Did you plan ahead?

	"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail"
	--Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the United States of America

The significance of planning couldn't be more plainly put than it was by Benjamin Franklin. The goal may be as big as winning a battle or as small as interviewing a job candidate, but the course to success always starts with effective planning.

In fact, for an organization, interviewing a prospective candidate is nothing less than winning a battle—a battle against its competitors to win the best resources available. The outcome of a simple mistake in the hiring process can be catastrophic, with the person whom we wanted to work for us now working against us. Further results of my previously mentioned survey indicate that more than 72 percent of interviewees felt that the interviewer had not properly prepared. This had an impact on the respondent's decision to move ahead with the process in 58 percent of cases.

In the case mentioned previously, the lack...