[General] Having problem answering interview questions

[ecco530]

Hello teachers:

I'm a college undergraduate studying engineering. As the graduation approaches, and the pressure of finding a job continued to push, I realized that my interview skills really sucked. Most of the engineering related job positions ask behavioral questions during the interview, and thus being able to give descriptive and constructive examples to answer the questions is crucial to get the job. Since I'm a ESL student, and my academic disciplines have never really emphasized on writing skills, I realized that my writing and speaking skills never improved much over the years.

For this post, I would like to focus on the interview skills. Especially the skill to explain and describe things, which have been my biggest problem.When I try to give an example or explain things, I tend to have trouble with connecting sentences together, so the flow of speech is usually terrible. Also, it's hard for me to describe things in interesting ways especially when I have to put myself in the story (e.g. explain how I approach a difficult situation. etc.). I usually have no problem talking to friends one on one, but I'm usually not the one to dominate the conversation either. So when I was at the interview situation, I was startled at how little I could talk about.

So, I would like to get some suggestions on these problems. Especially for interview purposes. Also, if there are some good speaking or reading exercises that I can do it will be helpful too.

Thank you very much! Your inputs will be much appreciated.

 

[SoothingDave]

Your writing skills seem pretty good. What you need to do is practice speaking, especially answering questions that might be expected in an interview. There are, I'm sure, lots of websites to give examples of interview questions.

Be prepared with answers, then you won't have to worry about putting together sentences on the spot. You should especially be able to describe projects you have done in your schooling. HR people will care a lot about personality questions, but the engineering managers will want to know what you can do in engineering and how you can explain that to colleagues and clients.