Job Interview Activities For Students

Activity: Tips For Effective Interviews

10 Minutes

Exploring The Art Of Asking Questions

A lesson plan on how to ask questions, which indicates the Common Core standards covered, is one of SRLs most popular activities. It provides a scenario with a hypothetical reporter and source and describes the three-student protocolinterviewer, subject, and evaluatordescribed above.

Guide students to think about how improving their questions can lead to getting more interesting answers. SRL teacher Mike Conrad of Royal Oak High School in Michigan has a good exercise for this. He leads students through the process of digging a little deeper to come up with better questions:

• Do you like pizza?

What Experience Do You Have When It Comes To Discussing Our Recently Posted Student Activities Coordinator Position

Answer tips:

Speak about specifics that relate to the position you are applying for. If you know you do not have much experience in the job you are applying for, plan for this question ahead of time and ensure you can provide some relatable examples based on what you have done.

Almost all interviewers will appreciate confidence and pride in the work experience you have earned and your passion in transfering these valuable skills to your future role or position.

Answer sample

Ever since my first paper route at age 10 Ive been doing something to keep myself busy and earn money. Back then, it was obviously about earning some spending money. What I didnt realize was that I was actually starting the journey of establishing what I liked to do and how I fit in to the grand scheme of things. I then worked as a junior computer tech in my last 2 summers of high school. It was here that I discovered what I was passionate about and what I wanted to do. I enrolled in college to get my degree in computer sciences, and I have been working around technology ever since.

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Interview Questions For Students

The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.

Related: How To Answer “Tell Me About Yourself:” College Student Edition

Jenn, a certified career coach, helps you tell a compelling 2-3 minute story about your career aspirations and why youre a good fit for the role.

The best way to prepare for an interview is to practice your answers to common questions that interviewers might ask. Additionally, you can make a good impression by highlighting desirable traits like your accomplishments, skills and ability to manage high priority tasks.

In this article, we discuss the reasons why students seek employment and provide sample interview questions and answers to help you get ready for your interview.

Fun Job Application Practice Tasks

Applying for a job in English is a stressful and important use of language skills that often comes up in class but is rarely true for more than one or two people. Below are 15 games and other activities that are fun enough that you can practise the same skills over and over until they

Applying for a job in English is a stressful and important use of language skills that often comes up in class but is rarely true for more than one or two people. Below are 15 games and other activities that are fun enough that you can practise the same skills over and over until they really feel ready whilst also giving the students who arent going to apply for a job in the near future lots of interesting and useful speaking and other skills practice. These tasks are also good practice for people who will interview others in English, especially people who work in HR departments.

2. CV gaps pairworkGive a copy of a CV with different information taken out of the Student A and Student B versions. Students ask each other questions to find out the missing information. You can then move onto brainstorming typical interview questions or looking at how to write a CV. If you are looking at CV writing, you could try doing the pairwork with Student A and Student B having the same CV written in different ways, i.e. with one as a functional CV and the other as a chronological one.

Teaching…: Interactive Classroom Activities

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Tell Me About Yourself

In polling hundreds of different companies & HR departments, this is by far one of the most frequently asked questions in any job interview. Your interviewer will use this as an icebreaker, ideally to put you at ease and get you speaking openly and honestly.

While you definitely want to be prepared for this question, you certainly dont want to make your answer sound memorized. Keep in mind, while this question may sound like an invitation to share your life story, you can be assured your interviewer has very little interest in hearing about everything youve ever done.

The person giving the interview has a job to do as well respect their time. Unless you are asked about something specific, focus on your education, your work history, relatable hobbies and outside interests, as well as your current situation.

Be sure to start chronologically and tell a linear story. Start where you feel is sensical, then work your way up to the present.

After The Mock Interview

• Conduct follow-up activities by reviewing the completed evaluations or assessments with the students.
• Help students update their Employability Skills Profile and think about any next steps they would like to take to further their career goals.
• Coordinate opportunities for student reflection with teachers to help students make the connection between the mock interview, classroom learning and next steps.
• Assess the effectiveness of the mock interview and make recommendations for adjustments in the future.
• Document the experience and provide reports to school leadership and employer partners.

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What Are Your Strengths

While this question is an invitation to do some chest pounding, remember to illustrate strengths that will benefit the employer and arerelative to the position. For example:

• being a problem solver
• the ability to perform under pressure
• a positive attitude

Are typically all solid strengths, but again, consider the position. For example, mentioning you are an excellent team player in a job where you largely work alone suddenly becomes irrelevant to the employer and demonstrates a genuine lack of self awareness.

Beyond this, present your strengths with confidence this is not the time to be modest.

Mock Interviews Are Designed To:

• Provide students an opportunity to practice and demonstrate key employability skills, including communication, critical thinking, workplace appearance and timeliness.
• Help students practice a work-readiness activity.
• Allow students to develop a level of comfort in communicating with adult professionals.

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Have Some Examples Ready

While many candidates tell their interviewer that they posses certain desirable qualities, the proof as they say, is in the pudding. Spend some time in advance of your interview coming up with concrete examples of prior work achievements and how they demonstrate a desired ability. Be prepared for the recruiters questions and to anticipate them based on job position requirements. Instead of simply saying I am well organized, trying attaching an example or strategy. I am a well organized person – here is an example of a project I spear-headed where organization was clutch. Looking for the slam dunk? Finish your response with Did that help answer your question?.

Talk About Why Good Interview Skills Matter

After the initial class discussions, its time to get into the details and talk about why good interview skills are important for high school students to have!

Good interview skills will help your students earn any job they want, both in the near future and later in their lives.

In todays competitive job market where many resumes can be similar a great interview will set your students apart.

Plus, this knowledge will ultimately help them down the road!

But how can you get the point across?

A great place to start is to ask about their thoughts.

Again, this reinforces that your students might know more about these skills than they think!

Once you feel the discussion has taken its course, wrap up the conversation with this bottom line point: the interview can make or break your dream job.

Talk about making an impact!

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What Aspects Of Your Studies Do You Enjoy Most

The interviewer wants to know what motivates you, keeps you passionate and inspires you. This can allow them to see how committed you will be if hired for the position. In your answer, highlight specific aspects of your major or a subject that you’re most passionate about. You can also describe a favorite class and how your instructors inspire and motivate you.

Example:”I love my architectural design course. Since my major is architectural engineering, I favor my current design courses that challenge me to create innovative approaches to developing plans for building structures. I love the planning and designing stages as working on a design team and sharing ideas inspires and motivates me to keep improving my skills.”

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What Are Your Weaknesses

Another tricky one. The purpose of this question is to see how you view and evaluate yourself.

One the one hand, if you suggest you dont have any weaknesses, your interviewer will almost certainly see you as a lair, egotistical, or both.

Dont fall into the trap of trying to present a positive skill in disguise as a weakness, like I work too hard or I am a perfectionist. Any experienced interviewer will see through this in a heartbeat.

Additionally, revealing that Im not really a morning person and have been known to come in late raises immediate and obvious red flags.

The trick here is to respond realistically by mentioning a small, work related weakness and what you are doing or have done to overcome it.

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Games That Teach Interviewing Skills

Related

• Trustworthiness Interview Questions

Interviews are the setting for you to ask the right questions or reply with the right answers, depending whether you are the interviewer or subject. Interviews can focus on vacant job positions, entrance into higher-education institutions, investigations or news-media articles, and both interviewer and interviewee may feel pressure to succeed. To ease some of that pressure, play interview simulation games that will teach key interviewing skills and improve your performance on either end of the experience.

During The Mock Interview

• If rotating students through a group of employers, make sure you have a schedule and that someone is keeping track of time and coordinating the activity.
• Check in with the employers to see if they need anything, such as water, pen, paper or forms.
• If being conducted in an online virtual classroom, have someone manage the breakout rooms while you and the teacher monitor activities.

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Exercises To Help You Prepare For A Job Interview

The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.

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Preparing for a job interview can be a great way to practice what you want to say to a potential employer and increase your chances of being hired. When preparing for a job interview, you can consider aspects of the process like where you’re applying, which position you’re interested in and how your experiences and skills can relate to your career goals. One way to prepare for an interview is to complete exercises that can help you decide on answers and determine which of your experiences to highlight most.

In this article, we explore 10 different exercises that you can use to prepare for a job interview.

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Dont Be Afraid To Close The Deal

Once the interview is over, the likelihood is both you and the interviewer have a good idea of where one another stand. As you stand up post interview and engage in a final handshake, be upfront. Confidence here can go a long way. If you believe you nailed the interview, be bold:Im going to be straight with you – I think that went really well and I think Id be a great asset here. Where do I stand as of now?. Alternatively, if you dont think it went wellyou probably have your answer already.

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Introduce Interview Skills To Your Class

When teaching a soft skill like interviewing, its a great idea to start with an opening activity. Doing this introduces the new skill in an interactive and engaging way to really get students thinking.

This activity will involve you and a brave student acting out a short scenario in front of the class.

The student will play the part of the interviewer and you are a candidate for the position. Provide the student with a number of questions that a typical interview includes.

After the scenario, ask students to share their observations about what went well and what could have been improved.

As the interviewee, you shouldnt have a perfect interview. Otherwise your students wont have much to critique after the scenario is complete!

Oftentimes, high school students may not have a sense of direction in an interview. But if they have critiques for how the interview could have been improved, that means they have some ideas!

Reiterating this fact will help boost your students confidence when it comes to interviewing skills.

Encourage students to keep thinking about ways to improve the interview as you continue through the next few lessons as well.

Practice General Interview Skills

Before taking students through the process of crafting good questions, make sure they know the basics of interviewing. You can give them practice with interview skills by having them work in groups of three: Two students role-play an interview while a third, the evaluator, offers coaching and suggestions on the points below as they practice.

They should practice several skills:

• Prepare a list of questions, realizing that they dont have to ask every one of them
• Maintain good eye contact, including looking up again if they look down to consult their list of questions
• Ask follow-up questions when a response leads them to think of a question they didnt plan for
• Write open-ended questions, using the five Wswho, what, where, when, and why to encourage the interview subject to speak at length.

An interview is not just a conversation, though, so let students know that they need to control the flow of the back-and-forth. If the discussion is moving to a topic they dont want to talk about, they can change things up by asking a different question from the list, or move to a different topic. The interviewer student can practice asking the subject to restate an answer if it goes on too long, or seems incoherent.

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I Like What Im Hearing But Weve Got A Ton Of Great Candidates Why Should We Hire You

An easy question to answer well with one caveat dont slam your fellow interviewees. On the one hand, you have an opportunity to really stand out from the pack. Alternatively, You shouldnt assume the skills of other applicants. Focus on your own strengths, and if the interviewer hasnt given you an opportunity to mention that one slam dunk quality about yourself, now would be the time.

Is there a wrong way to answer this question? Consider the responses below:

• I really need a job right now
• I need the money
• Your office is really close to my house
• Ive always been interested in what you guys do

Notice any commonality here? All of these answers demonstrate a benefit to you. While every employer assumes that these sorts of things play in on some level, these are not the reasons they are going to hire you.

In summation, clearly illustrate what in specific has made you a good employee, and how you envision yourself contributing to and benefiting the company.

Mock Interviews Are Connected To:

• Classroom learning.
• Individual career development/training plans.
• The development of a resume.

Mock Interviews are one activity in the continuum of authentic work-based experiences provided to all students engaged in career-related programs or course of study in New York City schools.

Mock Interviews are recognized as a Zero Hour Supporting WBL activity by NYSED and the NYC DOE CTE.

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