How to Prepare for an Interview if You Have No Work Experience

Sep 22 , 2022

How to have a successful interview if I have no work experience? It is very difficult. The main thing here is to know that now there are a lot of people who want to get a job. So you should not set the bar too high and demand special working conditions and a high salary. The starting position in any specialty, whether that’s remote sales or web design, can be very uncomfortable for the applicant. 

So, how to behave at a job interview if you have no work experience?

Influence of education on hiring

In fact, there are far more people in the world with professional experience than there are with competitive academic experience. There are many more people who have been working in, say, the financial sector for 3 years without a degree from a top university. In general, any professional experience is valuable if you aspire to success, but time spent at a recognized world university gives you a much greater advantage.

A degree from Harvard, Wharton, or UCLA will get you into a range of firms and companies that are hard to get into from the outside, no matter how many years of professional experience you have under your belt. If you do not have the opportunity to go to university, you can learn from university materials, which are available on special sites such as Studocu. 

Another thing to consider is that many firms in competitive industries, such as finance, are quite hierarchical. These companies always stand up for their reputation. A university degree allows you not only to enter the competitive job market but also to immediately take a more direct trajectory for further career development. Thus, a university degree is your springboard to the start of your career. And if you are still a student, you can find work on various resources such as Salarship.

How does a job interview with no experience go?

At interviews HR managers often ask the same questions. You should prepare answers to standard questions in advance. Here are examples of questions and options for how to answer. 

The question about your last job. You will be asked about where you worked or are working, why you quit or decided to quit. If you have never worked anywhere at all, talk about that. You may have worked in a slightly different field, for example, you worked as a waiter when you were a student, you are still working, and you want to get a job in the field you studied. In answering this question, you should never criticize past employers, even if the work there was just awful. It is best to answer with neutral phrases. About your current job (if you have one), too, speak neutrally, tell the truth. 

Why do you want to work in our company? The question is complicated enough. It often happens that the job seeker wants to occupy a certain position and does not really care about the employer. Often applicants just go to all of the interviews they were invited to and when the employer asks this question at the 10th interview, sometimes you want to answer that it doesn’t matter as long as the money is paid. But you shouldn’t answer that way. 

Before you come to the interview, formulate your answer to this question. This question is likely to come up. Think about what attracted you to this particular employer? What was the reason you decided to come to this interview? Really, do you want to work here and why here? That will be your answer to this question. In this case, it is best not to lie and not to say hackneyed phrases about the stability and reliability of the company. 

Almost all employers ask the job seeker to name his or her strong and weak points as an employee. Often applicants are lost and do not know what their weaknesses are. This question should be answered so that all weaknesses are presented to the employer as strengths. It is possible to answer that your weaknesses are that you do not like gossip, you do not go to tea with colleagues, you are passionate about work, for this reason, you do not always get along in teams. Any weakness can look like strength.

How to prepare for the interview when you have no work experience?

How do you behave when going for your first interview? Before you go to an interview, accept that rejection will not be a disaster in your life. This company is one of many. Before the interview, it would be a good idea to exercise. 

Don’t take any sedatives. They are sometimes very relaxing. For this reason, you may not be toned down at a job interview.

Before the interview, you should get some sleep, because the job seeker yawning with bruises under his or her eyes does not give the best impression on the employer. 

Conclusion

Of course, a job interview is always stressful. Especially if the job seeker has no work experience. It often happens that the employer asks tricky questions. But the main thing here is to prepare in advance and not to worry. Good luck with your work search!