Let’s talk about a trend that could cost you your next job. Most of my recent grad clients get a lot of career advice from TikTok, and, while some of it is genuinely good, the majority is questionable at best. The same goes for Reddit, YouTube, and Instagram. In this guide, I’ll share 3 common but misleading TikTok career tips and show you how to determine if career advice from social media influencers is legit. Want to get an offer after every interview? Our interview preparation tool will guide you through all the questions you can expect, let you record and analyze your answers, and provide ..read more

A few years ago, I was preparing for a job interview and reading about different interview questions. When I encountered the term “competency-based interview questions,” I freaked out. Yet another group of questions I knew nothing about. Behavioral, situational, brain-teaser questions, and now competency-based? I couldn’t keep up. To my surprise, I found out that competency-based interview questions are a variation of behavioral questions. They’re designed specifically to test your competencies and skills based on real-life events and evidence from the past. In this article, we’ll go over ever ..read more

Informational interviews are a goldmine of information for anyone trying to progress in their career and acquire new skills. They’re also a powerful tool for people who want to change their job, transfer to a different industry, or figure out what they want to be when they grow up. Plus, they don’t have the pressure of a real job interview! Picture this: Last summer, one of my acquaintances was considering transferring to content writing from teaching. She reached out to me for an informational interview over a drink so she could get to know the job a little better. After that meeting, she gav ..read more

If you were planning to answer the “What motivates you at work?” interview question with “Not dying under capitalism,” “Not going to jail for failing to repay student loans,” or simply “Money”, don’t. You’ll do yourself a disservice. This is the obvious answer — most of us work to live, not the other way around. With this question, the interviewer wants you to dig deeper to find other, less obvious motivations. This guide will walk you through what interviewers are looking for, and help you find motivators that are true to you (and won’t make you cringe as you say them). Want to get an offer ..read more

Years ago, when I applied for an office manager position, I got this question in an interview: “If you look at a clock and the time is 3:12, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands?” I was always bad at math so I panicked immediately. It took me longer than I care to admit to come up with an answer. It was then that my disdain for weird interview questions began. After some time, I realized there’s nothing wrong with these interesting interview questions. Interviewers don’t ask them to undermine candidates but to get to know them and assess their skills. And there’s one right w ..read more

You know the concept of an elevator pitch: a short, braggy speech you’re supposed to deliver in front of some big shot when you inevitably wind up in an elevator with them for 30 seconds. Nowadays, it’s like an automated, generic LinkedIn message. It’s inflated, overly self-promotional, and incredibly outdated. This kind of approach just doesn’t resonate in today’s business landscape. So what do you do if you need an elevator speech? You have hopes to sell yourself, land a job, get a client, or sell a product. Well, you need to learn a better way to create and present an elevator pitch. It doe ..read more

When you start working for the state with the Department of Labor, your number one goal is to help people. But the longer you’re in your role, the more you’ll see people that come in once and never hear from them again. With younger people who don’t like physical meetings or phone calls, “ghosting” is becoming more and more common — even when you’re providing free help. We talked to Danilo Cabrera, Bureau Chief for Idaho Department of Labor, and Summer MacDonald, Program Manager, to see how they’ve overcome these issues using Big Interview. The challenge: Reaching Their Participants Online In ..read more

Job-seeking is a beautiful mess. You struggle with articulating your experiences and achievements. You get all worked up about finding the perfect answer to pretty much the same 10 interview questions. Then, you have to figure out if you’re a cultural fit, only to compete with hundreds of other people with very similar backgrounds. Ah, the price we pay to afford our instaworthy vacations and endless supply of athleisure. The good news is that interviewing doesn’t have to be that hard. In this article, we’ll give you 12 quick interview tips to help you prepare, know what to expect, and how to a ..read more

This is one of the most straightforward questions you can get in a job interview. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to answer. Quite the opposite — most candidates find it difficult to figure out what exactly they bring to the table. Here’s what you’ll learn in this guide: What the interviewers are looking for when they ask “What can you contribute to the company?” How to prepare your response in 3 easy steps. What to include in your answer (with 4 sample answers to copy). Don’t waste days compiling overused interview techniques. Get original answers to every single question you could expe ..read more

“Phone interviews are awesome because the interviewer can’t see me frantically walking around my room.” I laughed when I spoke to a friend who recently had a phone interview. It never occurred to me, but it made perfect sense. “On the other hand,” he said, “it’s hard relying solely on voices in an interview. It’s difficult to express my enthusiasm through my voice. Plus, the interviewer’s voice is the only indicator of how the interview is going.” Phone interviews can feel nerve-wracking if you don’t know what to expect. In this article, you’ll learn: What makes phone interviews different fro ..read more