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On-campus Interviewing Success

"The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few-and-far-between souls who devote 100%."

— Andrew Carnegie

Consider the on-campus interview for a moment. You will be spending twenty to thirty minutes in a tiny cubicle with a total stranger. This person will subsequently decide whether you will have a chance to work for his company. The best you can hope for is to avoid being disqualified, which only takes you one step further into the interviewing maze. One little mistake, one little error, and you could be history.

Actually, the entire process seems rather absurd, except for the fact that you will not get a job without playing the interviewing game. And on-campus interviewing is often the starting point for the interviewing process.

On-campus interviewing is not simply meeting with three or five (or even ten) companies and then picking the one you want to work for. To maximise your on-campus interviewing success, you need to first maximise both the quality and quantity of the interviews, and then maximise your interview efficiency. It is not enough to just "show up" for the interviews and hope that someone will miraculously offer you a job. You have to perform at your peak to gain any mileage from on-campus interviewing.

On-campus interviews are a gift. They will be by far the easiest interviews for you to find. But you should not depend exclusively on it to guarantee you after-graduation employment. There are far more companies than just those that are visiting your campus. Many of the best companies may not be visiting any campuses. So be patient and have confidence to learn the ways to reach out to other companies. Remember that: "He who has an art has everywhere a part."

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