Common question but it's difficult
because many times we don't talk about ourselves.
So we don't quite know how to start.
And I find that a lot of students
will start just repeating their resume,
which is what you don't want to do.
They've read your resume, you've met all their criteria.
They actually wanna know more about you as a human,
you as a person.
The resume is the objective, factual you,
the interview is for you to show who you are,
what are your personalities, what are your goals,
what are your values, what are your motivations?
And so this part is a chance for you
to let your background shine a little bit.
So I'm gonna show you an example
of how you might answer this.
So I'll give you a moment to read this.
So this is an example of my answer to this question.
I think the question specifically was like,
I don't know if you remember
if it was tell me about yourself,
or if it was what attracts you to this position now,
which is essentially the same question.
So in this case, I'm explaining who I am, my background,
what motivates me,
what motivated me to apply to this position,
and sort of like generally like what drives me
as a professional.
So you wanna sort of hit all of those angles.
And again, you're not repeating your resume,
you are expanding on your resume,
you're filling in those things
that maybe are not obvious on your resume.
For example, there might be a line on your resume, you know,
related to your hobbies, then people might skip over.
But maybe that's like the most important thing to you
and that's what you want to focus on.
So whatever it is,
you can kind of draw those in
as you are answering this first question.
So we're not gonna do this practice together,
I'm not gonna ask you to share it out,
but I do wanna give you about two minutes to think
about how you would answer this question.
And if you do wanna sketch it out, that's fine.
You can maybe bring it to the career center.
We can do a little bit of practice later.
But I just wanna give you some time to think about like,
how would you answer this question tell me about yourself.
Okay, and another thing to keep in mind
about this question is it's typically the first question
because it's a way for the interviewers to help you relax.
So they think that this is gonna be an easy question
for you to answer.
So, you know, do approach it with kind
of like a lighter attitude.
Like this is not gonna make or break you,
it's really just an introduction,
but it is important because it is the first thing
that they are going to hear from you.
So I wanna move on to some other common questions
and how you can approach them.
So another question that's very common is, you know,
what are your strengths?
What are your weaknesses?
And this can be phrased in lots of different ways, right?
They might ask you like,
what skills do you have
that are gonna help you thrive in this position?
That would be basically what are your strengths question.
Or they might ask you like, you know,
what are some areas that you're working on?
What are your growing edges?
And those would be your weaknesses, obviously.
So when talking about your strengths,
you do want to try to be specific
and focus on your experience.
So if you feel like you are excellent
at like time management, for example,
you want to be specific,
like what makes you think that?
Like, you know,
did you have an experience where that really came into play?
Like, is it a case
where in every group project, you're the one
that makes the schedule and you keep people on task,
and you're the one that's always checking in?
If that's the case, say that, you know,
but you wanna make sure that you're demonstrating your skill
in some way through your experience.
So you always wanna make those connections.
And then when talking about your weaknesses, first of all,
you don't wanna be too honest.
You don't wanna say,
first of all, you don't wanna say something like,
"Ah, I'm really lazy."
You don't wanna say that.
Also, you don't wanna say something like, well,
I just work too hard.
That's obviously not a great answer either.
You want to be honest,
identify something that you have recognized within yourself
that could be improved.
It doesn't have to be a major flaw that's like, you know,
really demonstrating that you're not a professional,
but it should be something.
So for example, I had a coworker who...
I'm sorry.
So I had a coworker who said that the weakness
that they were working on was that they, you know,
they feel like their memory was getting worse
because they had two small kids.
And so now that's fine.
That's something that they're addressing.
But the next part is you wanna make sure
you have a plan to address it.
And so this person said
like they've really increased their note taking.
You know, they have a whiteboard,
they've created like the system to like, you know,
keep timelines in order.
So whatever it is, you wanna kind of address what it is,
address why you think it's a problem,
and then think about like what your plan is to solve it.
So there's a comment in the chat,
what type of future goal passion
sounds too big for an interview?
So I think that might be here.
What sounds too big for an interview?
So I'm not sure what type would be too big for an interview.
It really depends on the role.
So you can kind of speak more generally.
Like, you know,
I really enjoy helping people or, you know,
I really feel validation, you know,
when I solve problems or I really enjoy,
I just enjoy working with people or, you know,
I really like figuring things out on my own.
So whatever that is,
you can kind of think of that as like your passion.
And as far as a goal,
I would try to make it something that is realistic
and attainable in the near future.
So your goal might be,
you know, I'm really hoping in this position I can...
It's hard to say without knowing what the position is,
but like in an educational role, it's like, yeah,
my goal is like to continue helping students,
but in a different way.
So it's not like something that's really massive.
I'm not changing the world,
I'm just kind of focusing on like why I want the position
and what I hope to get out of it in a way
that's not totally self-serving,
but it's also kind of helping the organization.
So Sherry, I hope that answered your question.
If not, feel free to follow up
in the chat or raise your hand.
Okay, moving on.
So what are your interests? What are you passionate about?
So again, here you can be specific.
So this question is also helpful if you can tie it back
to the role.
So, you know, if you're really passionate about, like,
for example, helping people
and you're working for an organization that does that,
that's an obvious connection between the two.
So you wanna make sure that you are figuring out
like how you can always take
what you imagine they're gonna ask you
and connect it back to the top of your hand, the position.
All right, this next question, how do you handle stress?
So this is a common question, like how do you handle stress?
Tell us about a conflict.
Tell us about a time
that you attempted something and failed.
So really, they're asking you
to tell a story about something.
And so when they're asking a story,
you can always use the STAR method.
And so the STAR method is a good way to kind
of frame your answer
so that you don't just kind of keep talking.
Because typically an interviewer will just let you talk
until you stop.
And sometimes if you're nervous when you're talking,
you don't realize like, you know, what am I saying?
Am I actually making a point? Should I just stop here?
And so this is a way to kind of keep your answers organized.
So the STAR method means you wanna explain the situation.
So keep in mind,
your interviewer has no idea about the context.
So you wanna plant that context for the task.
Describe your role, what were you doing?
What was your responsibility in the situation.
What's the action? So what had to be done?
And then the result is what was the outcome?
And the outcome does not always have to be positive.
So I'll give you an example.
I was asked in an interview,
tell us about a time you had a conflict with a coworker,
how did you handle it?
And so my conflict was that, you know,
I was emailing with several coworkers,
we were trying to arrange a time to meet for this committee
we were working on, there was a lot of conflict
with meeting times.
People had very different opinions
about when we should meet.
I finally set a time in my email,
I forgot to include a coworker.
This person became incredibly upset
and so I had to resolve it.
So I apologized to the coworker, but still,
it really didn't, the outcome wasn't really solved.
This person was still upset for the rest of the time
that we worked together.
So from this, I learned that, you know,
I should obviously be more careful
with emailing and perhaps,
I could have approached that person
in a different way as opposed to like
just directly talking to them.
Maybe email first in set up situation, I'm not sure.
But the answer is you wanna make sure that you are thinking
about the situation, describing it completely,
and then explaining the outcome.
If the outcome is not positive, you know, reflect on it.
What did you gain from the experience?
What did you learn from the experience?
And then career goals.
Make sure that you are not saying something like,
well, one year later I don't wanna be working here anymore,
I wanna work somewhere else.
Instead, you can be a little bit more vague, you know,
you can say like, you know,
I'm hoping to be be in a position where I'm continuing
to grow, continuing to advance.
And then think about like,
what is the next step that you want?
And you can be honest and the organization might say like,
yeah, you know, we don't have that role here yet,
or you know, we haven't provided it yet.
Or that's a different department, which is totally fine.
It's understood that you're not going to get the job,
your next job is not gonna be your forever job.
So being honest about what your goals are is good,
but you don't have to be so specific.
You can be a little bit more vague
as far as like what those goals are.
Just kinda be generally speaking,
like what are your goals for advancement?
Sherry, your question's a little bit long.
I will address this at the end of the session.
So if you stick around,
there'll be times for questions and I will address it then.
So I hope that works for you.
Okay, so as I said,
you wanna make sure that you're familiar
with the job description.
You know, you might look at like the description
of what the job is itself,
also the responsibilities and think
about how you might turn these into questions.
And so you can look at, again,
you look at the title, the responsibilities.
Here's another example of how you can look at the position
and sort of imagine what are some kinds of questions
they might ask about this.
And so really just think about turning every line
of that job description into a question.
And so that's one way
to minimize those unexpected questions.
So for example,
here it's like individuals should be interested
in consumer research and helping brands
make better decisions.
So a question might be,
can you give us an example of a bad decision
that a brand has made and how would you advise them?
And so it seems like this position might be interested
in someone who is constantly thinking about marketing
and is very in tune with like,
what's happening now in the world of marketing.
So asking someone like, what's happening now?
Like, what's an example of something you've seen recently?
And so they wanna test
if that person's like always thinking about it.
Another, here are some of the skills, strong communications,
written, verbal, communicate with stakeholders.
So those two kind of tie together.
So they might ask a question,
can you give us an example of a time you had
to communicate with stakeholders?
What was your strategy?
You know, how did you keep them informed?
What did you do?
And so again, they're gonna want you to kind of like walk
through that process.
First, I started thinking about this,
and then I thought about this
and then, you know, so like,
how did you think through it?
And so really they're looking for you to sort
of say out loud your thought process.
And again, you can use the STAR method
for this, thinking about the context,
the task, the action, and what is the result.
So this STAR method is not exclusively used
for negative situations,
can also be used for positive situations.
So I'm gonna pause here.
Are there any questions before we move on?
Okay.
So another situation you might encounter
is you might be asked to talk
about your research if you are in research.
And so in this case,
you're kind of preparing an elevator speech,
we talked about last session,
really just like a short explanation of what it is
that you've been working on.
And so you wanna start with the big picture,
like what question does your research seek to answer?
So you might say, well,
I'm really interested in looking at why this happens
or how we can reduce X,
or what we can do about the problem of whatever.
And so just kind of start general,
then a few sentences to focus on why that's important.
You know, solving this would help understand da, da, da.
And so you want to keep it pretty general
and then connect your research back to the big picture.
So you know,
if we're able to know a little bit more about that,
then you know, I think that we can, you know,
reduce whatever issue or increase whatever positive thing
you're trying to focus on.
So you want to kind of think of it as like an hourglass,
like general, specific and general.
As you're talking about your research,
a couple of things about that.
You want to avoid jargon unless you are talking to people
who know the same jargon.
So if your research is in like, you know,
neuroscience and you're talking to neuroscientists,
then by all means, use the jargon.
But you might be in a situation where you're applying
for a position that's not directly related
to what you studied or directly related
to that research project.
As you know, research can become pretty narrowly focused.
So you wanna make sure like you are able
to relate to other people.
And one thing you do is focus on the why, not the what.
So don't get into like the details about the data,
but more of the big picture.
This is what we're trying to solve,
this is what we're looking at.
Anytime you can use metaphors is very helpful
for people to understand.
So if I'm looking at climate, or the weather,
I might say weather's like a mood,
but climate's a personality,
something like that helps people understand
and that's the plain language.
And again, that broad, narrow, broad focus.
And another thing I would say is also try to be interested
in your own research.
Sometimes I hear people say like,
yeah, my research is kind of boring.
But then they start talking about it like,
please don't say that.
Please, you know,
be interested in it even if you're sick of it
because you've been working on it so long.
Also be prepared to discuss your transferrable skills.
So you want to think about like,
what is this job asking for?
Are they asking for leadership skills?
Are they asking for collaboration?
Are they asking for, you know,
someone who is exceptionally good at communicating
in a variety of modes?
Whatever it is,
make sure you've pulled those out of the job description
and say, okay, definitely they're gonna ask about this,
or I should be able to describe, you know,
how I've been an effective leader in the past.
Make sure you understand like what they're looking for,
why you think it's necessary to the position.
And so then the thing about like, do you have the skill?
Yes. What experience helped you develop it?
And then sort of can make those connections.
So you might be applying for something that you feel
like is more of a technical independent role,
but they might ask you,
but if in the job description they do mention something
about communication, they might ask you like, you know,
how how do you deal with communicating to a large audience?
And so maybe that's not exactly
what was in the job description,
but you should be thinking about it a little bit like this,
you know, communication broadly is on the table.
They might ask me about that.
So make sure you are prepared for those kinds of things.
Also, you might be asked
about how you contribute to the diversity
of our organization or this company or this field,
whatever it is that you're applying to.
And so keep in mind that diversity is multi-dimensional.
So there's lots of different things that you can focus on.
Could be your identity, your background, your experience,
the things you're passionate about.
Lots of different things can contribute to diversity.
So if you feel like, ah,
I don't really have much to add to that,
really try to think about like,
what are the different dimensions of your identity
that could contribute to that?
And that can be your answer.
Tell your story, be specific.
Make sure you're not using false parallels.
So you don't wanna say like, well,
I had this experience once,
which is just like how marginalized people feel
all the time.
So you wanna avoid that.
But you know, showing an understanding of like, you know,
why DEI is important and why you feel like,
so kind of acknowledging it and showing
and demonstrating the value,
explaining why you think it's valuable,
and then explaining your role with it
is a great way to approach those things.
And again, here,
you want to make sure you're acknowledging barriers.
If you're asked,
like how have you demonstrated commitment to DEI.
Maybe you've been involved in mentoring,
maybe you've done an educational outreach,
maybe your research somehow contributes to it,
maybe you have other experience that has contributed to it.
And if none of that is true,
just because you haven't had the opportunity, totally fine,
you can indicate future plans.
So you might say something like,
although I have not done much in this field yet,
I do hope that in my future role I can do X, Y, and Z.
So you can always talk about the future.
There's a good chance that at least one of your interviews
will be virtual.
So typically, interviews happen in several rounds,
and the first one might be over Teams or Zoom or Skype
or whatever it is, just like we're doing now.
So make sure your technology's up to date, you know,
make sure like, you know, everything is,
your drivers are working and everything
so that your camera works.
Maybe you don't use your camera very often for Zoom,
so you don't even know if it's it's working.
But make sure you test it out.
Make sure you have a quiet space, no distractions.
You know, if you have roommates,
tell them to get out of the place for at least you know,
the duration of the interview.
Make sure your background's not distracting.
We've had people apply to positions here.
They've had incredibly messy rooms
and it is very distracting
to like kind of look like what is going on behind you.
Make sure your lighting is coming from in front of you.
I know that's not always possible depending
on your living situation and the time of day.
And then also if your interviewer is a few minutes late,
just wait, they're probably wrapping things up
with someone else.
Oftentimes interviews go over. Not a big deal.
If it's been probably five minutes and no one is popping
into the room that you are supposed to be interviewing at,
your virtual room, send an email.
If you don't have their email, call 'em.
Email is probably better.
Also, have your email open
just in case they're trying to reach you.
Maybe there's a miscommunication
or they had to change the room or something.
So just kind of be aware of all of those things,
and just keep in mind that you might be much better
with the technology than the person who's interviewing you.
So also allow them some grace.
Not everyone is a Zoom or Teams master just yet.
All right, another important thing to consider
is after the interview, typically people will ask you,
"Do you have any questions for us?"
And there's lots of different things that you can ask.
I'll give you a moment to look over the screen
for some examples.
So these are just a few kinds of questions that you might
want to ask at the end of an interview.
You don't have to ask one of these.
The best thing to do is to ask a question
that really is related to something you're curious about.
Maybe there's something that you're unsure
about the company.
Maybe there's something about the company's values
that you just want to know a little bit more about
or what are they doing to address topic X?
And if they're not addressing it,
maybe that's a big turnoff for you
and you don't wanna work there.
So definitely ask those at that time.
The worst thing that you can do is ask nothing.
So Sherry is asking how many questions are appropriate
to ask at the step?
That's probably going to be dependent on time.
So as I was saying,
the worst thing that you can do is ask nothing.
And if you have many people interviewing you
and you have like 10 minutes to ask your questions,
I would say make sure you ask
your most important question first
because someone might answer it and then somebody else
might offer their answer and then somebody else.
And then almost you're out of time
because you can't really cut them off
and be like, okay, I got it, I got it, I got more questions.
So make sure you ask your most important question first,
and then you can ask follow ups.
That's totally fine.
I find that most people want questions.
If you say nothing,
it kind of feels like you're not really interested
or you haven't really thought about the role.
So you wanna make sure you have at least something to ask.
If you are incredibly nervous and you feel like if your mind
just goes blank, a question that you can always ask
is you can ask people like, you know,
what's a typical day like here?
And that's gonna give a lot of different people to answer.
Like, this is what I do, this is what I do.
If you want to end on a positive note and you kind
of go blank, you can say like,
can you tell me what you love about working here?
And that ends very positively.
But really, this is your chance
to ask those really specific things
that are important to you.
So don't waste that opportunity.
And again, to answer Sherry's question, it really depends.
So you wanna make sure you organize those questions,
first one, most important first,
and then second one.
Probably you're only gonna get two or three at the most.
So just be mindful of that
unless you have a very relaxed interview environment.
But probably just a handful or two or three, I mean,
not a handful.
Okay, after the interview,
the first thing you should do is as soon as you walk out,
get in your car, go down the hall, go to a quiet room,
whatever, you wanna start jotting down your thoughts,
and whether that's a pen and paper or just on your phone,
just a few notes, you know, like, okay,
didn't expect him to ask about that,
or they asked this question, that went really well.
I didn't get a chance to mention this.
So whatever your immediate thoughts are,
just take a few notes.
They don't have to be complete sentences or anything,
just so that you understand and you can refer to it later.
So make sure that's clear.
And then if they do tell you that they're going
to contact your references,
make sure you also tell your references.
So hopefully, you've already asked your references
if they are references,
so they know that they're gonna be contacted.
So you might just send them a text message or an email
saying, I just finished my interview.
You're probably going to hear from them this week
or next week.
So please, you know, please be aware,
you might get an email in your spam box
or you might get a phone call
from a number you don't recognize.
So just be aware, it might be them contacting you.
So send that.
Then crucially, next one,
you wanna make sure you send the thank you note within 24
to 36 hours.
And sometimes people feel like,
that's kind of weird?
Why am I thanking them for the interview?
I know it's weird, but if you don't do it,
you're probably gonna be the only person who doesn't do it
and you don't want to be that.
So you wanna send a thank you note,
but then also you can use this as a way to add more
to the interview.
So if you took down some notes, you're like, ah,
I forgot to mention this really important thing,
you can mention that in your thank you note.
So you can say, you know, thank you for your time.
Please extend my thanks to the whole team.
In the interview, I didn't have a chance to mention,
but I want you to know that I do have a lot of experience
with whatever it is.
So you can use this as a way to show your politeness,
your professionalism,
but also you can use it to your own advantage
to add those extra things
that maybe you didn't mention or you feel like
you didn't emphasize enough or you just kind of wanted
to reiterate and reemphasize.
As a final note,
also be patient.
Decisions can take longer than you think.
You might be the first person they interviewed and maybe
they're interviewing, you know,
six people and it's gonna take several weeks
because everyone has a different schedule.
They have to organize all of that.
So it's gonna take a while.
But if the employer did say, like,
you will hear from us in two weeks, first of all,
wait two weeks, not 13 days, not 12 days, two weeks.
And then after that time, if they have not contacted you,
it's totally okay to contact them.
Just send a polite email, you know, hi,
I know you said I'd hear back in two weeks,
do you have any updates?
Is there anything else that you need from me?
Something like that.
You never know what's happening
with different organizations.
Someone may have quit, someone may have been promoted,
someone may have suddenly went on vacation,
and they're really important in this whole process.
So it doesn't mean it's necessarily anything bad,
but if they do give you a timeframe,
do not hesitate to contact them after
that timeframe has passed.
If they say five days wait, five days,
so whatever it is.
So they're not going to be like,
oh, I can't believe that she contacted us
and is really eager to work here.
That's terrible. That's not how they think.
It's actually probably more of a positive thing.
So don't worry about that too much.
So before I get to final questions,
I'll give you a moment to answer those.
And I do want to address Sherry's question in the chat.
So Sherry's question was like, what if I have a goal
that is like really long that I might not be able
to address during my, even in my entire career?
I would say for that,
try to cut it short and be a little bit more general.
So Sherry's just working on a training camp
in underdeveloped areas.
So I would probably start with that.
Like, I'm hoping to work on, you know, a training
and a lab in some core of an undeveloped area.
And I really think that's important because,
and then give the reasons and you know, I hope that this lab
is gonna meet the New York,
I think that's what it is,
New York standards so that it can be like ,
an important part of preventing a future outbreak.
So you don't have to give like a really long answer.
You can kind of say like, this is what I want to do,
this is why it's important.
So you can kind of focus on just those steps.
Are there any other questions about the interview process
or some of those questions you might get asked
that are difficult to answer?
Especially, there was a question about unexpected questions.
So if you had an unexpected question,
you're kind of curious like, yeah, answered it this way,
I don't know if that was the right way.
Is there another way? So I'm happy to talk about those two.
Well, if there's no more questions, we can wrap it up here.
Also, I'm happy to stick around and answer anything
that people are curious about.
And I see it was an interview for scholarships
are probably a bit different.
We can also talk about that too if you wanna stick around.
I have time.
Okay. So I am going to, okay.
Sorry. Thank you. Okay, thank you.
Thank you for attending.
So I am going to stop the recording now.