Congratulations! You have secured a job interview to work for a growing startup, you have always been yearning. Given the call, now you are just a bit closer from your dream job. The next step is, how you should prep yourself to nail the interview?

You might have heard that startup offers ground-breaking culture that differs much from the corporate culture. But what does it mean for your job interview? It means that you have to change your strategy. If you apply for a corporate, you should prepare yourself to fit in the established culture. However, when you are devoted to join a startup, you have to get ready to be the creator of culture itself.

During the startup job interview, your interviewers (sometimes including the CEO himself) wants to find out how you can contribute actively for the organisation growth. They want to know what you can do for the rising venture, as well as how you can adjust yourself in the small team. From your perspective, it is critical to ensure that you will not spend the next three months complaining about heavy workload and likely below-market pay.

Despite your commitment to join the startup life, you should know the company culture and gauge its scalability to succeed in the future. If you think that you possess, the skills and attitude to make a great candidate for the startup venture, here are several key points to help you prep up for the job interview:

1. Know the company workings

This might sound ridiculous, but a lot of startup applicants actually do not know much information about the company they are applying for. If you don’t want to be one of those candidates experiencing failure in their career journey, arriving unprepared for an interview assuming a startup might have not high hiring standards, then you could be wrong. It is important that you should do your homework well.

Do a thorough research about the company background, the founders, vision, products, and even market competition. This step will prove that you are genuinely interested in joining the team.

2. Use the product

Being a user of the startup’s products will give you better insight about the company. No matter what job role you are applying for, it will not hurt to use the products before coming to the interview.

Find out value of the products, and what makes it superior among other competitors, and find out improvements that can be made. Even if you cannot use the product owing to one or many reasons, you should research about the product on Internet.

3. Propose your idea

Now that you have used the product, what do you think about it as a customer? Do you have any better idea to improve upon the product? Is there any feature that you want to build to make it better?

Startup founders want to hire someone with exceptional vision and great ideas who can bring tangible development for the company. During the interview, you can share your thoughts and ideas regarding product development.

4. Ask smart questions

Great leaders love to be asked smart questions. At the end of the interview, they usually allow you to ask questions. Use this opportunity to ask anything you want to know about the company. Don’t be afraid of asking even slightest details, such as their biggest challenges, or fun activities by the team over the weekend.

These questions will not only demonstrate that you are an enthusiast to join the team, but also provide helpful information to consider, when you finally get the job offer.

5. Be honest

This might be obvious, but you should always be honest in startup job interview. Don’t sugar-coat your background or experience, as the interviewers will check and verify the credentials. It is human to have weaknesses, and you should convey them to your potential employers while showcasing your willingness to scale up.