6 things to remember while preparing for an interview
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By Peeyush Chitlangia
Peeyush Chitlangia is the founder of FinShiksha. An Alumnus of IIM Calcutta & MNIT Jaipur, Peeyush has been in the financial services industry for the last 14 years & has extensive exposure to Equity Research & Financial Modeling. With more than 50,000 man hours of teaching experience, he has trained nearly 15000 participants across organizations.
As the MBA summers and final placement season approaches, the students would have started preparing for the interviews. How can one be best prepared for the interviews? If you are someone who is preparing for an interview – this post is for you.
Shortlists are not in our hands
Remember, shortlists in any company are not something that is in our control, so when we do get shortlisted for an interview, we should be in a position to give it our best effort. Our preparation should be such that the if we do get an interview, we should be ready to nail it there and then.
How to prepare for the interview
It is not rocket science. Most of us already know parts of this. However, here are 6 ways you can improve your interview preparation. These are all from my personal experience, of being on both sides of the table.
- Know about the company you are interviewing with – It does not look good in today’s day and age if you do not know about the company you are interviewing with. Read about the company, find out from your network about the company and its growth, the work role, the work culture. Every company loves an interviewee who has done his/her homework.
- Your resume should reflect your strengths – Your resume should only include things you are confident of, or what you have done yourself. The interviewers are experienced, and they have been in our shoes. They will immediately find out if the knowledge around any topic is shallow
- “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer – That however does not mean you need to know everything. If you don’t know an answer, and cannot derive it, it is fine to say “I don’t know this”. Nobody expects you to know everything. Show instead that you can learn
- Show your ability to learn – How do you show you can learn – link everything in your resume with a learning you achieved from it. A project, a certification, a job, an experience – what did you learn from that? Look at your resume closely, and think about what your core learning was from each line that you have written there
- Try and create narratives – Storytelling is a great art. Think of all the major achievements you have had in life, and build narratives around those. This does not mean we create false stories, but we do need to get the interviewer interested in our story
- Be yourself – Last but not the least – be yourself. I can’t emphasize this enough. Don’t try to be someone else – this does not work in the long run. If an interviewer does not appreciate you for who you are, it probably isn’t a long term career option anyways.
If you are preparing for an interview, we also have a couple of videos we had recorded for Common Interview Questions for students aiming for MBA Finance roles.
MBA Finance Interviews – Common Questions for 1st year – https://youtu.be/IGV2FD_oRRY
MBA Finance Interview for MBA 2nd Year – Research, IB, Corp Fin Questions – https://youtu.be/yyvvaT5t9ko
Best wishes for the upcoming placement season. Do reach out to us if you want any guidance.
P.S. A shorter version of this post appeared on LinkedIn
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About the Author
Peeyush Chitlangia is the founder of FinShiksha. An Alumnus of IIM Calcutta & MNIT Jaipur, Peeyush has been in the financial services industry for the last 14 years & has extensive exposure to Equity Research & Financial Modeling. With more than 50,000 man hours of teaching experience, he has trained nearly 15000 participants across organizations.
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