Job Search Strategies, Interviewing, and Job Offers

From your initial job search to the final offer, use the resources below to help you navigate the hiring process.

Interview Preparation

How to Interview

Interviewing is a learnable skill that improves with preparation, self-reflection, and practice. The key is learning how to translate your experiences – such as in class projects, research papers, internships, student clubs, campus work or volunteering - into concrete examples employers care about.

Use this checklist to navigate every stage of the interview process.

Before the Interview

Tell your story. Reflect on your experiences and decide how you want to share them. Use our Behavioral Interviewing Guidance to learn how to tackle typical interview questions.
Research the company/organization. Explore their official website ("About Us" page), LinkedIn profile, and recent news articles. Look up their mission, key projects, and workplace culture so you can connect your answers to their goals.
Practice. Complete a mock interview either through the Career Studio or with a career coach. Use Big Interview to practice on your own.
Plan your attire. Aim to dress at or slightly above the company’s day-to-day dress code. For virtual interviews, full professional attire is still expected. (Need interview clothes? Visit the Monda Student Resource Center for free access to professional attire.)

During the Interview

Arrive early. For in-person interviews, aim to arrive 10 minutes early to make sure that you have time to find the correct interview location. If your interview is virtual, make sure your space is quiet and clean, and you have tested your equipment ahead of time.
Maintain engaged body language. Keep your body language open, engaged, and respectful. For virtual interviews, this also includes looking into the camera during the call – this simulates eye contact.
Pause if you need to. Feel free to ask for clarification or time to gather your thoughts before answering a complex question.
Ask 2-3 specific questions. Inquire about the team, culture, or projects. In addition to providing you with valuable insight, it demonstrates you’ve done your research and signals interest in the company.
Confirm Next Steps. Ask about their expected timeline for the remainder of the hiring process before you leave.

After the Interview

Send a thank-you message. Within 24 hours of the interview, send a brief email to each interviewer, thanking them for their time and reaffirming your interest in the job. Where possible, you’re encouraged to reference a specific topic you discussed.
Follow up strategically. Respect their timeline—if they mentioned you would hear back in two weeks, wait the full two weeks before reaching out for an update.

Next Steps:

Practice Makes Progress. Visit the Career Studio for a drop-in mock interview or schedule an appointment with an Arts and Sciences Career Coach to refine your answers before the big day.

Behavioral Interviewing

Behavioral interview questions ask you to describe past experiences that demonstrate skills employers are seeking. Employers use these questions to understand how you've handled situations in the past and how you may approach challenges in the future.

The key to success is preparing examples and organizing your responses using the STAR method.

Use the STAR Method
Structure your answers with STAR:
S – Situation - Describe the context. What was happening, and why was it important?
T – Task - Explain your responsibility, goal, or the challenge that needed to be addressed.
A – Action - Describe the specific steps you took. Focus on what you did.
R – Result - Share the outcome. Whenever possible, quantify your impact with numbers, percentages, or other measurable results.
Focus on your specific contributions and, whenever possible, include measurable results.
Example STAR Response
Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you suggested a solution to a problem.
Example Answer:
Situation: Advertising sales for the college newspaper where I worked were declining.
Task: I was asked to identify strategies to increase advertising revenue. We had experienced a 15% decline over the past two years.
Action: I researched successful advertising approaches used by student newspapers at other Big Ten universities. I held more than 10 conversations with peers across the country to learn how they used client incentive programs to attract new business. Based on what I learned, I recommended a new incentive structure focused on local businesses and presented my recommendations to our sales team. With their feedback, we refined the plan, and I worked closely with the team to implement it.
Result: After 8 months, we secured five new advertising clients and increased ad sales by nearly 10%.

Common Skills Assessed Through Behavioral Interview Questions

Behavioral interview questions often evaluate:

Teamwork: Tell me about a time you worked with others to accomplish a goal.
Problem-Solving: Describe a time you faced a challenge and how you addressed it.
Leadership: Tell me about a time you took initiative or led a project.
Communication: Describe a time you had to explain a complex idea to someone else.
Adaptability: Tell me about a time you had to adjust to a change, setback, or unexpected situation.
Research & Analysis: Describe a project where you gathered information, analyzed it, and used it to make a recommendation or decision.

Prepare Before Your Interview

Review the job description and identify the key skills the employer is seeking.
Develop 5–8 examples that demonstrate those skills. Draw from your coursework, research, jobs, internships, student organizations, leadership roles, or volunteer experiences.
Use the STAR method to organize your responses and ensure they are clear, concise, and natural.
Focus on results and the impact of your actions whenever possible.

Pro Tip: Students often spend too much time describing the situation. Keep the background brief and spend most of your answer explaining your actions and results. Most STAR responses should be about 1–2 minutes long.

Next Steps:

Get Instant Interview Feedback. Practice responding to common interview questions and receive AI-powered feedback through Big Interview.

Practice with a Career Coach: Build confidence through a mock interview. Stop by the Career Studio for drop-in support or schedule an appointment with a Career Coach to practice your responses and receive personalized feedback.

Multiple Mini Interview Prep

A multiple mini-interview (MMI) format is a style of interviewing that is utilized by many medical, dental, and other professional schools. Developed in 2004 at McMaster University, MMI format interviewing is designed to allow each candidate to be interviewed by several different interviewers in a short period of time. The goal of this approach is to reduce the impact of any biases an individual interviewer might have.

What happens in an MMI format interview?

As each institution is unique, it is not possible to say exactly what will happen. However, here is a general outline. The interview typically takes place across several separate rooms (or breakout rooms, if virtual). Prior to entering a particular room, you, as the interviewee, will receive a written prompt, which you will have two minutes to review. Once those two minutes have elapsed, you will enter the room and have typically around six minutes to answer the prompt before an interviewer. Once that time is up, all interviewees will rotate to a new room and the process repeats.

What kind of questions are asked during an MMI format interview?

Again, it is hard to say exactly what questions to expect, but questions tend to be scenario-based. Sometimes you will be asked to imagine yourself in the role of a professional communicating with a patient. The questions are not meant to gauge subject matter knowledge, but rather to measure critical reasoning, empathy, problem solving, and other “soft skills.” During the two minutes prior to entering the interview room, be sure to read the scenario prompt carefully and identify key parts that you want to build your response around. Many sources of example questions can be found online by searching “example MMI questions.”

How to prepare for an MMI format interview:

Practice answering questions using Big Interview:

Big Interview is a platform where you can record yourself answering interview questions and receive near-instant AI-powered feedback on your performance.
- The ASC Career Success team has created a practice set of MMI questions. You can access those questions on Big Interview. Login using your OSU Single Sign-on. Navigate to Practice > Practice Sets >Custom Sets. Select Practice Question Set for MMI.
- Big Interview is great for building your confidence in answering potential MMI questions and for receiving AI-driven feedback about eye contact and filler language use. However, it cannot directly replicate the experience of an MMI format interview.

Practice interviewing with a group of friends or trusted family members:

Gather one or more people and practice answering an interview question to each, following the 2-minute prep, 6-minute of answer timing.
- Be sure to let them know ahead of time what kind of feedback you would like for them to provide.

Schedule a mock interview with Career Success:

Although a mock interview takes place with only one interviewer rather than multiple like a real MMI, it is still valuable to practice answering questions with a real person. The mock interviewer will be able to provide feedback about general interviewing skills as well as to what degree your answers accurately communicate your skills and values.
- Schedule a mock interview appointment via Handshake.