Leaving a Lasting Impression: Mock Interviews at the Kent Transition Center

This week at the Kent Transition Center, we had the students undergo a mock interview with someone they didn't know.  We had talked about interviewing in class since the end of the second quarter, but this was to be their pre-test to see what their scores would be with minimal to any coaching.  

2015-2016 Mock Interview Scoring Rubric

Most students on week 8 of the second quarter were shown the rubric that they would be graded by where as others were not due to exams and our school-wide field trip to the Michigan Career Technical Institute.  The students were very nervous and most hoped to do really well in their first practice interview here at KTC.

The rubric morphed this year thanks to some insight from someone who volunteered at KIH, our neighbor across the street, in their mock interviews for their students.  The new rubric judges the students more on their body language,
which has been proven through survey after survey, can fail someone's interview before they even answer the question of "tell me about yourself."  

Non-verbal mistakes made a job interviews (from a survey of 2000 bosses)

The students in week 3 of this quarter will be looking over this rubric and beginning to learn the basics of a thank you letter so that in week 6, they will be constructing one for their interviewers.  

On behalf of the students, who are in the process of beginning to compose their thank you letter, I would like to thank our interviewers for their time and their efforts.  It is by the cooperation of people like you, that we continue to help our students learn how to be successful adults and employable citizens.  Thank you so much for your time and we hope to call upon you in the near future.  

Our next round of interviews will be the week of April 18th-April 22nd, 2016.

Thank you to our first-round interviewers listed below: 

Kailey Specht
Glennda Parker
Marla Salmon
Kay Pugh
Craig Steenstra
Carol Paine-McGovern (KSSN)
Brenda Brower
Eric Kelliher
Kurt Helferich
Phil Winslow (D&W)
Robin Loughrin
Lindsay Tilley
Shay Kraley
Meghan Aupperlee
Dena Harris