Tag: Interviews

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The Careers Service On…Interviews

We recently talked with a member of the Careers Service on the topic of Interviews! Ranging from the advice they would give students to the support and resources the Careers Service has available, this article is a perfect place to start if you want to know more about interviews!

What is your name and what is your role within the university?

Hi, I’m Sara Williams and I’m one of the Careers Consultants on the team here at the University’s Careers Service. My role is quite varied, you might have seen me in induction weeks promoting the service and advising students what’s on offer from the Careers Service, delivering one of our central workshops or in a 1-1 appointment.

Do you like interviews?

Tough question! When you look at the evidence, highly structured interviews’ (like a competency-based interview) data shows that they can quite effectively predict performance in a role. As a former recruiter, I liked interviews to get to know about a candidate’s passions and interests and just to get to know them and see if they might be a good fit for the organisation. I think as a candidate they can be quite intimidating and tough for lots of folks but always remember it is a two-way process! You are there as much to learn about the organisation as they are about you!

How does the careers service support students when it comes to interviews?

We support students in lots of different ways for interviews. Our website has a lot of information on how to prepare and demystify some of the common questions that you might get asked at an interview.

Other online tools that we offer include Shortlist.Me and Graduates First which gives students the opportunity to practise the pre-recorded or asynchronous video interviews that are becoming increasingly more common, particularly within graduate recruitment schemes.

The online platform Forage also has a guide and practical examples to help students prepare for technical interviews like whiteboard or case study interviews

In-person support includes access to information appointments where one of my colleagues can talk students through how to properly prepare for interviews and some of the resources available and they can also refer students to appointments with Careers Consultants for practise or mock interviews too! Students can book these through MyCareer

What do you find that students struggle with the most when it comes to interviews, and why?

It varies between people. Some people might have trouble articulating what they want to say while other people might struggle with thinking about their experience and how it might fit with the skills the interviewer is looking for and some people can lack a little bit of confidence too. I think the important thing is that these are all things that you can work on with some reflection and practise.

How can students best prepare for interviews? Is there a trick that works for all of them?

Again, it depends on the individual and if there are areas of their interview preparation or performance that need a bit of tweaking. I would say in my experience confidence with interviews can come from being really well prepared e.g. making sure they really understand the company and the role they are being interviewed for, making sure they know how their skill set matches what the employer/interviewer might be looking for, anticipating questions and preparing for them and also taking time to practise answers.

What three mistakes do students not realise they are making during an interview?

Not structuring answers, so for example, in competency-based interviews, employers will expect that you use the BAR or STAR structure. I think a lot of students have heard of this but often don’t give enough detail, again practising and getting feedback can help with this!

Not doing enough research on the company. Now you don’t necessarily need to know the share price of the company on the day you are interviewing but I often find students making quite broad statements about the company. Doing research and using tools beyond their website can really demonstrate you’ve done your homework and have a genuine interest in them. The library has a lot of different business research tools you can use.

It is a two-way process! Make sure you have some questions prepared for your interviewer at the end. This might be your only opportunity to ask questions so really think about what you want to know like, what will the first 6 months in the role look like? How will your performance be measured?  What challenges is the company facing and how does this role contribute to solving them?

If a student keeps getting to the interview stage of a job application but progresses no further, what advice would you give them in order to be more successful?

Firstly, take a moment to recognise your success at getting to the interview stage! The job search can be tough so take the small wins. I would always encourage anyone to reflect after their interview. We do tend to be more critical of ourselves but take a few minutes, somewhere quiet after an interview to think about what you did well and whether was there anything you would do differently next time.  I would also encourage anyone who hasn’t been successful at the interview stage to ask for feedback (this can be difficult with pre-recorded interviews) it could be something really simple like ‘you needed to structure your answers better’ or ‘ your interest in the company didn’t come through’ these are all things you can work on going into your next interview.

If you had to give one piece of advice, and only one, to a student regarding interviews, what would it be?

Prepare effectively and enough! From my experience, this can help in so many ways and I think the main way that I observe is that it helps with confidence.

What would you say is the most important part of an interview? The beginning, middle, or end? And why?

Well, if we look at the science the beginning and the end are important (primacy and recency effect), and this is what the interviewer might remember the most. Equally, we’ve all probably heard of the importance of making a good first impression!  In reality, all of it matters, particularly as most interviewers will be taking notes which they will then re-read over after your interview and look for evidence of where you meet the pre-determined criteria.

What can you gain from doing practice interviews?

I think getting experience and feedback are the two main things people often get from practise interviews but often find that students come out feeling a bit more confident about taking interviews after a practise interview too.

Which is the harder type of interview, online or in person? Why?

I don’t think one is necessarily ‘harder’ than the other in terms of questions you might get asked but I do find that most (not all) people prefer in-person interviews as people report that they find it easier to build rapport with the interviewers and read non-verbal behaviours. In a post covid world, we’re seeing more employers keeping some or all of their recruitment processes online so I don’t think online interviews are going to go away anytime soon. If students are worried about doing online interviews we have the Graduates First and Shortlist.Me platforms as mentioned before but we also can do mock/practise interviews online too! There’s a lot of good advice, hints and tips online too about how to prepare for online interviews.

How might a technical interview differ from a normal interview?

Technical interviews are to assess your ‘technical’ competence. This might sound quite straightforward but this can also include assessing your logical thinking as well as how you approach problem-solving. Typical formats of a technical interview might also differ. Some companies might use the question-and-answer format as with a normal interview perhaps starting out with some more basic technical concepts and then asking increasingly harder questions often they might ask about projects in your portfolio too.

You might also be given a coding challenge and asked to go through it (produce an output) with the interviewer. Leetcode and HackeRank are two quite common resources to help practise these sorts of interviews. Paired coding challenges, whiteboard challenges, case studies and technical coding tests could also be used to assess your technical competence. Try and research as much as you can about what to expect either from the information you have been sent from the recruiter or using tools like Glassdoor to get a sense of what could be asked and in what format.  You can also use things like the forage tool to practise some of the whiteboard exercises, case study and coding challenges style questions (Girls who code – technical interview preparation course). With technical interviews often it might not be about getting something 100% accurate but more about how you approach a question and try to solve it, as in addition to the above this can give an insight into your resilience as well as your thought processes.  

In five words or less, can you summarise what you think to be the most important part of an interview?

Not five words per se but I would encourage students to think about interviews in three parts:

Prepare (research company, questions and yourself for why you are a good fit)

Practise (use online tools or in-person resources to help you practise questions and get feedback)

Perform (on the day what will you do to e.g. manage nerves, what strategies do you have, what do you want to know about them, reflect afterwards and think about your performance in a non-judgemental way)

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How to Ace Your Interviews

In previous articles, I have covered how the university’s careers service can support you as you create CVs and write cover letters. Now it is time to move on to later parts of the application process: interviews, tests and assessment centres.  

There is a lot to get through so this article will focus on the interview stage and other articles on tests and assessment centres respectively. 

Interviews 

A crucial step of the application process, the interview is what gives an employer a more accurate picture of who you are, what you can do, and how well you might work with the team.  

Interviews are some of the most nerve-racking things you can do, regardless of your age. But there are ways you can prepare yourself for them.  

There is a range of questions you may be asked: 

Motivational questions (e.g. ‘Why do you want to work for us?’) 

Employer-focused questions (e.g. ‘What do you know about us?’) 

CV and career aspiration questions (e.g. ‘Tell me about your internship with…’ or ‘What is your career goal?’) 

Hypothetical questions (e.g. ‘What would you do if X happened?’) 

Competency or values-based questions. These might ask for previous examples of when you used skills or demonstrated values (e.g. ‘Give me an example of when you worked in a team to solve a problem’ or ‘Tell me about a time when you took pride in your work’) 

Strength-based questions. These focus on what you like doing and what you are good at (e.g. ‘What motivates you?’ or ‘Do you prefer to work in a team or by yourself?’). 

Two of best things to do are to practice and to prepare: 

Practice 

Interviews are a daunting task but the more you do, the better you will get and the more confident you will come across. Even an unsuccessful interview is successful in other ways. 

Prepare 

Hopefully, during your initial application, you researched the company. Now that you’ve secured an interview, you need to do more research. Get an understanding of what the company does, and what their policies are and make sure you understand what you would be doing in the job you are applying for. You might even be told who will be interviewing you, so try to look them up and what their roles are! 

Practice answers to typical interview questions as well as searching online for previous interview questions that may have been asked by the company. A great methodology to stick to when answering interview questions is STAR (Situation Task Analysis Response). This structure is helpful as it allows you to use your past experiences to help portray what makes you suitable for the role. It is recommended that you try and write out answers to a range of questions using the STAR format, but use different scenarios for each, just to get practice with it as well as a range of information to pull from when asked a question during your interview. 

With the pandemic, more and more interviews are being conducted online. It is easier to set up a zoom or teams than organise travel and book a room for an in-person interview. That is why it is a great idea to get as much practise as you can with this style of interview. The MyCareer’s page has tons of resources to help with this, but there is one I recommend checking out: Shortlist.me. 

Shortlist.me is a practice video interview tool used by actual graduate recruiters to give an accurate view of what a video interview is like as well as AI-generated reports and your answers themselves to reflect on. You can participate in a range of video interviews for different fields as well as some strength-based interviews and employer-specific ones for NHS Digital, AstraZeneca and law firm, Womble Bond Dickinson. 

As you can see there is a broad range of mock interviews you can attempt: 

After completing one of these interviews, which asked six questions, I received the following feedback: 

As you can see, it gives a useful breakdown of metrics like speech rate, filler words and time used. In addition to this feedback, you can look back at each of your answers and reflect on how you performed. Just attempting the questions is a great way to practice! 

Also, be sure to remember that interviews are there to help you decide as well! Be sure to ask your own questions to figure out if you are the right person for this role. You don’t want to be stuck in a role that isn’t right for you.  

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How to prepare for coding interviews

While many steps in the employment process are universal to any role you may apply to, applying for a role as a software developer, or any coding-related job for that matter, you may be expected to do a coding interview. 

This article explains what a coding interview is, what you might be expected to do in them, why you might be expected to do them, and some resources to help you prepare for them. 

What is a coding interview? 

At some point following an initial interview, you may be asked to do a coding interview. This is notorious for being one of the hardest parts of the interview process. During a coding interview, you will be given a task to do within a limited time frame. You might be observed by an interviewer as part of this and expected to explain your programming choices as you go. 

Why do I have to do a coding interview? 

While the purpose of an interview is typically to get a feel for who a potential employee is as a person and if they will fit within a team, a coding interview does the same but to get a feel for who you are as a programmer. It helps determine what your skill level and programming style is like. This is essential as they will want to know what kind of code you might be contributing to their projects. 

Coding interview resources 

There are numerous different resources to help you prepare for coding interviews, the only issue is that for many of them you must pay to use. I’ve collated some free resources that I recommend checking out to hopefully lend a hand when this stage of the interview process comes knocking 

Codewars 

Unsurprisingly, one of the best ways to practice for a coding interview is to code. But rather than working on your larger projects, it is important to try to solve lots of “bitesize” coding problems.  

An excellent resource for this is Codewars.  

Codewars is a platform that helps you learn, train and improve your coding skills by solving a range of tasks at varying difficulty levels. These challenges are called Katas and are specific to the languages and areas you want to focus on.  

You can find these challenges on the Codewars page or if you subscribe to their Weekly Coding Challenge newsletter, you will receive weekly emails with a selection of tasks to solve. 

All the challenges can be completed within the IDE provided on the Codewars website so you could complete them while on the go without your computer. Here is an example of one of their challenges: 

This is a relatively easy problem but nicely lays out how Codewars works. You see what your task is, and some examples of what solutions would be.  

You write your solution in this window before pressing Attempt to see if your solution is correct. If it is, you can then go and look at other people’s solutions to get an idea of how other people attempted the problem! 

This is a great resource to consistently practice your coding skills, and the range of challenges you may encounter will help you prepare for coding interviews. 

If this seems like something you are interested in, find more information here. 

InterviewBit 

Another great resource for coding interviews is InterviewBit. It works in much the same as Codewars with different challenges you can complete but also has some more supplementary content you can use if you so wish. 

There are three main categories to InterviewBit: Practice Problems, Fast Track Courses and Interview Prep.  

You can solve practice problems of varying difficulties much like with CodeWars but you also get to see what kind of companies ask these questions. 

You can also spend time learning the fundamentals of different languages, perfect for when you want to train or revise a certain skill ahead of an interview. 

Another excellent resource on InterviewBit is the Technical Interview Questions. These are guides not only on how to secure roles at large companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft but more generalised roles that would require you to code in certain languages. 

Coding Interview University

Another excellent resource is the GitHub repository Coding Interview University This was created by Josh Masham for interview preparation. It was using these resources that he was able to get a job at Amazon. This repository is jam-packed with details, resources and links that will be sure to help anyone in their journey to employment. 

These are only three different resources you can check out to get that edge when it comes to a coding interview but there are many more out there and not everything will work for you, so just experiment! 

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Interview: Dr Gary Ushaw

We interviewed senior games lecturer, and former Director of Business and Engagement for the School of Computing, Dr Gary Ushaw, about what you can do to improve your employability.

Sum up your role in 10 words or less 

 Career opportunities for Computing students (especially games) 

What are your official job responsibilities? 

As part of my role as Director of Business and Engagement for the School of Computing, I had an overview of all career, employability and placement activities for our students. 

What are your unofficial job responsibilities? 

As a part of Game Lab, I have a lot of successful links with the game development industry. My term as Director of Business has recently come to an end, so I am reverting to focusing on the games industry. However, I remain more than happy to talk to students about careers and placements across the digital sector. 

Why do you have strong links to industry? 

I worked in the video game industry for many years (lead programmer and engineering manager with Ubisoft, BBC, Sony, Rockstar, Atari) so I have an extensive network of contacts in that industry, which has widened across the entire UK game development sector due to the success of our graduates from the MSc and MComp in Game Engineering. 

What companies do you work with? 

We work with every major game development studio in the UK (Activision, Rebellion, Ubisoft, Epic, Nvidia, Sony, Rockstar, Warner Bros, Microsoft, Sega, Sumo, etc, etc) as well as the independent game developers around the northeast and further afield, and international developers around the world. They all employ graduates from our MSc/MComp, provide industry talks, and advise on the course content, because they know the high quality of our graduates. 

How would you say you help students improve their employability? 

The key word here is “opportunity”.  As a school, we provide a lot of opportunities for students to meet potential employers from across the digital sector and beyond. We also provide opportunity for improving your interview skills, CV feedback, etc. We are currently ranked third equal in the country for employability of our undergraduates in Computer Science, which is due to our fantastic students seizing opportunities. 

What areas do you think students need to improve on when it comes to employability, and how can they improve those areas? 

Different companies focus on different areas, many will be interested in technical skills, but all are interested in the ability to communicate and work well with others. If there is one area I would highlight, it is the team project. Employers do not want to hire so-called hero programmers, who do all of the work themselves. They want to hire team players who can forge meaningful and productive relationships with their peers. Our team project in Stage 2 is designed to provide that experience and opportunity. 

In what order would you rank the following things in terms of importance from an applicant (first most important, last least important) 

CV, Cover Letter, Portfolio, Interview, Code Interview 

They are all equally important, with some sectors focusing more on some stages (portfolio for example). The key is to remember that each of those elements listed is a mechanism to get you to the next stage of the process. CV and portfolio get you to the interview and technical test stage. The other thing to remember is that interviews are a two-way process – you are finding out about the company, and whether you want to work with them. 

If there was one piece of advice you want students to take away from this interview, what would it be? 

Seize the opportunities. 

Can students contact you for advice, and if so, what is the best way to contact you? 

Yes, absolutely. Email me, or just come to my office. 

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An Interview with the Careers Service

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We interviewed Sara Williams about their role as Careers Consultant for Newcastle University and learn exactly what they do, and how that can be a big help to you. 

Sum up your role in 10 words or less 

I help/facilitate students to achieve their career goals.

What are the official responsibilities of your role? 

Official responsibilities include: 

  • Carrying out appointments with students either via our drop-in system,  
  • Pre-booked online or in-person and longer 1-hour appointments for career guidance and mock interviews 
  • Delivering some of our central workshops.  

I also work closely with the academics and Employability leads in the schools of Computing and Engineering to understand student requirements and plan a calendar of events.  

Being up to date with what’s happening in the jobs market and sectors that might be relevant to our student groups as well as more broadly with recruitment trends and assessment methods is also an important part of my role. 

What are the unofficial responsibilities of your role? 

Unofficially I get involved with a wider remit of what the career service does whether it be helping out on University Open Days or at Careers Fairs and hosting employer-led events. 

“Have things on your CV beyond academics”

What are the top three mistakes you find that students make when it comes to employability? 

Not mistakes necessarily, more learning points.  

  1. I think maybe underestimating the recruitment process and how many stages you might have to go through for some companies and perhaps not being prepared for that. 
  1. It’s tricky as not everyone can commit to it but, having things on your CV beyond your academics can be really useful, not only so you can showcase a broad range of skills to employers but also as a learning process for you to figure out what you are good at and what you enjoy. 
  1. And I think number three is that students can often feel the pressure to just jump in and start applying before they have taken a step back to try and understand what they might be looking for in their next job, and more broadly, their career. 

What employability resource do you think is most helpful for students? 

I think one of the challenges is that there is SO much information out there and so many resources. I might be biased but our website is really comprehensive and covers a wide range of employability topics from planning your careers to what to expect at assessment centres and what you can do to prepare. 

Here is a link to view all those resources:  https://www.ncl.ac.uk/careers/. 

“Learn as much about the assessment process you will go through as you can”

Where in the process of getting employed (applying, interviews, assessment centre, etc.) do you think students struggle with the most? And how can they overcome that difficulty? 

I think each of the assessment stages can come with its own challenges and people can struggle with different things.  I think the key bit of advice I would give here is for students to try and learn as much about the assessment process they will go through either via speaking to someone at the organisation, looking at their website or looking at sites like Glassdoor. Armed with that knowledge they can then use the multitude of resources via the careers service to help them prepare. If I was pushed for something more specific, I think interviews can be really challenging as sometimes students may not have ever had a formal interview before. There’s a lot of advice and guidance out there on interviews and I’d also encourage students to use careers appointments to practice answers or talk through answers with a consultant. 

How many students make use of the employability team? 

Oooo that’s a tough one as it can be hard to define how students use the Careers Service. As an example, we conducted about 8,400 appointments last year and roughly 4,000 students came to one of our workshops. Beyond that the Careers Service also looks after processing for on-campus job opportunities, hosting employer events like our careers fairs, our curriculum team runs and manages a careers module, our placement team manages around sending 150 students out on placement and our start-up team also supports students in terms of building their own businesses or if they want to operate as a freelancer… 

“Students can make use of the careers service 3 years post-study”

If there was one piece of advice you want students to take away from this interview, what would it be? 

Make use of the careers service!  

We’re here to support you through your time at Newcastle and beyond (students can access us for 3 years post-study) and we offer impartial advice and guidance on anything to do with careers.