Hi! Welcome to our first blog post – we’re the team at Mockt. Adam’s our tech guy, Eric’s our growth guy, and Hasan’s our product guy. We all go to the University of Toronto and met on the same floor of our dorm. Since October 2023, we’ve been super lucky to build out and pilot Mockt – a peer-to-peer mock interview platform designed to help students get one step closer to their job offer. During our recruitment journey, we went through 30+ capital markets interview processes (Investment Banking, Private Equity, Sales & Trading etc.). Mock interviews were the single biggest driver in us being able to progress throughout each process. Although, ease of access to this crucial element of interview preparation has yet to be democratized – many students do all the preparation alone, but have no way to test it with someone who’s been there before. Mockt has facilitated 140+ mock interviews for 40+ students in 1 month. We’ve learned so much and would love to share the insights we’ve gathered: 1. Mindset: It’s all about why the firm is a good fit for you, not the other way around. It shows when you interview with that mindset. 2. Authenticity: The key to standing out is being authentic. There’s a reason the ones that are successful don’t exactly know why they standout, they’re too busy being themselves – fitting a mould is never the answer. 3. Storytelling: A good interviewee is a good storyteller. It’s about going beyond the content of it – tonality, pauses, filler words, body language, etc. We tend to look so much at the story, we forget that it has no meaning without delivery. 4. Repetition: If you don’t want to sound scripted or robotic, mock interview until you feel sick of it. At this point, if you have an interview, it’ll sound conversational. 5. Accountability: Use mock interviews to keep you accountable to your interview preparation. Start early and insure failure – interviews are hard to get, save the last-minute prep for never. 6. Pause: If you get a curve ball of a behavioural or technical question, take 3-5 seconds to roadmap your answer. It says a lot about someone when they think before they speak. 7. The Big Picture: When you get asked questions about your resume, you’ll waste time if you paraphrase exactly what’s on there. Zoom out and talk about what your workstreams meant in the grand scheme of the business. 8. Understanding: For technical interviews, firms are past the point of recycling commonly asked questions available on guides. To better answer questions on the spot, a fundamental understanding of concepts are important - be curious and ask yourself the why about everything. Take it back to first principles. 9. Structure: One of the best use-cases of mock interviewing, has been being able to ask about how to structure of your answer. Without overdoing it, structure could help you present your points in an easily digestible way and show that you know exactly which points to index on. 10. Try Regardless: Always try spit something out rather than saying you don’t know the answer to a question. Define key terms, formulas, or reiterate concepts to jog back your memory. Something is always better than nothing. We hope these insights were valuable! If you’re a student and interested in being a part of our next launch, feel free to sign up on our waitlist: