Prepare to interview with Career Coach

Learning objectives 

• Learn effective job application strategies to stand out to recruiters.

• Prepare for interview meetings and common interview questions.

• Identify work opportunities aligned with your skills and goals.

• Prepare to negotiate a job offer.

Lesson 1: Best practices for engaging with a recruiter

Estimated duration: 1 hour, Level: Intermediate   

1. Watch the LinkedIn Learning course to learn about how to attract the attention of recruiters on LinkedIn (26m).

2. Reflect on how to engage with a recruiter. What new things have you learned about the role of a recruiter? How can you get noticed by them? Consider updating your LinkedIn and resume with learnings from the course.

3. Open Career Coach. Select Profile. If you haven’t already, complete your profile. Review your skills under My Skills to make sure they’re current.

4. Select People. Use Filters to search alumni by companies you found on LinkedIn. Invite three alumni from your search to connect on LinkedIn.

5. Get advice from career services or your faculty advisor on how to talk with recruiters.

Lesson 2: Prepare for interviewing

Estimated duration: 2 hours, Level: Intermediate    

1. Watch the LinkedIn Learning course to learn about  preparing for an interview (1h 33m) .

2. Reflect on how to find out if a company’s culture is a good fit for you, how to prepare for their interviews, and questions to have ready for the interviewer.

3. Pair with a peer in-person or on Microsoft Teams to share your reflections, compare, and discuss each other’s answers.

4. Review your LinkedIn profile. Make sure your skills, experiences, awards, and interests are up-to-date and connect with alumni in your field. To do so, open Career Coach. Select People. Use Filters to search alumni by the companies you are interested in. Select an alumni profile to connect with. Select Connect to send a personalized message. Select a Greeting and Why you want to connect. When you’re ready to send the personal note, select Send LinkedIn Invite in the bottom right corner.

5. Use a checklist to prepare for your interviews.

   Note: To learn about how to get a job interview go to goal Begin Your Job Search with Career Coach.

6. Get advice from career services or your faculty advisor.

Lesson 3: Best practice for virtual interviewing

Estimated duration: 1 hour, Level: Intermediate

1. Watch the LinkedIn Learning course to learn about interviewing online (24m).

2. Reflect on how you can enhance your interviewing skills. What are actions you can take to improve your interviewing skills?

3. Pair with a peer in-person or Microsoft Teams and practice interviewing each other using these common interview questions. Give your peer feedback on their strengths and opportunities for improvement.

4. Get advice from career services or your faculty advisor about interviewing and ask if they can host mock-interviews for you.

Lesson 4: Post-interview follow ups

Estimated duration: 1 hour, Level: Intermediate

1. Watch the LinkedIn Learning course to learn about following up after an interview (26m).

2. Reflect on what you would do after an interview. How can you convey you are professional and respectful when you follow up and when you negotiate an offer? What do you find most challenging about following up and negotiations? How can you use what you learned from the courses to build your skills? Prepare a post-interview email that you can use in the future.

3. Pair with a peer in-person or on Microsoft Teams to share your reflections from your interview experiences

4. Get advice from career services or your faculty advisor about your post-interview email.

Lesson 5: Negotiation tips and strategies

Estimated duration: 1 hour, Level: Intermediate

1. Watch the LinkedIn Learning course to learn about negotiating offers (33m).

2. Reflect on the experiences and skills that differentiate you from other candidates that could make you valuable to an employer. Write them down to have them ready for interviews and negotiations. Which strengths and experiences will you uniquely leverage in your future role?

3. Pair with a peer in-person or on Microsoft Teams to share your reflections, compare, and discuss each other’s strengths and negotiation tactics.

4. Get advice from career services or your faculty advisor on negotiating strategies and if there are any opportunities on or off campus to grow these skills. Consider local groups within your community that can help, like your library or non-profits.