Career Growth

During my stint at a start up that happened to be located in a college town, I spent a considerable amount of time screening candidates for internships and part-time positions. As you can imagine, we had plenty of college students seek us out for openings. Most majors required students to have an internship to graduate.

Over time I came to realize that more and more students seek to acquire internships, even if its not a requirement, because it’s becoming more difficult to attain an entry level position without previous work experience.

I learned a lot about today’s college students from these interviews and from the ensuing conversations with those we chose to hire. Among the main things I learned was even if certain majors require internships, they may not always prepare students for the interview process. I can only speak to Auburn University, but it was apparent to that Liberal Arts majors had much less career support than say the students in the College of Business.

It is important to take advantage of all the career prep opportunities available to you while in undergraduate or graduate school. This is also the case once you land that first job. Always look for career development opportunities and see if your employer will help supplement the costs.

With all of that said, below I’d like to present some quick and easy interviewing tips for young professionals. There are may things to practice before that first interview, but sticking to these tenants will help ensure you’re the candidate that gets consideration.