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Conspirocy

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Sarah168 said:
I didn't mean to imply that I thought you weren't giving it an honest go but you just sounded a little too disheartened.

Selling yourself is a little to obvious. Just be confident and match the interviewer's style. Is there anything glaringly wrong with your interview technique that even you can pick up? Or is it just consistent personality clashes with the interviewer?
I've had a bad run. At one firm I got a guy from America interviewing me. At another firm I got a guy from England. Just threw me off completely. I honestly think all it did was create a more level playing field and made personality stand out more cause what would they know about schools and uni's here. But then I'm just guessing and I could be completely wrong. It was a good lesson to not rely on my CV too much in an interview.

As for personality clash I didn't have one, I kinda got the feeling with the English interviewer that he just wasn't interested in me before we even started. I knew it was going bad while I was there. I thought the American guy got along with me, but who knows.
 
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Vagabond

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I think its important to remember is that often the person interviewing you will have *no HR experience* and at best will have skim read your application on the day of your interview.

In 'first-stage' interviews there'll be certain criteria (as outlined in the interviewing guide that they'll also have skim read) and preset questions that they will ask you to try and assess you on the criteria. I'm pretty sure most firms formally use some form of the STAR technique for their behavioral questions.. I think this is why those 'buzz words' pay off to an extent; the interviewer is literally trying to look for them. It's almost a comprehension exercise...

The 'second-stage' interview from what I've seen is less structured and despite the questions, is almost a subjective personality assessment.

Edit: I'm just blabbering here, not exactly directing this response to anyone etc.
 

Sarah168

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Conspirocy said:
I honestly think all it did was create a more level playing field and made personality stand out more cause what would they know about schools and uni's here. But then I'm just guessing and I could be completely wrong. It was a good lesson to not rely on my CV too much in an interview.
You were seriously relying on the reputation of your school and uni????
 

gnrlies

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I generally approach interviews in the following way:

1 - Be yourself - they can smell bullshit a mile away. If you arent yourself, you arent natural, and you dont seem confident and will inevitably stuff up in the interview.

2 - Be personable - treat them like you would any other collegue or acquaintence. Of course this means being professional, but have a laugh with them, and crack the odd joke if you can. Bottom line is that it says something about you as a person if you come into an interview with this approach. Just about all business want people like this because they need to deal with clients daily, and need to demonstrate interpersonal skills.

3 - Demonstrate your abilities covertly - If you have gotten through to the interview stage you are obviously a good candidate. You know why you are good but do they? They may not ask you about specifics in your resume, so it might be hard for you to overtly say - "hey im a good leader cos I was a prefect in year 12". But what you can do instead is find ways to slot things in. For example if they ask a standard behavioural interview question like "What have you done to improve yourself" consider what attributes they want (things like leadership, teamwork, task management etc) and then find ways to demonstrate those. So you could say something like - "when I was a prefect I had trouble initially balancing my school work, so I had to better plan my time, and I found ways to successfully co-ordinated my responsibilities".

4 - Know why you want to work for them, and how the position fits into your career aspirations. They usually want people who know something about what they do, but understandably realise that your not going to know everything. So a good line is to say that you want to learn more about it. Be honest and say that of the roles you saw on their websites, this one seemed the most interesting - but that you still dont really know, and that you want to learn. Learning is a key thing for most firms - they want people who want to grow with them. Usually a good idea to allude to how you see them in terms of your overall career plan - but honesty is rewarded as they can smell bullshit.




I think generally the online applications follow a similar pattern, but the thing is that they become tedious after the 3rd hour youve been working on it. I guess so long as you have reasonable marks and you present a reasonable answer you should be able to get through. I think another important point is that if youve got through to the interview stage, they are happy to hire you based on your resume so you more or less have to impress them based on you as a person.
 

havy

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gnrlies said:
I generally approach interviews in the following way:

1 - Be yourself - they can smell bullshit a mile away. If you arent yourself, you arent natural, and you dont seem confident and will inevitably stuff up in the interview.

2 - Be personable - treat them like you would any other collegue or acquaintence. Of course this means being professional, but have a laugh with them, and crack the odd joke if you can. Bottom line is that it says something about you as a person if you come into an interview with this approach. Just about all business want people like this because they need to deal with clients daily, and need to demonstrate interpersonal skills.

3 - Demonstrate your abilities covertly - If you have gotten through to the interview stage you are obviously a good candidate. You know why you are good but do they? They may not ask you about specifics in your resume, so it might be hard for you to overtly say - "hey im a good leader cos I was a prefect in year 12". But what you can do instead is find ways to slot things in. For example if they ask a standard behavioural interview question like "What have you done to improve yourself" consider what attributes they want (things like leadership, teamwork, task management etc) and then find ways to demonstrate those. So you could say something like - "when I was a prefect I had trouble initially balancing my school work, so I had to better plan my time, and I found ways to successfully co-ordinated my responsibilities".

4 - Know why you want to work for them, and how the position fits into your career aspirations. They usually want people who know something about what they do, but understandably realise that your not going to know everything. So a good line is to say that you want to learn more about it. Be honest and say that of the roles you saw on their websites, this one seemed the most interesting - but that you still dont really know, and that you want to learn. Learning is a key thing for most firms - they want people who want to grow with them. Usually a good idea to allude to how you see them in terms of your overall career plan - but honesty is rewarded as they can smell bullshit.




I think generally the online applications follow a similar pattern, but the thing is that they become tedious after the 3rd hour youve been working on it. I guess so long as you have reasonable marks and you present a reasonable answer you should be able to get through. I think another important point is that if youve got through to the interview stage, they are happy to hire you based on your resume so you more or less have to impress them based on you as a person.
Thx alot for the tips.
 
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stazi

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Sarah168 said:
You were seriously relying on the reputation of your school and uni????
hahah exactly my reaction.
1) 20% of their applicants will be from your uni
2) They couldn't care less what high school you went to, unless they went to the high school themselves, and even then, it won't give you much of an advantage
 

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just have a few questions:
Are these approaches useful for both intern and grad positions? or need a little more "charm" for graduate recruitment?
Is there any difference between intern and grad selection criteria?
Which one is harder to get into? intern or grad? (I reckon there're ALOT more ppl applying for grad positions, on top of that some of them already had intern experiences, which means tougher competition).
 

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stazi said:
hahah exactly my reaction.
1) 20% of their applicants will be from your uni
2) They couldn't care less what high school you went to, unless they went to the high school themselves, and even then, it won't give you much of an advantage
At all of the Big4 interviews/assessment centres I've been to so far, I've found that there are a roughly equal amount of UTS/USYD/UNSW people with MQ not far behind and usually one sole UWSer. As for high school, it is rare for people to be coming from all over greater Sydney + Canberra +Newcastle and other little central coast cities to have any clue about anyone else's high school.
 

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havy said:
just have a few questions:
Are these approaches useful for both intern and grad positions? or need a little more "charm" for graduate recruitment?
Is there any difference between intern and grad selection criteria?
Which one is harder to get into? intern or grad? (I reckon there're ALOT more ppl applying for grad positions, on top of that some of them already had intern experiences, which means tougher competition).
it depends. many places hire more grads than interns, but then again, there are usually more applicants in the grad rounds.

For the internships, they accept candidates with less experience, though.
 

Conspirocy

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stazi said:
are you a shy personality type? do you have good presence and charisma?
No I'm not shy at all. I do have good presence and charisma. Well I think I do. Everyone I know seems to like me so I can't really be objective on the matter. I stand out in a group of people that's for sure.

You were seriously relying on the reputation of your school and uni????
Yeah I disagree with what you said about highschool and uni not being important. I think with people from Australia it does make a difference, then again I wouldnt be able to compare since I never got an interviewer from here. It has to be a factor somewhere in the process. Then again you are the one with the offers so I can't really talk.

You are right though, Big 4 do tend to have a look at everyone. Looking back on it I honestly can't justify it.

Unlike most people I do have previous experiance working in an accounting firm, in fact I have worked long enough so that I don't have to wait 6 months out of uni to start my CA. I am in my 3rd year of a 4 year double degree, which means at the end of this session I have actually finished all my accounting and extra subjects for my CA. I was nice, personable, answered all the questions fine. Can't really understand it, didn't get much feedback from the firms. I play sports at a competitive level, I was on the committee for a club and society at uni. I do volunteer work. I have a D average. I do not get their decision at all.

Anyway, it's not important. I shouldn't get hung up on it.
 

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i highly recommend contacting them and asking for feedback
 

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stazi said:
i highly recommend contacting them and asking for feedback
Agreed.

Conspiracy - You have relevant work experience (I don't), you participate in sports (I can't catch a ball to save my life...), you have a D avg (I'm barely close), you're on committees (I'm not a member of my union let alone a club) and you sound like you did everything you could do..

so I would be REALLY curious to know what went wrong with your application + recruitment process.

And from what you say about schools/unis reputation, it sounds like you must have gone to a pretty nice school. I go to Usyd now but went to a school probably ranked so low, it doesn't register on lists lol. This issue hasn't come up in interviews so far for me and I don't exactly make a point of mentioning it either.

Newbie said:
have big4 already offered? :O
Yeah they have. Ey started offering the week before last week and Deloitte began offering last week. Not sure about KPMG cos I still have the final round for that one.
 

stazi

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Sarah168 said:
Agreed.

Conspiracy - You have relevant work experience (I don't), you participate in sports (I can't catch a ball to save my life...), you have a D avg (I'm barely close), you're on committees (I'm not a member of my union let alone a club) and you sound like you did everything you could do..

so I would be REALLY curious to know what went wrong with your application + recruitment process.

And from what you say about schools/unis reputation, it sounds like you must have gone to a pretty nice school. I go to Usyd now but went to a school probably ranked so low, it doesn't register on lists lol. This issue hasn't come up in interviews so far for me and I don't exactly make a point of mentioning it either.



Yeah they have. Ey started offering the week before last week and Deloitte began offering last week. Not sure about KPMG cos I still have the final round for that one.
yeah, I went to Sydney Boys' High and still don't see the point of mentioning it. I went there three years ago. I got into the course I wanted, eventually, so I don't see why that matters. I also don't mention my UAI or most of my extracurricular stuff from high school
 

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dude you gotta mention high... its a ticket to final round interviews at least :O


lol i didnt know acccouting recruitment finished haha im so out of it
 

Conspirocy

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PWC are out for whoever they had at Conquest today from what I've heard. They have another round tomorrow
Deloitte and EY have been making offers at least since the start of last week
KPMG - no idea I would imagine they get offers out a little bit each day

In other news I had another interview today. I got into the next round, so things are looking up. Oh and I cut the bullshit out today and was more myself instead of what I thought they wanted.
 

stazi

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Newbie said:
dude you gotta mention high... its a ticket to final round interviews at least :O
....no.


and yay, should be learning about the results of this round of P&G assessment on Thursday/Friday
 
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Conspirocy said:
PWC are out for whoever they had at Conquest today from what I've heard. They have another round tomorrow
Deloitte and EY have been making offers at least since the start of last week
KPMG - no idea I would imagine they get offers out a little bit each day

In other news I had another interview today. I got into the next round, so things are looking up. Oh and I cut the bullshit out today and was more myself instead of what I thought they wanted.
EY are stil doing final round assessments as far as I know, and I know for certain that they had an assessment last Friday for Financial Services and SGM, but I don't know whether they have started the offers for that yet.

EDIT: EY have made their offers for FS already
 
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Minai

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EY would have made offers for any TMP potentials a couple of weeks ago...they usually call you up straight after the assessment centre.
 

stazi

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yeah a friend of mine got called straight after.

maybe i shouldve gone for EY just for the lol to see if i can beat others, despite having no accounting experience
 

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