Interview Toolkit
Interviews are conversations where employers ask you questions about your skills, qualifications, and experiences. Employers also use interviews to assess your professionalism and communication skills.
Download Career Advancement's interview guide to learn more about interview best practices and common interview questions
If you have an interview coming up, schedule a practice interview with one of Career Advancement's specially trained interviewers
Ace Your Interview
Common Types of Interviews
Behavioral Interviews: employers will ask general questions about your skills and work style. The interviewer will also want you to share specific examples of how you've used these skills in previous experiences.
Case Interviews: the interviewer will ask you to analyze and respond to a specific business case. These types of interviews are common in the consulting industry.
Technical Interviews: employers will ask you specialized questions or have you complete a task to assess your technical skills. These interviews are common in STEM roles, especially for jobs in the technology industry.
Remember: Everything Is Part of the Interview!
Your actions at every stage of the hiring process - from when the employer first contacts you to when you send your post-interview thank you note - will shape the employer's evaluation of you.
Follow these best practices to ensure you make a good impression:
Respond ASAP to all messages from the employer
Use a professional tone in all of your communications
Treat everyone at the organization with courtesy and respect
Preparing for an Interview
Before the interview, thoroughly research the organization and the industry so you can give informed, thoughtful answers to the employer's questions.
The following are great resources for pre-interview research:
Organization website
News coverage of the organization
Industry publications
LinkedIn profiles for current employees
Interviews and podcasts with organization leaders
Annual reports and other organization documents
Informational interviews with alumni at the organization
Dress for Success
Recommended attire for interviews:
Dress shirt or blouse: male-identifying students should add a tie
Suit or pantsuit with matching dress slacks OR professional looking skirt or dress
Dress shoes, flats, or heels of comfortable height
Dark, knee-high socks
Clothing items to avoid:
Hats (religious garments ok)
T-shirts
Jeans and casual pants
Shorts
Tennis shoes and flip flops
Casual or short socks
Start Off Strong
When you arrive for the interview, greet your interviewer warmly. It's important to show energy and enthusiasm!
Keep your responses concise. Give direct, focused answers that answer the employer's question without sharing excessive detail.
For behavioral interviews, the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) is a great strategy to structure your answers to questions where the employer asks you to "Tell me about a time when...".
The STAR method helps you create concise mini-stories where you:
Describe a situation you encountered in a previous experience
Map out the task that faced you
Explain the actions you took to address the situation
Outline the results of your actions
Question: “Tell me about a time you encountered something unexpected on the job and you needed to think on your feet.”
Answer:
Situation: "Last spring, my supervisor at my on-campus job asked us to send a special mailing with a very tight deadline. Because this was an extra mailing beyond what we had planned, we didn’t have enough envelopes to meet the need."
Task: "To send the mailing on-time, I needed to track down 500 envelopes before the end of my shift."
Action: "I called 20 different offices on-campus to ask if they had any spare envelopes, which got me 400 envelopes. To get the last 100, I asked my supervisor if I could purchase more with her University credit card."
Result: "In the end, I successfully got all 500 envelopes, sent the mailing on-time, and saved the department money by tapping into existing inventory before purchasing new ones."
At the end of the interview, your interviewer will likely ask if you have any questions for them.
You'll want to prepare 3-4 substantive questions about the organization, the industry, or the role. Avoid surface-level questions that could be answered with a simple search of the organization’s website or the job description.
Sample questions:
“As someone who would like to join [Organization], I’d be curious to hear about your career path and what brought you to your current role.”
“When you think about your most successful employees, what’s made them stand out?”
“What upcoming project are you most excited about? How would I support that project if selected for the position?”
Post-Interview Thank You Note
Before you leave, be sure to get contact information for everyone you've spoken to.
As soon as possible after the interview, send a thank you e-mail to everyone who met with you.
Tips for your thank you e-mail:
Keep it brief: a few sentences is fine
Thank the interviewer(s) for their time
Reference one or two specific things from the conversation
Reiterate your interest in the position
If you met one-on-one with multiple interviewers, it's best to send them separate thank you e-mails. If you met with a group of interviewers, you can send one e-mail to the group. If you met with multiple groups of interviewers, send each group a separate e-mail.
Sample Thank You Note
Dear Susan,
Thank you so much for meeting with me today. I really enjoyed learning more about the Chicago Analysis Group and your career path! As a fellow English major, it was fascinating to hear about how you use the skills you learned in college every day.
I especially appreciated you walking me through the marketing internship. The upcoming PR campaign sounds like it would be a really good fit for my video editing and copywriting skills!
Please just let me know if I can provide any additional information as you’re evaluating applications. Thank you for considering me for the marketing internship – I hope we get a chance to work together!
Best,
David Maroon
Practice Interview Program: schedule a practice interview and receive feedback from specially trained interviewers
Digital Practice Interviews with Big Interview: Big Interview is an online interview practice platform. With Big Interview, you can practice, review recordings of your responses, and even observe your speech patterns, eye contact, response time, and confidence level in a safe environment before you interview with companies. Log in with your @uchicago.edu email address to get started!
