How Would You Prepare for an Important Meeting?
If you are seeking a job as a Secretary or other related job positions, you may be asked an interview question, “How would you prepare for an important meeting?”
It is good you expect this question so that you will not be caught off guard. For experienced individuals, it is possible that they already have experience in how to plan and organize meetings. But for individuals who may be at their entry levels, may not have practical experience from which they can draw their answers. Notwithstanding, whether you are at entry level or an experienced individual, I am here to help you tackle the interview question in such a manner that will impress your interviewer.
Firstly, you need to understand the reason why you are being asked “How would you prepare for an important meeting?” Below are some of the reasons you may be asked the question.
• The interviewer wants to test your ability in planning and organizing meetings.
• He wants to assess the effectiveness of your meeting strategies and techniques
• The interview wants to test your planning skills.
• The interviewer wants to determine your ability with a good plan that will align with the company’s expectations if you are hired for the role.
So, how do you answer the question? First, let me assume that you don’t have any related experience in planning or organizing meetings. Don’t be intimidated by this question. The truth is that you have attended one meeting or the other before, even though you may not pay cognizance to it. Just to remind you. You must have appeared before a panel to defend your project at school. Even, if you didn’t do this, the fact that you are reading this article is a pointer that you are preparing for an interview meeting. This is part of the preparation experience you can easily use to answer the question.
The best approach to answer the question is for you to tell a story, explaining the situation (which is expected to be meeting-related), and what you did to ensure you succeed. Apart from your own personal story, you can also share the experience you gained from other people.
You need to understand your role in a particular meeting. If you are just attending a meeting as a participant, your level of preparation and involvement may be different from when you are the one to plan the meeting. Planning the meeting may involve scheduling the time of the meeting, providing the venue location and ensuring the place is conducive enough and setting the agenda with other participants.
A meeting usually involves more than one person. Therefore, you should be able to discuss how you ensure that all the participants are well notified about the meeting. Of course, it is expected that the notice of the meeting should not be too close to the date and time of the meeting so as to allow other participants to prepare well for the meetings. You should talk about how you intimate the participants about the purpose of the meeting by providing them with copies of the agenda. There is also the need to provide minutes of the previous meeting if the meeting is not the first meeting on the subject matter.
It is very important that you demonstrate your ability to pay attention to details. Taking notes during the meeting may be a good way to demonstrate that you are actually following what other people are saying during the meeting. A short pencil is better than a long memory, they say.
Please, don’t forget that the question is “How would you prepare for an important meeting?” Therefore you should focus more on the planning aspects of the meeting. For instance, since you know that you need to take notes during the meeting, as part of your planning, you need to ensure that you have all your writing materials ready. Knowing what organizing a meeting entails will provide you with a guide on how to answer the question.
