Career services will be bringing professional recruiters to campus Wednesday, Nov. 4. Students that sign up will not only get to practice their interviewing skills, but receive quality feedback.

For Washburn’s Mock Interview Day, students can sign-up through BodJobs and take advantage of a pre-scheduled interview with professionals. At the end of the interview, participants will have a better idea of how well they handle interviews and what measures can be taken for improvement.

“I could not emphasize enough that students just don’t realize that they need help with interviewing, until they do a mock interview,” said Duane Williams, Washburn University Career Services Specialist.

Interviewing is not a regularly experienced situation. However, like most tasks, it just takes practice and the proper resources to get good at it.

A great starting point for getting a nice understanding of a successful interview and the skills associated with it is by exploring the link to Career Services on the MyWashburn website.

Once there, you will find links to PDFs and a concise list of useful do’s such as being 10 minutes early, being polite to the receptionist and wearing a minimal amount of jewelry. Some don’ts include not using the interviewer’s first name unless asked to, showing anxiety or lack of interest, mumbling or being dishonest. 

Another important consideration is the multiple stages of the interview process. The broad stages of the process include: preparation, the interview and the follow-up.

Prepare by employer research, remember that volunteer and internship experience count as relevant experience and that not all professional interviews may be conducted in exactly the same way. 

Next part is the actual interview. To do well, one must know himself or herself and communicate this.

The better prepared the interviewee is, the smoother the interview will go. The more common interview questions used now are called “behavioral questions,” otherwise known as “tell me a story” questions.

“If you’re unfamiliar with those types of questions, that’s going to be a tough interview,” said Williams.

It is common to get caught off-guard with these. The thing to remember is that they are asking for answer that follows the linear structure of talking about a situation, then describing an action that was taken and finally relaying the result of said action. Williams said if you want to impress a recruiter, tell them what you learned from the experience.

The follow-up is important as well. Send follow-up email to thank them for the interview by the next day. Patiently allow the employer some time to get back in touch with you.

For more information you can contact Duane Williams at [email protected] or (785) 670-1939.