Know yourself

What are your relevant skills, abilities and personal qualities? It’s time for some soul searching. Consider your work, study and extracurricular life—what skills and capabilities do you routinely demonstrate? Did taking on that volunteer job while completing university demonstrate your time management skills?  How does your work in retail make you perfect at dealing with clients? Was that impossible exam a perfect example of your technical prowess? Make a list of your skills, abilities and personal qualities, noting how these would transfer to the graduate role and ANAO workplace.

Know the environment

Now’s the time for that web research. Go to our website and familiarise yourself with documents such as our audit reports, work program, structure and corporate publications. Go to other audit organisation websites too. Then jump back to the position description for the ANAO Graduate Program. We want you to know why you want this job, in this organisation, in this industry.

Be a STAR with examples

It isn’t enough to simply tell us that you’ve got great leadership, writing or interpersonal skills. Like any good future auditor, you’ll need to provide evidence of these. You do this by giving specific examples of instances where you used these skills. Stick to the tried and true STAR formula for job interviews—when giving an example of a skill you have used, explain the Situation or background, Task you needed to complete, Action you took to complete the task and the Result or achievement. Search the web for examples of how STAR is used – it’s not the perfect formula, but it will help you to frame those responses.

Predict and prepare

Anticipate questions that will be asked of you. First consider the generic job interview questions—things like “tell us about a time you had to deal with a difficult client”. Search the web for these questions, there are mountains of them. Also consider questions you might be asked about your ability to perform the role, as well as your role in the future direction of the organisation. Now prepare answers for as many questions as you can—you won’t be able to remember all of them, but they will certainly get you thinking.

Get the last word

Not literally…but make sure when they ask you at the end if you any questions, that you have something to ask. You don’t want to get flustered at the end of the interview so prepare a few questions in advance. Be sure that the questions you’re planning to ask add value; you don’t want to ask a question for the sake of saying something. Asking genuine questions at the end shows your interest in our work, as well initiative. It also avoids an awkward pause at the end of a great interview!