Mock Interview

On Wednesday, I had my mock interview with Mrs. Rogers. Overall, I think the interview went pretty well. In response to the questions we were asked to answer:

Were you nervous? How did you deal with this?

I was a little nervous going into the interview, but not too bad. My main concern was that I would be asked something I wasn't ready for or couldn't come up with an answer for, so before I went in I thought about answers to questions that might be asked (common interview questions) and a few stories to tell if the opportunity presented itself (i.e. if I was asked to "tell about a time when..."). I think mentally preparing myself with a couple possible responses and stories to tell h
]elped keep my nerves down. I was fairly confident going in that I would be able to respond to almost any question with the things I had mentally rehearsed.

Did you get any questions that threw you? How did you handle those questions?

I got asked, "If you could change one thing about your personality, what would you change?" and wasn't really expecting that question. However, I had prepared answers for my strengths and weaknesses, so I applied what I felt was my biggest weakness to answer that question. I was also a little thrown off when I was asked how watching my parents working with their company has affected me. I had never really thought about that so I wasn't sure how to respond - I think I may have gone off on a little bit of a tangent with my response, but hopefully tied it all together at the end.

If you could do the interview again, what would you do differently?

If I could do the interview again, I think I would prepare better and come up with more effective responses and stories to answer a variety of common interview questions. I would also try to avoid rambling on with my stories and keep my answers a little more concise.

What did you learn from this experience?
I learned about the interview process. I know now what to expect if and when I have or conduct an interview for a job. I'm glad we got to create resumes for ourselves - that's something that will be useful in the "real world" after college. It was also helpful to have the mock interview to get some nerves out and see what sorts of questions we might be asked in an interview and what the flow of an interview is like. Even though it was a short interview, I got a good feeling for what a real interview would/will be like.