How To Master A Interview

With Interviews One Of If Not The Most Important Part Of The Business School Application How Should Candidates Prepare And What Should They Avoid Doing

They are often nerve-wracking, but interviews are one of the best ways to sell yourself to a Masters in Management admissions committee. In fact, theres a strong case for the interview being the most important part of the business school application process. So says Alex Min, CEO of The MBA Exchange, an admissions consulting firm.

The interview represents the last word from the applicant and either confirms, complements or undermines the application, he says.

Furthermore, at most business schools, the interview is the only official, formal, one-on-one interaction with adcoms.

Finally, interviews are a competition exclusively within the subset of applicants already considered as qualified for admission and worthy of a coveted interview slot.

Send The Perfect Thank You Email

Let’s say you rocked your interview. It’s easy to become so relieved that you forget one crucial step.

You don’t want to have the job interview-equivalent of a Simone Biles-esque vault, only to fall flat on your face during the landing.

This happens when you really click with the hiring manager, and then forget to send a thank you note. Seriously, something as simple as a thank you email shows that you care about the job in some cases, this could make or break your prospects.

Send a thank you note that looks something like this within 24 hours of your job interview.

What Are Your Strengths And Weaknesses

This is an opportunity to tell your interviewer all the personal strengths that will help you to excel in the course you’re applying for. Rather than dropping in your sporting prowess or musical ability, try to stick things that will really help you in your Masters degree, such as your creativity or timekeeping.

Personal weaknesses can be difficult to discuss without genuinely making yourself sound like a terrible candidate, or resorting to the “I’m a bit of a perfectionist” cliché, which should be avoided.

Instead, think of something you’ve genuinely struggled with in the past, such as organisation, or referencing. Be sure to show that you’re taking steps to combat your weakness, or that you have already improved in this area.

Also Check: How To Prepare For A Cultural Fit Interview

Prepare A List Of Questions

At some point during the interview, employers will likely ask if you have questions for them. This is your chance to show that you did proper research on the job and company, but also that you have the necessary background to ask the right questions. Most of your questions should focus on what your day-to-day activities will be and what growth opportunities you will have during your time with the company. These two topics will show that you want to integrate right away and you are aiming for long-term success.

Related:9 Best Questions To Ask Your Interviewer

Interviewing Techniques Tip : Boost Your Eq

As we know, its not always the smartest person or the one with the most relevant skills that gets the job. Rather, the successful candidate is often the one who has the best people skills, who can relate easily to others. In other words, its the person with a high emotional intelligence . Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in positive ways to communicate effectively and empathize with others. If you have a high emotional intelligence you are able to:

• Recognize your own emotional state and the emotional states of others.
• Engage with people in a way that draws them to you.
• Pick up on emotional cues, communicate effectively, and develop strong relationships.

Read Also: How To Pass An Interview

Tips For Great Job Interviews

From researching the company to handling certain key interview questions, make sure you make a great impression and ace your next job interview by following these 20 tips.

Want to ace your next interview and land thatopen job youve been seeking? Here are 20 tips to help you prepare.1. Research the industry and company.An interviewer may ask how you perceive his company’s position in its industry, who the firm’s competitors are, what its competitive advantages are, and how it should best go forward. For this reason, avoid trying to thoroughly research a dozen different industries. Focus your job search on just a few industries instead.

What Are Scrum Artifacts

There are three Scrum artifacts: the product backlog, the sprint backlog, and the product increment.

• The product backlog is an ordered list of tasks and items needed in a product. Itâs typically maintained by the product owner.

• The sprint backlog is a list of tasks that need to be accomplished in a sprint.

• The product increment is the deliverable completed in a sprint.

Other forms this question might take:

• What is a product backlog?

• What is a product increment?

• What would you say is the most important Scrum artifact?

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Finding The Art In Engineering

Leslie studied Studio Art and Photography in college. “I always wanted to do art and I’ve always done art, so it made sense at the time to pursue that as a degree,” she explains. “However, once I graduated I wasn’t sure what I’d want to do with it.’ After moving to a new city and working a number of demanding part-time jobs to support her artistic pursuits, she began taking coding courses and building websites in her free time.

“I wanted a career path that was sustainable,” Leslie explains. So she focused on learning more coding languages and became a freelance web developer. “It felt like a pretty easy transition, because I could still be creative in ways.” After six years of contracting for agencies and e-commerce companies, Leslie yearned for more stability. “I felt like I was moving in the right direction, but I still didn’t have a full-time job and my schedule was inconsistent.” That’s when she decided to participate in a coding immersion program with Hack Reactor. “I really wanted to accelerate my career and level up my skills to be able to get a job at a larger company and have a whole full-time stable career.”

How To Master The Interview And Land The Job

If you want to stand out, you need to stop talking about the past.

Entrepreneur

Most job seekers are bad at interviewing.

The conventional thinking is to show the interviewer what youve done over your career. Candidates are told to highlight their successes. Look at a handful of resumes and you will see accolades. Thats great highlighting past success is a great way to get the interview.

But once youve landed the interview, rehashing past success isnt the best strategy for turning that interview into a job offer. If you want to walk away from interviews with job offers, stop talking about what youve done and start showing hiring managers what you will do.

Past success doesnt always translate to future success. The question on every hiring managers mind is: How do I know if hiring this candidate will improve our business? So the secret to winning the interview is showing the interviewer what you plan to do.

Recommended Reading: What To Prepare For A Phone Interview

When To Use The Star Method

While there are literally an unlimited amount of possible behavioral questions a hiring manager could ask you, there are several specific categories they all fall into:

• Pressure/Stress

Prior to going in for your interview, make sure you take a good hard look at the job youre applying for and use clues from that to prepare your S.T.A.R answers. By picking out what skills the company is specifically looking for or are required for the job, it will help you target your success stories.

MIKE’S TIP:A success story is a story from your past that clearly demonstrates you accomplishing a task that you were faced withyou possess the skill or ability needed to complete a relevant task in the futurechoosing the best success story for the situation is very important.

Anyway, once you have those skills identified, go through your own personal history and background and find success stories that align with those skills.

Show Knowledge To Get Knowledge

This is an advanced technique that refers to the ability not only to have good questions prepared for the interviewer but also to show that you are well informed through your questioning, OConnor said. Use lines like through my research I noticed and experience in your market leads me to believe that , he said.

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Monitor Your Body Language

You cant firmly shake a hiring managers hand or as easily exude enthusiasm via video. But what you can do is monitor your body language.

The main way to communicate confidence is to sit up straight, smile, and keep the camera at eye level. Research shows that employers are more likely to remember what you said if you maintain eye contact, so keep your focus on the camera when talking, not on the image of the hiring manager.

Create A Location That Puts You At Ease

At a face-to-face interview, youve got to suit up and show offand roll with whatever accommodations they offerusually a grey, sterile, fluorescent-lit office. With a phone interview, you can set the scene that makes you as comfortable as possible. This doesnt necessarily mean you should do it from bed, wearing sweats and a t-shirt. In fact, some people actually feel more professional dressing up a bit, even if youre dialing in from home.

Whatever youre wearing, or wherever you choose to take the call, make sure to find a quiet spot with good service at least 30 minutes before your scheduled time. If you have a landline, use it.

Limiting background noise will help you stay focused during the interview and will not be bothersome to the person who is interviewing you, adds Wesper.

If youre video conferencing, make sure to find a spot with a great connection, or even better, use an Ethernet connection to minimize the chance of disconnecting half-way through. Find a neutral location with good lighting. Dont sit in front of a window. This creates a silhouette and youll most likely be in shadows the entire time.

Recommended Reading: What Not To Ask In An Interview

The Business Masters Interview: Assessing Soft Skills

Business schools see admissions interviews as important because they assess candidates so-called soft skills, such as communication ability. Much of the learning on business masters programs is through group discussion and team projects, so being able to communicate effectively is vital to the programs success.

It also allows us to assess candidates initiative-taking and result-orientation skills, says Amy Janssen-Brennan, assistant director recruitment and Admissions at the Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, since interviews generally are based on applicants past experiences.

The admissions interview is also critical because it may predict performance in job interviews, according to Claire Garst, associate director of admissions at Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business in the US. She says: We have found that performance in job interviews is highly correlated to performance in admissions interviews.

Whether youre applying to a Masters in Management program, or another MA or MSc in a business school, the interview is the second, or often the last round of what is generally a lengthy application process , which involves submitting recommendation letters, acing standardized tests and writing a stellar CV and essays.

Free: Behavioral Interview Questions Pdf Checklist

Ok the next thing you should do is download our handy “Behavioral Interview Questions ChecklistPDF“.

In it you’ll get 25 common behavioral questions along with tips on how to answer them with the STAR METHOD and the traps you need to avoid….

All in a beautifully designed pdf Jeff spent hours working on. —- He made me put that in

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Presented In Partnership With 15five

If you are in talent acquisition or you are a hiring manager, you probably already know that it’s a candidate’s market for the foreseeable future. The world has changed forever over the last two years and that includes the talent acquisition space.

PowerToFly has partnered with 15five, a human-centered performance management platform, to present a free webinar on the practices and pitfalls of talent acquisition and retention through a diverse lens. This is a great opportunity to start setting clear goals for 2022.

Join us Thursday, November 4th at 1pm Eastern ? RSVP HERE

PowerToFly’s Sienna Brown, Global Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, will be joined by Mike Fitzsimmons, CEO & Co-Founder at Crosschq Shweta Jacob, Recruiting Team Lead at Lever and moderator Polly Stocks, Human Resources Business Partner at 15Five for an honest and interactive discussion on all things talent acquisition and inclusive hiring.

Can’t attend our webinar on November 4th? 15five also has upcoming talks on goal clarity, employee recognition and performance reviews with such speakers as Chris Timol, President & COO at PuzzleHR. Your free registration works for all talks!

Dont Forget About Your References

Dont let your references be the last to know about your job search, or even worse, get an unexpected call from a potential employer. Many offers are withdrawn over bad references. Why take that chance? Get in touch with your references right away to seek help and to avoid surprises on either side.

• Are your references relevant to your current job search? Who should you add or subtract?
• Are there any reference gaps? Gaps that an employer will question? What is your story about those gaps?
• Can a colleague, vendor, customer, or board member be added to replace or enhance the list?
• What is the current status of your relationship with your references?

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Master Your Job Interview With These Preparation Secrets

If you’ve nailed the job application and are preparing for the interview, there are some simple steps you can take to maximize your chances of getting the job offer — and leapfrog over people who have many years more experience than you do.

I learned how interviews worked while I was interviewing for college scholarships. I secured interview after interview, but I kept losing — until I finally videotaped myself and realized I never smiled! I was speaking in a monotone, and finally saw how I may have been qualified, but my body language was making me look like a boring, unfriendly candidate.

Once I cracked the code, I changed my presentation and starting closing interview after interview, netting me enough scholarship money to pay my way through my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Stanford.

I refined my techniques to land job offers at Google, Intuit, and a multi-billion-dollar financial firm, then I tested them with thousands of students to help them find a job they loved.

Here are 5 proven strategies to help you prepare for your next job interview — and beat out the candidates with years’ more experience than you.

Interview Tip #1: 80% of the work is done before you ever set foot in the room

Imagine the difference between these two candidates:

Candidate 1 walks in the room, says “Nice to meet you,” and spends the next 30 minutes answering the interviewer’s questions.

Interview Tip #2: Know your top 3 selling points that you want to get across

Are You A Team Player

Almost everyone says yes to this question. But it is not just a yes/no question. You need to provide behavioral examples to back up your answer.

A sample answer: “Yes, I’m very much a team player. In fact, I’ve had opportunities in my work, school and athletics to develop my skills as a team player. For example, on a recent project”

Emphasize teamwork behavioral examples and focus on your openness to diversity of backgrounds. Talk about the strength of the team above the individual. And note that this question may be used as a lead in to questions around how you handle conflict within a team, so be prepared. Read more

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How To Master Interview Follow

When it comes to landing a job, its up to you to take charge and it doesnt end when your interview is over. Employers use your resume and their interview notes to help them make a final hiring decision, and good follow-up can be a deal breaker. Interview follow-up is your opportunity to establish your reputation as a reliable candidate and a consummate professional.

The First Steps

At the conclusion of your interview, ask what the next step in the hiring process is and when it will occur. Get business cards or find out the names and titles of your interviewers, so you can institute follow-up.

As soon as you get home, while details remain fresh in your mind, write down any relevant points from your interview. These will likely include:

• What went well.
• What did not go well.
• What stood out to you regarding the company and the role.
• Any important points that you forgot to mention.

This will help you to reflect and prepare to make your follow-up as effective as possible.

Send a Thank-You Note

Your interview thank-you note is more than just a professional courtesy. Like every aspect of your search, it should illustrate one thing: That you are the right person for the role.

Further Follow-Up

Consider partnering with a recruiter from Employment Professionals Canada as you successfully take your career to the next level. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more!

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Be Prepared With Authentic Answers

– Preparing for an interview can be a daunting task. Anticipating and then practicing questions takes time, which you sometimes may not have. Still, you need to be prepared to answer some of the more common questions that may come up. Hi, I’m Valerie Sutton. I’m an experienced career coach focused on applying research to practice of building and managing your career. In this course, I’m going to take you through the most common interview questions, and show you how you can structure your responses. You’ll also see examples of successful answers for both entry-level and mid-career candidates. In the end, all questions come down to the point, why should I hire you? This will be based on your skills, your qualifications, your fit, and if the organization feels you’ll be successful. That’s why it’s important to make sure your answers are unique to you, so you don’t come across as a generic candidate. By reviewing these questions, you’ll develop a framework to craft authentic answers that show your enthusiasm for the organization and role. Let’s get started!

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