Interview coaching

I started learning about the science of job-interviewing when I prepared my own interview with McKinsey & Co.. The company is often listed as one of the hardest to interview with and has an average offer/application rate of 1% - getting a job-offer from them is an excellent testimony of solid interviewing skills.  

I had never done a single interview before, all of this was new to me, and felt overwhelming.  And even worse, I only had 1.5 months to get myself ready. Where to start? I had to learn everything about case-interviewing (an exercise specific to consulting interviews), how to present myself and talk about my experiences in a clear and convincing manner, and make myself stand-out to the interviewers. 

I started by learning on my own, reading as much as I could find on interviewing. I tried practicing alone. But I knew this was not enough. To be truly ready to give a stellar interview and improve my skills, I needed to get feedback from other people and practice in real-life settings. I reached out to other candidates (mostly students from my university) and set-up weekly practice sessions with them. This became an obsession. I wanted to learn everything about interviewing, how to truly stand-out to interviewers, and how to help others develop their skills. I practiced over 100+ mock-up interviews, and gave about the same number of practice sessions to fellow candidates. 

That is when I realized I had a gift and passion for coaching candidates. More and more students were reaching out to me to practice interviews. I loved seeing them grow from one session to the next and apply the advice I had given them, and move on to more and more difficult interview questions and situations. I saw what common mistakes were made, I saw what excellent looked like. I was keeping track of it all, learning practical tips on how to improve and be able to give a stellar interview. This continued during my time at McKinsey, where I got trained on how to conduct interviews and participated in recruiting events. 

This was really eye-opening.

I understood the power of self-confidence. So many excellent candidates with perfect resumes and outstanding work experiences were letting their self-doubts and self-judges get in the way of shining during interviews. Because I, too, struggled with this issue, I developed a practical toolkit to help boost candidates confidence. 

I observed the power of practice and feedback. The candidates I coached were implementing the practical feedback I gave them, and from one session to the next, were making terrific progress. To be effective, feedback has to be delivered in a very specific way. 

I realized the power of effective communication. Time runs fast during an interview, and every. single. minute. has to be used to stand-out. Interviewers form their opinions very fast. Many candidates were wasting time on details that were irrelevant to the recruiter. I taught candidates how to be structured, concise and top-down (i.e., answer first, details later) in their answers, and focus on what truly made them shine.

Interview-coaching was not only something I was passionate about, but also something I excelled at. It was from this passion that I founded MyStellarInterview so that I could empower thousands of people around the world to truly let their true self shine and learn how to stand-out in their interviews."