As part of our mission to improve the interview process we realise that we also need to engage with interviewees. In our latest student employability event we collaborated with Queen’s University Belfast, Ulster University and Catalyst’s Generation Innovation to deliver a workshop on interviewing best practice, followed by one-to-one interviews using the Equitas interview app with six exciting Northern Irish startups and giving each student a detailed feedback report so that they were able to develop their employability skills.
Prior to the event, 64% of the students who attended highlighted that they were not confident about job interviews. We wanted to empower students to improve their employability and interview skill with some practical experience and detailed feedback on their performance.
How the event unfolded:
- A workshop on different interview styles and recent graduate recruitment trends
- Interview preparation skills; research the role, company, people and hiring process
- Practical interview experience
- Individual interview feedback reports
The outcome:
We were able to offer paid internships at some of the most exciting tech startups in Northern Ireland to five out of the thirteen students who attended the event. This has enhanced their employability skills, giving them important real-life projects to work on that will complement their degree background and provide them with strong examples and answers for future job interviews. There was a 71% increase in students confidence of attending job interviews after attending the event due to the practical interview experience and detailed feedback reports. Every student said that they were either likely or very likely to recommend the event to other students in future.
What the students said:
“Thank you so much for your lovely feedback. I would strongly recommend the event to everyone I know! I am sure people will love it! You are doing something meaningful and you are doing it well, lots of people will benefit from it!”
“Thanks very much for providing that report and for inviting me to your event. It was a fantastic experience to get and I really appreciate the opportunity! Looking forward to more events in the future,”
What the startups said:
“I loved using the Equitas interview app. The digital approach with audio recording led to some of the most relaxed and engaging interviews I’ve ever done. I met some incredibly bright and talented students and was able to offer a Marketing internship to one of them!”
Phil McElnay founder of Medall and author of “How to prepare for medical school interviews”
“Really easy to use interview app that provided a simple to follow question set and scoring criteria. The event was brilliant, we got to interview some great students and have offered a couple of internships to some really talented individuals“
Scott Wylie co-founder of PayHere
What we learned:
Students found a digital approach to interviews really engaging and were comfortable being audio recorded as this lead to more detailed feedback and a more conversational interview style. We also realised time saving in interview delivery, especially through the use of digital scoring and feedback.
We have now run 11 student employability events with 8 different universities, providing great feedback to students and preparing them for job interviews. If you would like to find out more about the Equitas interview app or would like to know about these events please get in touch.
