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Hello everybody, my name's Meagan. I'm a Graduate Assistant here at the Career Development Center
and today I was going to offer you some quick interview tips. First thing's first,
before your interview date even arrives, you need to make sure you've been preparing
yourself. So what does that mean? You need to be making sure you're doing research about
the company itself, so who they are, what they do, who do they do it for, what do they
stand for, those types of questions. But also the position that you're applying for, so
make sure you review that job description. Look online to see if you can find out who
else is in that role. Find out as much information as you can because you don't want to walk
into that interview completely unprepared. Also make sure that you know what you're going
to wear that day and make sure it fits, make sure it's clean. Make sure you know where
you're going and how to get there. Those are big things that can help to relieve a lot of anxiety
on the actual day itself. Now, when you get into the interview, almost every interview
is going to start with one basic question, which is: "Tell me about yourself." Now, a
lot of students will try to go the "blind date" route, if you will, but you don't want
to get too personal with the "tell me about yourself" information. So don't go into about
how you're frustrated with your boyfriend or your girlfriend, or how they forgot your
anniversary, or how you're stressed out because your dog is sick or anything like that. What
you want to make sure you tell them is who you are, what your degree is in, what you're
studying at school, when you'll be graduating, how you found that position opening, but also,
how you even became interested in doing what you're trying to do. Why are you interested
in working for that company in particular? So those are some things you should keep in
mind when you're trying to tell the employer about yourself, and that answer should really be
between 30 and 60 seconds, tops; you don't want to ramble on too much. Other things that
you want to be aware of in the interview: you want to make sure you come with plenty
of examples of how you've performed in the past. So employers will ask what we like to
call "behavior-based interviewing questions" which are going to start with, "Tell me about
a time when." So what they're trying to do here is figure out how you've behaved previously
in order to predict your future behavior. So tell about a time when you had to work
on a team, tell me about a time when you accomplished a goal, tell me about a time when you potentially
failed. So these are all questions that you might want to come prepared with, using examples
from your previous experiences in order to answer those properly. So give that some thought.
Try as best as you can to anticipate what kind of questions you might get during this
interview so nothing takes you off guard. At the end of the interview, always make sure
that you come prepared with questions for them, because even though they're evaluating
you, you're evaluating the potential employer as well. You want to make sure it's a great
mutual fit for both of you. So jot down those questions ahead of time, have them written
down in your padfolio so when it comes time, you look prepared and you're able to ask meaningful,
thoughtful questions. Your first interview is not a good time to ask about vacation benefits
or salaries, but think about the hiring time line. So when should you hear an answer, what
would training potentially look like, what would be some of your first projects on the
job? Those are really great questions to ask at the end of an interview. And then finally,
after the interview is completely over, make sure you thank your interviewers for taking
the time to talk to you. A handwritten note will remember, one, who you are and the conversation
that you had, but also, two, simply express gratitude that they took the time to do that.
That's kind of an overview of some of the more general interview tips that we have.
For more information, please explore the resources that we have available on our website.