So you've figured out your employee type, now it is on to the right job. Next up: the dreaded interview.

For some reason, I have never really dreaded interviews. It might be because I am a conceited bastard, but I think there is another reason. I have always held that interviews are a two-way process. It is always important to remember that you are interviewing a company just as much as they are interviewing you.

This is good for two reasons: 1.) Nerves and 2.) Long-term happiness.

When one goes into an interview with the mindset that the company needs to impress you just as much as you need to impress them, it has an amazing calming effect. This calm helps clear your head and your nerves so that your answers are more confident and precise. But it also helps you ask them the right questions as well.

The other reason this is important is because we often forget in the job search how large of an impact a job has on one's life. Usually out of desperation to find employment, we forget that we will spend more time at work than we will with our family and friends. And while it might feel secure to find employment at the first offer, if you don't interview the company correctly, you'll likely find yourself in a similar situation that you were in before.

A while back I was solicitated to take a job outside of my current employer. I had some phone conversations. I was tempted. They flew me out. I talked with people in the organization. And it was clear within 10 minutes of being there that I was interviewing them, as appose to the other way around. Now you might be saying to yourself, "yeah, but Andy, that's different. They wanted you to come. They were pursuing you."

This is true. But here's the kicker. The most important interview I had in making that decision wasn't at the new company; was the one with Allen back in April of 2005.

Allen's church was of course interested in me working or they wouldn't have flown me out. But I had no grand reputation with them. I was just some punk kid from California looking for a post-graduation job. It was, in the truest sense, a job interview.

But the two-way conversation that took place in that Waffle House on that early morning not only helped me realize Mount Pisgah was where I needed to go after college, it also helped me realize that I needed to stay put once there.

Since graduating from Azusa in May of 2005, I have been offered 11 jobs - both ministries and private sector companies - all around the country. Including some who were offering impressively more money. But not one conversation I had with any of them have ever been more impressive than the conversation I had at Waffle House. That's the power of a two-way interview.