Preparing for Interviews
Make the connection
To prepare for an interview, spend some time researching the employer and thinking about your past experiences that best demonstrate skills, knowledge, and abilities relevant to the job. The more information you collect, the easier it will be to connect your background directly to their needs.
Where to research
Doing your homework takes time, but taking notes from the following resources will pay off when you get to the interview:
- The employer website. Look in the “about” section to learn about their history, values, and strategic priorities Google. A simple internet search will return a broader set of information about the organization’s performance, competitors, and challenges they are facing.
- Industry-related journals or websites. Every industry has a publication that’s a main source of news (e.g., the Wall Street Journal for the financial world, Science for scientific research). Identifying these media sources and scanning recent issues will give you a bigger picture of trends and issues impacting all employers in their field.
- People. Talking to current employees will quickly tell you about company culture, what abilities are most valued, or what questions you should anticipate in an interview. Use Terrapins Connect or the alumni tool in LinkedIn to identify people in the University of Maryland network.
Study Yourself
Similar to how you would study for an exam, it is important to study yourself before an interview. Take some time to reread your resume and compare it to the job description. Consider reflecting on the following:
- What are the top 3 experiences I want to ensure an employer knows about me before I leave the interview?
- What are my most relevant experiences to the employer and the job/internship? This can include class projects, part-time jobs, and other experiences.
- Why am I most interested in this employer? How can I get that interest across throughout the interview?
Practice talking about your stories out loud
Utilize the STAR method when practicing your stories out loud to give the full picture.
The STAR method
S.T.A.R. is a useful acronym and an effective formula for structuring your behavioral interview response. Let’s start by breaking down the formula:
- Situation, explain the situation so that your interviewer understands the context of your example, they do not need to know every detail!
- Task, talk about the task that you took responsibility for completing or the goal of your efforts.
- Action, describe the actions that you personally took to complete the task or reach the end goal. Highlight skills or character traits addressed in the question.
- Result, explain the positive outcomes or results generated by your actions or efforts. Here, it is important to highlight quantifiable results. You may also want to emphasize what you learned from the experience or your key takeaways.