By John Rooney – Senior Associate Director of Graduate Business Career Services

I am consistently amazed at the support Graduate Career Services gets from our alumni. We tap alumni to be mentors, give mock interviews, and to help build relationships with companies. They frequently come back to campus to conduct workshops. One of my favorite workshops was put on by an alumnus that was in the C-Suite with Johnson & Johnson. He came back to help students with resume writing and interviewing. A valuable piece of advice he gave was to make sure you thoroughly review the job description before you interview. This is seems obvious but you would be surprised how little time candidates spend reading the job descriptions. My favorite quote from his workshop was, “The job description gives the answers to the test – it contains the skills and experiences we scan for in the interview – I do not understand why more people do not fully digest the job description.”
Based on the advice given by alumni and our own experience, we encourage our students to take the time to study the job description. As you do this, you can break it into two pieces:
Key Responsibilities

In this section you will learn what the role entails, how the role interfaces with other departments, and how the role fits into the strategic structure of the company. Understanding the key responsibilities will help you succeed in the interview. Key questions in the interview are Why our company? Why this industry? and Why You? By communicating an understanding of the job responsibilities when answering these questions, you can demonstrate a connection to the company and the role based on the work of the role. The interviewer will gain a deeper level of comfort that you have the qualifications and passion for the role if you frame your interview answers in the key responsibilities.
Required Skills and Experience

This section usually contains 5-10 bullets of skills and experiences the company wants in an ideal candidate. Keep in mind, not every candidate will meet all of these requirements. Your job is to communicate that you possess the important skills and experiences listed. Many times the interviewer will use behavior based questions to see if you have the skills and experiences listed in the job description. An example is “Tell me about a time you lead a cross-functional team and what the result was.” The listed of required skills should give you an idea on what interview questions will be asked.
Job hunting and interviews can be very stressful. Make this a little less stressful by getting the answers to the test: read and understand the job descriptions. Good Luck.