5 Things That Help You Beat 99% Of People During Your Interview

Even if you hate interviews.

There’s a stereotype that engineers (and well, engineering students) are not…the best at communication.

After I started interviewing candidates for our next engineering intern role…

I’m reminded why that stereotype exists.

But maybe you’re not even an engineering student.

You just feel awkward in interviews.

And you don’t know where to start improving.

Here’s 5 key things to focus on that will help you go from anxious mess to strong candidate at your next interview (and put you in the top 1% of interviewees).

(1/5) Your first impression matters

The way you greet me gives me a starting point as to what you’re like.

1. Do you smile when you see me?
2. How’s your handshake?
3. Do you seem ready to give this interview your best shot?

It’s ok to be nervous and feel shy.

That’s normal.

But if you look like you’d rather die than talk to me or look at me?

You’re not helping me help you shine during your interview.

Remember:

If I hire you…

My co-workers and I have to work with you for a good chunk of our week.

Are you showing me you’re someone I’d want to work with?

Personally, I’ll keep re-assessing my impression of you as we keep talking (and you hopefully start to feel calmer and more comfortable).

But just because I might have the patience to help you open up, doesn’t mean my co-worker (who could very easily have been the sole main interviewer instead) would.

Put your best foot forward.

(2/5) Be ready to tell me about yourself

This question is your chance to:

1. Improve on your first impression and
2. Guide the conversation to something you’re comfortable talking about.

For me, your answer gives me a hint on how to help you warm up.

You also give me a natural way to ask follow-up questions that allow you to demonstrate your soft and technical skills (rather than just outright ask you about soft skills as I would in a more structured interview).

For example, if you talk about:

• your involvement with your student team
• your love for reading
• your mission to solve food insecurity

Then I can tailor my questions to let you speak on those topics, and let you demonstrate your soft skills (and perhaps relevant technical knowledge, depending what you picked).

Your answers naturally demonstrate your soft skills to me when you talk about how you:

• helped your team re-negotiate with a vendor who didn’t deliver on time
• used your knowledge to help your friend get out of a tough situation
• persuaded your local neighbourhood to care for a community garden
• etc.

Anyone can say they have certain skills and qualities.

But not everyone can prove it.

(3/5) Your projects & experience matter more to me than your transcript

This is more relevant for students and recent grads, but goes to show your actual experience is much, much more valuable than your coursework.

After all, plenty of brilliant people fail courses due to things like:

• bad time management
• extenuating circumstances (like the emotional impact of the passing of a loved one)
• because they’re too busy building things in real life (source: many of my talented classmates).

But as long as you can prove to me that you’ll do well in the role I’m hiring for?

I don’t care about your transcript.

(Note: Some other, larger companies might care, but it’s usually because they need a quick way to screen).

Here’s the catch.

If you have an F in relevant coursework AND:

1. Have no other experience to demonstrate to me that you’re able to succeed in the role, AND
2. No passing grade in your retake

That’s when it becomes a red flag for me.

For example:

If you’ve struggled in a course (failed or barely passed), BUT:

1. You have a technical project or experience related to the skills I need for this position, AND
2. You can prove to me that you did the work yourself (and that you understand what you did)

Then your F doesn’t matter to me.

But if you’ve failed your programming course and you can’t reassure me you know what you’re doing?

I’d be concerned that you’d struggle a lot in the role.

(4/5) You have more time to answer than you think

When you’re nervous, you will talk faster than you normally would.

Breathe. You have time.

Give me your best answer.

Not your longest.

If you slow down, you also make it easier for me to:

1. Listen to and understand what you’re saying, and
2. Catch points that I can ask you to elaborate on, so that you can potentially score higher during our interview.

So:

Make sure you understand what I’m asking you

I might assume you know what I mean when I say ‘framework’, ‘pseudo-code’, or ‘flow diagram’.

But if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, maybe because

1. You come from a non-traditional background, and/or
2. You’re too stressed out to remember what those terms mean,

Please ask me to clarify.

I can re-phrase my question to make more sense to you.

You want to make sure you spend your time wisely.

Don’t spend it answering a question I didn’t actually ask.

Once you’re confident you know what I’m asking you about…

Focus on making your answer easy to understand

To start, your answers should follow the STAR structure:

1. Situation
2. Task
3. Action
4. Result

For example:

What’s been your greatest challenge so far?

What did you do to overcome it?

You might answer:

Situation: My greatest challenge was when my microwave caught on fire last week. My roommate tried to touch the popcorn inside and their clothes also caught on fire.

Task: I had to think quickly to prevent the dorm from burning down, and also save my roommate from getting further injured.

Action: I stayed calm, then grabbed the fire blanket and wrapped my roommate in it. Once they were with my neighbour (who I yelled at for help to call 911), I then grabbed the fire extinguisher to put out the fire.

Result: I was able to save the dorm from burning down and save my roommate from further burn injuries.

But don’t take forever to get to the point

Try to keep your answers concise. (That’s why the STAR structure helps).

But if halfway through your answer, you realize you forgot what I originally asked for, please stop and ask me to repeat my question!

I don’t mind.

It’s difficult to think straight while you’re stressed out and trying to think as fast as possible.

You can start your answer over, too.

But don’t try to fool me with complete nonsense.

I will interrupt you and ask you to come back to the original question.

So just tell me that you’re not sure or that you don’t know.

Then I can help give you hints rather than have you continue to panic.

No one knows everything.

If you are:

1. humble enough to admit you don’t know, and then
2. smart enough to suggest a good starting point to figure it out

That’s a green flag for me. I can work with that.

Continuing to dodge my questions and pretend you know?

Red flag.

(5/5) You could be earning bonus points

Here’s some qualities that would stand out to me as tie-breakers, in no particular order:

1. Grit/Drive. If you pulled off an underdog move (like take care of your sibling while you went to school, or work the night shift to make ends meet), your resilience is a trait of a high-performing person.
2. Good sense of humour. Light-hearted co-workers mean a more lively 9–5. Makes work more fun.
3. Maturity. If you recognized that your solution (while fun to build) was too complicated, and realized a simpler solution would be better, you show me a level of maturity that not many interns (or grads) reach. I appreciate thank-you notes too.
4. Empathy. If you demonstrate that you think about people’s feelings before speaking and acting, I would trust you with talking to vendors and building good relationships with other co-workers. Save me the effort of smoothing out relationship drama.
5. Good questions. Did you research the company and role? The level of detail in your question shows me that you at least took the time to study our company website.
6. Awareness. Do you leave things better than you found them? Do you respect boundaries? Do you dig yourself into holes? Do you ever realize you’ve dug yourself into a hole? Are you polite when you exit?

However, these aren’t part of my main evaluation criteria.

If you don’t meet the core soft and technical requirements, no amount of humour and politeness will make up for it.

But these extra things are what I use to decide between two top candidates who have nearly identical scores.

Other interviewers might give bonus points based on how well they feel like they connect with you.

For example:

• shared hobbies
• shared experiences
• same high school

Maybe you think this isn’t fair.

But it’s human nature.

So even if you feel like you didn’t do your best, you never know what extra qualities can put you above another candidate.

It’s not over until it’s over.

On that note…

Your interview results will be affected by factors that are out of your control

You could have done phenomenally at your interview…

And still not be selected.

Here’s some reasons that other hiring managers have told me they used to pick their hire.

1. The chosen candidate was very charming and entertaining during their interview (and threw up enough smoke around their actual technical ability to confuse the interviewer).
2. The chosen candidate had a nice full beard. He looked like he was full of wisdom. (No, the candidate was not actually full of wisdom. Yes, I wanted to shake the manager too.)
3. The chosen candidate was the boss’s family relative. The hiring manager wanted to save his own job. (Power & relationship dynamics are real.)
4. The chosen candidate was a returning intern. The hiring manager had to interview because of company policy or etiquette, but had no intention of filling it with an external hire.

Needless to say, your interview results won’t always reflect your potential and abilities.

But if you improve on everything I’ve covered here and you have the technical skills to boot?

You should be landing a job in no time.

You got this. God bless you, and I wish the best of luck with your interviews!