In anoth­er B&E event held by Ban­gor Uni­ver­si­ty, I dis­cov­ered why the Inter­view does­n’t have to be a night­mare that keeps you awake at night.

In the Assess­ment Cen­ter I was put into a prac­tice Inter­view sit­u­a­tion of first­ly, being the inter­view­er then the inter­vie­wee. The posi­tion in ques­tion, man­ag­er of a slip­per fac­to­ry.

Now although this posi­tion is not at all relat­ed to my degree, it was used to try and help how my expe­ri­ences could be applied to dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions.

Then under timed con­di­tions set ques­tions were asked from the pan­el. These ques­tions were ones that were typ­i­cal­ly asked by employ­ers which are in the bio­log­i­cal field.

For exam­ple, how can the work from your dis­ser­ta­tion help you in this job? These styles of ques­tions paired with the job role catal­ysed my think­ing: What has uni­ver­si­ty also taught me since join­ing?

Organisation, Responsibility, Confidence

Organ­i­sa­tion (time man­age­ment) and respon­si­bil­i­ty have of course been improved by Uni­ver­si­ty work and lifestyle.

But the knowl­edge that I have been taught has also raised my con­fi­dence, which in a pro­fes­sion­al man­ner, can be key to a good inter­view “per­for­mance”.

What I also learned from the Inter­view…

Be Quick But get Straight to the Point.

You need to respond with struc­ture but not leave them wait­ing for too long or else you are just wast­ing time.

Not all inter­views are timed but they should­n’t have enough time to think about their next super­mar­ket shop.

Here is where your exper­tise should shine through.

Application of Knowledge

You may be apply­ing to a well known bio­log­i­cal com­pa­ny but there is a good chance the ques­tions aren’t going to be straight for­ward.

Employ­ers often like to ask ques­tions that only the top can­di­dates will be able to adapt their knowl­edge too.

Personality assessments

Some com­pa­nies will ask you to take per­son­al­i­ty assess­ments to see if they are get­ting their desired mem­ber of staff.

Now although I per­son­al­ly have my doubts about tick-box tests, these sorts of assess­ments have been pio­neered since the ear­ly 70’s and have a good lev­el of cred­i­bil­i­ty.

Bel­bin is one of the first who start­ed adver­tis­ing these assess­ments, and which a lot of employ­ers still use to test what sort of employ­ee they would be get­ting in you.

Don’t fear, as explained in the video below there are no right or wrong answers to this test…

 

In my opin­ion, before going into an inter­view you should not only be doing research about their com­pa­ny but crit­i­cal­ly analysing the skills you learned from your degree. Whether it is the prac­ti­cal tech­niques like PCR or life skills like time man­age­ment.

From this I have found that anoth­er good way to ensure a good inter­view is to know who you are.

Sor­ry for cliche but it can real­ly help your style of con­ver­sa­tion type and per­sona in an inter­view sit­u­a­tion. This, as I found from this event, can real­ly shine through to the lis­ten­ers which can make you more engagable and talk­a­ble to put that real pol­ish on your inter­view.

Although this event has­n’t changed my career path, I have now got a clear­er under­stand­ing of the con­tent of inter­views, giv­ing me a slip­per in the door to my future job.