No matter how many interviews you’ve had, there's always room for improvement. Below are 6 tips from our recruiters on dos and don’ts for that all-important interview.

1. Make sure you have done your research!

Read up on the company, the role you’re applying for, any newsfeeds and your interviewers can really help. Google searches, Linkedin etc. can help with this. You’d be amazed how many candidates fail because they’ve not done their research.

2. Make sure you always have solid answers for these types of questions:

• Motivations to work for the company - take note on how the company positions themselves and describes their workforce – you need to explain what is good about them and why you want to work there
• Motivations to undertake the role, how your skills fit into the role, and why your experience is relevant.
• General competency based questions – examples include

- Describe a time when you were going to miss a deadline, and what your actions were.

- Give an example of an occasion when your idea benefited the business.

- Describe a time when you worked in a team, and what your specific role was.

Practise these questions with someone (or by yourself!) so you feel comfortable talking about them.

3) Use the STAR approach to structure your examples.

STAR stands for: Situation, Task, Action and Result. This will help your answer stay focused and ensure that you describe each example comprehensively. For more information, here is a really good article about star technique

4) Don’t fall into the trap of saying that you use a particular skill regularly without giving a specific example.

Try to avoid saying things like “I use my prioritisation skills every day in my job.” Instead, identify a specific set of tasks and time pressures that you faced at work and describe how and why you prioritised them.

5) Prepare multiple examples for the interview - bring out all your strengths.

It's worth taking time to sit down and work out as many examples as you can that bring out your various strengths. It could also be good to talk through various examples, or write them down; as this can help you pinpoint achievements or strengths that you may not have noticed previously.

Areas you might take examples from may be:

• Leadership/ mentoring
• Time management
• Team work – make sure you differentiate between what the team achieved and what you personally achieved
• Business ideas you have developed
• Project work
• Managing difficult situations or people to a successful outcome

6) Lastly, don’t forget to be yourself!

Most of the time, you’ll be working with the people interviewing you, so honesty and friendliness will always help.

Best of luck from the Pop Science team!