Scheduling an interview:

• Schedule your interview: When you are invited to interview with a company, respond ASAP (within ~6 hours max.). You don’t need to wait for the interviewer to respond first. Your reply email might look like this —

  Hi ______,

  Great to meet you! I’m really excited for the opportunity to interview with you and to learn more about [Company].

  I’m available this week on Thursday from 2:30-5:00 pm ET and on Friday from 10:00am-4:00pm ET*. Would something in one of those windows work for you? If not, I can send over my availability for early next week.

  I can also set up a Zoom link for the interview if you’d like. If you’d prefer to use something else just let me know.

  Thanks again for the opportunity. I’m looking forward to speaking with you further.

  Best,

• *Provide your availability for the next 2-3 days. As we get closer to the summer, we encourage companies to speed up the interview process to help everyone get matched faster. If a company needs to schedule further out, then you can provide your availability for the specified time frame.

Preparing for an interview:

• Sign-up for practice: Once you have scheduled a time, sign-up for interview practice with Andy or Amanda. (You can use those links to schedule meetings with us!)

• Do your research & take notes. Here are some places to look —

  • Read over the company profile thoroughly.

  • Check out their website and go beyond the home page. Read their mission/values, blog (if they have one), press, current projects, etc.

  • Look at their other platforms — LinkedIn, Instagram, and any social media platforms. What stands out to you?

  • Do a google search to look for news articles, case studies they’ve published, blog posts, videos, etc.

  • Read up on their industry — what trends are popular right now, what are challenges that they might face, are there any strategies/things they are doing that you really like?

    • For example, if you are interviewing for a marketing role at a brand strategy agency they might ask you “Are there any brands that you follow on social media? What do you like about what they’re doing?” In that case you should be prepared with 1-2 brands that you really like, and to explain what is interesting about their content, communication strategy, targeted ads, messaging, etc.

    —> As you research, think about why you’re interested in this company. Take notes as you do this, to have some talking points and questions prepared for the conversation.

• Prepare your responses & key things you want to highlight.

  • Pay attention to what skills/tools the team uses. If you have experience with them, you should be prepared to talk about it. If you don’t, do some research and see a) how difficult that thing is to learn (e.g., they use Microsoft Teams? you can learn that in 15 mins) and b) if you have adjacent skills that will help you to learn it quickly (e.g., “I don’t have experience with Asana, but I’ve used Trello which is a similar project management software and I’m confident I could learn this quickly”)
  • Be ready to show, not just tell. When they ask you about your past experience or what you know about a particular tool or coding language, you should be able to tell a story about 1-3 specific examples of when you used that thing. 🌟*The STAR Method is your best friend for formatting this response! (see Countdown slides for a refresher)*🌟

• Prepare 5-6 questions for your interviewer. Yes, you should go in ready with a few questions for them, too. Not only does this help make you seem prepared and genuinely interested, but it will help you to gain a better understanding of the role and what to expect. ‼️ Use this resource for ideas! ‼️

After an Interview:

• Within 1-3 hours after your interview, send a thank you email to your interviewer(s).
  • 💌**This resource has a bunch of templates you can use! 💌**

These are only the basics. There are plenty of other things that you can be doing to rock your interviews. Take a look back through the Interview Countdown slides for more tips 👇

Full slide deck from Countdown #2:

Launch Countdown Session 2