The night before
Practice the interview
before it's real.
Paste the posting you are interviewing for, talk to an AI interviewer for ten to fifteen minutes, and read your own scorecard before you sleep.
- It is free while Slate is in alpha.
- A resume is optional.
- You can sit it tonight.
9:06 pm
Who you will be talking to
The interviewer is an AI, and it asks about your answer.
This is the interviewer's voice, with a question and its follow-up from an example interview. In your interview, it listens to your answer and asks about it, the way a person across a table would.
Interviewer Tell me about a week when everything landed on you at once. What did you do first?
Candidate So, payroll. It had to go on the twenty-fifth and our bookkeeper was off sick that week, so I ran it myself off her checklist. I did get the accountant to look at it before it went out, because I didn't want to be the person who paid everyone wrong.
Interviewer Who else knew you were running it that day, and what would you have done if the accountant had not been free?
Press play. It asks a real question.
You are hearing the voice you will talk to. The candidate's answer comes from an example office manager interview and is shown as text. Your interviewer asks about the posting you paste.
- It asks a follow-up about what you just said, so a prepared answer gets tested.
- It speaks and listens in 10 languages. You choose which one before you start.
- Your camera is on for the recording you keep, and the interviewer hears audio only.
9:19 pm
What you read at 9:19
A score for each criterion, with your own words under it.
The scoring criteria come from the posting you pasted. Each one gets a score out of five, and the line from the transcript that earned it sits underneath, so you know which sentence to fix before tomorrow.
Scorecard
Residence advisor, winter term
Interviewer: What did you say to him first, before you called anyone?
Candidate: “I sat down on the floor so I wasn't standing over him, and asked if he'd eaten that day. Then I called the don on duty.”
Interviewer: Who covered the desk the night you double-booked yourself?
Candidate: “Nobody, honestly. I texted the group chat too late. After that I put every shift in my calendar the day I took it.”
Interviewer: How did you tell the floor about the noise complaint without it turning into a fight?
Candidate: “I put it in the group chat as a heads-up from me, not from the office, and said I'd be in the lounge if anyone wanted to talk about it.”
Choose a criterion to read the answer behind its score.
Tomorrow
Across the year
Find the one you have coming up.
Swipe through the year.
-
September
The club exec role
The two execs who held it last year ask what you would cut when the budget runs short.
-
September to March
The co-op posting
The posting arrives Friday and the interview is Tuesday, with a whole work term riding on it.
-
September and January
Library desk, tour, tutoring
One supervisor gives you twenty minutes and asks about the student who came to the desk upset.
-
Any month
The first job
You have nothing to point at yet, so how you answer "tell me about yourself" is the job.
-
November to March
Residence advisor and don
The residence life panel asks what you do at two in the morning when the floor is shouting.
-
January to March
Orientation and frosh leaders
Hundreds apply for the same week in August, and twenty minutes about handling a room separates them.
-
January and February
Scholarships and award panels
A panel of three wants to know why this award, and what you did with the last one.
-
September and January
Case competitions and club intake
Most people get cut in the behavioral round before anyone lets them near a case.
The interviewer hears audio only, so nothing here comments on your eye contact, posture, or what you wore. It is also one conversation, so it cannot stand in for the timed stations of a multiple mini interview.
In my own words
We have all been there.
Hey.
It is hard to practice an interview, and it is hard to trust another person with your first bad attempt at it.
Slate is a hiring product. This page is my way of giving something back. I think it will stay free, and I hope students in particular get some use out of it.
If it helped, or if it said something strange, write to me.
Ajay Krishnan
Toronto slate@krishnan.ca
9:20 pm
Before Tuesday
The first time you say it out loud can be tonight.
Paste the posting, talk it through, and read your own scorecard before anyone across a table hears the answer.
Practice a postingIt is free while Slate is in alpha, and a resume is optional.
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