Mock Interview
Having never participated in a formal interview before, I found my mock interview with a representative of Eaton Corporation to be a very educational experience. Going into the process, the only knowledge I had concerning how to prepare and present myself stemmed from what I had learned in class lectures. I knew to research the company in advance, to dress and act as a professional, to bring a resume, to act interested and to portray myself as a person well suited for the job. What I was not prepared for were questions that required a detailed response concerning specific character traits that I claimed to possess. I didn't expect to be critiqued on my handshake, my eye contact, my posture. When asked "Is there anything else you think I should know about you?" I was at a complete loss for words. Thankfully, all of these issues were brought up during the feedback portion of my interview, and I believe I took in a lot of valuable information and gained experience that will be very beneficial to me when searching for a job in the future. I learned to use the BAR and STAR methods to answer behavior based questions. It was explained to me that the final question of the interview requesting additional information about me was my chance to sum up all of my valuable traits, add in facts about myself that were applicable but hadn’t been brought up earlier on, and to gauge the interviewer's opinion about my worth to the company. In general, I received many tips on how to improve my responses, such as to explain that my experience in community service organizations would help me to perform a specific task better than my rivals. Although I achieved a score of 85 out of 100 on this evaluation, I trust that this experience will help me gain higher scores in the future.
Comments
Posted by: Jayanti
Posted on: September 29, 2006 01:47 AM
Matt,
I completely agree with your views about the Mock Interview experience. Since I plan to work for a few years after earning a Bachelors’ Degree, I knew that the job interview process would form a key part of my overall college experience, particularly in my senior year. I intended to make optimum use of the mock interview process to not only respond effectively, but also to use the interviewers' informative and valuable feedback as a future guide. I recently posted an entry about my experience at the Career Center, but I would like to add that I was clueless as well, when I was asked whether I had any questions in mind. However, after Ms. Rambert gave me her feedback, I was given examples of a few questions that I could have asked. I was also told to personalize my questions to the interviewer rather than generalizing them. One of the examples I was given was to ask, “Where do you see yourself ten years from today?”
Her point by point feedback was educational and also taught me to express alertness by demonstrating active listening skills, and maintain an attentive body language throughout.
- Jayanti
Posted by: Matthew Gardner
Posted on: October 12, 2006 10:37 PM
Some good insights, Matt. One thing though: don't be afraid to actually have an interest in the job for which you are being interviewed. No one said you had to pretend.
I have to agree that "is there anything else I should know about you?" is one of the more difficult questions to answer. The problem is that the start of the interview is like a sales pitch: the interviewee tries to make his or her best case for the employer. Once the interviewee has already given all his or her best information, what left is there to say?
One section of the interview which will help differentiate the interviewees is the questions asked by the interviewee. This informs the employer of the interviewees interest and the amount of thought the interviewee has put into the decision.