How to Ace Boston Consulting Group Interview

Congrats, you got the interview! Here are some useful tips before you get in! Note to self...

1) Make sure you have answers to these questions:

a) Why the course you are studying?

b) Why Consulting?

c) Why BCG?



2) Train your brain!

a) Do some simple sums without a calculator. None provided in math test.

b) Do some estimation like what is 498x397?



3) The essence of consulting =

a) Cost cutting!

b) Look for the fixed cost, this is unchangable

c) Look for variable cost like cost of acquisitions - this is where consulting is applied!


4) Structure your responses, suggestion:

a) If it is a yes and no answer, you have 50/50 chance to start with! Why yes or why no?

b) State the real problem

c) State the evidence

d) Give some recommendations


5) Time, make sure you think fast using the above!

Don't guarantee success, but hope it helps! All the best to you!

Boston Consulting Group Interview, London!

Oh sheet! First interview of the year and why did it have to be BCG!

The stupid me did not know that BCG is one of the most established consulting groups in the world, working for governments and all other huge corporations. I also did not know that the company had 70 offices around the world.

Ranked among the second best consultancy firm to work for, I think i should be preparing for tomorrow!

If you are interested in how to do well to their standards, read this!

Unfortunately, first interview i screwed! Sheet!

Oh well, note to self:

1) Train doing math without using a calculator
2) Do not trade in the stock markets the day before
3) Actually practice all answers and the interview
4) Prepare for Why this company and why consulting questions!

Hopefully I remember all the best interview practices

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Never too late going over them, except that it is 9 hours to my 9 am interview!
Time to Zzzz!

How to ACE Citi's Numeracy Test

Just did Citi's numeracy test. It is anything but a numeracy test. For all of you all who already done it, appreciate some feedback!

But seeing that 12 minutes is not enough  (trust me) for such a huge table of information, you will need preparation!

Yes, so my recommendations for applying to Citi is:

1) Come up with a ficticious CV and not your real name. Use another email account to correspond. Make sure its a good one such that they send you to the numeracy test.

2) Get invited to the numeracy test.

3) Do the test on your ficticious account.

4) Print screen every question. (and circulate it on the web if its legal)

5) Practice the questions and the format.

6) Now go apply with your real CV and email address, and do the numeracy test over again! Ace it and proceed to the next step!

Now that is preparation. Beat that Citi!

Good luck!

Exxonmobil Interview Questions!

Yay! Just had my Exxonmobil interview on the Phone!

Can't say how well it went but I can tell you what did they ask!

So here it goes!

1) Analytical skils are important in the things we do. Give me an example of a time that you showed good analytical skills.

2) Problems can potentially have many solutions. Give me an example of a time when you had to decide between two solutions to a problem.

3) People have different perspectives. Give an example of a time when your perspective differed from someone elses.

4) Give an example of a time when you had to motivate your team.

5) Give an example of a time when you failed or almost failed.


Strategy to answer the questions!

First is the type of questions. Read my blogposts on interview skills for each type of question.

Question 1 is a technical skills question.
Quesiton 2 is also a technical skills question.
Question 3 is a team work question
Question 4 is a communication skills question
Question 5 is a biggest regret question

Secondly, how to answer them!

Follow this simples structure, Remember PREP STAR

Point - eg. I am good at analytical skills
Reason - I do reseach, find out more things than needs to be done etc.
Evidence -
     Situation - Give a situation, what was going on? How about a story?
     Task - What did you need to do?
     Action - How did you handle it?
     Result - How was the out come?
Point - make the point again!

Following these simple rules will take you miles! All d best!

Citi and Barclays Capital Graduate Recruitment Site

Dear graduating peeps, I know some of you are already applying to or have applied to graduates programmes at the big names like Barclays and Citi. 

I was really weird when I opened both sites and I noticed something really strange... Okay, here is the one from Barclay's Capital...

and here is the one from Citi Group...

 

Verdict?

What you missed at Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS CV Clinic

Recently, on the 8th of November 2010, the Chemical Engineering Department was for the First Time visited by a major bank. The Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS organised a CV clinic for the students in the department.

A presentation was held which showcased the type of work that graduates will be doing within RBS and in particular how engineers fit into the organisation. We then adjourned to the CV clinic in the design rooms.



A senior recruiter at RBS, Ms Ana was there to look at each CV one by one and scrutinise the contents and layouts of the CVs. If you did not already know, one graduate position will receive 10,000 applications so it pays to be competitive!



A proper Chem Eng style CV clinic, there were food and drinks! Today, we had sandwiches and light refreshments.



Rarely seen, Jacky is the Treasurer for Chem Eng Soc and is listening NOT PAYING ATTENTION to the useful hints and tips right from the person who will be reading them later!



Overall, these are what RBS is looking for from graduates:

1) Academic Qualifications (2:1 and above)
2) Team working skills
3) Initiative aka know everything about the company
4) Commitment and Drive
5) Entrepreneurial Skills
6) Communication skills
7) Adaptability
8) Cook well under pressure
9) Decision making ability
10) Analytical Skills
11) Problem Solving Skills

Evidence should be provided to support your claims in your CV! Note: These prerequisites are in the above order.

The rewards? Starting salary of GBP 55,000 per year or roughly RM250,000 per year.

Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS Application Questions!

 Why do you believe it is the Right Time for you to join the GBM Markets Programme?
Please use this section to talk about what you know about the GBM Markets Programme and how this fits with your career aspirations.
(2048 characters / 250 words max)
  
Why do you believe RBS is the Right Place for you?
Please use this section to outline what you know about RBS and what makes it an attractive workplace for you.
(2048 characters / 250 words max)
  
What strengths and experience do you have that make you the Right Person for the GBM Markets Programme?
Please use this section to describe your strengths and any experience that you have that makes you the Right Person for the GBM Markets Programme.
(2048 characters / 250 words max)

Yes it is Official

It is official now... I have

Chapter 13 Oct 25 Biggest Mistakes/Weakness/Regrets Questions

You have reached almost the second last post! With the last post being the most important one!

Okay, when has some interviewer made your life difficult by asking you this:

What is your greatest weakness or regret you ever had?



So you pause... scratch your head and look to the ceiling trying to think of something. Naturally, the average person will not have an answer at hand. So you will go:

"My weakness is that I drink a lot/like to party a lot/smell/get distracted easily/fall for hot interviewers, i have herpes...etc"



And the interviewer thinks *whoa.. i really did not have to know that... next!*

Well, the first thing to know is:

1) Stop and think! What comes out of your mouth cannot be swallowed back in so safe yourself the embarassment plus the job and read on!

I know that most UK companies will ask you this kind of questions. Instead of taking the chance, why not do something about it and prepare? If there is one way to answer those kind of questions, it would be:

2) Turn your weakness into something that you cannot control and that it is something you absolutely cannot do anything about!

So, taking the same question, you can answer:




My biggest weakness is that I do not have enough time and resources to do all the things I want. Even if i manaage my time well, my insatiable thirst for knowledge keeps me so occupied that I cannot really do all the things I aspire to do. Right now I am occupied with *such and such commitments*. I am hoping that in time, I will be able to complete *say learning another language* take time to visit *this and that factory* or take course in *some course you like*!



Now wouldn't that sound more professional and respected! you be the judge!

More interview skills
Objective of the interview
Things to prepare
At the Interview
Introducing yourself
Teamwork Skills
Technical skills
Communications
IT Questions
Hobby Questions
Ambition Questions
Money Questions
Fermi Questions

Stay tuned for the most important part of the interview: The last impression!

Chapter 12 Oct 24 Fermi Questions

Well, this only applies for people who are into engineering, actuarial and finance. Fermi questions are defined as questions which involve estimation.



The power of estimation is indeed useful in the engineering field to simple calculations or checking whether an answer is sound or not. In actuarial sciences, one needs to be good at estimating cashflows and trends where as in finance, estimation is useful to make sure that you do not miss any zeros. As such, Fermi questions can be treated as order of magnitude questions.



If you are applying to any of those fields, you will most likely be asked to estimate some things so the best way to prepare is

1) Get a grip on the scale of things. You can do this mainly by grabbing numbers out of the things you read. Indeed, having a slight knowledge on the numbers in real life will be at your advantage against people who do not know.



For example, market capitalisation of Google is $200bil or the size of the earth is about 40,000km circumference. HOw about the power a lightbulb is about 40watts.

2) To really impress your interviewer, you must be able to also use these numbers in creative ways.



Instead of saying the US economy is worth $1 trillion, you can say, the US ecnomy is worth 5 times the market cap of Google, or instead of saying that the cables in this city sums up to 120,000km you can say that the amount of cables in this project can to 3 times around the Earth.

Not only does using Fermi approximations help you to picture your thoughts to someone, it also makes things more interesting in the conversation. No doubt, it is an important skill to keep!

Next up, how to answer interviewers when they ask what is the biggest mistake you ever made?

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Chapter 11 Oct 23 Money Questions

Next up, what do you do at an interview when you are asked about money? To a person, it would be tempting to actually know how much you will be paid no? How about I love money eh??

Well, here is where most people fall flat! The first thing to do when you are asked about money in an interview is:



1) Do not negotiate a salary or ask about the starting pay etc! Even if it is tempting, do not make the mistake about asking for a raise before you get a job! Remember, your goal at the interview is to get the job, not to discuss your salary

So what should you do when you are faced with money questions?? Well, the key word to answering money questions without embarassing yourself would be "fair"

2) When asked about money, you should state that you will want to be compensated fairly according to your ability and achievements. This would most likely be the market rate for people in your same position, experience and qualifications or the local market rate!



This will give you room to go left and right without putting yourself into a corner, and show that you are willing to be responsible for your work and effort you put in!

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Chapter 10 Oct 22 Ambition Questions

am·bi·tious/amˈbiSHəs/Adjective
1. Having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed.



Well, being ambitious is not all a bad thing. Which companies would not like their new hires to have the strong desire to succeed? Ambitious people often achieve more because they, as described, do have the desire to succeed. So how will you tackle it if your interviewer asks you:
Are you ambitious?

Pause. Before you answer that, ask yourself. What does the interviewer want to know and how can you make the most of this question. Depending on what kind of companies you are interviewing for, you may need some different approach to the question.



In practice, North American companies and increasingly European companies are more value individual development and ambitions.
Therefore, if you go into these types of companies,

1) Demonstrate using a a few examples that you can be competitive and you do indeed desire to succeed. It may be in sports or competitions, or you may have won some awards. Why not showcase your need to win through your excellent results?

For example, you could have the desire to win a competition and after working hard, you finally won it etc.

However, if you enter a more eastern company, like a Japanese or Chinese company, the focus usually hangs to the organisation. Albeit the changing trends, you will still find that eastern companies are more collective. A suggestion is to

2) Show how your ambition provided a positive out come for the team! Say that you set a few goals in your team and you all shared a vision to win. Talk about how your group shared the passion to be the winners and worked really hard to in the end achieve together.

The last logical part of this would be to find out where would you fit in? Would you be better placed into this group of over achievers or would you be better suited to be in some place with more individual feeling.

The only way to answer the last question is to actually find out yourself through experience. Once you know what kind of place/ what kind of salary you want, the you would be in a good position to answer your ambition questions.

Speaking of money, hold on! Next Chapter... answering : So what do you think about money?

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Chapter 9 Oct 21 Hobby Questions

What do you do for a hobby? This question might be thrown into the interview more importantly than you think. Questions regarding your interests can tell a lot about your personality and how you can handle work pressures.



Not convinced? Say an interviewer throws you a hobby question and as an average person, one may answer:

As a hobby, I enjoy playing the guitar occassionally playing the piano. During my free time I swim and take art classes whilst doing some photography for entertainment.

*Silence*

Well, at first glance, this person may seem like an antisocial narcissit who needs to find better things to do. Unfortunately, this is the impression you will give an interviewer who will then make the conclusion that you are too self centered or need some social skills to survive in the company. What if you can turn those impressions into something impressive? YOu can!

So in a big way, hobby questions can be turned into your advantage if you are prepared

1) to demonstrate that you have skills outside your core skills. It would be most attractive to hire a person who is well rounded with a broad skills base.

Take the above example, just by rephrasing the way you answer the hobby question, you can turn that into a plus point, bringing you one step to your goal. From the example above, I will show you how you can change the impression you have just by elaborating:

As a hobby, I enjoy playing the guitar, occassionally playing the piano. I play for a band in my school/society where the five group members usually get together to practice. We would typically perform every Friday at school to promote music. Our biggest achievement there was raising funds for some orhpanage through playing our music on the streets.

During my free time I swim. I am a member of Some Swimming Club and I was also the President for year 2010. As a senior member, I organise swimming meets where a group of us will invite swimmers from other schools/classes for friendly competitions. For me, not only is swimming very revitalising, it improved my stamina and focus at work. For me, the biggest achievement was not winning gold medals in the ABC swimming competition, but to teach others to swim as well.

I also take art classes whilst doing some photography for entertainment. I am constantly challenging myself to be creative by experimenting with new styles and learning new techniques in photography. Not only do I get to meet various people from various backgrounds, I get to go on trips with total strangers. My last photography trip was with 50 other photographers from ABC University. Not only did I get to foster closer relationships with so many other people, I also learnt from the very best photographers out there. The artwork I am aming to produce will no doubt be inspirational to people and in a way, I hope to explore another dimension of communication via photography.

However, because we are short of time, I think we should proceed with the interview before I digress. Do you have any other questions?

*Looks at the interviewer and smiles*

Okay, if you noticed, the first few sentences are the same and the same person who we established was dull and self centered is now much more attractive as a person because of so many abilities and experience protrayed. Thus, the moral of the story is:

2) You should know your hobbies and extract out as much positive values you can from them. Also, look at the company's job profile and think what kind of person you would look for to fill the post. Structure your answers towards that fit and you will impress!

If you really prepare, I am confident that you will not run out of peotic ammo.


Do relate your experience, learnings, achievements and impact. Do not give short answers, portray self centeredness or ingorance!

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Chapter 8 Oct 20 IT Questions

In the new information technology field, a whole new sector is booming and is being integrated into the old economy.

IT now encompasses almost everything we do. If you are applying fo an IT job in big companies, it is best that

1) You find out their requirements and programming needs. Most companies will advertise that they need programmers, or graphic designers or web designers.Knowing what the company is looking for and fitting your skills to that will help you make the most out of your interviews. At the very least, you will be interviewed by programmers who will then most likely ask you to write a code for them.

For the rest of us in the old economy, the standard offices have changed in the way they operate over the years. Just 20 years ago, the office is usually filled to the brim with papers and stacks of notes. In the modern office, one can expect to see a computer on each work station or on your desk. Have you ever wondered why Bill Gates is so filthy rich? That is because your office is partly contributing to his wealth. This is because when an interviewer asks about you IT skills, he or she is usually asking:

2) Can you use Microsoft office well!


That is it! Simple. If you can use Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint and some other packages you will be fine! However, you must give some examples of when you used such programmes to help you.


Simple no!

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Chapter 7 Oct 19 Communication skills

Communication skills are essential in a business, and becomes more important as the company size increases. Imagine if you were the CEO of a 10,000 employee company. If there is a communication breakdown within the organisation, your company would go in all directions!

The one thing unique about communication skills is that it can be assessed in the interview itself. Sometimes, employers would go through great lengths to put you through an interview with staff from different departments to ensure that you have a feel of the way they communicate.



Before I get on to talk about how you can improve your communication skills it is first important to note that:

1) You need to be able to demonstrate that you are able to communicate, in an organisational heirarchy, sideways, upwards and downward. By, this I mean you should be able to proove to the interviewer that you have worked and interacted with people from the top managers, the people under you as a leader and your equals or colleagues around you.


According to research to get a message across verbally will depend on

60% How you say it
30% Body Langugage
10% What you said

Take a sentence for example:

"I will phone you." How many meanings can it imply?? Depends on how you say it!

"I will phone you." implies that I and no one else will phone you. Now imagine if you suddenly coughed and stressed the will part.

"I WILL phone you." Implies that I, will definitely phone you.

"I will PHONE you." implies that I will, only use the the phone to call you and not by any other means. How about if you suddenly sneezed and emphasized the YOU?

"I will phone YOU." You get it by now no?

The moral of the story is

2) Watch how you say things! How you say it can matter a lot!
Be aware of things like stresses and where to put them.
Check the volume of your voice to ensure that the interviewer can hear you clearly and crisply. Make sure you are not speaking monotonuously throughout the conversation!



The next, part of communication skills that interviewers can guage from you just by meeting you is your body language. Apart from the way you sit which was covered in chapter 3, the other most important thing is eye contact!

Eye contact is a powerful tool that can be used to your advantage. When little kids lie, there is a tendency for them to look away and avoid eye contact.


When you make eye contact with animals, they will often perform some reflex actions like run away! To make the most of this:

3) Establish eye contact with your interviewer. If there is more than one, you should make eye contact with most of them and dpending on cultures, you are expected to make eye contact. For example, when working with the Dutch, eye contact is required to make a valid point. Also, making eye contact also implies that you are being truthful in your words.



Not only does looking away from the interviewer suggest that you are not confident, it is just plain funny if you spend 30 minutes interviwing someone who is looking at the floor or ceiling. Hello! Nothing exciting there.

Next, one of the skills you will be tested on most probably is your presentation skills! Remember, when you are being interviewed, you are presenting the interviewer a brand, trying to sell what you have to give. You are that brand. Would you buy a Ferrari just for kicks? That is the kind of decision the interviewer has to make you see and something presentable sure has an advantage. One way to help present yourself would definitely be body language. The first thing you need to know is to

4) Smile! It costs nothing to produce one and a smile is often returned with a smile!


I love this quote:

What can one do when death smiles at you? All a man can do is smile back.

~Gladiator

I digress, but still, you can only smile back to someone who smiles at you and based on research, it gives a good feeling to both parties. So, do practice smiling!

The last thing that you can do to improve communication is to make it more exciting by adding hand gestures and body movement when your present something. There are planty of sites that talk about this but it is worth noting that these techniques can be priceless!



Stay tuned on how to answer those IT questions HR likes to ask!

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Exxon Mobil Screening Questions!

Ooo... If you are waiting to read about the interviews...sorry to keep you waiting! In applying for an engineering position in ExxonMobil,I had to think for a while on these questions they use for screening candidates!

In less than 100 words (Read in 100 words)...

1. Describe the most complex problem you have recently been asked to solve. We are particularly interested in what you did specifically and what alternatives you considered.

2. Give me an example of a time when you influenced others to do a job/project in a new and different way. What steps did you take to achieve it?

3. Can you think of a time where your quick response to a problem/situation made a difference? Describe the steps you took. You may use an example from either job experience or university course work for this question.

Hehe, you can ponder on these questions while you wait for the next post!

Chapter 5 Oct 17 Teamworking skills

During the interview, recruiters will be asking a series of questions. Are the questions random? Nope, usually, many questions are dressed up in complex sentences but the main goal of the interview is to guage your skills. There are many skills that employers look for in particular, teamworking skills. Although the questions come in different forms, the main thing the interviewer is trying to decipher is whether you would be suitable in their team. Recruiters like to call this the fit question!

No doubt one of the most frequently asked questions in an interview is the team work question. Indeed, there are brillant people are out there, but they cannot work in teams at all! This is alright for small companies, where as large companies demand the ability to work in teams.

So how abouts do you answer such questions? It is true that the average individual has more than enough teamworking skills, but still, there is a tendency to freeze or panic if one is not well prepared!

Well, the first thing to do is
1) Think of 5 examples of how/where/when you worked in a team

Here are some starting points:

A group project

An event you helped with

A society or Group

Something you helped run

Voluntary work

Charity events



For your examples, you will have to also think

2) What where the challenges? Saying you work in a team does not seem to cut it for some interviewers and they want to know what were the difficulties you faced while working in a team. =(

You can try answers along the lines of
Financial constraint

Time constraint

Any form of communication barrier

Hasn't been done before

Cooperation problems

Manpower limitations

Indeed, teams do not run smoothly always, but you should have some ammo to tackle the questions you are posed with. However, everytime people work in teams, they usually are set to achieve something.Therefore, it would be wise to

3) State the outcome of the teamwork. Was it a success? Failure? Perhaps you learned new things?

Usually after examples 2 or 3, most interviewers are satisfied that you demonstrated teamworking skills and will go on!

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Chapter 4 Oct 16 Introduction @ the Interview

Chapter 3 Oct 16 Introduction @ the Interview

Ah yes, you have made it this far to chapter 3. Every interview is similar in the sense that they all need an ice breaker, be it greeting the interviewer, talking about last night's football match or just showing how you are interested in the company's latest developments. Naturally, you will introduce yourself and your background like where were you studying etc.

Talking about the company's latest developments is by far the easiest of icebreakers because you can get the information so easily.

Not this kind of icebreaker!

1) As such, the first thing to ice break is to talk about the company. You can get previous information from staff members, newspapers and the annual report. By law, companies will have to prepare an annual report which is available to shareholders or placed in the company's website.

If you take the initiative to read the company's website/ annual report, you would be happy to hear that recruiter's would take note of you interest in the company. Besides that, you should provide evidence of wider reading.


Read widely to learn more about the company!

2) By reading up on current issues of the world/industry/company from news sites or publications. Magazines and news companies usually provide good information that will equip you with the wider reading ammo.


Not recommended against interviewers.

The other important thing that people often over look is to tell the interviewer:

3) What position are you applying for? Are you applying as a doctor in that hospital or a sweeper in the same company? What I heard is that too many people go into interviews without knowing what they want to do in a company! Interviewers find that people who know where they want to go easier to employ.

The next part Why of the introduction is to make sure you have a solid reason of:



4) Why are you applying for that position? Some driving factors you can elaborate are the money (Saying this the right way will be covered in Chapter 10), the opportunities, the people and so on.

Be assured that if you know what position you are applying for and you have a solid reason of why you are applying, you are in the top 50% of people!

Next, you will most definitely be asked questions like: What did you learn from your course? What do you do for a hobby? Have you ever worked in teams? Did you ever communicate with people of importance?

To find out how to answer these questions, stay tuned for the next chapters!

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Chapter 3 Oct 15 At the interview

Everything prepared, you look smart. Arriving at the scene of the interview, and it will usually be an office. Lets face it. Big offices scare the shit out of me. The huge lobbies and the wait, all pumps your adrenaline to the max.,,The best thing to do now is not to panic but chill!

1) Get your notepad out and have the words "Relax" written there. Make sure you have your notes to answer all the possible type of questions as will be outlined later!

Alright, suppose the nice lady at the desk tells you that its your turn for the interview. You walk down a corridor and there it is. A door. Who lies behind those doors, you will find out. Well, what I would recommend is if someone opens the door for you,

2) Greet the person at the door and wait for the interviewer to take you in. Avoid rushing past the person as a courtesy!

After a handshake or some warm greetings, you would most definitely be seated down. On most occassions, you will be seated on a desk with your legs hidden from the interviewer. More unlikely is the situation when you have an open position:


Amazing! I have just spent a good time interviewing the other person's crotch!

Instead of sitting like the above,

3) You should sit with your legs crossed and the small A5 notepad will be just nice to fit and use to keep your hands in check.

This kind of posture would allow you to keep your back straight and look professional.

Eye contact is also really important as the following picture will preach:



4) Try to maintain eye contact with the interviewer(s) throughout the interview. The most common reaction to people looking at you would be to look away. Imagine interviewing a person who keeps staring to the floor! Hello! The interview is up here!

The most important things about being prepared about an interview are examples examples examples. For the same reason you want to have ammunition in a war, you should be prepared to answer some questions about yourself. What kind of questions? Find out in the coming blog posts!


However, when answering questions, it is important have a structured way of presenting yourself. If you do not already have a plan, it would be good to follow the STAR principle,


Nope, not that kind of star. I too wish that interviewing for jobs can be aas easy as wishing on a star. This is the STAR:

S - Situation
T - Task
A - Action
R - Result

5When asked about anything in particular, you should first lay down the situation clearly to the interviewer. Explain the task that had to be performed by you and its complexity, then go on to summarise your actions on the matter. After that, it would be good to give the outcome ie did you win? What happened etc.

Tomorrow: What kind of questions you can expect in an interview!
Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions

Chapter 2 Oct 14 things to prepare before the interview

Getting There!
If you are an interviewer and you scheduled an interview with this person you want to give the job to. You have meetings before and after the 30 minute interview slot and the person does not show up after an hour. He/She then gives an excuse that the traffic was bad/did not know the place/ the world ended etc... would you still give that person a chance? Your call.

For the interviewee, be sure you know where and when is your interview going to take place! If you are going alone, make sure you arranged your transport/ account for traffic/ allow some time for delays etc! The last thing you would like to do in an interview is not being there on time!

Outlook
For professional jobs, be sure to have the right dresscode; ties, suits, jackets, skirts etc. Finding out what people wear to work may help too! What I found out is that overdressing is easier than underdressing! Guys, trousers, pressed light coloured shirt, tie, clean shoes!



Check you breath and make sure no onions or garlic still remain the hour before. Good idea to take a shower, and neater the hair, accessories kept to a minimum depending on what job you take on. Typically, places like banks and multinational services companies advice keeping things like ear, lips, eyebrow piercings.


Hello! I'm here for the interview!

Things to prepare
Make sure you bring along a recent CV and a skills based assessment of yourself. Take a long a notepad, A5 works wonders and make sure you have a few pens with you! Need be, a name card works wonders. On the notepad, write it as noticable as possible: KEEP CALM!



Adrenaline management
Well, say you get to the place for the interview, before you enter the door, it is good to keep calm, have a light meal or listen to some music before you enter the interview. Naturally, you will get an adrenaline rush, which heightens your excitement! Rewind 10,000 years, adrenaline rush helps the early hunters to be more alert, suitable for making quick decisions, reflexes without thinking too much. YOu don't want that! You would want to be in the interview as clear headed as possible!


Okay, not that kind of clear headed!

Tomorrow, how to make the most of your interview with the secret tricks and hidden body languages!

Objective of the interview

Things to prepare

At the Interview

Introducing yourself

Teamwork Skills

Technical skills

Communications

IT Questions

Hobby Questions

Ambition Questions

Money Questions

Fermi Questions

Weakness Questions