INTERVIEWS

• Interview Preparation Checklist

• Structure of Interviews
• Types of Interviews
• Sample Interview Questions
• Other Interview Resources

Interview Preparation Checklist

Pre Interview Checklist
• Do your homework in understanding yourself and the organisation
• Put yourself in the interviewer’s shoes and think of what you would want to
find out about yourself
• Think of the responses you could make by relating your skills to the job
• Organising your portfolio to take to the interview
• Know the exact location for the interview and name of interviewer/s
• Other areas for you to think
about:...............................................................................

At Interview Checklist
• Be on time
• Look the part and be positive
• Give details and accentuate the positive
• Build rapport with the interviewer/s by listening intently and responding
clearly, reinforcing the verbal messages through your body language
• Maintain good eye contact with the interviewer/s
•Have questions to ask the interviewer/s
• Other areas for you to think
about:...............................................................................
Post Interview Checklist
• Evaluate your technique and the entire experience- did you get caught
out? What were you trying to get across? Did you succeed? Was this a
true dialogue between you and the interviewer/s or were you passively
responding to questions?
• What can you do better?
• Other areas for you to think
about:...............................................................................

Strucutre of Interviews
The preliminaries - This is a warm up phase intended to set you at
ease. Use the opportunity to relax and engage in small talk.
The critical questioning - A time for the interviewer/s to seek information
from you to assess your skills and qualities.
Questions from the floor - Your turn to ask the questions based on your
job/career needs.
Conclusion - What is the next phase? When can you expect to hear from
them? Affirm your interest in the position.

Types of Interviews
Informal/informational interviews
The intention here is to get to know the individual better; often questions
are not standard ones but free flowing, building on leads during the
interaction. This style is useful for gathering information about the
organisation and the industry or on occasion getting a line on a job that
may be coming up soon.
Examples:
What indicates good performance in this position?
What skills are essential to perform this job well?
How often do you recruit graduates into these roles?
Behavioural or Situational Interviews
The intention here is to focus on your past behaviours as a predictor of
future behaviour. You must provide specific examples of any experience to
demonstrate your ability to meet the criteria for the job. Many interviews
these days follow this format.
Examples:
What different approaches do you take in talking with different people?
How do you know when you are actually getting your point across?
What if you were asked to do something that went against your ethical
standards?

Telephone/Teleconference/Video interviews
For geographical or financial reasons an organisation may choose to
interview candidates in distance mode. The lack of visual contact can be
daunting making the clarity of speech, variation of tone of voice, good
listening skills and constant monitoring that your message is being
understood, vital to this communication process.

Panel Interviews
The intention here is to obtain a range of evaluations about your qualities
for the job, to reduce the influence of subjectivity and to deeply probe your
qualities for the job. Your preparation has to be a hundred percent for this
type of interview. You should focus your response on the questioner while
still interacting with the other panel members. Occasionally the panel
interview may be by telephone.

Sample Interview Questions from an Interviewers

• What has been your main contribution to University life?
• Why did you decide to do a degree in ….?
• Could you take me through your academic record
• What do you expect from your initial graduate position?
• Do you have any plans to study further?
• Tell me about a time when you were not pleased with your
performance. What did you do about it?
• Describe a situation when you were placed under a lot of pressure? What
was the situation and how did you handle it?
• Which form of communication would you say works well for you?
• Describe a situation when a team you were working in fell apart. What
was your role in the outcome?
• How would you organise a major project?
• How do you learn new things?
• What attracts you most about our company?
• What do you think our biggest problem is in this industry?
• Let me describe the team that you could be joining and tell me how you
would fit?
• We have a continuing problem in this area……. How would you handle
it?
• Australia has an aging population. What policies do you think
Government should formulate to address this issue?
• What other job applications have you made?
• What rewards are you hoping to gain from a career in ….?

Some other Interview Resources...

The Careers Resource Centre has a variety of interview skills resources
such as workshops, videos, interview folders and books available for view.
So come check it out.

Good Luck!