Remember that your potential employer already knows what you’ve studied, what qualifications you’ve got and assumes you would be competent at the job from an academic standpoint. They want to find out what skills you have, how you approach challenging situations, how you problem solve. On a personal level, their objective now is to see that your face fits; that you will work well their team, that you have good communication skills.

To make sure you really do well in your interview the sections below cover most of the issues you should face.

Also take a look at our Graduate Interview Package, designed to thoroughly prepare you and ensure that your performance at your next interview gets YOU ahead of the rest!

Preparation

Homework

Your Questions

What to Wear

Manner & Body Language

Interview Questions

Golden Rules
preparation

If this is your first serious interview, it is likely that you will be extremely nervous. Don’t panic; it will be expected. However, a little preparation will help stem the nerves by making you feel just that bit more in control. So think about what sort of examples, stories or anecdotes you can mention about that will allow your interviewer to get a glimpse of your positive qualities.

Think about what sort of areas you would like to talk about. Any college activities such as fundraising, promotions or finance can be used to illustrate your business skills would be useful.

Don’t underestimate your past experiences. You don’t have to have an impressive stream of summer jobs to impress; use examples such as learning to understand different cultural perspectives while serving behind the SU bar, for example.

If you have some skill or attribute that makes you stand out above everyone else, make sure you are ready to point it out, however humbly, at the interview.

Think about anecdotes that show how keen you are to learn new skills and methods. A willingness to learn is always vital.

Try to pick out interesting points from any of your past that would show a potential employer how you address problems.

You may also have a hidden talent – a black belt at Shotokan karate, etc – that reflects an attribute needed in your potential job (i.e. discipline and self-control). Don’t be reluctant to talk about it if appropriate.

Have some questions prepared to ask at the end of the interview.

homework

Find out as much as you can about the company and the industry itself. Company loyalty is a valuable asset nowadays, so prove that you already know a little bit about the company and would like to become part of it.
Don’t give the impression that it is just another company and that you couldn’t care less what they actually did.

So:

Phone up for any company literature: annual reports, newsletters, brochures, or use the library/careers library

Read relevant trade journals If you have any contacts, find out what you can about the person interviewing you.

your questions

A few questions up your sleeve – during, as well as at the end of the interview – can stop you feeling interrogated and give the employer a break. Try to avoid too many questions about perks; think up something more original and less self-orientated.
Ask about your job profile: training, who you’ll be working with, certain areas of the job description, etc

Ask about what sort of qualities help in the job; is it all team playing, or individual project work? Is it important to keep to a tight corporate standard policy or are you expected to improvise?

Ask about new business projects, marketing strategies or plans for expansion.

Ask about what type of clients the company has, who the main players in the market place are.

Ask about any external influences, such as new technology, new regulations in the workplace, etc., which may have an impact on work methods.

Asking questions about the interviewer is always a winner: people love talking about themselves: ‘How did you get into this industry?’ ‘What do you like about working for this company?’ ‘Where do you see the company in the next 5 years?’ BUT: If you don’t care about the answer, don’t ask the question.

what to wear

Most employers form a fairly instant appraisal of you as soon as you walk through the door. To a certain extent your success is determined by whether or not your face fits. But you can do a lot to improve the stakes by making sure you don’t fall down on minor details such as clothing and appearance. Make that first impression count by looking good.

Generally clothing for finance and law should be fairly conservative, for media you will be expected to follow the latest fashion trends but above all, it should all look clean, neat and tidy.

However casual the company dress policy may be, always wear some description of a suit at an interview. There are plenty of less formal suits for women around; men should still wear a tie, even if it isn’t necessary during work.

Don’t go out and buy something that you don’t want to wear on a daily basis. What you wear should reflect who you are, on a professional level. If you have to change your usual attitude to style and put on something that isn’t really you, you aren’t going for the right job.

Women should wear at least some makeup, however light, and tights if wearing short skirts. Sorry.

The interviewer will be considering whether you would look suitable in front of their clients. Make sure you would.

manner & body language

Manner

Your interviewer is, above all, hoping to establish that you are a nice person who will work hard and contribute positively to the company. They also want to establish that you share similar values to them.

The best thing you can do is listen. Listen hard. Reflect any attitudes or values back to them to reassure them that you hold similar views.

If you disagree strongly, say so, but keep it balanced. Don’t leap to a judgement just because you’re nervous. Remain moderate and then if you realise you’ve said the wrong thing you can then moderate your view.

Make sure that you don’t overcompensate for nerves and sound arrogant or make hugely sweeping statements. Stay calm and collected and take your time before answering.

Above all, try to be as natural as you can. The interviewing wants to find out what you are really like and whether you will fit in. If you have to present an image at odds with how you really are, you won’t be happy in your job.
Body Language

The interviewer will pick up a great deal (often without realising) from how you hold yourself. Here are a few pointers:

Eye contact: establishes rapport. Look at your interviewer when you shake her hand and before saying anything.

Smile: show them you are relaxed and confident.

Don’t fidget; it makes you look nervous. Keeping one foot firmly pressed into the floor helps (no one can see).

Posture: don’t cross your arms. Keeping your hands loose and open shows you are friendly and open. Sit comfortably (no slouching or perching).

 
interview questions

Their Questions

Most employers aren’t trying to catch you out. They want you to do well; it makes their job easier. Your goal is to reassure them you are up to the job.

Listen carefully to what question is being asked. Make sure you talk about a point relevant to that question, rather than something you want to talk about.

Avoid replying with a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; offer a short example or explain further if you can.

Keep the answer relevant but concise – avoid gabbling or exaggerating through nerves. Don’t give any more than 60 seconds on one topic.

Sometimes there is a metamessage, or hidden subtext, behind a question:
‘Have you done much travelling?’
This may mean:
‘Are you independent and resourceful?’
It does not mean:
‘Please rave about your package holiday in Goa.’

‘Why do you want to work for this company?’
This may mean:
‘Do you realise that we are very small?’
It does not mean:
‘Please tell us how fantastic we are.’

Top 5 killer questions

Over 75% of employers admit asking ‘killer questions’ to see if the candidate can think for her or himself. The most frequently asked are:

‘Tell me a joke.’
‘What was the question you didn’t want me to ask?’
‘Would you ever lie in the interests of your job?’
‘Give me 3 things to remember you by.’
‘Name 5 members of the Cabinet.’

golden rules

Give yourself extra travelling time to allow for delays. If you are too early, go for a short walk. Arrive at the interview 10 minutes early. Any earlier makes you seem desperate Don’t ever, ever, be late.
Take control. As you enter the room, comment on something that catches your eye. This reduces tension and shows the interviewer you have a personality (i.e. ‘I like that painting. What fantastic colours!’)
Ask for clarification if you don’t fully understand a question. It will embarrass both of you if you give an answer knowing that you have missed the point.
Be polite, respectful and cheerful. Don’t brag or boast, but don’t use false modesty.
Be yourself

VIDEOS

• Interview Success: Landing the Job
• Interview Techniques and Resume Tips, Thomas Nordberg
• Interview to Win Your First Job, Brian Merry
• Your First Job Interview

GUIDES

• 60 Seconds & You’re Hired, Robin Ryan, 2000
• 10 Minute Guide to Job Interviews (10 Minute Guide), Dana Morgan / 1998
• 101 Dynamite Questions to Ask at Your Job Interview, Richard Fein / 1996
• 101 Dynamite Answers to Interview Questions: Sell Your Strengths!, Caryl RaeKrannich, et al / 1997
• 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions (3rd Ed), Ronald W. Fry / 1995
• 101 Toughest Interview Questions: And Answers That Win the Job!, Daniel Porot, 1999
• 111 Dynamite Ways to Ace Your Job Interview, Richard Fein, 1997
• The 250 Job Interview Questions: You’ll Most Likely Be Asked…and the Answers That Will Get You Hired!, Peter Veruki, 1999
• Ask the Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job Nick A. Corcodilos / 1997
• Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions, Mathew J. DeLuca / 1996 – RECOMMENDED
• The Essential Book of Interviewing: Everything You Need to Know from Both Sides of the Table, Arnold B. Kanter, 1995
• How to Turn an Interview Into a Job, Jeffrey G. Allen / 1986
• Interview Power: Selling Yourself Face to Face Tom Washington / 1995
• Interview Strategies That Will Get You the Job You Want, Andrea G. Kay, 1996
• Get Hired!: Winning Strategies to Ace the Interview, Paul C. Green, 1996
• Job Interviews for Dummies (1st Ed), Joyce Lain Kennedy / 1996
• Knock ‘Em Dead 2000, Martin J. Yate / 1999
• Power Interviews: Job-Winning Tactics from Fortune 500 Recruiters, Neil M.Yeager, Lee Hough (Contributor) / 1998
• Sweaty Palms: The Neglected Art of Being Interviewed, Anthony Medley / 1992
• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Interview Marc A. Dorio / 1997
• The Interview Rehearsal Book: 7 Steps to Job-Winning Interviews Using
• Acting Skills You Never Knew You Had, Deb Gottesman, 1999 -

RECOMMENDED

You’re Hired!: Secrets to Successful Job Interviews, Sharon McDonnell, 1999

Here’s more help for a successful interview. Job-Interview.net brings you the company guides with inside interview tips and links to annual reports.

Annual Reports

The Public Register’s Annual Report Services offers free annual reports through the mail for over 3,600 companies and links to over 2,200 on-line annual reports.

Investor Communications Business Annual Reports provides free mailing of annual reports. ICB provides service for top financial publications including the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Financial Times.

Guides

Job Reviews.com collects from its visitors comments on interviews with various companies.

Vault offers free online access to every Vault Industry Guide and Company Profile and newsletters when you sign-up for a free membership. Examples of interview questions from select companies are sometimes available on-line without membership.

Wetfeet offers excerpts from their print guides when you sign-up for a free membership.

A. T. Kearney: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

The Advisory Board Company: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Amazon.com: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Andersen Consulting: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Arthur Andersen: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998-99

Arthur D. Little: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Bear Stearns: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Booz Allen & Hamilton: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

The Boston Consulting Group: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Capital One: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1999

Chase Manhattan: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Citibank: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

The Coca-Cola Company: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Credit Suisse First Boston: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press

Deloitte Consulting: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc.: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Ernst & Young Accounting: The WetFeet.com Insider Guide, WetFeet.com, 1999

Ernst & Young Consulting: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

General Mills: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Goldman, Sachs & Co.: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Gary Alpert

Hewlett-Packard Company: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Intel Corporation: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press

J.P. Morgan: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

KPMG Peat Marwick: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Lehman Brothers: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

McKinsey & Co.: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Mercer Managemant Consulting: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Merrill Lynch: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Microsoft Corporation: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Mitchell Madison Group: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Monitor Company: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Nike: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press

Oracle Corporation: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Peoplesoft: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Gary Alpert, 1998

PricewaterhouseCoopers: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Procter & Gamble: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

Salomon Smith Barney: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

The Toronto-Dominion Bank: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press

The Walt Disney Company: The WetFeet Insider Guide, Wet Feet Press, 1998

If you do not ask any question, they may think you are not interested or do not care or desperate to get the job and that is not good. Again, most of the interviewer likes to ask more questions on the basis of your questions (particularly in technical interviews). So, if you ask wrong questions, you may be in trouble. If you are smart, you can turn the interview in your advantage by asking the right questions and sell yourself. For example, if your are good in graphic art, you can talk about it by asking following question:
“I am good in graphic art and I did a course in web design. Will I get a chance in this position to use my artistic skill?”

We can not tell you what are the best questions to ask, use your judgement and prepare yourself. Here are some tips to help you:

Ask questions to show that you did some research about the company.
Ask about the job position, and what is expected from the candidate, etc. If you have the required skill you can mention it now and sell yourself.

If there is one interviewer, ask about his/her position and show genuine interest about what is said. People like to talk about themselves.

Ask questions to show your interest in the company.

Do not talk about salary or benefit, unless they start.

Here you will find vast selection of technical and non-technical questions. Since, answer to these questions depends on the candidate, we will not give any answers, however, we may give some suggestions.

Interview Tips:

Here you will find tips on how to prepare for an interview, how to act in an interview, how to dress, things to do before and after the interview. Also many other tips to help you get your dream job.

Skill Test:

Here you can interactively test your computer skill with questions and answers. The topics include programming knowledge, programming language, database, visual tools, web programming and many more.

IT Knowledge:

In this page you will find links to many internet documents, Books and other knowledge sites.

IT job:

Here you will find links to companies looking for IT people, job banks, Job search skills and many more.

Help Others:

If you are a Veteran IT professional and want to help others, this page is for you.

About Us

If you want to know who we are, how and why we started this site, follow this link.

To facilitate navigation, the questions are divided into following categories:

1. Candidate - Question normally asked by the interviewer to know about the candidate.
2. Organization - To know candidate’s knowledge about the organization or its field of business.
3. Work - To know if the candidate can do the job.
4. Team Work - To know if the candidate can work in a team.
5. Previous Work - To know how the candidate was in his/her last employment.
6. Manager - To know if the candidate can manage a project.
7. Tough Question - These are some tough or negative questions.
8. Technical Question- Mainly for IT peoples, other can also use them.

If practical, we also give suggestion on how to answer a question and/or sample answer. Since the answers of the questions depend on the job position, organization and on the applicant, none of them can be used as it is. We strongly advise that you make your own answer, which represents you.

However, you can use our suggestion and sample answer for guidance. Sample answers are taken from the reply of the real life candidate and they are not the best or the worst, just average. Try to make yours better.

To facilitate navigation, the tips are divided into following categories:

• Day Before the Interview – things to do before the day of the interview.
• Appearance for the Interview – how to dress.
• Day of the Interview – how to stay cool on the day of the interview.
• During Interview – how to behave in an interview.
• Mistake Candidate Makes – common mistakes.
• Question to ask the Interviewer – what to ask.
• After the Interview – things to remember after the interview.
• Tips On Telephone Interview – how to face or act in a telephone interview.
• First Week On The Job – do/don’t in the first week.

It is very natural for a candidate to become nervous during an interview. However, if you are prepared for it, it will increase your self confidence, which will in turn improve your performance in the interview. We have all the tips to help you.

This site is part of MeetIT – Home of IT people. MeetIT believes in free service, so whatever you see here is free. Besides, interview tips MeetIT also has:

IT Skill Test

In this site you can interactively test your computer skill.

Interview Question/Answer

In this site you will find 100’s of interview questions and answers.

Information Technology Site

This site has links to job banks, Job search skills and many more. There are also list and links to many Internet documents, books and other knowledge sites.

All the materials in this site is copyrighted. You are welcome to browse the material as many times as you wish. However, please do not copy any material by any means.

If you are ready for Interview Tips

1. The candidate must fit in the organization.
   • Behavior – talks and behaves nicely or courteously.
   • Dress – respect company dress code.
   • Attitude – non-aggressive or confrontational.
   • Team Player – can work and get along with others.
2. The candidate will not hurt the organization or it’s reputation.
   • The candidate is law abiding and not biases toward race, group, sex, religion etc.
   • Will not use knowledge acquired here to use against us.
   • She will not put personal interest before our interest.
3. The candidate has skill and experience for the job.
   • Education – has minimum education for the job.
   • Experience – has minimum experience.
   • Skill – has adequate/excellent skill to do the job.
   • Desire – has desire and ability to learn new skills.
   • Adaptable – will be able to adjust to any changes and/or new technology.
4. Extra Skill: If you have one or more of the following skills, it will put you above other candidate:
   • A sense of humor.
   • Imagination.
   • Writing skills, including business, official and/or technical writing. Oral communication.

Assess yourself and see where you stand in comparison to the above criteria. Now you know what the interviewer wants, and work on it to make yourself a desirable candidate.