Hey Dude, I attended the first round interviews and was luckily successful in getting a conditional offer. A fellow member of this forum gave me some great advice, so I'll post it here
In terms of the interviews, you first need to understand that they are not particularly looking for students with an astounding track record and long list of accolades. Our course co-coordinator and the interviewers understand that you are just a highschool student and will evaluate you as such. In this respect, i'd discourage you to go in with a cocky attitude and flaunt about how great you are, i'm friends with a few people on the interview panel and can confidently say those are the applicants that usually get shot down. By all means present your talents and achievements, but do it modestly. Over anything else, organizations sponsor this program in order to make an investment in high caliber young talent in hopes that they will progress to a management position within their business. Keeping this in mind, they are mainly looking for things such as drive, motivation, vision, interest and knowledge of the IT sector. Showing that you are capable, motivated and have a legitimate interest in the Information Technology sector is what you should be focusing on.
From my personal interview experiences, most of the questions will be based off your application. So my biggest piece of advice is to know your application well and be able to expand on anything that you wrote in detail. I also suggest that you make sure that you can back up generic interview questions with examples. Make sure to study up on trends in the IT sector in the days leading up to the interview, as a huge thing that interviewers are looking for is knowledge of the IT/Business sector (which will in turn show drive and passion on a level above the normal applicant), your answer to such a question can make or break an interview. Apart from that... be ready for curveballs, be able to justify why you want to join the BIT program over UNSW's co-op and practice with generic interview questions. It's also important to remember that you are being interviewed by professionals that have been doing this for >5-10 years, so just be congruent.
Interviews are conducted in a 2 interviewers to 1 applicant fashion. One interviewer will be from UTS and the other from a sponsor organization. They will ask you questions about your application, motivation and other stuff that is largely dependent on the interviewer. Interviews run from anywhere between 10 to 45 minutes.
The basic course of events are
- All applicants are called into a room and you are given a debrief of the course, its contents, its sponsors and how the interviews will work on a basic level
- You will be sent to a waiting room and will be given the opportunity to speak to fellow applicants, Anna (our course co-coordinator) and 2nd year BIT's about the course and the interview process. Make use of this as the students are usually keen to give you some advice and i can confidently say that i wouldn't be in the course without it.
- You'll be called into the interview room and do the interview as per my explanation above
Also for the love of god wear a suit.
That was pretty much everything I needed for the interview.
