College Interview Toolkit

6 tools to prepare you for an interview

College Interview Toolkit 

“Behind every brilliant performance there were countless hours of practice and preparation” 

• Eric Butterworth (Bestselling author) 

There are not many times in life we get to truly perform and be the center of attention. Not all of us will be the lead in a Broadway play, be a Kardashian level celebrity, or even a world-class athlete with millions watching. However, there are key times in life in which you will have the ability to hold the same attention (probably not on the same scale but you get the idea). Interviews are one of those such performances. Interviews are an experience in which you get to display yourself, your accomplishments, your interests in full to a potential employer with their undivided attention. 

Throughout my college experience, I have had great mentors who have helped me build a structure for preparing for any interview regardless of role, firm, or interviewer. I laid out these 6 key learnings in the writing below. A little bit of pre work goes a long way and this post will help you prepare more effectively and land that competitive job. 

For a bit of context, I wrote this toolkit with first- and second-year college students in mind. I think any college student from any background/discipline can learn a thing or two about interviewing and the necessary structure to prepare. However, I want to focus on those students who are just beginning their internship interview process and could benefit from structure to start their process. I am from a business background and have used these tools to help me:

1. Structure my thoughts and approach to an interview 

2. Find out more about myself through reflection on life experiences and communicating them in a sufficient way 

Here are some things I have picked up along the way: 

1. Come to your working sessions with a vision.

Your working sessions for interview prep should have a purpose. Whether your interview is months, days, or hours away you should establish a vision for each session and use it as the guardrails to guide your preparation. 

So how do you come up with a vision on a career two to three years away?

1. Ask upper classmen: what internships they have had? Did they enjoy their experience? Where are they going next? 

2. Ask faculty and staff: what companies recruit at your school? What events are hosted on campus? 

3. Ask yourself: What companies have always stood out to you as a great place to start your career? 

The experience of others can only get you so far. During a networking call I had, someone tell me:

“Matthew, you must realize that everyone gives advice from their respective bias. They will tell you exactly how to get where they are at the same point in their career.” 

Your vision is what you want. Not upperclassman, not faulty, not parents. 

What sort of projects do you want to work on? What problems do you want to solve? 

What do you want your coworkers to be like? What backgrounds will they be from? 

What other stakeholders do you want to interact with? Investors? Clients? Managers at other companies? 

What do you want your pay to be outside of college? What do you want to learn through your professional career? 

What is your end goal? Is it business ownership? Is it becoming a partner? Is it having a great work life balance? 

All these questions are essential to tease out what exactly you want in a professional experience. 

After answering these questions, discover what roles check your “non-negotiables” in life post-graduation. Pursue those roles and keep your vision top of mind. 

2. Answer the question: At the end of my interview, what are 5 characteristics/descriptions I want my interviewer to know about me as a person? 

These 5 characteristics will become the building blocks of how you answer your behavioral questions and how you talk about all your experiences in general. 

Example: Here are my 5 qualities positioning myself as a non-target student breaking into consulting. 

1. Grit 

2. Intellectual curiosity 

3. Self-starter 

4. Leader 

5. Problem solver

When building out these characteristics, I started by ideating as to what characteristics other students interviewing would not have. 

Grit was an obvious one. UC is gritty. We are a state school in the Midwest with an emphasis on hard work. To exemplify this characteristic, I would reference the Summer going into my junior year when I was co-oping 3 days a week while taking full-time classes while serving on 2 executive teams and sourcing my next internship opportunity. 

Intellectual curiosity. It cost you zero to be engaged in an interview, ask great questions, and have a general want to understand the business/role. 

For a full-time job you will not have managers holding you hand. Being a self-starter exemplifies that if I do not have that support, I can persist and attack a tough problem without babysitting.

Meaningful leadership experience as a college student is a complete differentiator. It teaches how to lead peers, communicate ideas with teams, and learn about what it takes to build up others. 

Problem solving tied me directly to consulting. Consultants are brought into a company to solve a problem that the company cannot solve with their current talent internally. I would lay out most of my experiences in this way. A problem in my fraternity, a problem at my co-op, a problem with a group project and showing how I took the ownership to solve it with a positive result.

3. Create a CAR grid 

CAR stands for Context, Action, Result. This acronym should be top of mind when building out your stories to answer behavioral questions. You should build all your stories around segmenting key parts in these 3 buckets. 

Context: what were you tasked with? Who were you working with? Why was it important? 

Action: what did YOU do? This is not the time for we, use the vertical pronoun “I”. 

Result: what quantifiable items were generated from your actions? 

I would write 2-3 key bullets for each bucket. Do not memorize your answers besides those key hit points so you do not sound robotic.

Also, remember to pull from a variety of different experiences. Times in class, examples in extracurriculars, experiences in past internships. The more varied the better. Shoot for 5-7 solid stories and tie them back to those key characteristics. 

Example: 

Ties back to self-starter 

Context

Intern at Bahl and Gaynor Investment Counsel 

Portfolio lacked small cap consumer staples position 

Action

Took ownership of end-to-end project sourcing opportunities (Bloomberg equity screener, 10-k, sell-side research, led call with IR) 

Result

30-minute presentation on investment opportunity that gained approval from the Investment Committee for a 50bps position to be built into 150bps in a multibillion-dollar portfolio

4. Build out your answers to the questions you know will be asked. 

There a are number of questions you can almost always count on to be part of any interview. 

Tell me about yourself. 

Why (blank) position? 

Why (blank) industry? 

Why (blank) company? 

Why you?

I literally practice my answers to these questions repeatedly. Everyone who is interviewing for the role knows these questions will be asked. What will separate you from the lot is telling a story with these answers that are compelling and make them label you with the characteristics you want. 

Your answer to “tell me about yourself” should have 3 lengths. A 30 second, 60 second, and 90 second version. 

In a formal interview use the 90 second version and tell your story in full. 

For 60 seconds, use this when you are 1-on-1 in a social setting with potential employers. 

For the 30 seconds, strip your story to the most essential parts without losing your essence. This condensed story will be used in a group or social setting. 

I would practice all 3 versions sporadically throughout the day, record myself, and watch it back. Like anything, it is key to get your reps in early and often. 

“My name is Matthew Mohn and I am a senior accounting major at the University of Cincinnati. To tell the story of my college career, I must start with why UC and the Lindner College of Business. I interviewed for and gained admission to the Honors Program within the college of business. The program is built around two key tenets emphasized in student experiences. 1. Emphasis on leadership outside the classroom 2. Graduating with 4-5 professional experiences under your belt. These 2 aspects of the program have permeated throughout my college experience. I have been able to serve on 4 executive teams for 3 of the largest organizations on campus while being able to intern with 4 different companies. Most recently I was able to intern with AB InBev in their global management trainee rotational program. 

Throughout these experiences, I have discovered that I gain the most utility when I am given wide guardrails to solve a problem and the capacity to lead others. All these experiences along with mentors have led me into this room today to pursue a career in consulting at (blank) firm.”

5. Question Building 

Question building is one of the most underutilized aspects of an interview, especially for college students. 

I had a first-round interview that involved a 30-minute behavioral and 30-minute case. I spent a couple hours coming up with a laundry list of questions and it paid off big time. Both sessions finished up 10 minutes early which allowed me to ask questions to truly get a firsthand perspective on the company culture, gain valuable info to write a thank you email after, and make a personal connection with my interviewer. I do not think I performed well on the case, but my questions changed the course of the interview and are a huge part as to why I think I got the job. 

So how do you build a rolodex of great questions? 

Focus on questions that will be answered with stories. Tee up your interviewers to talk about their careers, impactful moments, and people who changed their trajectory. Here are a few examples: 

If talking to a partner

For partners focus on high level questions and show that you can think broadly about the business.

“Throughout your X number of years at Y firm, what has been the most impactful project you have worked on? Why did it leave an impact on you and made reverberations in your career?”

If talking to an entry-level hire

For entry level hires get a feel of what you will be doing if you joined the firm and would you like to be in the office with them every day. 

“There are a lot of preconceived ideas about joining an industry like X. What was an idea that you came into the job with that you were completely wrong about? How was it subverted?”

If talking to HR

For HR, focus on the culture of the firm and development of young talent.

“I read on X company’s website that your culture includes ‘working shoulder-to-shoulder’ with senior leadership. Can you tell me how your company structures that into the analyst experience and a story of a great relationship that was formed from that?”

I would come up with 5-7 questions of similar caliber and then ask follow ups if something stands out in their answer. Do not expect to ask all of them but have them ready in case of emergency.

6. Thank you email 

A thank you email can never hurt unless you have egregious misspellings or say something inappropriate. 

Not sending a thank you has a ton of downside, so I err on sending one in any situation. The thank you email you send should have 4 key components:

i) Thank you, it was great connecting and interviewing for X opportunity

ii) Reference a key learning that stood out to you in your conversation about the interviewer

iii) Bring up something that stood out to you that exemplifies the company culture

iv) Reaffirm why you would be a great fit and reference those key characteristics one last time 

Hi (Blank), 

Hope all is well! I wanted to reach out and thank you for taking the time out of your day yesterday to interview me for an opportunity at OW! 

I enjoyed learning about your 18-year career at OW.  Especially the story of your first project and becoming best friends with the CEO at the age of 21. The ability to interact with and eventually own a client relationship really stuck out to me. This is a huge reason why I am pursuing a career in consulting at OW. 

I want to reiterate my interest in Oliver Wyman and in Financial Services. I've learned from my conversations that OW is atypical from most consulting firms in that each new hire is seen as a potential partner. After learning about your journey to becoming a partner, I have seen that story come to fruition. 

Overall, I believe my ability to work well with others, willingness to learn, and desire to make an impact early in my career would enable me to be a great asset to the team. Once again, thank you for interviewing me. I wish you the best and hope to hear from the Oliver Wyman team soon. 

I hope you found at least one or multiple of the 6 tools to aid you to truly attack each working session. Remember that you gained admission into that interview room for a reason. They would not be interviewing you if you did not have a shot. Confirm their suspicions that you are a great candidate by delivering on interview day through effective communication of your experiences. I will end like we started with a quote over the control we have over our lives. 

“There is no magic wand that can resolve our problems. The solution rests with our work and discipline.” 

-Jose Eduardo dos Santos (Former President of Angola)