As an International student, I knew how tough it would be to secure a UK grad scheme so started my grad scheme applications early in the Autumn and got assessment centre invitations from a top consulting firm and commercial bank. The outcome of these two final-stage interviews were not positive. This resulted from 2 main reasons – a lack of strategy while articulating my answers and a lack of interview practice to bring my answers to the 'next level'. I started to search for more resources and was signposted by a Careers Consultant to eCareersGrad.  This is a such a good course for 3 reasons:

1. it utilises a very structured, comprehensive, yet concise course outline and gives students a clear sense as to how to improve interview answers in a 'step-by-step' manner.
2. it's delivered in the format of showcasing actual job candidates' answering process (along with recruiter commentary) – this enables students who are watching to have a clear knowledge of what to expect, what to include and what to not include in a job interview. This direct impression of an 'interviewer-like' experience is truly valuable.
3. the course explains in detail great answering structures such as STAR and Circle of Motivation, which are  such important tactics to use in a job interview.

With the help of a fantastic resource like eCareersGrad, I managed to secure graduate scheme offers from 2 of the top 7 accounting firms in the UK which I'm so happy about.

I was offered an interview for a research assistant position and immediately signed up for a 1-1 practice interview from UCL Careers. It was so helpful!

My coach shared the eCareersGrad ‘Interview Success’ course and I’m so happy he did. The course presents candidate-led video answers for positions in varied fields. They demonstrate bad answers, are critiqued, and then demonstrate good answers. It suggests techniques on how to give structured and compelling answers to questions in interviews (e.g. the STAR technique and Circle of Motivation). It breaks down the different categories of questions the interviewer could ask. It also gives strategies on how to determine what questions the interviewer will most likely ask. These techniques are a game-changer and are a must to use now that I know they exist. I went into my next interview feeling very prepared and very confident. Whilst, I didn’t secure the role because they do not sponsor visas for International students, they said I interviewed very strongly. I am so confident now in preparing for my next interview.

I’ve had a strong interest in brand and innovation consultancy and so rather than applying for the big grad schemes, I went for smaller companies specialising in this field.  Before applying, I had contacted people working in the companies I was interested in via Linkedin and managed to set up a few informal chats, which helped me understand what they were looking for in a grad.  Despite this, I got a rejection from my top choice company after the final stage interview. The feedback from the recruiter was extremely vague and didn’t tell me much about how to improve, so I decided to seek help with interviews.

My University Careers Service recommended eCareersGrad and it was a real game-changer. The candidate-led video answers really let you see what good and bad answers look like and why. I saw myself in many of the examples of mistakes candidates often make, and instantly seeing how they can be improved was really motivating. Another element I found helpful were the candidates’ personal testimony videos – it was invaluable to see how other candidates like me prepared for their interviews and how they dealt with rejections.  Thanks to eCareersGrad, I was so much more confident and well-prepared for my upcoming interview, which resulted in a 3-month internship offer with a top innovation consultancy that I accepted and I’m so excited to start!

I was looking for a summer internship to complete before I embarked upon my master’s studies so I signed up for the course to improve my interviewing skills. The course taught me about the different types of interviews I’d face e.g. an on-demand video interview, an in-person interview or etc. It also taught me about the different types of questions I’d face e.g. competency, motivational, etc.

The key benefit of the course is that you get to see dozens of video examples of questions being answered by candidates. You see both bad examples and good examples to make it clear what you should do and what you should not do. A transcript of each answer is also provided that so you can read through and analyse a candidate’s answer. The question answer formats – STAR and circle of motivation - provide a framework for you to prepare your answers before your interview. You can also use these frameworks to create a comprehensive answer on the spot in the interview if you face a question you were not expecting. I used the interview success course to help me secure a sought-after summer internship and to then help me secure a scholarship to fully fund my master’s studies. I honestly can’t recommend the course enough.

At Kings, we've been using eCareerGrad as the first stage in our UG student’s interview preparation and practice sessions. Students interested in booking a practice interview session are first signposted first to complete the interview module. Once the tutorial is completed, the students can book a practice session.

We've found that the tutorial provides students with both the structural scaffolding STAR/Circle of Motivation for answering interview questions but also the specific areas that differentiate both the quality of the answer and overall performance in interviews. Students now arrive at their practice sessions better prepared so time can be focused on practice repetition and feedback.

I have used eCareersGrad very successfully with groups of postgraduate students, in both live and online interviews workshops. Of particular value were the highly professional interview and case study examples on sectors (Health Management, Pharmaceuticals Consultancy) of direct relevance to life science students.

One rarely finds this in similar education platforms that cater to a more general student audience. My students responded very positively to the materials and it always generated a lively debate on successful interview techniques.

With growth in management consulting student interest, as a service we’ve been fielding more and more requests to facilitate 1to1 practice case interviews.  Case interviews are a specialist format and I (along with many of my colleagues) have found this challenging in terms of not having a relevant professional services backgrounds to draw on or case materials to work with.

'Master the Consulting Case' course content is extremely accessible and really allows for a clear understanding of how a case is structured, what an assessor is looking for and crucially - what good case performance looks like.  I use the sample cases in my role-play 1to1 practice sessions and being able to screen-share model video-based or written answers is so effective in terms of remote delivery with these sessions.  It’s also a fantastic tool to build an action plan around as the student can be signposted ‘in the moment’ to specific areas of the course where they need to improve.

We offer remotely-delivered 1to1 interview coaching here at Bath and eCareersGrad has made a huge difference in terms of how I conduct these sessions both in terms of presenting feedback on performance and helping students improve.

Being able to screenshare with candidates illustrated answer models such as STAR and the Circle of Motivation from the course along with short candidate-led video examples that show how these structures can be used in practice is so much more effective than just relaying information verbally.  It’s also useful at the end of the session to be able to signpost to specific chapters of the course when agreeing on ‘next-step actions’ for students to prepare for and improve their performance ready for their real employer interview. I find this is especially the case when working with International students who often like to prepare detailed, structured answers to help them with confident delivery in a second language.

eCareersGrad is a huge asset in helping my finalists prepare for their in-curriculum video interview assignment. Usually I would give students written examples of interview responses to help with their preparation but with eCareersGrad, we were also able to watch clips of actual students answering questions with real-time recruiter feedback. This made the task more inclusive of a range of learning styles and sped up students’ learning of how to go from a poor answer to a great answer.

96% of students completed the assignment with an average grade of a high 2:1.