By Dylan Ozmore, Carnegie Mellon University
You can classify the ability to be successful in interviews as a skill. Most people don’t think about it that way. The common approach is to go into the interview and be yourself. I’m not arguing against that, but you should go in and be your BEST self. Being your best self is the skill part of this. I compare an interview to the Olympic Trials. You have one shot at it - so be on your game. If you screw up or aren’t up to par, you’re not going to be asked back for a second round or be given an offer. The end.
The difficult tasks are making sure your best self is good enough to secure the position and that you are consistently performing at your best each interview. There is one secret ingredient to achieve both these tasks – PREPARATION. Surprisingly, most people don’t bother to prepare. This really doesn’t make sense to me. Getting the best internship or job can result in potentially millions of dollars over the long run and a better position in general. Those who are motivated to prepare will gain a large advantage over those who choose not to.
Think about it as if you were an athlete. If you asked almost anybody they could probably tell you how to become the best basketball player (that you have the ability to). They’d advise you to start practicing as soon and as much as possible and to learn how successful basketball players became so great. Preparing for an interview (and almost anything else in life!) is no different. Yes, it’s that easy in my opinion.
All my advice boils down to two points:
1. Find out what it takes to be successful
2. Do what it takes to be successful as soon and as frequently as possible
Talk to students or professionals who have internships/jobs at the firms you want to work for. Ask them questions about how they prepared and what advice they have for you. Start this process as early as possible. The earlier you start the further the lead you’ll have over your competition. If you don’t know students or professionals in the field then go online. There are countless sources where this information is available.
Dive head first into this process. Many people ask, “what if I’m not 100% sure this specific job or industry is for me?” It doesn’t matter. A vast majority of students waver around unsure of what they want to do when they graduate. I’m not saying you have to know, but if you hesitate you’re losing time that you could be working towards being really great at something. If you jump into it then at least you have the chance at being great, otherwise when the time finally comes it will be too late and the students that did prepare will already be leagues ahead of you. Sometime during the process you may realize that maybe what you originally picked actually isn’t for you. Then switch over to what you do want to do. The unfortunate truth is that being hesitant to dive into an area will just make certain that you will not be great at anything. Choose an area of interest and then go for it. If you stick it out, you’ll be glad that you started early.
