A good interview should feel like a good first date: not love at first sight yet, but an exciting prospect!
Anyway, let’s go back to my face to face interview at Carnegie. Needless to say I couldn’t afford to mess up my interview. I was feeling stressed for a good two weeks. I felt slightly vulnerable too, but as soon as I met Guy and the rest of the team, my apprehension disappeared and I remembered it was only having polite conversation with friendly strangers about my life story and what brought me to them, how I could best help them and how they could best help me. I got to learn about the firm’s market, its history and most importantly that it was having its best year on record (by the way, we just closed the year at over a million!).
Continental Europeans, please don’t put your photo on your CV.
The next step of the interview was discussing my CV, my qualifications and the natural skills I had. My CV was pretty meagre, I didn’t have much experience beyond doing odd jobs for my parents and my parents’ friends. I certainly didn’t have any recruitment experience. I remember spending lots and lots of time on the presentation of my CV. Like a lot of candidates out there, I figured that if I didn’t have the experience, I might as well go all out and produce the most beautiful CV you had ever seen! I understand now that nothing trumps (relevant) experience and the right attitude, not education and forget about presentation already. In fact, the more boring, the better. Just make sure to make your CV spacious, and don’t do what I did and add a photo on top of your CV. I have been teased enough for three people!
Written by Ladane Faycal, who worked with us whilst finishing her Masters dissertation
