How Much Time Should You Spend Preparing For A Job Interview?

We talked last week about what you should go over to prepare for a job interview. How much of your time should you invest in practising for your interview, though?

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Over at finance blog Free Money Finance, one interviewee suggests that if you want to get a high-paying job, it’s only reasonable to invest several hours into the interview preparations:

The most important thing I can stress and do stress to everyone is to spend as much time as possible honing your interview techniques and learning to negotiate salary. Every time I am looking for a new job I read articles on Free Money Finance, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and other blogs to get help refreshing my resume, preparing for my interview and negotiating salary/benefits. I don’t understand why people will spend 40 hours a week for 3 years to get a promotion/salary increase and not spend 4-6 hours preparing for an interview and getting a 20% or more increase in salary immediately. If you are very bad at this (you know you are) then you need to take a class/hire a coach. It will be the best money you ever spend on your career.

As an example. My first job out of big 4 I was making ~56k in salary. My initial offer, from a job I didn’t take, was 58k. Using simple negotiation techniques I read for free online I got a final offer of 70k plus a commitment of a full year bonus package (I was starting in September). That is a 25%+ increase by just talking. What is an easier way to make 14k+?

Of course, if you’re still in the pavement-pounding phase of your job search, four hours per interview could easily turn into a full-time job. However, preparations for a promising interview are obviously key to getting paid the salary you want. So, how much time should you spend on a single interview? Furthermore, how should that time be distributed between researching the company, practicing salary negotiations, and honing your own answers?

Six Figure Interviews 6 [Free Money Finance]