Although internships are not long-term employment, employers nowadays choose high-calibre candidates for these temporary positions. When they need to hire permanent staff later, they also tend to hire graduates who have worked for them as interns before.

Basic Interviewing Tips

Hence, students looking for internships should take it seriously and prepare like ordinary job seekers looking for a full-time employment. Observe the basic interviewing tips including arriving on time, creating a good first impression by dressing formally and maintaining eye contact with the employer, and demonstrating a positive attitude.

Transferable Skills

In addition, as students usually do not have much working experience, you should prepare for a list of your transferable skills including computer and language skills, and non-technical skills such as communication, organization and analytical skills. Employers are also interested to know if you have engaged in other internships, volunteer work or extra-curricular activities before.

Behavioural Interviewing

Since employers know that graduates do not have much working experience, they may test the candidates by “behavioural interviewing”. This type of interviewing is quite popular nowadays. The interviewer will provide candidates a scenario and ask them how they would handle. This is to find out the thought process and problem-solving capabilities of candidates. When preparing for this type of question, you can refer to your previous experience in handling university projects or volunteer work, for example.

Show Your Portfolio

If you have a work portfolio showing samples of your work in the past no matter they are university projects or other internships, bring to the interview. Such portfolio certainly provides a good support for your achievements.

Source: JobsDB HK