Interview techniques

5 Simple Tips to5 Simple Tips to Improve Your Interview Answers

It’s easy to see even tough questions are more easily answered when you’re relaxed and thinking clearly. Here are five more takeaway tips to help you improve your engineering interview skills.

1. Know the company.                                       This is a no-brainer. Hiring managers are looking for employees interested in their company and products. Researching the company and their product line before walking into the interview will not only make you look prepared, it will help you ask intelligent questions in return.
2. Remember, interviews are an exchange of information.                                                     The more you ask, the more information you’ll have for you to assess whether the fit is right for you, too… regardless of whether or not a job offer is made.
3. Don’t be afraid to admit when you don’t know.                                                         Honesty and brevity are intangible skills that can’t be assessed through a resume. Plan on having at least one question that tests the limits of your engineering knowledge, no matter what your discipline. And know ahead of time how you’ll respond if you are stumped… it could be the hiring manager’s intention to see how you react under pressure or when you don’t have all the information.
4. Be Positive.                                                       For example, questions about former employers, coworkers, and bosses are a common tool to measure a candidate’s character. If you have criticism, keep it constructive. Otherwise keep your responses positive, factual, and steer clear of the character trap.
5. Practice, practice, practice.                   Nothing will help you build confidence going into an interview more than practice. If you are a college student with a career center on campus, use it. If you’re a seasoned professional engineer, ask a colleague, friend, or spouse to run through a list of typical interview questions with you. Specifically, make sure they give you feedback on your body language and how you talk (too fast? too slow? long-winded? tangential or irrelevant stories?).  The better you get in practice, the better you’ll perform on the big day.