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This is an important one.
I say this even prior to our interview.
Reflect on your skills and experience and how they match up
to the criteria for the position.
Know the position you are interviewing for
and start thinking, well, I had some experience with this,
and I have this knowledge with this.
Sometimes those are education related experiences, be it be
you're student teaching, block intern, all that stuff.
Sometimes it's not.
Sometimes it is the day camp work that you did,
or the fraternal or sorority organizaion, leadership roles
that you were in, or undergraduate student government
roles or athletic roles that you were in.
All that stuff comes into play in that interview, okay.
So, understand and be able to start thinking of those
experiences that you've had, that are those ah ha moments
in your life that you realized that you were good at this,
that you had some skills, and you could manage things like
that and work with people.
It just dosen't have to be in educational setting,
those are valuable and good things but we know
that experience, you are going to get that with experience.
So, you have got to pull from those other experiences that
you've had outside the educational domain.
Relate to those questions.
That is perfectly fine.
We like to hear that too.
Again, it gives us a good picture about you, okay.
Think of hypothetical questions in anticipation of what the
interview might ask, then develop your answers.
You know, I wish I could sit and give you the interview questions
out there, but there are so many.
They come from so many different angles and every school district
does it a different way.
What's the latest book you've read?
Why did you like it?
I've heard that before.
I'm thinking, why would you ask that?
But, I am sure for that district, it has some merit.
You know, there might be some question about,
you will definitely be able to read, reflect,
your philosophy of education.
They might not ask you to repeat that verbatum, but I bet you
through some of those questions you are going to respond to,
you're going to pull back from that.
You are going to pull back and say okay,
this is really my beliefs.
This is what I believe.
This is what I value.
Some of those components of those beliefs and values
are going to come out of those responses.
Truely, they will as they should.
Those are the things I would tell you to start looking at.
The questions, well yeah, definitely they are going
to ask you to describe your educational background.
They are going to ask you that, so go through your résumé
and put that through your mind, and how you can verbalize that.
Here is one of those tips you can star on the side.
Don't give a 30 minute thesis about your educational
background and experiences.
Don't do that.
Sum that up.
We have your résumé, we have your credentials,
we know some of those things.
We want to hear you maybe verbalize that
in a different realm.
Keep in that maybe five minutes or so, or even less than that.
Five or less minutes to sum those things up.
We are going to ask you other things if you
miss some of those.
But don't start back in when I was in elemenary school,
I was this this, this, then I went to junior high,
and then in high school I did this this and this.
Then I went to college.
No, we don't want a whole full-blown story on that.
Just keep it simple when it comes to that, yet professional.
We want to see that you can verbalize those things and that
you can summize a large amount of information, and project that
to us in an appropriate manner, which we get the picture, okay.
Don't go into a diatribe and do not ramble on.
That will be a thing we talk about at the end too,
to have you read the question.
Because you lose folks when you do that in an interview process.
You truely do.
If you have someone that can conduct a mock interview
with you, go for it.
Student teachers.
You are all student teaching right now, right?
Ask your building principals that you are in if they have
some time, or your assistant principal, if they can run you
through a mock interview situation.
At the job fairs, as I said earlier, if someone you know,
a table that is doing screenings, screener questions,
go do it, again, experience is great.
Some districts may be able to do that, depending on how big
they are where you are student teaching right now
as far as mock interviews.
Some may not.
We try to do that as much as we can, our building principals.
So, it dosen't hurt to ask.
Don't be afraid to ask the question to the building,
or the building in which you are student teaching right now.
More than likely, someone will jump up.
Especially if you are doing a good job, they won't want to
interview you anyway, its a great tool for us on our end.
But ask for a mock interview, ask for a practice interview.
Ask for an interview.
Again, how are you going to know if you don't ask?
How many of you are from the suburbs?
See, when you are student teaching, and you're around
this area, they may think that you don't want to teach here.
They may think that you want to go back to the suburbs.
That is great if you do, but it's 6 to 1, half dozen to
another there, and that's great if you do.
But still ask for the interview.
Maybe they are not asking you for the interview
because they think you are going to go back home,
or where your home area is.
Ask for the interview.
The reason why I ask that is some of our interviews
are the same.
I can attest to that.
We use the same interview system at Mattoon that Plainfield uses,
for example, it is the same interview system
that we utilize.
There is a couple of other school districts up there
that uses the same interview system that we utilize.
So, again, it's experience.
The questions may be a little different, but it is the same
interview process.
So, don't be afraid to ask that.
During the interview now, we are going into this part,
any questions about psyching yourself up for the interview?
Okay, make sense?
During the interview, again, be punctual.
Lateness is virtually inexcusable.
You do not want to show up late to an interview.
If you are running into a situation, especially folks
if you are going up north to interview, and this is going to
happen, traffic, 355, 290, 294, you are going to hit it, okay.
Either you go really early to get there, or stay the night
in that area before.
If you do run into an accident, before you leave for the
interview folks, take the number of that secretary, it all comes
back to that person again, doesn't it, that you made
an appointment with.
Have your cell phone, make that call.
I am stuck in traffic.
Those folks will understand, they live that up there.
Again, at least you are being proactive, you're calling.
I am stuck in traffic, I can't you know.
They will know because probably half their staff or some
of their students are late in trafic too.
But, those things can happen too.
If you don't call, that says something about you.
If you do call, they will understand that
and they will work with you on that.
I know we would, but I can't say for everything.
I know up there, some of you are going to be
interviewing up there.
Now here, you are not going to pay to go on the toll way
or anything like that.
So, again, that's just planning that you get there early enough
to ensure you get their on time.
These are some common sense things, but you would
be suprised, alright.
You would be suprised.
Be clean and well groomed.
Folks, don't show up in an interview and you're not
well groomed, you are not dressed professionally.
This is important.
You know, they talk about shoes being shined, and socks
and all that stuff should match.
Again, dressing professionally, that can be a lot of different
things alright, but it's not coming in with a sweatsuit on.
I would tell you, if you are a male, wear a tie.
If you don't respect the profession, and the opportunity
to interview, even if you are interviewing for what you think
a position may not call for a tie, whatever that may be.
There are some positions, say if you were a PE teacher,
you shouldn't come to work dressed in a tie all day and
things, or an ag teacher, you are not going out working with
kids doing test plots in the fields with a suit and tie on.
If you are coming in, dress professionally, wear a tie in
if you are a male.
If you are a female, a dress suit is appropriate.
Do not come in with sweat tops.
I will tell you, do not come in and just wear a sweater
and jeans, and just look casual.
No, you know, that's just.
There's a real problem in the profession, and you guys
have probably sensed or heard some of this student teaching,
and we have to do a better job governing ourselves
to dress professionally.
We need to differentiate how we dress and how
our students dress, okay.
That is a problem out there in education.
Truely, it is.
So, when those people have an intertview we will be looking
for that.
Again, give yourselves time to do that.
Go buy a nice suit, go buy a, it doesn't have to be anything
exorbitant or anything in that nature, but something that
is going to represent you professionally.
That is what people want to see.
We take a lot of heat in our profession because they say,
you know, teachers, as an educator, say you get paid more
when you ask them.
Then you have people that wear jeans everyday, or you do this
or that everyday.
Nevermind, that we are on the ground building a model rocket
that we are going to shoot off, you know, in the sky
or something like that.
Or, doing some kind of physics experiment with acceleration
and velocity, nevermind that.
Again, that is just how the public perceives us.
If you want to be perceived as professionals, even though
we know we are, we are more accountable than
some organizations and professions are held to.
Again, you have to demonstrate that.
That's through all your non-verbals, folks.
It's not, as I often say, it is not what you say,
it's how you say it.