First round was a phone interview with HR. They will schedule the interview by email before giving you a call at the appointed time, so I had time to prepare. The call lasted about 30 minutes. The conversation flowed well, was very relaxed, yet professional. It was also a chance for me to get to know the firm. Second round was a panel interview with the partner and a senior-level staff immediately the following day. The panel interview also lasted about 30 minutes. The partner was very gracious and introduced both himself and the senior staff, before inviting me to introduce myself and speak more about my background. There was a natural flow to each successive question. Questions went from determining cultural fit to technical abilities and experience based on everything I wrote on my resume. While technical abilities and experience are great assets for the position, good soft skills and eagerness to learn and grow are essential to win over the interviewers. Sell them your personal brand! Then the questions flowed back to something unique about my background. From there, the conversation flowed to food and travel. Could be entirely different topics for different interviewees. Finally, they asked me if I have any questions for them. I asked them a few questions to show how serious I am about joining their team—their office process, the type of work I will be working on, and the outlook on taking on more complex work as I grow professionally. My mindset during the interview was to get to know the firm more so than just to get the position. This helped me tremendously to relax and flow during the interview. It was getting late into the evening, so I politely declined asking further questions and we wrapped up the interview on a pleasant note.

Initial Phone Interview with member of HR getting the general knowledge. If selected to move on, there is an in person interview with partners of the company diving deeper into personal background