Interviewing Session at BC

As I mentioned earlier, I was asked to attend a Practice Interview Night at BC, which took place tonight. Looking back at the email, I must've been really tired that night because it makes perfect sense to me now. Anyway, I was forwarded the resumes of the three students yesterday that I would be interviewing with at 6, 6:30 and 7 pm. I had already prepared a list of general interview questions I thought were good in terms of likelihood they would be used in a real interview.

Then I took a look at the resumes and realized that all three were juniors in CSOM (BC's School of Management) and two were students from other countries who were only spending this year at BC. My honest thought at this point was that they must've been struggling to get enough CSOM alumni to attend and resorted to getting the Comms major (that being me) to fill in and handle random students. Interviews in general make me really nervous, even the thought of sitting on the other side of the chair, so I made sure I studied the resumes in detail, highlighted all the relevant questions on my prepared sheets and thought long and hard on what the most useful advice to give.

And as it turns out, the practice interviews went well. At first I was thinking that I should maintain character as a real interviewer for the whole thing. But I ended up going with what felt natural for me and what I thought would be best for each student. I coached them along the way, asking them questions and giving my thoughts on whether it was a good response or how I would present the facts that were stated in their resume. I'd like to believe that I actually did some good - all my interview sessions ran long and I think they each walked away mulling over new ways to approach their next interview. Time flew by and all of a sudden, it was 7:45, I was the second to last interviewer left in the room and my throat was dry. Not only was it good to put all my Monster career knowledge to use but it felt really good to be helping the students. I think I definitely could see myself working in a university setting some day.

And as for the parting advice I gave to the students and that I'll leave you with are:

• Dress professionally for every interview - it's always better to be overdressed then underdressed
• Arrive early for the interview, it keeps you calm (rather than being nervous about being late on top of everything else) and gives you time to review your notes on the company
• Prepare for the interview by researching the company - this should go beyond scanning a company's website and should go into things like their annual report, their news headlines for the past 6 months, a competitor analysis, etc
• Prepare questions to ask the interviewer, answers to the most commonly used interviews questions and specific examples from your school/work experiences to support your answers and familiarize yourself/become comfortable with them before the interview - this goes a long way in combatting nervousness
• Write a thank you note. Most interviewers consider an email thank you perfectly acceptable but I like writing handwritten notes to catch an interviewers attention. They should have a short reminder on why you feel you're right for a position.

I feel like most of these are common sense but I know that when I was in their shoes a long, LONG time ago, I wasn't aware of these tips and it never hurts to reemphasize them. Can you think of anything else that has worked for you?