Question I would ask during the interview:

1. As a Storm Tours Handbook salesman, what are some of the most convincing methods for selling a handbook?
2. This position relies on keeping a calm collective attitude along with being able to socialize with others. What are the best ways you can make a better connection with clients and build trust?
3. What are your best strategies for staying calm under pressure and what is your best method for handling high stress situations?

Experiences I can recall to show my value:

1. An experience from my professional career that expresses my value is from one of my past jobs. I used to work at a seafood restaurant called Dockside. I was still new to working and I barely knew anything about the fast paced lifestyle of working in a busy restaurant. One night, we were down a server and I was asked to cover both my job and his. After some consideration I decided to step up and work as both a busser and dishwasher for the night. It was a very fast paced experience but I was able to adjust and power through the night. That night I found out a lot about the strength of my work ethic and how I handle under pressure. I also learned how to adjust to the change in speed of different jobs.
2. Another experience that I often look back to and take pride in thinking about is my career as a member of my high school football team. I look back to a specific game one year where we were playing a rival in a big round of the playoffs. The truth was that we were actually getting destroyed toward the end of the game. This made a lot of people lose their heads and become distraught. Though I was pretty burnt and a little beaten because of the score, I decided to keep playing strong and finish hard until the end even though we lost. I felt this was important as there will be many situations in life where you’ll have a bad attitude and still have to play through it and pretend. I feel this shows I handle bad situations well which is a valuable skill.
3. Finally, an experience I look back to determine my skill set is some of the few times that I had to babysit. It was just a transaction for work where I had to watch my father’s friends’ kids for an evening and get paid by the end of the night. I had to watch 3 younger kids and ended up doing pretty well. I just felt this shows how well I handle new experiences and that I am able to keep an eye on multiple tasks at the same time.

Question an interview committee might ask during an interview:

1. Applicants are already expected to be able to socialize and communicate with others. How well are you able to work with all different walks of life such as age, gender, religion or other social preferences?
2. What was the general level of stress you endured during your last occupation and how well do you work under pressure?
3. What is your strongest skill along with an aspect that you think you can work on?

Aspects I question about the sample script?

1. What are the details of the handbook that was talked about early on in the script?
2. I was curious if there was a more enticing title than “Storm Tours Handbook Coordinator and Salesman?”
3. Is there a distinction between the importance of the major and minor duties pages?
4. I understand what UNE is but not all people do. Could they be more specific?

Thoughts on Interview Project as a Whole

I was definitely incredibly nervous about both parts of the interview process for this project. In terms of preparation, I was really unsure where to start. For the interviewee half I knew there was a lot less pressure and I just had to focus on the questions I was asking. I thought it was most important to stay present in that role and interpret as much as you can about the interviewee. In terms of being interviewed, I wanted to prepare what basic aspects about myself I would respond with. I was most focused on having a basic answer for every question so I didn’t freeze. Secondly I wanted to make sure I looked professional. I was definitely nervous about not having an answer right away which would lead me to say something random or jumble my words. I also wanted to make sure I understood the questions clearly.

Having the role of interviewer was definitely a new experience for me. I thought it would be a much easier role than being interviewed, but it was still a new experience. First, it took more brain power than I thought to come up with some good questions for the interview. I took extra time to make sure my questions had depth and weren’t too simple. I remember thinking in the original mock interview how inconvenient such vague questions could be as there is not much to work with and it leads to having poor responses with no detail. I also underestimated the amount of effort I would need to put into understanding and listening to all the answers so I could have good notes to write down.

The interviewee side of the project was still a very scary idea to me at first. This was despite the fact that I had been in an interview previously. I think it’s the idea of having the whole room or at least a few eyes and complete undivided attention watching your every move. I was nervous about saying the wrong things or not having the correct answer for what was questioned so in my head, I decided to think of some simple answers to basic questions that I thought I might unexpectedly come across. This saved me from answering with a poor response or not having the words. I was still nervous about the mystery question that would knock me off my feet but I would say that overall I answered the questions clearly and with good evidence.

Looking back at my overall completion of this project, I would say it was difficult but incredibly helpful. I hate to say that the best thing about being so nervous for this interview was recognizing that I wouldn’t be this nervous for a real one which would make it easier. When my interview was over I was definitely beyond relieved but I definitely wish I added a little more variety to my responses. I think my answers were solid but I could’ve picked other stories to call back as evidence as I did use the same job story example twice. I can’t say I look forward to projects like this in the future but it really did a great job preparing me.