Are there any important differences to note between your virtual interview and a face-to-face interview (and even vs your telephone interview)?

The team that interview you and the questions they will ask will be exactly the same in a virtual world. The only difference being that you won’t need to travel to one of our offices – giving you more opportunity to get prepared.

Our telephone interviews will remain the same as previous years and are usually fairly brief – the recruiters will save the technical questions for your business interview, if successful.

What advice would you give to students on how to prepare for the virtual interview?

Your preparation should be the same for any interview. Make sure you know as much about the business, the role and the team you have applied to as possible. Run through any of our your relevant university studies for the role – so you have some good technical examples to share. Don’t forget any work experience can be linked to a new job – just think about the soft skills, team working or leadership skills you may have learnt from these. It’s great to have a different example for each competency question you are asked, so don’t forget to think about examples based on university studies, paid and unpaid work, extracurricular activities such as societies, charitable work etc. Finally, ask questions and make the most of the session – the interviewer may be your future colleagues/Line Manager!

Do you have any tips for performing well and managing nerves during the virtual interview?

Make sure you have the right setting; a clean and simple background free of distractions is best. Use headphones if possible, as this helps reduce echoing and ensures you can hear the interviewers clearly. Opt to use a personal wifi connection as some public ones will have firewall settings that prevent you logging in – if your wifi isn’t great try plugging the internet cable in to your computer/laptop. If you can test run using the Microsoft Teams platform in advance you will know exactly what you are doing. Finally – be prepared, enthusiastic and dress for success. Most importantly be yourself!