How to say 'Give me a job!' at an interview

When you go to an interview and just say "Give me a job!" it's very likely that you'll be commended on your frankness and be asked to close the door behind you as you leave.

Like the old song goes, it's not what you say, it's the way that you say it - and that's especially true when you're sitting across the table from someone who's either going to welcome you into the corporate family or scratch your name off the shortlist.

Saying "Give me a job!" in so many words won't convince the interviewer that you're the right person for that job, whatever it may be, so you'll have to find a different way of making that demand.

You'll need to show that you're serious enough about the vacancy to have done more than to just have re-read their recruitment ad a couple of times and left it at that.

And how to do that? By demonstrating how much research you've done on the company (and if you can commit that research to memory so you don’t have to keep looking down at notes, so much the better).

Some facts that many other applicants won't have bothered to check include:

• When the company was founded - and who founded it
• How fast - or how slow - it's been growing from then to now
• How many branches or offices there are in the UK and overseas
• Who the company's main customers are, what they buy and how much they contribute in terms of revenue
• The company's most recent annual turnover figures (and for extra brownie points, how they compare to previous years and future predictions)
• The company's plans in the short, medium and long term

And when it comes to your interview, there's not much point in rattling those facts off like you're reciting a times table - you have to be a lot more subtle than that.

Yes, you can drop them into the conversation every now and then, but you'll impress the interviewer much more if you use those facts as the basis for questions about how they'd affect you personally during your career with the company.

And that's going to make an excellent impression, because many people tend to forget that an interview is a two-way process. Yes, the interviewer is there to find out whether you're the right person for the company ... but you're also there to find out if the company is the right one for you.

Now, it's true that you may have to do a bit of digging around for those facts, but that time will be well invested. Think about it - if you do your research, get offered a position and stay at the company all your working life, the math speaks for itself.

Let's keep the numbers simple and assume you're on £20,000 for each of the 45 years you work there. That's a fairly impressive £900,000 you'll have earned - at the very least.

And if you spend an extra three hours doing your pre-interview research, that works out to an hourly rate of £300,000.

And you’ll never get an hourly rate like that by just walking into the interview room and saying “Give me a job!”