The College Recruiting Interview

By Benton Howie

 OK….you are about to graduate from university having spent the last four or five years working your tail off and having expended an exorbitant amount of money on tuition/ books/fees and other expenses, and maybe having incurred a tidy amount of debt that you will be required to repay….now what?

Your first stop will more than likely be the university placement office and your introduction to the trials of on-campus company interviews.    This is a good thing.  You have the opportunity to interview with companies that have come to your university specifically to interview, screen and possibly hire students who are about to graduate…hopefully you will be among those who are offered a job.  Both you and they have a captive audience. 

KEY---These are as much your interviews as theirs.

Here are the steps to this dance. 

You’re Preparation

·         Go to the placement office interview preparation sessions if they are offered at your university. Pay attention; they know what they are doing and can give you some good advice.  

·         Find out which companies are coming and sign up early.  Schedules fill up quickly. 

·         Start interviewing early in the year, even if you are only casually interested in the companies.  This is your chance to practice interviewing.  And, who knows, the companies just might surprise you. 

·         Research the companies you are interviewing with prior to the preview sessions and interview dates.  This is important.  Remember, these are as much your interviews as theirs.

·         Prior to the interview, prepare some questions you want to ask.  You want to have as much information about a company as possible before considering them as a prospective employer.  Remember, you only have thirty minutes. 

·         Prepare your resume.  There are a lot of places on the web you can go for resume preparation tips.   Monster and Careerbuilder offer good resume preparation advice.  However, here is an important quick tip—put the good stuff first; recruiters read from the top down.   A resume is a career marketing tool.  It won’t get you a job, but it may lose you and interview. 

·         Prepare your business card.  That’s right---your business card.   Here’s why you should have one and what it should look like.

Ø      Recruiters will interview students every forty-five minutes for one or two days.  Names, faces, and facts run together.  You need to give them an easy way to remember you.  The resume you give the recruiter will probably go to a central source for entry into a database or disappear into a pile along with other resumes.   The business card will stay with them.  The business card will give them a quick place to make notes about you….i.e., sharp, motivated, articulate, confident, good internship experience….etc. 

Ø      The card should have your picture on the front…faces run together after a while for recruiters…you want to be remembered.  You should also have your name (note which name you use), your contact information, your degree, GPA, and your graduation date.  On the back include a bulleted synopsis of relevant employment facts…i.e. major educational emphasis, internship (company names and departments) extracurricular achievements, etc.   List what you believe will make you employable and differentiate you from others.

 

Ø      I like the card to be a fold-out (business card size when folded).  This allows you to provide more information and allows you to designate a section for NOTES, which will be appreciated by the recruiter.

 

KEY:  You may have to have slightly modified cards for different companies—allows you to provide industry specific achievements.

Preview Sessions

If you are lucky, and the companies take college recruiting seriously, they will host preview sessions in the days preceding the interview dates.  These are serious events, not just casual “meet and greet” sessions.  Whereas they are interesting, they are not for fun.  This is serious business.  These sessions are where you can begin to separate yourself from the pack.  Go to them. 

KEY---You will have two targeted objectives both at these sessions and during the interviews.  You must differentiate yourself from the competition (your fellow students) and you must present yourself as someone the companies want to offer employment to.  You must be memorable (hopefully positively so.)

Company representatives may be a combination of hiring managers, recruiters, and employee alumni from your university.  They will have a formal presentation about themselves, usually a power point or video.   Remember, this is a recruiting marketing tool.  Pay attention.   You need to thoroughly research the company prior to accepting an offer to fill in the blanks.   The sessions will also be quasi-social.  Dress appropriately.  Company representatives (usually recruiters, hiring managers and employee alumni) will circulate the room to meet and assess as many students as possible. 

·         Don’t be bashful; introduce yourself;

·         Deliver your elevator speech (more about that later) and give them your business card---give one to everyone you meet.

·         Don’t ramble; make eye contact; speak slowly; be articulate;

·         Display self confidence, but don’t be cocky; be sincere and real (no bull—they know it when they see it, just like you know it when you speak it.)

·         Display courtesy and good manners.  

Ask company representatives about the company and what type of individual does it take to succeed at the company and anything else you consider important in evaluating a potential first employer.  Meet as many people as you can.  This is your initial marketing opportunity to that company—make the most of it. 

Thank your host as you leave.

KEY---This is also a chance for companies to find out how you handle yourself in social and group situations.  That’s one of the reasons they provide refreshments—to find out if you know how to hold a fork and to not talk with your mouth full. This is particularly important for sales positions. 

DEFINITION: The Elevator Speech - A short (thirty second) casual verbal presentation which summarizes who you are and what career opportunity you are seeking.  It’s a good idea to think a lot about what you will say ahead of time.  Have it well rehearsed - practice it in front of the mirror.   At the same time, this is not the time to do a hard sell.  Save it for the interview…but if asked, answer questions directly.  It’s ok to do a little selling if asked. 

 

The Interview  

Be punctual and dress appropriately.   I recommend a suit or sport coat for men and corresponding professional business attire for women.  Introduce yourself and if you met the interviewer at a preview session, tell the person it is good to see them again.  Bring your resume and your business card and give it to the recruiter at the beginning of the interview.

Key…a word about dress:  dress politically neutral, no fraternity or sorority pens or crests on jackets, or “save the whales” pins, etc. Interviews and preview sessions are not the time to make political or social statements.  If you are involved in particular causes or social organizations it’s ok to put it on your resume.  Also…unless you are interviewing for a job as a ”roadie” for a tour band, or for MTV or a Hip Hop production company, remove all piercings. 

OK, you have thirty minutes to get a job. 

·         If you have been to a preview session the recruiter will not have to present the company to you.  If there was no preview session, the recruiter will usually open with a short presentation about the company, or ask you if you have researched their company and what you have discovered.  Be prepared to answer this question.  They want to know if you did the research and what you consider important.  What you say is up to you, but you should address their markets, their products, their customers, and any recent press on the company (both positive and negative).  The recruiter is quite likely to ask you this question even if there was a preview session.  This is a test of your initiative, your professionalism and your work ethic.

·         The recruiter will now move to YOU.   They will ask why you are interested in their company.  Have an answer.  It is not necessary that you commit that you really, really, want to go to work for them, but you do need to let them know why you are considering them.  Remember, you only have thirty minutes, be succinct and organized.

·         The recruiter may also ask you why you believe you would make a good employee, or what you would bring to the company or job, or how you would compare yourself to other potential candidates. This is where the question you asked the employee alumnus at the preview session comes in handy.  You will know what they are looking for.  The BIG question if asked is “why should we hire you?”  You need a good answer.

KEY:  Unless you really don’t want to work for this employer your objective is to get an offer.  You can always turn it down if you get a better offer.  But you want to be the one making that decision, not them.  If, after the preview session, you are no longer interested in the company, you should contact the placement office and cancel the interview to make room for other students to get on the schedule. It is simply the right thing to do.  Do not-- just not show up.  You will make a lot of people mad, especially the placement office.

·         The recruiter will delve into any internships or co-ops you did.  And this is where a behavioral interviewing technique may be used.  There is a lot of information on behavioral interviewing on the net.  Here is one good site   http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/interviews/a/behavioral.htm   However, it can be briefly summarized as an interview using questions designed to be answered in situational contexts….such as, provide an example of a time when you had to diffuse an emotional situation between you and another employee.  These are not yes or no questions.  They are designed to see how you handle certain situations including, the description of the situation, the outcome you were striving for, the techniques you used in the situation, the outcome---and what you learned. 

·         The recruiter will specifically ask you why you chose a particular field, what courses you liked and which ones you didn’t like as much, and why.   Good recruiters will ask you what types of jobs you are interested in, and why.  They may also ask where you expect your career to go in one, two, or three years—what you are looking for in a prospective employer.    If you have done internships or co-ops, the recruiter will ask you to expand on the experiences, especially if they are directly relevant to their opportunities.  These are important.  Some recruiters may get a little cute and ask you a total off-the-wall question like, “what is the last book you read” or, worse yet, “if you were a color, what it would be?”  These questions don’t really mean anything and unless your answer is totally bizarre, the answer doesn’t mean anything.   When asked, they are attempting to see how well you think on your feet.  Give them an answer. 

Key:  You must indicate a job or range of jobs in a job family that you are interested in.  Recruiters are not career counselors; they are there to fill specific needs for their companies. 

·         Now it is your turn.   The interviews usually then move in your direction, asking if you have any questions?  You need to ask questions about the company, how they did last year, their market strength and future, the job, what it’s like to work there,  what benefits they offer, relocation assistance, and if important to you—opportunities for travel or foreign assignments, tuition reimbursement for graduate school, work locations, and anything else you think of.  This is your chance to learn all you can about the company.  Do not mention money.  They will offer what they offer.  If they mention money, unless you have a specific amount in mind simply tell them that you are certain they pay their new grads a competitive salary.  You can ask them about performance or incentive bonuses, or if you are interviewing for a sales position---about their sales compensation plans.

·         The recruiter will then close the interview.  You need to ask what the next step is. And does the recruiter believe you would be a good fit for their company?  This is called a soft close---not pushy, but a declaration of solid interest (if you are interested). 

·         Thank the recruiter; shake hands, smile and leave.  

·         This is important.  Follow up with a letter, or at a minimum, an email thanking the recruiter for his or her time and expressing your interest---and again find out where you are in the process and what your next step should be.

 

When scheduling your on-campus interview, here are a few things to keep in mind.

·         If you are the last interview before lunch you have the opportunity to ask the recruiter to join you for lunch if you want.  They are usually alone and most welcome a lunch companion.   Eating alone is a bummer.   Besides, they don’t know where the good food is.   If the recruiter is interested in you, it will expand your interview from 30 minutes to an hour and thirty minutes.   You can use the same tactic for dinner if you are the last person on the schedule for the day.  This is an excellent opportunity for you if you can pull it off.   Offer to pay since you invited them, although they will usually pick up the check.

·         Another tactic you can try if you were not able to get on the interview schedule is to drop by the placement office just as the pre-lunch or end of day interview breaks up and stick your head in and tell them you were unable to get on the schedule.  Hand the recruiter your resume and offer to take him or her to lunch/dinner.   This trick has been used on me more than once and in the majority of the cases I ended up offering the student an on-site interview.  This is a very good tactic for students interested in sales.  It shows hustle, confidence, and initiative.  Again, offer to pay.  Of course now that this is posted on a public web site the line outside the office before lunch and dinner may be a little long—or not. 

On campus interviews are one of your best ways to find your first employer and hone your interviewing chops. There is a lot of competition and schedules are lean and tight.   Approach this the way you would a major school project.  Do your homework, stay focused and take the process seriously.   You might just find your first job.