Your First Interview, Without the Panic

An interview for a first job is not an interrogation, and it's not a test of whether you were born charming. It's a format, and formats can be learned. The interviewer mostly wants to know three things: will you show up, will you be decent to customers and coworkers, and can you talk about yourself for ten minutes without falling apart. All three are preparable.

• Read the company's own site for five minutes: what they sell, what they say they care about.
• Reread the job posting and circle the three skills it repeats. Those are the interview topics.
• Know the basics of the role out loud: hours, location, what you'd actually be doing.

Most interview questions — “tell me about a time you handled a problem,” “describe working on a team” — are answered with a short story. Use the STAR shape: the Situation, your Task, the Action you took, the Result. You don't need job stories. A group project where a teammate vanished, a fundraiser you kept organized, a younger sibling you got through a rough school year: prepared and told in four sentences, those are professional answers.

“Tell me about yourself” (the one you should script)

Present, past, future, under a minute: who you are now (“I'm a junior at Lincoln, and I run the logistics side of our robotics team”), one thing you've done that fits the job (“last year I handled our fundraiser inventory, about $2,000 in sales”), and why you're here (“I want a job where I keep learning that kind of responsibility, and this one looked right”). Practice it out loud twice. Not memorized word-for-word; just familiar enough that your first ninety seconds are calm.

• “What does a good first month look like in this role?”
• “What do people who are great at this job do differently?”
• “How does scheduling work around exams?” — a fair, practical question that signals you take both commitments seriously.

• Dress one notch above the job's daily uniform. Clean and plain beats fancy; a borrowed or thrifted button-up is completely invisible to the interviewer.
• Arrive ten minutes early, phone silenced and away.
• If they ask what pay you expect for an entry role, it's fine to say: “I'd expect the standard rate for this position — could you share the range?” More on reading the offer in the next guide.
• If your voice shakes, keep going. Interviewers of first-job candidates have seen a hundred nervous students; effort reads louder than polish.

Three sentences, sent that evening: thank them for the time, name one specific thing from the conversation, restate that you want the job. Almost no first-job candidate sends one, which is exactly why it works.

Three stories, two questions, one email. That's the whole format — and it's more preparation than most of the people you're up against will do.