Ace Your Internship Interview: Tips from a Skillsoft Intern
The recruiting process for internships is daunting. As a current Skillsoft intern, I understand how demanding and time-consuming interviewing can be — and how challenging it is to know if you stood out to your potential employer. While there are factors beyond your control, as an internship candidate, you have the power to prepare to your best ability and present yourself as a desirable team member. Below, you’ll find some tips and tricks I’ve learned that have helped me navigate the interview process for an internship.
- Do your research.
This one might be a no-brainer, but if you don’t know anything about the company you’re interviewing with, it will inevitably show. Explore their website and familiarize yourself with their work. Remembering clients they’ve worked with or projects they’ve completed is even better. If they sell a product, know exactly what that product is, how it works, and why you believe in it. Poke around their LinkedIn page to learn about your potential future colleagues and get a sense of who might be interviewing you. Before beginning the interview process for Skillsoft, I familiarized myself with its learning platform, Percipio, and the professional development opportunities it offers users. I also researched its major clients and initiatives to grasp the company’s hierarchy and ensure I wasn’t blindsided by anything during the interview. Do your due diligence!
2. Figure out if the company fits YOUR needs.
When researching a company and learning more about their work, you should be able to envision yourself working there — and enjoying it. If you’re having a hard time answering the question “Why do you want to work here?” take a step back and consider whether you’d like to move forward with the recruiting process. Just as hiring managers seek candidates who are a good fit for their role, you should look for a position that suits you as well. For me, this meant examining Skillsoft’s mission statement and values to determine whether they were aligned with mine. I resonated with the notion of “empowering learners and leaders” and decided Percipio was a product I would be proud to promote. As someone who appreciates the value of education, I felt this was a company where I would thrive.
3. Network.
It’s never a bad idea to get your foot in the door. Use LinkedIn or Handshake to find people at the company who currently hold or previously held the role you’re aiming to fill. Reach out to them to see if they’re open to a quick phone call to learn about their work and day-to-day tasks. Not only will this help you determine whether their work interests you, but it will give you a name to mention during interviews and a clearer sense of your expected responsibilities. By chance, I had a mutual connection with a Skillsoft employee in Demand Generation who I was able to speak with several times before applying to understand her role and why she believed in the company. This gave me invaluable firsthand knowledge about aspects of work-life balance at the company that I couldn’t glean from my own research alone. I could then reference these insights during my interviews.
4. Prepare answers to potential questions beforehand.
While there are some curveballs, many questions you’ll be asked are fairly standard. Prepare answers in advance to questions like: “Tell me about yourself.” “Why are you interested in this role?” “What experience has prepared you for this role?” “What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses?” Personally, I try to avoid reiterating information on my resume when I initially introduce myself and instead focus on my background — where I’m from, how it shaped me, what kind of person I believe myself to be, and what I hope to achieve (briefly). When discussing my experience, I highlight work that closely aligns with the job description. For this internship, I included my role as VP of Marketing for a campus organization and my previous Communications internship at a non-profit. Additionally, I weave in unrelated experiences that still demonstrate applicable skills; for instance, I mentioned how my job as a barista honed my interpersonal skills and multitasking abilities. If you want to go a step further, write these answers out on a document and review them in the weeks leading up to your interview. You don’t need to read them out verbatim during the interview (and you shouldn’t), but you should have a general idea of what you want to convey.
5. Be true to your character.
Your personality should shine through in the interview. Of course, you should conduct yourself with a sense of professionalism, but hiring managers don’t want to hire robots — they want to hire people who are interesting, friendly, and mesh well with the team. Let your character speak for itself. Although it can be difficult to shake feelings of impostor syndrome, I remind myself that I wouldn’t have been offered an interview if my resume hadn’t caught the company’s eye. I’m interviewing for a reason, and I simply need to prove to them that they made the right decision in giving me a chance. To reduce anxiety, I find it helps not to drink coffee before interviews and instead keep a glass of water nearby for the duration of the conversation to have something to do with my hands if I get jittery.
6. Send thank-you notes.
After each round, send a genuine “thank you” email to everyone who interviewed you, expressing gratitude for their time and consideration. This gesture goes a long way! Hiring managers talk to a plethora of candidates, not all of whom will tell them how much they appreciate their hard work. Give them a reason to believe in your character. I always try to acknowledge their busy schedules and express my gratitude for taking the time to chat with me. If possible, I reference specific information mentioned during the interview to show I was truly engaged in the conversation — for example, “I loved learning about your experience as an intern and how you turned that into a full-time position.” During my recruitment process, I found that these thank-you notes garnered appreciative responses and left good impressions, sowing the seeds for meaningful relationships once I received my offer.
This list isn’t end-all be-all, but following these steps will significantly increase your chances of success. Take charge of your career today with proactive measures to secure your dream role!
