Graduate Interview Question: What Do You Like About The Field?

You graduated. No more teachers, no more books, no more giving the sexy classmate dirty looks. You studied for hours, possibly even with textbooks! Probably not though. Hooray for Cliff Notes and cheating!

Interviewers know very little about you. All they know is that you have a major, and presumably your major is related to the field. The interviewer has little they can ask you, so they are left asking you questions about why you chose your field.

How to Answer

Give them an intelligent reason. It should have nothing to do with money or your parents telling you to do it. Talk about the field itself, its innovation, etc.

Bad Answer

“I don’t know. It has a lot of jobs available, and in this economy you try to get whatever job you can.”

Good Answer

“It is a field that will never become obsolete, with constant innovation, logic and problem solving. No two campaigns are ever the same, which means that you are always trying to find a new strategy or platform to help the company.”

These types of answers are intelligent and exciting, so it does really look like you have a reason to be in the field. Good reasons show the employer that you plan on sticking around and didn’t make a career choice that you are likely to regret.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Provide an intelligent and thoughtful answer.
• Avoid answers that make it appear you did not put much thought in the decision.

College Graduate Interview Question: Do You Believe Your GPA Accurately Reflects Your Abilities

“Dude, absolutely. My 2.0 GPA accurately reflects how much I like to slack off and barely focus on the tasks at hand. I think 2.0 is a cool number too, because it represented the number of body shots I can take per hour without passing out.”

With little work experience, recruiters have to assume that your education makes you qualified for the role. Your GPA is the best barometer of how you did in college, but it is not always the best indicator of your abilities.

How to Answer

If you had a great GPA, you can answer with “yes” and focus on all of the great things you accomplished, or the hard work you put into your education, etc. However, you need to remember where you are applying. A “Great” GPA is not a 3.3 or 3.1. It may not even be a 3.5. If you are applying to a competitive job, 3.5 is considered average. Only assume you have a great GPA if you were above 3.8, unless you are applying to a more entry level, noncompetitive position. If you have a not-great GPA, briefly give an excuse that doesn’t reflect poorly on you, and discuss the activities you did that make you still qualified.

Bad Answer

“No. I think I could have done better than my 3.2. I struggled in a few classes but I am sure I could have done a lot better, and I am a much better employee than me GPA indicates.

This may be truthful, but it does not really say how you are still a good candidate. What reason do they have to believe you?

Good Answer

“No, not at all. I was working through college and did not have as much time to study as I would have liked. But I did have an opportunity to intern for DataCorp, as well as research with Drs. Name and NameTwo,so I feel I have had more work experience than others in my position, and I held a 3.8 GPA within the core classes of my friend, which I think are a much better indicator of my abilities.”

There you give a brief excuse for your poor performance and actual reasons that you are still a great candidate despite your grades.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Keep the excuse brief.
• Use non-clichés to explain why you are still a great candidate.

True Job Interview Experiences of a College Graduate, Part 1

At Everyday Interview Tips, we like to provide you with in depth tips and strategies for acing your job interview. We write up hundreds of thousands of words and over a thousand pages of what you need to know in order to land a job. Yet every job interview is unique, and sometimes you can find a job or ace a job interview in some of the strangest ways. Below are real job interview stories from a young graduate that held several jobs and experienced several job interviews before he started his career.

First Job: Grocery Store

One of my first jobs during college was working in a grocery store. It was part of an enormous chain of grocery stores. They didn’t have resumes. Instead, they had basic applications, and then you called the number on a card and scheduled your own interview for the job. I applied for a job as a Courtesy Clerk, which is essentially a cart pusher. It’s a job designed for young people.

When I arrived, there were 5 other people applying to the same position. All of them were at least 40, 2 of them spoke no English and one was probably past retirement age. The job paid 7.50 per hour. We had to watch a video on how to help customers, and then take what may have been the easiest test of my entire life.

Q: Which of the following should you do if the door alarm goes off as a customer is leaving?

a) Beat them in the face with a gourd until they can’t breathe.

b) Call the police and drop tackle them to the ground.

c) Smile and politely ask if you can check to see if any alarms have yet to be disabled.

d) Rip off your clothes and dance the Macarena.

After the test was over, we were going to be called one at a time to an individual job interview with the PIC. I was second, and asked a series of easy questions, which I responded to confidently. I consider myself a fairly intelligent guy, and this was a grocery store, so it didn’t seem hard to impress the interviewer.

I sat back down in the room with the other applicants while they called the 3^rd applicant for an interview. Before she came back, another PIC came in and asked if they could talk to me for a moment. We walked out of the room and she said to me “Do you want the job?” I said “Sure, but don’t you need to interview the other applicants?” She smiled, looked into the room, looked back at me, gave a short snort, and said “I’ll get the paperwork going.”

Tomorrow we’ll hear story number two about this college graduates interview experiences.

College Graduate Interview Question: How Did You Do in School?

You don’t have much of a work history, so recent college graduates and those applying for more entry level positions are going to have to answer questions about their college experiences. If you want to get the job, you need to take advantage of these questions, because you do not have as much of an opportunity to flaunt your work history or discuss your previous experiences.

How to Answer

Obviously if you didn’t do very well, you should limit your answer to this question, but if you did do well, don’t take this question for granted. Go on about your experiences as much as you can without sounding like you are rambling.

Bad Answer

“I did really well. I had a good GPA and did well on tests.”

Good Answer

“I graduated cum laude and had one of the highest GPAs in my major. I was also heavily involved in the department, volunteering my time to research under Drs. Pepper and StrangeLove. I also won an award for my paper on Contemplative Introspection…”

When you have an opportunity to speak that highly of yourself, you take it, unless you have nothing to say.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Flaunt your achievements.