You may have heard that the music and entertainment industries are built on personal relationships. You’ve also probably heard that it’s a good idea to research the person with whom you’ll be interviewing in order to find some commonalities and create a bond to increase your chances of getting hired. But where does this practice cross the line into brown-nosing, or even worse, stalking?
My advice is this: instead of spending your efforts researching the interviewer, spend that time researching the company and figuring out which challenges it faces and ways you can help it overcome those challenges. That is what will most impress the person interviewing you. Besides, when being considered for a job, you may go through several rounds of interviews with several different people and therefore will not have the time to research each person. You may not even know who you will be interviewing with until you actually walk in to the interview.
This does not mean however that you cannot make small talk during your interview when you happen to notice that the interviewer has in her office a medal for completing a half marathon and you also ran a half marathon. Feel free to bring up any noticeable commonality or area of interest when it feels natural to do so, but don’t gush about or dwell on the topic. Share a little chit-chat about the topic and then allow the interviewer to direct the conversation and move on to the purpose of the meeting. Always be yourself and never feign interest in something you know nothing about just to try to impress the interviewer.
If you do happen to know ahead of time the person with whom you’ll be interviewing, it is okay to check out his or her LinkedIn profile to see if he or she happens to have listed anything in the personal interests section. This is appropriate since LinkedIn is used specifically for professional networking purposes, but do not cross the line into his or her personal life by immediately friending him or her on Facebook. Only bring up the fact that you noticed his or her interests on LinkedIn if the conversation heads in that direction or the opportunity to mention it arises.
The bottom line is to always remain professionally friendly and genuine in your interview conversations and focus how you can help the company be successful.