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  • Writer's pictureEntry Level Adulting

The Entry Level Adulting Checklist to Acing Your Job Interview



If you’ve made it to the interviewing stage of your job hunting journey, I want you to take a moment and celebrate this small win. Your resume and experiences made enough of an impression to catch the interest of an employer! Trust me, that’s half the battle right there!

In my article about crafting an effective resume, I compared the job search to dating apps. So if your dating profile/bio is your resume, then the first date is the interview. This is your opportunity to showcase your background and let your personality shine!


Now if you’re the type that sweats buckets just thinking about the interview, it’s okay! Honestly, I do too. I’ve learned, however, that the best remedy for anxiety is just being prepared. Here is my checklist of things to feel more prepared (and confident!) about getting through your interview process.


✅ Do your research.

Most of the time, our worries are fueled by the unknown, and let’s face it, interviews are a big question mark. So prepare by doing your research.

  1. Look up common interview questions for the specific role and company. There are so many resources out there like Glassdor, Reddit, and other forums where people post actual interview questions for specific roles and companies.

  2. Research the company. The last thing you want is to draw a blank when asked, “Why do you want to work for this company?” Study the company’s values, mission, culture, and any recent news they’re featured in. This will also help you understand what the company values and prioritize what story you want to tell during the interview.

  3. Connect with and have an informational chat with people in the role and/or company you’re interested in. Ask them about their day to day responsibilities, as well as what skills and experience their team looks for when hiring new talent.


✅ Find your STAR.

It’s totally normal to feel flustered and ramble excessively when you’re nervous. A good way to avoid this is to have a strategy for framing your responses. A common one I like to use for behavioral interviews is STAR - situation, task, action, result.


Situation: This is where you briefly and concisely illustrate the situation for your interviewer. The goal is to provide relevant details about your situation and the challenges you faced.

Task: The task is your role and responsibilities in this specific scenario. It’s easy to confuse this with the “action,” so think of this as the objectives that were set prior to you actually taking action.

Action: Now that you’ve set the scene for your interviewer, you can move on to the climax of your story. This is your opportunity to highlight your contributions. Dive into the juicy details. What did you do to achieve the objective? How did you collaborate with other people/teams? What tools did you use? How did you respond to challenges, or even failure?

Result: End your story on a high note. Make it clear why your actions mattered and how these actions resulted in a positive impact. Emphasize your results by quantifying your impact with metrics when you can. If you’re describing a challenge or failure you encountered, talk about your learnings and how you implemented these improvements in a future project or situation.


Again, I want to emphasize that the key to this or any strategy you use is to be concise. Limit your response to 2-3 sentences per section of your story. Ideally, your spoken response should be a maximum of about 5 minutes per question.


✅ Practice makes perfect.

Now that you’ve done your research and you’ve studied up on your situations and experiences, it’s time to practice, practice, practice!


First, get comfortable with saying your stories out loud using the STAR framework. You want your responses to feel natural. I personally like rehearsing my responses while I shower, but you can do this in front of a mirror or whenever you have free time.


Once you’re comfortable, do mock interviews with a parent, roommate, friends, or a mentor. Get their feedback. Is your response concise? Is your story a strong example for the question? Does your response even answer the question? Are you speaking clearly or are you mumbling? Are you using too many filler words? Are you speaking too fast?


If you don’t have this luxury, try recording yourself and reviewing it to see if you have anything to smooth out.


✅ Get a good night's rest.

As tempting as it may be to forgo sleep and cram some last minute preparation in the night before, don’t. Getting a good night’s sleep will have much greater benefits. If you’re tired, you aren’t able to think as quickly and you want to have a sharp mind for whatever your interviewer throws at you.

Even if you’re not staying up all night cramming, it’s natural for anxiety to creep up on you. So it’s important to reassure yourself that you’ve done the best you could and whatever happens, happens for a reason. The night before, treat yourself! Meditate, journal, take a bubble bath - do something to help you wind down and feel good before bed.


✅ Dress to impress.

Now we aren’t saying you should buy a whole new outfit for the interview (unless you want to), but if you feel good about how you look, that confidence typically translates into how you carry yourself. But please, don’t show up in a hoodie and, for the ladies, don’t wear anything too revealing. You don’t want to wear something that will be distracting to the interviewer. It’s important to show them that you are taking this seriously. So bottom line, dress professionally.


✅ Come prepared.

If it’s an in-person interview, give yourself ample time to get ready and travel to the interview site.

In the age of this pandemic, virtual interviews have become fairly common. So make sure your technology is working properly beforehand. You don’t want to encounter technical issues that cut into your interview time and start it off on a low note. This includes your phone, laptop, microphone, earphones, and internet connection.


Prepare a glass or bottle of water to have on hand during the interview. You’re going to be talking a lot, so stay hydrated. Sipping on water allows you to take a natural pause if you need to think about a response or re-calibrate when you feel yourself rambling. It also helps calm those nerves in general.


Also, don’t forget to use the bathroom beforehand.


✅ Ask questions.

Typically interviewers will allocate time at the end for you to ask questions, so take advantage of this! As much as they are interviewing you, remember that you are also interviewing them. Make sure the job is a good fit for what you want. It’s important to truly understand the workplace culture and the role, so who better to ask than people on the team?


Prepare a list of questions ahead of time, so you can focus on absorbing information instead of thinking about your next question. Some examples include: How is the team organized? What challenges are they facing today? What are the expectations for someone in the role they are hiring for?


✅ Follow up with your interviewer.

It doesn’t matter how the interview went, or whether or not you want the job - you should always follow up. You never know how connections you make now may follow you in the future.

It’s also just a nice gesture to personally thank the interviewer for taking time out of their busy day to speak with you.


✅ Maintain a growth mindset.

After the interview, don’t be too hard on yourself, especially if you don’t know the result. Every interview is a learning opportunity. With each one, you strengthen your ability to articulate your experiences and share your accomplishments!


If you don’t get the job, it’s okay. It is not a reflection of your intelligence, and it is definitely not an indication of your worth. It just means that it wasn’t meant for you.

Be persistent and you will find the right opportunity.


You got this, queens and kings!


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