general guide and tips

If you’re reading this in preparation for an upcoming interview, that means you’ve already made it the majority of the way to the finish line. The company is actively spending money by delegating employee time to interview you, which means you’ve already met the required qualifications and (for most companies) don’t need to perform like a rockstar to “impress” anyone. Many people overthink it from here and end up squandering all of the work they put in prior to this point.

context

Step into the shoes of the interviewer and think about things from their perspective for a moment.

The number one question the interviewer has to answer is “do I want to work with the person I’m interviewing?”.

The goal is to make them think “this person is someone I need to have on my team”, and avoid making them think “I would hate my job if I had to work with this person”. Interviews are much more focused around getting the interviewer to like you rather than making them impressed with you. Do their job for them: check the boxes they need to check off and get them to like you.

Because of this, avoid coming across as arrogant or cocky.

If you don’t know something, be honest and showcase willingness and ability to learn, or mention current areas of emphasis in school that will help you acquire the knowledge they’re asking about.

There are some variant of these two questions in almost every interview:

Tell me about yourself/your experiences, or walk me through your resume (both variants should essentially have the same response)
Why do you want to work for _____? Why do you want this position?

For STAR-based behavioral questions (tell me about a time when ____ or any question you can answer with a scenario), structure your response to answer all questions asked before starting; sometimes you’ll get asked 5 different questions that you have to answer in one response. It’s okay to take a second before responding, so long as you look like you’re thinking about your response. Some options:

Look up at the ceiling with a thinking face
“Hmm… that’s actually a great question, I’ve never really thought about that. Let me think rq.”

S - situation

T - task

A - action

R - result

Build a bank of situations or scenarios that fit the key areas that STAR-based questions cover.