• Do your research – Research the company, the position and the industry
• Review the job description - How do your skills and experiences match what they’re looking for?
• Review frequently asked questions
• Practice - Schedule a practice interview with a career advisor on Handshake, or practice on your own using Big Interview
• Prepare questions to ask the interviewer
• Check your Tech - Make sure you technology is functioning properly if you have a virtual interview

Follow up - Sending a thank-you note is important in creating a good lasting impression. The note should be personalized to include details from your conversation that stuck out to you. You can also use it to highlight or re-emphasize details about your background/experiences and how they tie to the position. 

How to Write Thank You Note

You can stay connected using LinkedIn. 

Writing down your core skills, passions, values, and experiences and pairing them with specific examples is a helpful interview preparation tool.  Here is an example of a student preparing for a graduate program interview. They started with broad statements, then wrote down examples to support their claims.

Volunteering in the community is my passion.

• Volunteer 10+ hours per week at two organizations
• Recently received Volunteer of the Year service award through United Way
• My passion to volunteer started in high school when someone took the time to serve our family during a health crisis;  I wanted to do that for someone else and have been ever since

My clinical experience will be foundational for what I learn in your program.

• For 3 years I worked in an Optometry clinic and conducted all screening and flagged concerns, etc. for the Doctor
• Additional clinical experience this past summer as a CNA; confirmed desire to work in the medical field

Both my family background and my travel experiences have prepared me to work with people from all backgrounds

• Grew up in a bi-racial home that valued both my Irish and Latino families; gave me a rich understanding of the role culture plays in development and the way you perceive the world
• Completed two study abroad experiences—Italy and Portugal
• In my clinical roles, I often found myself considering there could be cultural context for health-related decisions; also had the ability to make people comfortable sharing their backgrounds as I have experience meeting people who are from diverse backgrounds

Behavioral-based interview questions are very common - use the STARR method to respond to questions that begin with "Tell me about a time when..." or "Give an example of a situation..."

Situation: set your story up with details that are relevant to the question
Task: identify any tasks related to your story
Action: this is the meat of your story and should address the behavior you’re being asked about
Result: how did your story end?
Reflection: connect your story back to what you are interviewing for; what did you learn, how does it apply?

Example:

Situation: My student organization was struggling with teambuilding during the pandemic.  Most of our meetings were virtual, and we realized our meetings were becoming task oriented.
Task: We needed to figure out a way to connect with each other and still live out our philanthropic values that were core to our membership.
Action: Our leadership team collaborated with the Community Service Learning Center to identify virtual and outdoor volunteer opportunities within out local community. We participated in food drives, completed yard work for healthcare workers, and were virtual pen pals for seniors.
Result: As a result, our members completed over 100 hours of community service in the fall semester.
Reflection: This experience taught me the importance of being resourceful and creative, which I think will align well with the lead teacher position at the YMCA.

Employers will often come to campus to conduct interviews with GVSU students and alumni.  Handshake provides an On-Campus Interviews Overview for finding and signing up for these opportunities.

Looking for a quiet space for your virtual or phone interview on-campus? Call our office at 616-331-3311 to request a room and we'll find a place for you.

MMI (Multiple Mini Interview)

• The Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) is a multimodal interview format used by many medical and graduate schools to assess an applicant’s ethical decision-making, situational judgment, past behavior, critical thinking, and problem-solving.  Questions might also test for several other competencies like teamwork, empathy, communication, maturity, or self-awareness.
• The MMI typically involves multiple stations at which interviewees will be given a prompt to read and then a timed “how would you approach” answer to your interviewer.

Case Study Interview

• During a case interview, the interviewer asks you to analyze and solve a challenging business situation.  Many of the cases they present are based on real-life situations, often having occurred at the company.  Technology, financial and consulting industries may use a case interview to see how you problem-solve in situations that you may experience at work.  

Technical Interview

• A technical interview is a type of interview format that employers use when they want to gauge a candidate's relative technical skills to the job in question. Employers typically use technical interviews when evaluating candidates for roles in information technology, healthcare, engineering, and science. An employer may also conduct a technical interview to determine a candidate's knowledge and what their thought process is when solving the question.