Ideal interviews are ones where you and the interviewer(s) are carrying a normal conversation. Both parties take turns asking and answering questions within the flow of the conversation, and you don’t feel like you’re part of an interrogation. While you may not have the opportunity to ask questions in the middle of the interview, you will always be given at least a few minutes at the end.

Most people now know that asking good questions is a key part of the interview. Asking the right type of questions can definitely leave the interviewer with a great impression about you. But what are good questions to ask? Here are 3 rules to keep in mind:

1. Only ask questions you genuinely want to know the answer to

This first rule may sound basic, but it is violated over 50% of the time. An experienced interviewer has heard virtually every question there is, especially from the younger candidate pool. We can tell almost immediately whether someone told you to ask that question to impress us, or whether you really want to know the answer. Not genuine = lose points and credibility.

“What does your company do in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility?” If we haven’t talked once about CSR during the interview, and this is how the question is posed to me, I would immediately be skeptical. Why does this person want to know about CSR all of a sudden? Are they just trying to impress me with the latest corporate mumbo jumbo? Do they even know what CSR means??

2. Don’t ask open-ended questions; try to be as specific as possible

Interviewers have to follow a fairly strict timeline, especially if they are talking to multiple candidates in one day. When it comes time to have you ask questions, the last thing we want to do is have to use our brains and think really hard. That will annoy us more than impress us. Bad examples: “What’s the one thing that you love about your job that makes you get out of bed each morning?” “What’s the company culture like?”

3. Always start your question with a bit of a preamble

If you follow Rule #3, you will almost always adhere to Rule #1 & #2. Stated another way, don’t simply jump in and ask your question right off the bat. Start by giving a bit of a description of what you know about the subject of your question. Tell us what you have read, what you’ve heard, your opinion on the matter, or what others have told you, and then ask your question.

Following this format will give you the opportunity to bring up all the research you’ve done ahead of time and maybe even get some credit for it. By giving a preamble, you’ve also automatically made the question more specific. Finally, if you’ve shown me the lengths of your research and your interest in the topic, you will come across much more genuine and sincere.

Now, if you truly are interested in the corporate culture, here’s a better way you could ask the question. “I read on your company’s website that integrity and respect for others are 2 of your most important values. Speaking to previous interns, they also echoed similar thoughts. How do these values translate into the everyday culture in the workplace?” Here, you’ve shown the interviewer that you really care about this topic. You’ve not only done research from the website, but have also gone out of your way to talk to other interns that have worked for us. Finally, the question is much more specific by asking me to comment on integrity and respect for others, not just company culture in general which can mean so many different things.

A final point to keep in mind, in addition to the 3 rules…Try not to ask “selfish” questions, questions that are only about you, what’s in it for you. “What are the working hours like?” “Will there be any overseas opportunities during this internship?” “What is the training program like?”

If you want to impress someone, the last thing you want to do is simply talk about yourself, and ask questions that only you care about. If you want to leave a lasting impression, try to ask questions that they will care about. Find out about their interests, their challenges, their ideas. Obviously, keep it professional, and try to never put the interviewers in an embarrassing situation (e.g. talking about a recent corporate scandal that has been in the news). It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Interviews are won or lost in the first 5 minutes. Experienced interviewers can tell in your initial interactions with them if there’s potential here, or if you’re just not going to fit in. Over the last 2 weeks, I’ve worked with over 75 undergraduates conducting 1-on-1 mock interviews with them, and I can definitely tell you, after just the first few questions, which were the handful that stood out from the crowd.

So what does this mean? You need to start your interview strong! Prepare for the typical introductory questions (e.g. can you start by telling me a little bit more about yourself? Why are you interested in working for us? Why this role?), and be ready to really impress the interviewer with your answer.

Today I want to focus specifically on the introduction – what should you say and how much should you say if the interviewer asks you to tell them more about yourself.

Let me start by sharing some insights on why interviewers open with this question. Firstly, interviewers will have prepared and read your resume ahead of time, most likely the night before. However, if you’re not the 1st candidate of the day, the interviewer will have a difficult time keeping track of everyone’s details. And if the interviewer is anything like me, they’ll be running a little behind. Starting with this question allows us to begin the interview right away, and gives us the opportunity to browse your resume to refresh our memories, while we try to get back on schedule.

Secondly, there is a limited amount of time we can spend with each candidate, so we have to pick and choose which areas of your past to probe. Allowing you to start first is our way to see what you highlight as the most relevant areas of your experience, and whether what we plan to ask matches and is appropriate. Despite what you may think, interviewers aren’t out to stump you or to make you look bad. Our job is to try and determine what your strengths and weaknesses are, and whether you’re a fit for the team.

With that in mind, preparing a good holistic introduction about yourself may give you the opportunity to potentially influence the questions that the interviewer asks to you. And if you’re able to better direct us to what we want to know, then it becomes a win-win situation.

A Framework: the Front Page of the Newspaper

A good introduction is one that last somewhere between 1.5 to 2 minutes long. Think of your introduction like it is the front page of the newspaper. The front page is unique as it gives the headlines of the key news stories of the day. You should do the same in your introduction – give the interviewer just the headlines, the highlights of your background.

Another key characteristic of the front page is that it doesn’t just focus on one particular area. You don’t see the front page covered with just politics. You get a little bit of business, sports, politics, arts, etc. In your introduction, don’t just focus only one aspect of yourself, tell me a little bit from different areas. Show that you’re multi-talented.

In terms of where to start, try the following the order:

1. Start with your educational background. Where are you going to school, what are you studying, but most importantly, tell us your motivation and reasons why you decided to pick this field of study. Remember to try to relate it back to the current position / industry if possible. (30 seconds)
2. Next, quickly outline some of the different roles in your work experience. Then pick the one that you think is more relevant, and tell us why. Focus first on your achievements, and the impact you made. If you don’t think that’s very impressive, tell us what you learned in that one job that would make you extremely successful in this new role you’re applying for. (30 seconds)
3. Finally, talk about your achievements beyond work and the classroom. “Outside of school and work, I’m very involved in the community and extracurricular activities…” Similar to the work experience, quickly tell us what type of activities (e.g. CCAs, community work, or extracurriculars) you’re involved in. Then pick the one that you’re most proud of, or is the most relevant, and again tell us why. (30 seconds)
4. If there’s anything else unique about you that doesn’t fit in the 3 categories above, you can add it here at the end. Perhaps a hobby, or a passion. Best if it’s somehow related to the role or the company. (30 seconds)

Remember, like the front page, just give the headlines so the reader (in this case the listener) gets excited and wants to read the rest of the story. By telling the interview what your strengths are, this will allow them to know where to probe further and perhaps even have them adjust their questions to talk about the areas you’ve highlighted.

Having a good introduction is crucial in starting your interview strong. You want to highlight your strengths early, potentially dictate where the interview goes next. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to sell yourself, but keep it to a maximum of 2 minutes.

Also, don’t forget that half the evaluation in the interview is not about what you say, but how you say it. Remember to talk confidently, be energetic and enthusiastic. Show your passion and maintain good eye contact. A solid well-rounded introduction delivered with energy is a sure way to start to connect with your interviewer. As the saying goes, you never have a second chance to make a first impression.

Everyone has heard the importance of networking and building a personal network, and in today’s struggling economy that’s even more true than normal. While job creation is beginning to slowly pick-up, experts say that as low as 10% of all available jobs are ever posted publicly (i.e. in the newspaper or on the Internet). That means that potentially up to 90% of jobs form what we call the Hidden Job Market. With that in mind, letting people know what you’re interested in, what you’re good at, and what you’re most passionate about are critically important.

Reaching out to your existing network is the first step, but that typically won’t be enough. You will need to re-connect with people you haven’t talked to in sometime, and you will definitely want to meet new interesting people. Well, there’s no better time to get going than right now! Don’t make the mistake of waiting until you’re about to graduate or suddenly out of a job to begin to think about “networking”. The first call or email you send to a friend you haven’t spoken to for a few years shouldn’t ask if they know of any job openings.

The most common questions I get next is how do I find the type of people I want to meet, where can I go to meet them, and how do I even go about it? The most common answer, “by networking”. Before we go any further, I want to state that I don’t like the word “networking”. I’m not sure if it’s only me, but over the years, networking has developed a bit of a negative connotation for me. When someone tells me to start networking, or that I should network more, all I can picture are eager beavers coming up to important people and trying to kiss up to them as best as they can.

On the first day of my MBA program, on the official schedule right after the welcome speech by the Dean, there was an event entitled “Welcome Networking Cocktails”. And sure enough, at the end of the Dean’s opening remarks he told us to enjoy our year and encouraged us to get started on “networking” . So there we all were in the cafeteria area (yup), all trying to get to know our fellow classmates on the first day. Every conversation seemed to start like this, “Hi my name is Jon, very nice to meet you…Where am I from? I’m from Canada, yourself?…Wow, that sounds like some great stuff you were doing before; I was a management consultant for 7 years.” It was like clock-work; what’s your name, where are you from, what did you do before coming here. The MBA version of name, rank & serial number I guess. Pretty sad, and totally ineffective.

As soon as people heard and saw the word “networking”, it was as if they totally transformed. They put on their fake smiles, turned on the fake enthusiasm, and tried to put their best business-like persona forward. It didn’t help that it was mandatory for all of us to come in formal business attire, so suits & ties despite the 35C+ degree weather in Singapore. Why couldn’t the event have simply been called, “Welcome Drinks” and why couldn’t the Dean have told us just to have a good time, enjoy and mingle?

When’s the last time you were at a party and the host came up to you and said, have a good time and try to “network” as much as possible? Simply using the word mingling could have easily set a much more relaxed tone and created a more friendly, casual and non-threatening environment. This would have allowed much more natural conversations to develop and most importantly allowed us to potentially develop a better initial connection with each other, which is ultimately the end goal. Great networkers are people that are able to, in a short period of time, make you feel comfortable, engage you in interesting conversations, and create that connection with you.

As you begin to expand your network, try to think less about networking and more about mingling, especially when you’re in a large group situation. Next time, I want to focus on an important 1-on-1 activity that can help you add to your network, the coffee chat.

As campus recruiting season kicks off, companies are quickly lining up to come onto campus to tell you that they are hiring, they are looking for the best & brightest, and why you should come work for them. Students’ lives for the next month turn into 20hr days where you get up early (if you can) to head to a full day of classes, followed by a quick change in the bathroom into your business attire, to attend the nightly company presentation. If you’re lucky, there’ll be free food and drinks, which becomes your dinner, before you change again, come home around 10pm, and finally start work on your assignments & projects.

Attending all these company presentations can be a tiring and time consuming process, but many students feel that if they don’t go, it will lessen their chances in getting hired. Is that really the case? Well, not necessarily. While making a good first impression can get you noticed and help you score some early points, the opposite can also happen. Being rude, too competitive, or asking the wrong type of questions can also get you noticed, but for the wrong reasons. In this article, I want to let you in on some of the secrets and the mindset from the company / recruiter’s perspective.

As an employer, the main reasons for conducting on-campus information sessions are the following: (1) You want to promote your brand and get some free publicity. (2) You want to build and continue to maintain a strong presence at the school, in order to attract the top students, and let them know you’re hiring. (3) You want to try and spot potential strong candidates, and at the same time, spot ones you know for sure won’t be a good fit.

Before an event would start, I would always brief my team about some of the key messages we want to send and be consistent on throughout the evening. For a management consulting firm, the team would typically consist of at least 1 HR representative, 1 senior Partner, and then a range of actual consultants (usually alumni) with varied levels of experience and background to give students a wide-range of people to talk with. Next, I would remind them to try and remember the names of the students they talk to that really stood out to them, in both a positive and negative sense. For the good ones, I might suggest they even give their card or contact info out, and ask the student to email if they have any more questions. At the end of the night, we then would trade stories about some of the more memorable conversations we had and I would take down a list of names we remembered. Over the next few days, the list may grow as forwarded emails from keen students get sent my way.

What then happens with the list? It gets passed onto the resume review team. At the end of the resume screening evening, where we categorize our resumes into the “yes, no & maybe” piles, we would then review our selections with the list. If you were on the negative side and made it into our “maybe’s”, this was easy for us; you move to the “no” pile. If you made it into the “yes” group, we would have a second and third look at your resume, compare you again with some of the yes’ and even perhaps the maybe’s. If we still felt that an interview was warranted, we’d add a little warning note to the file of our initial negative impression of you.

The exact opposite would happen if you had made it onto the positive side of the list. An original “yes” will get a note added to make them a stronger yes. A “maybe” will have a second or even third review to see if there’s a possibility to be pushed into the “yes” pile. And most importantly, if you’re in the “no” pile, we’ll take an extra few minutes to pull your resume out again and see if perhaps we overlooked something.

Making a good strong impression at the information session won’t guarantee you an interview, but it can help increase the likelihood we spend more than just 10-20 seconds reviewing your resume. However, making a memorable bad impression almost certainly ensures that even if you do make it to the interview stage, you’ll be starting at a slight disadvantage.

What’s one of the main things to take away from this story? Whether you know it or not, you’re being evaulated and “interviewed” even at during what would seem to be a marketing / PR-type presentation, so make sure you behave accordingly. The safest way to play it may be to simply attend, don’t say anything to anyone, and basically go un-noticed, which by the way is probably 90% of the people. However, I believe you’d not only be wasting a great opportunity, but your own time. You might as well stay home then. If you really want a job with Company X, go prepared and with the right mindset. In today’s competitive environment, you can definitely use all the points you can get.

In Part 2, I’ll share some tips of what you can do to make the best use of your time at the information session and perhaps even make it onto the positive side of “the list”.

With many students already back to school here in Singapore, and back-to-school season hovering right around the corner in North America, university career fairs have begun, marking the beginning of the university application season.   In the past 2 weeks, I’ve already attended 2 such fairs here in Singapore, focused on studying abroad, at the top schools in Australia, Canada, the U.K., and U.S.  Judging by the crowds, competition is going to be tough, no matter where you plan to go, or where in the world you’re applying from.  To get you started and on your way, here are a few things you should keep in mind:

At Kwantum Leap, we firmly believe that in order to make the best choice for yourself, you must be as informed as possible.  You know yourself best, so our job isn’t to help you make your choices.  It’s to help you gather all the important information you need, so when you do have to make those tough choices, you’re making informed ones.  With that philosophy in mind, if you’re planning on applying to university, college, or a graduate program like an MBA this year, but haven’t started, now’s the time!

1) Know Yourself

• Although this may seem too obvious, understanding what you’re passionate about, what you’re best at, and motivates you are some of the keys to laying the foundation in finding the perfect school for you.  This can be pretty overwhelming at times, and frankly, there are many people in there 30s and 40s still trying to figure that out. 
• One good tip: start backwards.  Start by taking note of the things you don’t like, and use a process of elimination to narrow down choices. 

2) Know the Schools

• With over tens of thousands of schools all across the world to choose from, it’s no surprise that just thinking about getting started with the application process can be daunting.  However, if you’ve already spent some time “knowing yourself”, you will have begun to narrow down the choices significantly.  Published school rankings can be a quick way to understand who the top schools are in your areas of interest, but it should never, by any means, be your definitive source.
• University fairs, where large groups of schools are in the same place at one time, are another great source for establishing your list of potential schools.  To best make use of your time there, you should do your homework in advance.  (more to come about this in a future post)
• Know which schools will be attending.  Try to have a brief look at their websites to get a quick understanding of what the offerings are like.  There’s nothing more embarrassing than asking a school how their science programs are, if they only offer liberal arts. 
• Don’t use your time just to go around and collect as many booklets & brochures as you can get.  All that information, including the brochures, are available on the school’s website.

3) Know the Deadlines

• There’s nothing worse than finding out that the application deadline for your dream school is tomorrow, or even worse, has passed.  Go to the school website, find out the deadlines, and mark your calendar.  Then, set interim deadlines for yourself, ahead of the actual one.  For example, if a school’s application deadline is Dec 1st, you will most likely want to tell any one writing a recommendation for you that their letter is due at least 1 week before (to allow for any delays or mailing time).  With that in mind, you will also typically want to give a recommender at least 2 months notice.  So that means near the end of September, you will have had to decide whom you should approach, and then make the actual the request. 
• Know the application process and admission requirements for each individual school.  While the U.K. simply has one common application that can be sent to your set of interested schools, in the U.S. each school has their own individual process and timelines, just different enough from each other to trip you up if you’re not careful.
• Australia starts their 1st semester in February, so application deadlines are typically in October, while deadlines for U.S. schools fall in January/February.