Your first job interview: a survival guide for people with no experience
The unfair-feeling truth about junior interviews: nobody expects experience. The interviewer knows your CV is thin — they invited you anyway. What they are checking is something else entirely: can you learn fast, will you show up, and would the team enjoy working with you. Prepare for that interview, not the senior one you fear.
The three questions that always come
'Tell me about yourself' — prepare ninety seconds: what you studied or did, one thing you built or achieved, why this role. 'Why us?' — have two specific reasons that show you read about the company; one honest sentence beats five generic ones. 'Tell me about a challenge' — pick a real one from studies, a project or a part-time job, and structure it: situation, what you did, what happened, what you learned. Write these down and say them out loud twice before the interview; the difference is audible.
Experience you forgot you have
Group projects are teamwork. A student job in a shop is customer handling under pressure. Organising anything — an event, a team, a trip — is coordination. A thesis is a long project with a deadline. Translate what you have into what the ad asks for, and never apologise for what you lack; frame it as what you are ready to learn.
Questions to ask them
Always have two. Good junior questions: 'What does someone in this role do in a normal week?', 'How do you onboard new people?', 'What separates the juniors who do well here?'. These signal that you are picturing yourself doing the job — which is exactly the impression you want to leave.
The logistics that quietly decide
Test your camera and microphone before video calls. Arrive ten minutes early, physically or digitally. Send a two-line thank-you the same day, mentioning one thing from the conversation. And treat every interview as practice: most people need several before the first yes, and each one makes the next easier. That is a normal path, not a failing one.
The fastest way to more interviews is more fresh, well-matched applications. Workcamino shows you junior-friendly listings the day they appear, across all of Europe — so you apply early, when screeners still read carefully. Buen camino.