**I am a member of the Career Collective, a group of resume writers and career coaches. Each month, all members discuss a certain topic. This month, we are talking about what job seekers can do to ready themselves for the interview. Please follow our tweets on Twitter #careercollective . You can also view the other member’s interesting posts at the end of the article.

Scenario: You spend weeks, even months looking for a job. You have networked to the point of knowing just about everyone on the planet (or at least their relatives), attended more association lunches than you care to admit, prepared the perfect resume on perfect resume paper, attended numerous job fairs, and finally interested someone to offer you an interview. Whew!

For as long as you have been looking, it’s not uncommon for the phone call requesting an interview to come with very little prep time. You may be asked to interview that day, or even worse, in a few hours. So what you can do you prepare?

In this rugged job market, it will pay for you to make sure you are ready to respond at a moment’s notice. Competition is fierce, and the more you can prepare in advance, the better equipped you will be to impress them at the drop of a hat.

So how do you set yourself apart from the crowd? Talent just won’t do it anymore. You need to have the entire package of credentials, skills and personality to impress those doing the hiring.

First, make sure you’re ready to go at a moment’s notice. Dress in business attire every day of a job hunt. Always start your day with all the prep you would take if you had your dream job. Keep a briefcase or portfolio at hand with pens, spare copies of your resume, business cards, a CD of your portfolio to leave with the employer, and any other items that will be useful in an interview. Keep these stocked up and ready to grab and run out the door with.

Bone up on the company you are applying for. But don’t think that all your information should come from the Internet. Often times, the local libraries have many resources you can’t find online. The annual report of the company you’re wishing to be hired by may not be accessible in any other form than actually going into the library and searching the card catalog.

To learn about the financial stability and history of your future employer, find a Standard and Poor’s report to really educate yourself on the inside of the company. Dun and Bradstreet is also a great resource for this information.

Use what you learn in your conversation during the interview. You won’t have to be prepared to give a lengthy report, but dropping these hints lets your future employer know you do your homework, which in turns says you will go the extra mile for them.

With the advent of social networking, you can find out a lot about the interviewer. Learn about their professional experience and background, and groups he or she may belong to. With this information you can have an even more in depth conversation that will establish a connection with the interviewer that others might not create.

Articulation is always the key for in person interviews. Prepare what you want to say. Don’t be afraid to practice your talk in the car on the way to the interview. Break your presentation in the parts you want to focus on. Begin with being personable and having an interesting opening line. Don’t hesitate to begin with small talk, knowing where you are going to take the interview.

This preparation will put you on the offensive and give you more control when you actually get into the interview. As you practice be aware of your body language, facial expressions and what you are going to wear. Create some answers in advance to questions you are sure to be asked. Identify you strong suits, be honest about your weak areas. Don’t be too glowing, but don’t paint yourself in a disparaging light either. Try to create a balanced perspective of yourself, always leaning on the positive.

And lastly, never speak poorly of your former employer. ‘Nuf said.

Check out what the other Career Collective members have to say about this topic:

• Sit Down and Panic. The Interview is Yours @GayleHoward
• How to Stand Out in a Job Interview @heathermundell
• Avoid These Reference Mistakes @DawnBugni
• Unspoken Secrets of Job Interviewing Prep: How Your Nonverbal Presentation and Behaviors Impact the Impression You Make @KatCareerGal
• Prep for Interviews Now: Snuff out the Elephant in the Room Later! @chandlee
• What Should Job Seekers Do Now to Prepare for an Interview @erinkennedycprw
• Take a Ride in the Elevator Before You Interview @barbarasafani
• Are You Ready for the Elephant in the Room? @WorkWithIllness
• “Tell Me About Yourself” (Oh, Yikes!), @KCCareerCoach
• The job interview as a shared narrative @WalterAkana
• Prepare your references for job search success @Keppie_Careers
• No Pain No Gain In Job Search and Interview Prep @ValueIntoWords
• Job searching? Take a cue from the Boy Scouts @LaurieBerenson
• Preparing for Career Success Starts with Interviewing the Employers @JobHuntOrg

Gone are the days of searching for a job the old fashioned way… knocking on doors.

Today’s job seekers are leveraging the power of the internet to network with colleagues through online profiles, make connections with decision makers, and apply for jobs through a company’s website online.

Social media is changing the landscape of how people relate to each other. Before the advent of keeping track of people online, it was harder to maintain an extended network. Now, it’s possible to catalog all the people you’ve known through previous jobs – and to keep in touch with them as well. This has had numerous impacts on the workplace, and how people get jobs.

In the early days of the internet, people would search job boards. Monster.com and Yahoo!Jobs were touted as the hot new thing, and these job boards were huge for the recruitment industry. Here was a (relatively) cheap way to reach thousands of people across the whole world with news about your job opening. While still extensively used, job boards seem to have fallen to the baseline. They require little to no personal interaction to apply for a job. On the recruiter’s side, they often have to deal with spam bots which send out limitless replies to job advertisements. Not as bad as spam bots, but still very annoying, are people who apply on every job on the board, regardless of how qualified they actually are for the job. The entry-level recruiter who spends their day sifting through hundreds of applicants for an administrative assistant’s job is practically tearing his/her hair out.

Now, a lot of recruiters are on Facebook, and there are some people who exclusively advertise job openings they’re working to their Facebook friends. This is helpful, because friends can direct their friends to connect with recruiters – and people that are recommended for a job are much more likely to get it than a random faceless applicant.

Twitter is another way that job news is getting out. Subscribing to a Twitter feed is an easy way to get information on a job – even if it’s only 140 characters. A job title and a few keywords are often enough information for a job seeker to determine if they’re interested in an opening.

LinkedIn, which is a site dedicated to professionals looking to maintain their personal business network, is also another place that has exploded with opportunities. At first, LinkedIn was just a way to keep track of people – now, you can post pictures, presentations, your blog posts, Twitter feeds, daily ‘status’ and so much more. LinkedIn is ripe with job opportunities.

At first, people created groups for job-seekers. Then, recruiters made groups through which they would post openings. Groups such as, “Jobs for Software Developers” attracted only the niche market they were going after – people who were looking for software development jobs, and friends of people who might be interested. LinkedIn capitalized on this phenomenon by creating a job board integrated with their website. Now, people can pay for a job ad, and have their links recommend their friends for a job. I am going to stop right here with LinkedIn. You all know how I could talk about its benefits 24 hours a day.

What has made social media a great outlet for finding a job is the fact that the internet has changed from a broad scope to a niche marketing tool. Take advantage of it.

I read a lot of blogs. A lot. I want to read even more, but it gets overwhelming when I see my Google Reader overflowing with unread blog posts. So, I got to thinking that if I did it for “research” it would actually be job related. Yes, I am justifying my blog reading addiction. But who cares.

I’m not a professional reviewer obviously, so I am just going to give my thoughts on the blog and how it helped me, how it might help you, or just why I liked it. Some will be career related and some not, because let’s face it, not every thing I read is career related. Gasp!

You never know… my next review might be YOUR BLOG!

So, without further ado, I give you….

HealthcareITCentral.com by Gwen Darling

There are so many reasons why I love this blog. But first, a little background on the company and Gwen herself.

Having met and gotten to know Gwen through a mutual connection and eventually a collaboration,  I have watched HealthcareITCentral.com grow and expand its reach in just the short period of time that I’ve followed it.

Gwen is a matchmaker. Professional matchmaker that is. Her company successfully pairs the perfect candidate to the perfect company. HealthcareITCentral.com finds and offers job openings, places for candidates to upload their resumes, search engine to perform company research, networking, articles, and more. It is chock full of resources to help any Healthcare IT job seeker find what they need. What’s more, the other side of the website is for employers LOOKING for candidates. They are able to peruse the database to see who matches which position. Everything a Healthcare IT professional needs in one interesting site.

Gwen’s blog is housed under the Healthcare Informatics site, the #1 trade industry publication for the Healthcare Informatics industry. Her blog goes from delightfully funny, “When it comes to your Resume, are you a Flasher, a Streaker, or an All-Out Nudist?” or “I’m talking to you Mr. Pimp Daddy CIO” to thoughtful “What Job Seekers can learn from Farrah” . Her clever blend of useful information and feisty humor makes her blog an entertaining read and one of the top on the site. Job seekers outside of the Healthcare IT industry can benefit from her posts as well, as they do not all relate to the healthcare industry. Many of her posts are stories or things that she has encountered and we can all relate to (think “When limp becomes memorable”), and that shared connection is what keeps me coming back for more.

I look forward to every one of Gwen’s posts. Always insightful, never boring. If you want to read, laugh and learn, check out Gwen Darling’s blog. You won’t be disappointed.