding of where the company was and where it needed to be,’ says consultant Bob Cosmai, former U.S. CEO for Hyundai. ‘John wanted to be involved in a lot of things.'”
“Yes, but he has experience and can do these things, while I don’t even know where to start”
That’s a myth. You’d be surprised the kind of information you can find online nowadays on a company and it’s competitors. It does take a bit of digging, but the internet is a fantastic source of information. News outlets, social media, company profiles, etc. It can definitely be time consuming, but let’s be realistic: you’re interviewing with the company that can potentially pay your bills for the foreseeable future: what’s 10-20hrs worth of work to ensure that you can blow someone’s mind away at the interview?
And it’s almost fool-proof when applying for entry-level positions: if your presentation is accurate and demonstrates a proper understanding of the company in the market, you’re hired. If not, you already showed enough hunger, commitment and conviction to whoever is interviewing you that you are a hard-worker and that you’re using all means available to you to put together one hell of a presentation… and that alone can get you very well hired.
Read the article, get inspired, and stay hungry.
See the full article here