This paper lists a dozen to-do things that many young management professionals can benefit from as part of their interview preparation. It aims to look beyond a set of standard instructions given to candidates appearing for interviews. It stresses on the importance in the difference of the recruitment process between a normal organization and a flagship company that has made it to the global list of ‘Top 50 Brands to Work For’ on Glassdoor or Forbes or CNBC. It looks into what makes a candidate a probable hire for such brands. It also addresses certain errors or mistakes that are viewed a lot more seriously by such companies and measures one can take to avoid them on the big day. A conscious effort was made to keep the language of the article simple and the tone a tad informal, ensuring the audience can connect to the various aspects of an interview by seeing their own self in various examples and instances cited.

Varun (name changed on request) is a marketing professional with 10 years of experience in the field. From an entry level executive he has worked his way up with a good balance of hard and smart work and today he is a General Manager of a prominent Multinational Corporation (MNC). He is an avid reader, a good communicator, a guitarist, a basketball player and a person with charming social skills. With a solid bunch of recommendations, a resume that boosted his visibility and an internal referral, he set out to get a job in his dream company—the world’s most popular search engine. The result of this endeavor was not as promising as his candidature was. Google rejected him after a mere two rounds of interview. Beyond good communication abilities, an interesting personality and one’s professional standing, flagship companies across the world today are looking for something more. Let us, for our benefit, call it the ‘X’ factor. The ‘Big Four’ in any growing industry place a lot of importance on their human resources, which is why their recruitment process is termed the toughest of all.

Glassdoor has released a list of the 25 companies with toughest job interviews for the year 2013 (http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/glassdoors-top-25-difficult-companiesinterview- 2013/). This list has been compiled after consultations with the current and prospective employees of these companies. The length of the interview process and the average difficulty rating of the interviews contributed to the rankings. Here are a few names from the list that could very well be your dream company – McKinsey & Co., Rolls-Royce, Google, Procter & Gamble, Avaya, Microsoft, Nvidia, Facebook and Caterpillar. The common factor in the recruitment process for all these organizations is that every round of interview with them tests the X factor in you.

Soft Skills Journal, X Factor: What Big Brands Look for in You, Top 50 Brands to Work For, Multinational Corporation (MNC)., McKinsey & Co., Rolls-Royce, Google, Procter & Gamble, Avaya, Microsoft, Nvidia, Facebook and Caterpillar.