When inviting candidates to interview, some university programs provide a lengthy period to prepare (e.g., several months or more). Other university programs send interview invitations for interviews to be conducted within two weeks (or less). In these cases, it creates tremendous stress as candidates "scramble" to prepare for their interview, make travel plans (in the case of out-of-town interview locations), and rearrange their schedules for previous commitments already in place.
Some candidates decide to start preparing for their interview only once they receive their actual invitation(s). Other candidates, who are fairly confident that they will be invited to interview, start their preparation and training months ahead of time.
The function of how soon to start training for the interview is a personal choice. However, we will say this: It takes time to practice, refine and perfect the skills that you will learn in our program. The effectiveness of our interview training is maximized when you have weeks or months to absorb the material.
We recommend that you start watch our Courses and book your Strategy Session as early as possible, as we will be discussing strategies to answering different types of questions, and provide you with guidance on how to start practicing immediately to maximize your training time. We recommend that you perform some self-study exercises to get comfortable with the material. Then, we recommend to space out the Mock Interview sessions, such that you can practice the skills that you learn in each session on your own, and come back refreshed and refined for the next level in the series.
Some students like the idea of practicing Mock Interview Level 1 in close proximity to the Strategy Session, so that the strategies are fresh in their mind as they begin to implement them in practice. Others like a longer waiting period between the Strategy Session and Mock Interview Level 1, so that they can perform practice exercises on their own before practicing with us. We have found that both styles work well, and are really a function of each client's particular learning style. The Courses should be watched prior to starting the Strategy Session and Mock Interviews.
(It is also advisable that you build in some time before and after each day's session for self-study for maximum benefit.)
One approach to scheduling your coaching sessions is to take the amount of time that you have left until your actual interview, and allocate the number of coaching sessions you wish to buy from us evenly over the time period that you have. For example, if you have 4 weeks until your interview, you could allocate 4 coaching sessions by having one appointment each week.
Here are example schedules that we can develop together based on your skill set and learning style:
If you have months to prepare for your upcoming interview(s):
MONTH 1
Strategy Session
MONTH 2
Mock Interview Level 1
MONTH 3
Mock Interview Level 2
MONTH 4
Mock Interview Level 3
If you have weeks to prepare for your upcoming interview(s):
WEEK 1
Strategy Session
WEEK 2
Mock Interview Level 1
WEEK 3
Mock Interview Level 2
WEEK 4
Mock Interview Level 3
If you have a week (or less) to prepare for your upcoming interview(s)..
DAY 1
Strategy Session
DAY 2
Mock Interview Level 1
DAY 3
Mock Interview Level 2
DAY 4
Mock Interview Level 3