By Ken Siegal

First, and really encouraging -- several people I know who have been job-hunting have been landing interviews lately. Hopeful for these folks, hopeful sign for the economy.

But the question of how to "ace" an interview always comes up, especially because there are so many types of interviews and interviewers. There's a lot of good interview advice available, but let's start with some important, but easy things you can do:

1. Prep, prep, prep. You really need to know everything about the company that you're interviewing with -- who they are, what they do, how they do it. Anything you can't easily find out, consider that a question you should pop at the interviewer.

2. Defend without being defensive. If there's anything in your resume that's at all out of the ordinary, be prepared to talk about it. Maybe it's a question about being laid off, or a question a big project you said you coordinated. Again, prep, prep, prep.

3. Consider the opportunity. The questions (from a good interviewer, at least) will be designed to expose your strengths or weaknesses -- what have you been doing since the layoffs, other than job-hunting? Did the big project overwhelm you? Your answers will say something about how motivated you are, and your body language (as you digest and answer the question) will say a lot more about attitude.

A while back, after being caught up in some massive layoffs in the tech industry, I was in a second round of interviews with an interesting tech company. As we finished up, the interviewer told me something which stuck with me. He said that -- unlike most of the interviews he had been conducting with folks who had been laid off -- there was no tension, bad body language, no deer-caught-in-headlights feeling in the room. He said it felt like a couple of people just sitting there, talking normally, and it made him feel very comfortable (not a bad thing in an interview).

4. Leave an impression. Usually I hear that you're supposed to get the interviewer to talk as much as possible during an interview, which makes sense up to a point. Yes, you want to get a better feel for the job, the manager, the company, and yes, you want the interviewer to feel as comfortable as possible (who doesn't feel comfortable talking about one's self?) But the key is still to leaving an impression (hopefully positive).

If you don't make the hiring manager understand who you are and how you're different from all the other applicants, then you've likely missed your chance to get the job.