Monday, February 10 - "How Do I Prepare For In-Person Interviews?"

Happy Monday!

Here’s what’s on the job description for today:

1. New roles from a management consulting firm focused on life sciences.

2. Today’s Question: “an upcoming interview has been changed to in-person. Is there anything I can do to prepare for it?”

IN HIRING

Trinity Life Sciences

• The company aims to bridge life sciences expertise and business analytics to help those in life sciences solve complex problems.

• Quite a number of roles, based mostly in the US and UK.

• Here are a few of the most interesting roles available

  • Analyst - Click here for full details

  • Summer Associate Consultant - Click here for full details

  • Manager, Operations & Analytics - Click here for full details

Click here for the company’s career page

TODAY’S QUESTION

Today’s Question: “an upcoming interview has been changed to in-person. Is there anything I can do to prepare for it?”

Recommendation: in-person interviews have become more popular this year. Here’s how I would plan for them relative to those online:

• First, most obvious is that you won’t have 72 pages of notes, keywords, and fully scripted answers in-front of you.

  • To solve for this, think of three buckets of question:

    • 1. The most common and nearly guaranteed (intro, why this company, etc.). For these questions, at the bare minimum you should have a clear guideline of how you’re going to answer.

    • 2. Behavioral or situational questions which align to the companies values. Have a general story that shows your experience in what they value (teamwork, problem solving, etc.).

    • 3. Everything else. Have an idea of your core competencies related to the job, company, and department and use those as guideposts in answering everything else. There are far too many combinations of questions so lead with who you are and let everything else fall into place.

• Second, there’s some evidence that shows confirmation bias plays a big role in how interviewers make decisions on who gets moved on or receives an offer.

  • This means that early on in the interview, an interviewer makes a decision about a candidate and then looks at all further evidence to justify the decision they’ve already made up, rather than objectively using it to see if they’re a good fit.

  • The way to use this in your advantage is to plan on making good small talk in the beginning of the interview to set the tone and make a great first impression.

• Finally, think of what puts you in a great mood (music, talking with friends, whatever) and do that 10 minutes before the interview so you’re naturally smiling and have good energy. This is more important when in the same room as someone. What you say ends up being far less important than how you make a person feel when you say it.

Conclusion:

In person interviews can be a bit daunting but with the right strategy and prep, it’s an opportunity to separate yourself from everyone else who’s nervous.

The 2-Hour Job Search: A book I used during and after the MBA to find my first interviews. It’s a foundational resource for anyone who wants actionable steps to get more interviews.