You've just graduated with little or no work experience. Without experience it can feel like your interviewing naked.
Interviewers usually ask questions about your experience but when you don't have any work experience, this can make the interview uncomfortable for you and the interviewer. Even without actual "work " experience, you do have project based experience from school, life experience and volunteer experience. These are just as powerful demonstrations of your talents and abilities.
Potential employers use questions to gather information about you in order to predict your future performance in a position. They want to understand not just experience but your personal qualities or performance behaviors. Examples of behaviors can include your self-motivation, work ethic, intellectual agility and results focus.
Companies may also be interested in discipline specific knowledge you bring to the position. This occurs most often in highly specialized majors like nursing, finance & accounting ,science and engineering.
To prepare for your next interview make a list all your skills, personal qualities and knowledge. Next to each, write down an example from your life that demonstrates this dimension of you. Also include software applications and discipline specific tools you have used.
You might also list the different environments you have experienced. For example, you may have had a summer job at a very small company, worked part-time at school in the alumni or business office, or worked on a school project where you collaborated with people from major corporations.
As a former Director and VP of Recruiting for several Fortune 500 companies I frequently interviewed new graduates on campus and on site at the company. My favorite interview question was "Describe yourself in three word." I would then ask the candidate to select one of three and give me an example (life or work) that demonstrates this quality in them. I learned a great deal about them in a very short time period.
The interview is the most important moment in your job search. Be prepared, be yourself, be the one who gets the offer.
-- Michael Neece is the CEO and Founder of Interview Mastery, the Internet's first and only job interview skills program using multimedia to build job interview skills rapidly. Featured in the Wall Street Journal, partnered with CollegeRecruiter.com and several other major job boards and web portals as well as nominated as "Most Innovative Company" in 2002, Interview Mastery is now the #1 program to help job seekers get hired faster.
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