Mock interview techniques and applications

Mock Interview

The interview is in preparation for a job interview, with the position being Health care marketing professional. The employer has outlined a number of different competencies that it seeks for this position. Among these are a high level of written competency, excellent public speaking skills, a minimum of a 4-year Bachelor's degree in Communications, Marketing or Journalism, 1-year of work or internship experience in the field, and strong interpersonal, organizational and problem-solving skills.

It is expected that during the course of this interview, many of these areas will be discussed. I have the qualifications, but understandably the employer is likely going to ask me about some of the other skills. I will need to be able to demonstrate that I possess these skills. I have spent the past three summers working in internships, and the past two of those were in communications. My work on the school paper has helped me to hone my writing skills. In my last internship, which was at the firm where I am applying, I have some good examples to point to. In demonstration of my writing skills, I would point out that I wrote their fire safety training manual, and helped to produce it along with a publishing professional. If I am asked about my public speaking skills, I will point to the interview itself, which I intend to ace. More importantly, I will point to my experience in my first internship, where I produced videos for the company, sometimes appearing on camera. In high school, I was involved in drama. While neither of these directly relates to public speaking, both are examples of me having to get in front of the public eye and perform. With respect to organizational skills, I can easily demonstrate the role that I played in putting together the fire safety manual, given minimal resources and tight time constraints. My supervisor on that project can attest to my high level of organizational skills.

I anticipate that at some point in the interview, I may be asked to assess my weaknesses. Naturally I do not want to reveal actual weaknesses, but I cannot pretend that I do not have any. I will talk briefly about a weakness that they already are aware of -- my relative lack of experience. This allows me to show that I am humble and aware of my weaknesses, but does not reveal anything negative about me that they do not already know. Indeed, the fact that they are interviewing me says that they are not overly concerned about this weakness. If they ask me this question, they might press for more. I would take this as a test of my ability to handle the press, and politely deflect the question, and guide the interviewer to another subject.

If they ask about short- and long-term goals, I think it is best to respond with honesty. The short-term goals are obvious -- finish, school, start work and begin building a life for myself. The objective here is not with respect to the specific plans, but rather to show them that I am serious about the job and will give it my all. The long-term plan is a silly question, of course, for someone just entering the working world, but I believe the best way to handle the question is to be serious about it, and give them an honest answer regarding a potential career arc.

Lastly, it is always important for job interviews that the interviewee asks some questions. I actually have a lot of questions that I can ask. The most important thing here is to understand the audience -- they are not interested in candidates who ask generic questions, or whose knowledge is limited to whatever they Googled about the company on the way to the interview. They want to know, especially since I have worked there before, that I am serious not just about the job but about working for the company. Thus, I will ask about specifics -- what insurance is part of the benefits package? What has been the career path of people who held this position previously? How was my fire safety manual received? What are they looking for in a Health care Marketing Professional? How has the most recent controversy been managed by the company? And I will name drop key media contacts to whom I was introduced during my internship. I want the interviewer to feel like I am already a part of the company.

Reflection

The mock phone interview as a phone interview, with a female interviewer. I believe that the prep work helped immensely. There are two areas where I think the prep work helped the most. The first is that the interviewer asked a lot of the questions I thought she was going to ask. I had good answers ready, without fumbling, and that is something that is important for PR people. The other way the prep work helped it is allowed me to have a strategy so that the message I conveyed to the interview was consistent. Again, this is something that not allow allows the interviewer to have a better impression of me, but it is an important component of the PR position. I do not know what I would have done differently.

Overall, I believe that the interview went well. I do not feel like my interview was exceptional, as perhaps there were a few points where I took too long on answers, so maybe I did not win any style points. But I gave strong answers based on my prep work, and for the most part the prep work had me ready for the meat and potatoes of the interview. An area where I think improvement was needed was probably with the small talk at the beginning of the interview. The interviewer was clearly trying to get to know me, but I may have had trouble with that because I was so focused on getting the points I had prepared across.

I believe that I would have made it to the next step of the interview process. What I maybe lacked in grace and charm was made up for by always having strong answers to the interviewer's questions. I was ready, anticipated well, and answered all of the questions with clarity and concision. The only questions that really stumped me were some of the more personal questions, as I had not really thought about that part of the interview. Those questions sort of surprised me.

Review

After reviewing the feedback from the mock interview, I have learned that I need to loosen up a bit. I probably overthought the personal banter questions and it was noted that I seemed a little bit stiff and nervous. I want to ensure that next time, that is not the impression that I give. The interviewer liked how prepared I was in general, and commented that I had better knowledge of the company than the other candidates. This made me feel good because I thought that was an important part not only of the preparation process, but also of the message I was trying to convey. In general, I believe that the interviewer's comments were a fair and accurate reflection of my performance and I am going to take her recommendations to heart.

Writing the thank you note was easy. I am getting into health care marketing, so I would be somewhat alarmed if I did not enjoy that part of the task. I will be doing a fair bit of that sort of thing after I am hired.