Shift #52 - Interview Skills Workshop & Writing
Friday, July 19, 2024 | 12-3:30 pm CST/1-4:30 pm EST (3.5 hrs)
Details
Michelle Hurt, student/intern
Jennifer Gonzalez, practicum supervisor
This is a screenshot of one of the hosts of the interview workshop. I appreciated that Library of Congress staff always have a clear agenda on what participants should expect!
Today's shift focused on two things - an interview skills workshop and writing afterwards. Although I've been in the workforce since 2003 and have done plenty of job interviews, I am so glad to have participated in this workshop because I know that I can always learn something new, especially improving my interview skills. We had two different hosts - Dianna Gibbs who talked about interview best practices and Tara Duprey who talked about how to prepare for interviews. Diana broke things down for us - the necessity of pre-interview information gathering, creating a self-preparation checklist, and figuring out common interview questions. She keyed in on the importance of creating a discovery checklist, which is part of the interview information gathering process. For every company we apply to, we should research its history, mission, and vision. We should also review the company's strategic plan and organizational structures, if we can find it, and to review the professional biographies of interviews if known. I appreciated what Diana said about knowing the job you are applying for - meaning, we need to thoroughly review the job description and have a hard copy of the position description on hand. We need to make sure that we align our skills and experience with the job description and prepare answers to common questions using the STAR method. I'd never heard of this before but it is quite useful!
S - Situation - what happened?
T - Task - what did you do?
A - Action - go into detail on what you did to complete the task (accomplishments, challenges, statistics)
R - Result - showcase the impact, value add and improvements (whatever you did that made a lasting impact)
Lastly, Diana mentioned that we should also prepare questions for the interviewers.
Our second host, Tara, talked about how we should prepare for interviews. What I learned was, it is important to tell our story - it is ours and no one knows it better than us. As we prepare, we need to remember that the interview is both of us and the interviewer. Tara also talked about verbal and nonverbal communication, with tips like layering your practice and not memorizing answers, writing out answers in advance, recording yourself to assess your talking speed and clarity of speaking, and scheduling practice interviews with friends, family members or mentors. Tara also said that we should keep our answers simple - be clear, concise and deliberate in our speech. We should also make sure to respond to the question and if needed, ask for clarification. We should also use our words to show our interest (be positive and constructive in our choice of language). In terms of nonverbal communication, we need to ensure that we maintain our routine leading up to the interview day (sleep and hydration is key!), we should be aware of our body language, we should direct our communication to the interviewer (make eye contact), and for us to dress the part. Tara also talked about setting the interview stage - we need to determine in advance where the interview will be conducted (if it is a virtual interview). The environment needs to be distraction-free and a neutral space with optimal lighting. We need to identify and minimize noise disturbances and tidy our surroundings. Tara mentioned testing whatever technology you're using and to test the interview link in advance. We need to confirm that our camera, microphone and speakers work and to have the right version of the interview meeting software. Tara left us with a quote by Maya Angelou as we think about our uniqueness - "If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be." The rest of the workshop consisted of three interns who had volunteered in advance to be interviewed by a few Library of Congress staff. We got to hear their answers and also hear the feedback they were given.
After the workshop, I spent time back to writing my blog posts. I'm loving how things are shaping up but I found myself doing a bit more research back on the pirates just so I can add in more descriptions.
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