Advice For First Job Interview?

[4ObliVioN4]

I'm sure a lot of you had your first real job interview during or right after college. I have my first real interview this Wednesday for an internship next summer.

One question I know they are going to ask is about any leadership roles/positions I have ever held. Just wondering if anyone has a good response to this question as I have never held any real leadership position. Not necessarily a bullshitting-type answer, just a good, positive way to approach the question knowing the answer is basically "No."

My resume is also not very impressive, but I am only a Sophomore in college so I don't know how much this will affect me. Through high school I worked 3 years at a restaurant which is my only work experience. That is pretty standard work for a kid my age, so I don't know if that will matter much to them or not.

Besides those two points, any kind of general advice would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

[jjshabado]

Any job can be relevant to any other job.

Working in a restaurant requires people skills. Organization skills. You can talk about sometime you demonstrated leadership (two servers were arguing in front of a patron and I stepped in and calmed them down, took care of the customer, blah blah blah). Its definitely worth taking time thinking about how you can apply different situations in the restaurant to skills/experiences the employer is going to be looking for.

A lot of people don't realize that the interviewer is also matching your personality with the work environment to see if you'll fit. This can often be as big a part in their decision as any answer you give. Don't swear/joke around too much unless you're following their lead. We swear pretty regularly at work without ever thinking about it, but we turned down a candidate because he swore numerous times in the interview. It just shows a lack of judgement.

[RivaLiva]

If you don't have any leadership qualities in job experience, talk about school projects. They are the closest thing you will have to job experience and all of the interviews I've had were fine with me talking about school projects in my fresh-junior year interviews. Even if you are stretching a bit, talk about how your team wanted to do something one way and you showed them how going your direction was the best idea for the project.