Interviews can be daunting for anyone, whether you are moving from one job to another or you are looking to secure your first job as an apprentice.
With our simple interview tips we can help you prepare and successfully secure that apprenticeship job to help kickstart your career prospects.
So you’ve done the hard work by applying for apprenticeships and being successful in securing an interview with your perspective employer. So what now, now you need to prepare and put yourself in the best possible position to be able to successfully get that apprenticeship job.
When attending an interview whether it be your first job or moving to a new one, there are only four simple preparation steps you need to take.
Research the Company
Google can give you all the information you need to be able to find out any information on a company, find out the following key facts of your prospective employers as the likely hood is they will ask you “What do you know about us?”
- When the company started
- What is their market sector
- How many employees they have
- Recent announcements/news
- Company turnover
Keep your answers short and direct and factual, do not try and make up the information. Employers are keen to understand you know what they do and that you have made the effort to research.
Understand the apprenticeship on offer
Understanding the apprenticeship jobs on offer is vital, you need to be able to relate the opportunity on offer to your future career aspirations, and you are not there just because you need a job. Read the job description, highlight key areas of interest in the job and relate that back in your answers.
You will be asked questions such as:
- Why are you interested in the apprenticeship?
- How do you feel this apprenticeship will benefit you?
- Where do you see your career after the training?
- What are the benefits of the apprenticeship?
Check out interviewers
We are not advising you to go stalking them on Facebook, but to use professional networking sites like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is great for checking out your interviewers you can see their career history and how they started in their career, or if they have previously been an apprentice. You’ll be able to see how they have progressed through their career and give you an insight into them, which also offers you the option to be able to question them.
If you haven’t done so already, why not create yourself a profile to demonstrate your motivation to actively promote yourself and interact with the world of business.
Prepare questions
Interviews in most cases are very structured and tend to finish up with the interviewers asking if you have any questions you would like to ask. Yes, is the answer. Never go to an interview without being armed with questions, again it shows you are interested and want to know more.
Try and reframe from asking generic questions such as, Whats the salary? or What are the benefits?
You should make your questions more specific to the apprenticeship job on offer, such as:
- Will there be further opportunities to develop to the next level of apprenticeship?
- Once the training has completed will there be a permanent job available?
- Do you have any apprentice success stories you can share?
- Whats it like working for the company?
Another tip to remember, unless you are doing an assessment centre, is that interviews are commonly allocated between 45 minutes and 1 hour so utilise this time. It’s imperative the interviewers get to know you and see you are motivated and excited about the apprenticeship job on offer, after all they are investing their time in you.