So on campus interviews have begun and as always, we are enjoying the chance we have everyday to hear employers rave about the quality of students here at Babson.  You have been called "well prepared" and "very high caliber" by more than one of our visitors. Way to kick off the season!

But what good would feedback be if we only talked about the good stuff? We have gotten some really helpful and specific pitfalls to watch out for from a few of our partners. Hopefully these tips will help you as you prepare for your campus interviewing experience.

Know your resume. If you put something on your resume, you should know why it is there. How has that experience helped you to grow? Will the skills you learned there be applicable to this position and if so, how?

Careful with buzz words or hot industry topics. If you bring them up, be prepared to have a conversation about them.  Apparently several students brought up the home mortgage crisis of this summer in their interviews, but were unable to really explain the situation and it's ramifications on the market.

Beware the canned response. We cannot stress enough the importance of the Why questions. You MUST think these through and develop an answer that truly reflects your background and goals for the future. Be as specific as possible. We have heard that some students have "parroted back what they heard at the info sessions, nearly verbatim". While the employers like to see that students were listening, they felt that a better job could have been done integrating the company's values into the conversation, without it seeming like students had memorized a list of traits.