Hopefully, you all had a good time at the Career Fair last Wednesday. At this point, the companies you talked to are beginning to look over resumes and decide who they want to advance to the next round in the hiring process, also known as interviews!

Before we dive into the strategies you can use to impress during the interview, there are a few basics that need to be covered first. Dress professionally. Wear at least business casual, but you might want to step it up a notch to business attire. Bring an extra copy of your resume, a pen and paper, and a bottle of water. Map out your drive (if you have to drive) the day before and account for traffic when deciding when you should leave. If your interview is on campus, make sure you know the building and room number.

During the interview, try and maintain an air of professionalism while developing a relationship with the interviewer. It's a tough line to walk, but resources linked below can help you practice and find that balance. Think of the type of interview as well, phone interviews and technical interviews are very different. When answering a question, keeping the acronym S.T.A.R. in mind is incredibly helpful. Stories that describe the Situation you were in, the Task you had to complete, the Action you took and the Result of that action communicate efficiently and clearly to the interviewer the message you are trying to get across.

At the end of the interview, you’ll get the chance to ask the interviewer questions about the company. I don’t know about you, but when asked to ask questions, every single question I’ve ever had immediately vacates my brain and I can’t figure out anything to say. So it's good to go in with a plan. Do research on the company beforehand and develop a list of questions to ask. They can be industry-specific or more general, like “How does the area I would be working in fit into the overall organizational structure?”. Finally, after the interview, send a thank you note to follow up. Thank the interviewer for their time and the opportunity, and reiterate how you hope to hear from them soon.

So, we’ve gone over everything you need to do, but how can the Career Center help you? We offer mock (practice) interview appointments you can schedule through UMBCworks. You’ll come in and interview with a career specialist, then they’ll give you feedback on your performance. We also offer a new online service called Big Interview. You can search through a database of questions, record yourself answering them, and send them to the Career Center for review. To get questions reviewed, simply send the recording through Big Interview to our email: interviews@umbc.edu.

Interviewing can be a scary thing, but with the tips laid out above, hopefully it’s a little less so. Make sure to keep an eye out for more employer events coming to campus soon, we always have fun things going on. See you next week, where we’ll talk about finding internships and full- time positions using more Career Center tools.