Have an Interview Soon?

Hello everyone,

I just realized that I haven’t mentioned the resources available on campus to get ready for interviews. I know most students ask upperclassmen to learn from their experience, however if those friends are not familiar with the resources on campus you might reinvent the wheel to figure out how to interview well. Don’t waste your time, interviewing well is a skill learned easily with the right resources. Think about it as an intro course to ‘How to Get a Job?”. If you know how to interview well, most likely you’ll get offers from the places you want.

First of all, CDC offers this service called Mock Interviews. You can stop by CDC  (Tuesday through Thursday 1-4 pm) or call them to schedule a mock interview. A mock interview has 2 sessions: first is a half an hour session and the second part is the actual interview. During the first session, A CDC  staff member asks you about your interests, if you have an interview coming up and tells you about the techniques used at interviews. You are also provided with a sheet of paper that has typical behavioral interview questions on it. If you’re an ECE,CS or any related major and you’re going to have a technical interview soon, you can also have a mock interview tailored around a technical interview.

http://jobtrakr.com/2011/12/06/the-best-time-to-schedule-an-interview-is/

For the second session, you act as if you’re going to a real interview. You dress in professional clothes, have a nice book to take notes in, bring your resume, etc. So you really get in the mindset. During the interview, the CDC staff member who you talked to earlier, acts like an actual employee and asks you many questions. The key think is to prepare for the questions you were given during the first session. If you have an idea how to go by the questions listed, then you’ll be all set. Sit down at home and think about, write about and talk about how you’re going to answer those questions, come up with specific examples to support the points you make. For example if you are planning to say I’m very good at being a team leader support it by saying ‘During my IQP, I was in charge of scheduling all the meetings and giving feedback to advisors. Keeping the team organized and on task helped me to stand out as the team leader’.

http://www.cpcc.edu/career/studentsgrads/interviewing

During the interview session, you’re also filmed on a camera! Once the conversation is complete, CDC staff member shows you the recording and you go over it together. You can see how your body language is, if you’re hesitating during some parts, everything. It gives you a great idea what you should work on once you actually watch your behavior. If you are thinking ‘Oh God, I don’t want to spend an hour and a half to prepare, then you can just log onto your JobFinder and try out InterviewStream. It is a program with all different types of interview questions (IQP included) and you can answer questions and record yourself. Then you drop off the recording at CDC and they critique it for you.

There you go! Now you know what to do how to get ready for that interview, don’t get nervous or hesitate, just try Mock Interview or InterviewStream. Good luck!

Evy