By this point you’ve followed the first two instalments of this series and followed my recommendations (if you haven’t click here and here to catch up), your prospective employer will have returned your emails and asked if you are available for an interview! Congratulations. This is undoubtedly a very exciting moment, but the real work of preparing for your interview has only just begun. Much like your application materials, the interview is another “first bite” moment where you have an immense opportunity to create a lasting impression that ultimately lands you the internship of your desires. Use your prep time wisely, as every hour you put into preparing for the interview will pay you back many times over during the interview itself.

Preparing relevant handouts, honing your responses to typical questions, and thinking on your feet for more obscure questions are a skill like anything else that can be improved if you train them. Likewise, the more prepared and comfortable you are under the scrutiny of such interactions, the more inoculated you’ll be against the stress of a real life interview. In this installment, we’ll discuss some of the key steps you can take to maximise your chances of being the successful candidate at interview time, from doing your due diligence on the organisation, to understanding the purpose of questions, to general presentation and putting all the pieces together.

The Organization

The People

At the end of the day, the quality of your internship experience is going to ultimately be driven by the people you work with and for, so pick your colleagues carefully as much as you can. Key considerations include:
Where have they been and who have they been mentored by? Reading their bio to see where they’ve coached and who they’ve coached under will give you a good idea of what they’re about professionally. It will also provide a good jumping off point for conversation and to ease the tension when meeting for the first time. Dale Carnegie had it right: people love to talk about themselves.

How do they treat the people they work with? If you share any mutual connections, or even second degree connections, try to find out what your potential boss’s treatment of their former interns was like. Unfortunately, not everyone in coaching treats interns with the respect they deserve- you will have to decide if you hear negative feedback on a coach if that is something you are willing to potentially deal with. Remember: once the shine of the badge has worn off, you still have to work long hours with someone. And if you are a full-time coach reading this and treat your interns terribly, I hope you get stapled by your next squat and drop a 25lbs plate on your foot.

How do they approach sport preparation? Look at their social media, any media such as training highlights or interviews, or again, approach any connections in the field you might have to begin piecing together an understanding of how they train their athletes. This provides you opportunities to ask questions on their approach and read up on any particular methodologies they may employ, so you are better prepared when you arrive on site.

The Program(s)

It is worth knowing a bit about the program(s) you are working with. This is easier if you are applying for an internship with a specific sport’s performance department, and needs to be more generalized if you are applying to work with a department that services olympic sports or the entire athletic department. If you will be working across multiple sports, it would be worth your while to know who the “premiere” sports are at that institution (whether people want to admit it or not, every school has their priorities). Football and basketball will generally rule the school, but schools like Maryland and Duke have a deep lacrosse tradition, where Florida and Vanderbilt are big on baseball, and knowing those things is definitely worth some digging. Beyond that, here are some basic tidbits to do some digging on and have just a postcard’s worth of knowledge about:

How has/have the program(s) performed recently? You don’t need to know every single detail, but have a grasp on the general storylines of the program(s) you will be servicing.

Who is/are the head coach(es)? Again, just know names and general story lines with regards to how long they’ve been there, any notable successes, and noteworthy previous stops.

What are the major storylines of the organization as a whole? If there is a collective success point, such as a high Learfield Cup finish, a major renovation, or a recent shift in leadership, it would at least behoove you to know something like this happened, and that’s about the extent of what you could want to know.
The moral of the story? Don’t go into the interview without any idea about who you’re speaking with and the programs you’ll be working with.

Question Prep

Now let’s discuss some of the common questions you’ll probably be faced with, and what it is they’re typically trying to pull out based upon your response:

“Tell me about yourself”

Classic softball starter question. Keep it to an elevator pitch of 30-60 seconds about where you’ve come from and what you’ve done. I typically mention where I was born and grew up, where I went to school and my progression related to the field at that point. If you’ve played any sports, this is a good time to mention that experience (shouldn’t be the focus of your response though). Most people are just using this as a segue into the interview, but it’s a great chance for you to share a bit of your story.

“Talk about your coaching experiences”

If you have any experiences at that point, discuss them in detail and what you learned from each of them. What sorts of athletes you worked with, your roles and responsibilities, any noteworthy changes/improvements you were a part of, and any contributions beyond the direct role of coaching that you made. Don’t embellish either, because it is easy to corroborate with a call to your references if you claim you trained a particular athlete 1 on 1 during the offseason, and it turns out that all you did was help him load plates on their bar and spot him. This question is a chance to expand qualitatively beyond what your resume conveys, so use it as such to fill in the details of what your prospective employers would’ve read on it.

“What are your strengths?”

This is a chance to sell yourself! Make sure not to just drop a list of qualities on them, but have stories that illustrate why the qualities you mention are your strong suits. Because this is such a common question, I would always have 3-5 qualities plus stories that illustrate them ready to go.

“What are your weaknesses?”

If the last question is asked, you can almost guarantee this one will follow. Questions like these are not so much about the actual answer as they are about the self-awareness you demonstrate and the willingness to be vulnerable, so it almost always goes better the more candid you are. EVERYONE has weaknesses, including the people you are interviewing with, so be very critical of yourself, identify 3-5 weaknesses, and once you’ve identified them, you should already have a plan for improving them that you can talk about as a follow-up point to share. Inexperience is an easy limitation to speak on, but also be brutally honest with yourself about interpersonal/professional limitations you may have, such as a combative personality or struggling to manage multiple projects simultaneously. As Keir would say, “Open the kimono”.

“How would you handle a situation where _____”

Typical hypothetical situations might include an athlete who is being disrespectful to you, or is asking you to subvert a rule or policy for them. I’m not going to give you guidance on this question other than to say you should give genuine time and thought to how you would respond in these situations, because it’s typically being asked for a reason in that the coaches expect it to happen at some point. These questions provide insight into your conflict management skills and character, something which will certainly be tested by athletes given your lower position on the totem pole.

“Talk me through how you would put together a program for xyz sport at abc time of year”

Coaches asking this question just want to get a peak under the hood as to your current knowledge and understanding, your confidence in this knowledge, and communication abilities. As a general rule of thumb, don’t be complex for complex’s sake; it is far more likely that you aren’t going to put together anything revolutionary for the coaches you are interviewing with, especially if put on the spot to talk through a program, so speak to what you know and can elaborate on with confidence. Also think discussion at the 20,000 foot level, with the ability to zoom into the 10,000 foot level if prompted. So instead of outlining yardages for speed work or exact sets/reps/intensities for strength work, talk about using a short to long approach and linear programming of strength movements, and then if prompted, being able to talk about starting points for volume/intensity, weekly progression rate, and ultimate end aiming point.

“Tell me about a time you made a mistake and what you learned from it”

Open. The. Kimono. The worse the mistake, the better.

“What books are you reading?”

If you aren’t actively reading, 1) why aren’t you? And 2) get going! I think it’s generally good practice to have a training-related and non-training related book on hand at all times. Generally, coaches are just looking to pull out if you are a self-starter when it comes to learning, where you’re pulling your knowledge from, and your ability to draw out meaning and apply the knowledge in real life. I’ve had prospective interns tell me before they weren’t reading anything, and it was quite deflating for their chances (hint: we didn’t select them).

“What is your ultimate career goal?”

You are taking the first steps on your career path- where is it you’re hoping those steps ultimately lead you? Understanding what your endgame is as a professional is an extremely helpful filter for making career decisions and directing your attention and efforts when it comes to learning and growing, and it helps your potential supervisors to understand how they can better help you work towards that goal. If the steps you’re taking don’t seem to align with your ultimate ambition, be prepared to explain how you see the steps you’re looking to take ultimately being able to help you achieve that goal.

“Why do you want to work at _____?”

Just have a basic why as to why you’ve applied for the position. Coaches understand you’ve applied to multiple internships, so saying that it is largely about the opportunity to cut your teeth in the profession and gain experience isn’t inappropriate, but if there’s other pieces you can speak to that make it an intriguing opportunity for you, like particular coaches or their approach to training, speak to that. This doesn’t need to be an over-the-top impassioned answer.

Additional Unique Questions I’ve Heard

Here is a vastly incomplete list of questions that fall way outside of the conventional line of questioning, and are more intended to get you thinking and have you expecting the unexpected during your interview:
If you won the lottery, what would you do?
Assume lily pads double in size everyday, if it took 48 days for the pond to be completely covered, on what day was the pond halfway covered?
What’s something you believe to be true that 99% of others in the field would disagree with? (Hint: I still haven’t figured out my answer to this one – second hint: the answer is not that olympic lifts and 300 yard shuttles are overrated)

• If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?
• If you could pick 3 people, living or dead, to have dinner with, who would they be and why?
• If you were stranded on a deserted island, what 3 items would you need to have?
• What would someone who hates you say about you and why?
• If you were only given 15 minutes per day to train a team, what would you do and why?
• If you were only given 90 minutes a week to train a team during the competitive season, how would you structure the training week?
• If we pulled up your YouTube account, what would the suggested videos be?
• What do you think is the most important skill for an S&C coach?
• What is the typical day for an S&C coach?

Wrapping Up

Hopefully this installment gives you an idea of how to direct your preparatory efforts prior to an interview. Spend some time digging up information on the place and people you are potentially interviewing with, spend some time in self-reflection about who you are and what you’re about, maybe even ask others who have previously interviewed or interned there what sorts of questions they were asked in their interviews. There will be enough nerves going into your interview that you won’t want to compound with high amounts of stress related to a lack of preparedness. In the next installment we’ll focus on the interview itself and how to thrive when the spotlight is on you. As always, if you have follow-up questions or want to test your answers with dozens of coaches who have sat in the interviewer chairs, head on over to the Career Development section of Strength Coach Network and post your questions/comments under the Interview Prep thread. Cheers!