In this article, we discussed how to find out from company recruiters exactly what they are looking for in a candidate for a college internship.  Now that you know what recruiters look for, it’s time to talk about how you can convince them that you are their ideal college student candidate.

For some people, this may be difficult, for others, this may be easy.  Something that was brought up at a conference recently was the example of an Olympic athlete who was quite nervous before competing.  His coach simply said to him “this is just like we did in  practice.  Nothing different, just another practice.”  This athlete went on to win the gold medal.

If we apply that principle to our interviewing, it’s very easy to see that a bit of planning and practice on your interview responses can make all the difference in your outcome.

Planning properly is the key to the whole game, and since you’ve already gotten the answers from your recruiters, it’s all laid out for you!  With the end in mind of showing a recruiter that you have “xyz skill,” work backwards from there.  If they are looking for those set of skills, what kind of questions would you anticipate them asking during an interview? 

For example, if a recruiter wants to see that you are technically competent, they’ll probably ask you questions along the lines of “tell me a time you were challenged by a technical problem, and what you did to overcome it.”

If they are looking for leadership, they might ask “Tell me about a time when you showed leadership.”

Once you have a few questions you think they’ll ask lined up, then you can formulate your answers.  Answers should be in the STAR format as my book discusses and shows you how to formulate.

With all of your answers, you want to make sure that every example relates somehow to the attributes they are looking for.  If it doesn’t directly relate, but you still have to use it anyway, make sure you can somehow explain to the recruiter how that attribute is transferable to their position.

Now you just need to practice running through your answers a few times, and you’re all set!

Feel free to explore the other articles on the website to get more in depth information about each one, or purchase our complete Job Search Guide!

Happy (Job) Hunting!

Thanks again for your interest in College-Career-Builder.com


E-Mail: coachbob@college-career-builder.com