<p>To be fair, no majors prepare you for case interviews. Everyone who interviews seriously does some real preparation. </p>
<p>If you say you “can’t” find a job but have a 3.8 GPA in political science from Penn, you are a) naive, b) lazy, or c) lying. 3.8 sets you up for interviews from every top company out there, and then it is all about interview skills. Jobs don’t just fall out of the sky, and everyone is stressed out when they are searching, but I don’t know of a single person I graduated with who didn’t have a job or grad school plans by the time we walked, and the job market was a bit tougher two to three years ago.</p>
<p>If the OP has a 3.8, he can target top tier companies, provided he has done anything besides just school work. I’m calling BS on this one</p>
<p>I live in a neighborhood, community where a lot of the famiiies have grads from the top 25 unis and LACs. And many are under and un employed right after college. Unless you have a skill in an area where it is needed, or you have some connections that will get a position, getting a “living wage” job is difficult regardless of your school affilation. Yes, my son’s close friend from eleme school is a Harvard grad and he has been interning for a politician for zippo opay–it costs him in terms of commute and expenses to do this. That’s with a good gpa at Harvard. </p>
<p>This is not new. Has always been the case. Was the case for me and my peers back in the dark ages,and I went to a top 25 school and the story was that you had it made when you graduated from there. Until you actually did and looked for a job. You are way ahead of a lot people right now, in that you know this before the actual fact. </p>
<p>But, the CHANCES of you getting a good job, making a good wage are far higher in the FUTURE. Most everyone from my school is doing very well now. Many in high profile, high impact, big money positions. But many of those same folks were waiting on tables, washing dishes (the lucky ones testtubes; at least they got into a lab setting), pushing the broom, working retail, trying to sell Fuller brushes, insurance and vacuum cleaners for a whlle before they got into their niche. So this is not anything new.</p>
<p>I don’t remember the details since this was in January. In general, for college students, there are 4 types of questions
personality/fit
Examples
What is your favorite/least favorite class and why?
What is your biggest failure in college and what did you learn from it?
How do you define success?
resume
Better be ready to market/sell everything you have on your resume, school work, activities, work experience.
If they ask, take me through your resume. Don’t just state the obvious. Pick a few things and give some depth to your accomplishments.
domain knowledge
If you are interviewing for consulting, you will be asked to work on cases.
If you are interviewing for software, you will be asked to write code.
So whatever field you are interviewing for, be an expert at it.
company knowledge
Examples
What do you think of our product x?
How would you improve it?</p>
<p>Strong resume (good college, high gpa, related work experience) will get you interviews.</p>
<p>After that, it is all about interviewing which is marketing/selling yourself. Prepare, study, practice. Do mock interviews with experience interviewers if possible. Be ready to answer within seconds any questions that they throw at you. Often they are not looking for the perfect answer, just how you approach the problem. Pay attention to the details, your body language, your demenor might make a difference.</p>
<p>If you want a good job from a good company, you need to work hard at it.</p>
<p>Thanks BusyMei, what I was really curious about was this part</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I just wondered they type of questions they would ask that an English or Poli Sci major wouldn’t be able to answer. Like do they give scenarios or math problems etc.?</p>
<p>^They ask you finance related questions. Unless they take some side classes or study independently, most Poli Sci or English would be clueless for these kinds of questions.</p>
<p>You can always google interview questions for the field or company you are interested in.</p>
<p>Couple examples for finance:
Suppose that you constructed a pro forma balance sheet for a company and the estimate for external funding required was negative. How would you interpret this result?</p>
<ul>
<li>How will a decrease in financial leverage affect a company’s cost of equity capital, if at all? How will it affect a company’s equity beta?</li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks BusyMei, I really was just curious. I am actually a parent and my interviewing days are long over. I believed, as I said earlier in the thread that a student who studied econ or finance would have a much better shot at the golden goose jobs, but I was just curious as to what type of questions might be asked that would highlight those differences.</p>
<p>I am also a parent and my interviewing days are long over too. But I coached several college students (including my own) in the past couple years for their job search.</p>