The Chevening Interview is the second screening phase. Only people who passed the application screening can join the interviews.
In my experience, I was informed in early January that I had passed the application screening, and about three weeks later, in early February, I had an interview at the British Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. In this article, I will introduce what questions were asked by Chevening Committee.
The Chevening interview
The Chevening official website has published a lot of informative information. I strongly recommend to take a look before you actually begin your preparation for the interview.
https://www.chevening.org/scholarships/guidance/interviews/
As the Chevenors say, it is important for you to be confident and review your applications. This is exactly what I did before my interview. Let me explain how the Chevening interview went.
The Chevening Interview Day
It was a weekday, so I left work early to go to the interview, but I remember the security checks were quite strict as I was entering the embassy.
Once inside the British Embassy, I waited in the waiting room (which I remember was like a corridor), nervous and nervous. Then, when it was my turn, I entered the mid-size conference room with a lot of windows and the interview started. I thought the interviewers would be Japanese (local language), but to my surprise, there were three British interviewers! There were two male and one female interviewer.
The interviewers sat side by side at a long desk in front and I sat on a chair set up opposite them, and the 30-minute English interview began.
Throughout, I was not asked any particularly bizarre questions. The interview started with self-introductions, followed by a question and answer session on questions that could have been anticipated beforehand. As my background was in technology, the questions to me were mainly asked by one interviewer, who specialises in technology.
What are the Chevening interview Questions?
The questions I was asked were as follows:
- Introduce yourself.
- What is your story from the major in university to your current career?
- Why are you working for X currently?
- What is your future plan?
- How do you achieve your goal?
- Why X university? Why Y university? Why Z university?
- Why UK?
- Do you have any additional scholarship or findings?
- If you don’t get this scholarship, how do you manage tuition?
- What is the tangible achievement for us?
- Any questions?
Summary
Overall, the interview atmosphere is relaxed. I was nervous at first, but by the end of the interview, I felt much more relaxed and left the interview room feeling that I had said all I had to say.
