You’ve listed your placement opportunities, and shortlisted candidates and now it’s time to interview and select your internship participants.

Our role at InternMatch is to support your company and the participants in finding the right match for their placement. The interview process is a great opportunity to get to know one another a little better, and for you to understand if their digital skills and previous experience will be an asset to your company.

So how do you set candidates up for success and ensure you get the best out of them during the interview process?

Create a safe space

With the Digital Jobs program focusing on up-skilling career changers and mature-age (over 30 years old) Victorians, there is a high chance many of the candidates will not have undertaken an interview in many years. It’s important to consider that participants may be nervous or anxious about the interview experience. Here are some ways you can create a safe and comfortable space for participants and ensure you get the best out of them during the interview:

• Make eye contact and establish rapport by finding a shred topic to chat about before getting down to the ‘hard-hitting’ questions
• If your interview is in person, offer the participant a glass of water on arrival
• If your interview is in person, avoid an oppositional boardroom style layout, as this can be intimidating
• Address your own body language, start the interview with a warm and welcoming greeting, and ensure your body in not close off during the interview
• Before you start the interview, explain the agenda for the interview session, to help them understand the format

Conversational questions

With such diverse and varied backgrounds, there should be plenty of topics for you to discuss with your Digital Jobs program participants. Open-ended conversational questions are a great way for you to understand how a participant thinks and will interact with others in the workplace. By preparing questions in advance and asking similar questions to each participant, you will be able to compare answers and notes later, when making a decision.

Dig into transferable skills

Diverse background and experience, means Digital Job program participants will have some fantastic transferable skills to bring to your company. In an interview sense, these skills will shine a light on a participant’s successes in their previous roles — allowing you to identify synergies of how these skills will be beneficial to your company. 

Some key transferable skills to seek out in a participant’s profile may include:

• Time management
• Sales and business development
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Communication (written, listening)
• Research and analytical thinking skills
• Personal and professional development
• Creative thinking
• Project management
• Empathy and patience