Reflection on the Interview Process

During my summer of interviews that lead me to my current position at Petoskey Middle School, I was surprised at how hard it was to go through that process. For weeks I practiced interview conference, created flashcards for those questions, developed two portfolios (1 online, 1 in print), and then memorized how I could integrate the questions I practiced with that portfolio to be able to show, not just tell. By the time I had my last interview, I knew that I had rocked it because I was able to answer the interview committee’s questions directly and show examples of my work with that. In talking with some of the committee members later in time, it was those two things that made me stand out against the crowd and what spurred their recommendation for hire.

When participating in the fish-bowl interview, I thought about my experiences and recognized some of the mistakes that I made in the first interviews, which made this an overall valuable experience. When thinking about the experience as a whole, it’s easy to pick out the participants who were truly invested in the position they were seeking, and I think that three participants was the perfect number because they all had different styles. The students who seemed to be invested the most were the ones who were able to directly answer the questions with (at least) traces of past experiences, and their language and body position made them seem positive.

One note that I made was on how surprised I was when I was able to compare the participant’s body language to each other.. The participants who seemed to be relaxed, also seemed to relax their panel, which is something that Dr. Roseth reiterated in his comments. That, as an interviewee, it’s important to stay conscious of how you’re making the panel feel because they can take that as a sign for how you’ll be in the classroom or how you’ll make the students feel. That was one thing, I hadn’t thought about or even considered.

Another thing I hadn’t considered was the aspect of social media and interviewers searching not only your name, but also your usernames. As I am deciding whether or not to keep my twitter and instagram accounts open, the content that is going to be on those feeds is definitely something to consider, as well as how transparent you wish to be. Luckily, I don’t have to be concerned about my two accounts to be negative reflections on me, but it will affect the type of posts I re-tweet or tweet my self so that I can ensure interviewers can observe who I am as an educator.

I believe this experience was valuable, most especially because of the comments from instructors. I actually wish there had been more time for that portion. To be able to talk longer about the questions, answers to those questions, body language the participants, and the effect of social media, would be been wonderful. Overall, I feel that I have gained more experience on how to be not only an interviewee, but also an attendant on the interview panel.