Preparing for interview success

Resources

Whether your young adult is seeking their first job, applying for an apprenticeship, or hoping to get a place at university, feeling prepared for the interview process is key. Being prepared should help your young person feel more relaxed and hopefully go into an interview with more confidence.

Our Young People hub has free tools and advice to develop confidence and ways they can present themselves to employers. We’ve listed a couple of examples below together with some conversation starters so you can chat these through together.

• There are a variety of ways people can be interviewed and assessed for jobs, you could suggest your young adult looks through the Different types of interview and assessments interactive guide. The guide helps set expectations and suggests how to adapt responses to face to face, telephone, panel or online interviews.
• Then encourage them to practise their interview technique and rehearse answers to the kind of questions they can expect whatever position they are going for using the Virtual Interview Practice tool. Just like a mock interview, they will be asked questions and have the option to record audio or write down their responses to help them reflect and improve.

The answers within the Virtual Interview Practice tool follow what is known as the STAR model. This is a structured approach that can be applied to interview questions and are especially useful for competency style interviews. Your young person can practise their responses to interview questions using the four steps below:

1. Situation - Describe what was happening and where

2. Task - Explain what you were doing

3. Actions - Describe what actions you took and the skills you used

4. Result - Describe the outcome and what you achieved

Conversations

Once your young adult has looked through the tools, use the following questions to help you have a conversation and you may be able to give them examples from your own experiences with interviews.

• How can you plan for different types of interview? Some examples are planning the journey for a face-to-face interview and testing tech ahead of a virtual one. What would be good for the employer to know about you? It’s important to highlight the skills and experience needed for the role. Some examples could be around:

  • Teamwork - achieving something as part of a sports team or school project
  • Aiming high (proactivity) – seeking volunteering opportunities to help build skills and experience.

• Have you thought about what would be good for the employer to know about you? It’s important to highlight the skills and experience needed for the role, having these prepared as a quick reference during the interview can be helpful. Some examples might be:

  • Working in a team - I’ve been part of a netball team for three years and my teamwork skills have helped us win a number of tournaments which…
  • Creativity - During my time at school I was editor of our school newspaper…’
  • Aiming high (proactivity) – seeking volunteering opportunities helped me build communication skills.

• How did you get on with the STAR model in the Virtual Interview Tool? Was it useful?

• How would researching the role and organisation show enthusiasm?

• What questions will you ask? Asking questions in an interview will show interest in the role. Some examples are:

  • How does my role fit within the wider organisation?
  • Are there any areas of focus for training and development in this role?