MECOP Interview Overview
All MECOP candidates go through a behavioral interviews to join the program and to be placed on internships. Candidates will be reviewed by a panel of company representatives from multiple organizations participating in MECOP.
What is a Behavioral Interview?
Behavioral interviewing is a technique used by employers in which the questions asked assist the employer in making predictions about a potential employee's future success based on actual past behaviors, instead of based on responses to hypothetical questions. In behavior-based interviews, you are asked to give specific examples of when you demonstrated particular behaviors or skills. General answers about behavior are not what the employer is looking for. You must describe in detail a particular event, project, or experience and you dealt with the situation, and what the outcome was.
Examples of behavioral interview questions:
- Describe a time when you were faced with problems or stresses that tested your coping skills. What did you do?
- Give an example of a time when you had to be relatively quick in coming to a decision.
- Give an example of an important goal you had to set and tell us about your progress in reaching that goal.
- Describe the most creative work/school-related project you have completed.
- Give an example of a problem you faced on the job or at school, and explain how you solved it.
- Tell us about a situation in which you had to deal with a difficult individual.
- Give an example of when you had to show good leadership.
- What constitutes a technical question? Technical questions dig into your knowledge about subjects relating to your major and typically require specific detailed answers showcasing your knowledge on said topic.
Keys to responding well to behavioral questions:
Do not:
- Be general, vague, or speak in hypotheticals
Instead:
- Be specific
- Describe how you actually handled the situation
- If you have items that you would have handled differently, elaborate
Being specific will help employers see that you learned something from your experience.
- Keep any notes on your examples brief, but easy to expand on so you don't fall into the trap of reading the example verbatim as if it were a script during your interview.
Timing your answers
Additionally, expect your interview to have a time limit and account for that when you are answering questions. You want to fully cover your answer, but also leave room for follow-up questions.
For Program Selection:
For Selection interviews for MECOP, you will have 15 minutes to cover about 6-8 questions with long form answers. In this case, aim for your answers to be about a minute and a half in length (give or take 30 seconds). If you follow this guideline it should leave about 4-5 minutes for your interviewers to ask follow-up questions relating to your answers.
For Internship Placement Interviews (held in January)
For internship placement interviews, which are held every January for each of your interships, you will go through a shorter, 8 minute interview. The purpose in this case is to assist employers in finding candidates that are a best-fit for the projects they have in store for their interns. For this interview expect approximately 4-5 questions, mostly focused on your interests as they relate to your major. General behavioral questions (like during program selection) may be asked here, but are less likely due to time constraints. Your answers in this situation should take between 30 seconds to a minute and a half unless the interviewer is asking for a simple yes/no answer.