Today I participated in a mock job interview experience and gained personal feedback based on my performance. Overall, I think the interview went pretty well, given it was my first time practicing for an actual job interview. I felt that I displayed a very professional attitude and had a calm tone of voice throughout the interview. There are some things that I do realize that I need to work on after looking at the video, but I think these things will come as my confidence level increases and the more experience I get with interacting with other professionals on my fieldwork. To prepare for the interview I looked at a page on AOTAs website titled "Best answers to the 11 most difficult interview questions". This really taught me what other OT professionals commonly look for in applicants and examples of what to say and what not to say in some interview questions. I also wrote down some common interview questions that I thought might be asked and had a written out answer to them in order to organize my thoughts and feel like I had a plan going into the interview. I also had a peer review my resume and cover letter for thoroughness, spelling and grammatical errors, and organizational tips. One thing that went differently than I expected were the questions she asked me. I thought she would ask more typical interview questions, but she asked me more in depth questions where I had to give examples of experiences or give my rationale on something. It definitely kept me thinking on my feet during the interview, and really challenged me to think further about my personality and experiences. One thing that I would change if I had to go through the process again is to conduct the interviews in an unfamiliar place to the student, such as the interviewers office. I think this would make it feel more realistic, because in reality, we will be in an unfamiliar place during an interview and I think this will give us additional practice in learning to be more comfortable and cope with being in an unfamiliar environment. One key takeaway that I learned from this experience is just to be myself during the interview and try to relax and show my personality more. This was some feedback that I got from my interviewer and I think it will definitely stick with me throughout my career. I think by doing this, you have the opportunity to show the interviewer who you really are and what you personally have to bring to the facility compared to others. Overall, I feel that this experience was very helpful and I hope to continuing building my interview skills throughout my career.
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