GALESBURG — Dressed professionally and focused on delivering a firm handshake, second-year students in Sandburg’s dental hygiene program gave polished answers to their interrogators.
“What’s an example of how you handled conflict?”
“How would your instructors describe you?”
“What makes you the right person for this position?”
But the people asking the questions to these soon-to-be graduates preparing to enter the workforce weren’t employers at a dentist’s office. They were Sandburg staff members helping the students hone their skills with mock job interviews. The exercise was part of the Employability Skills Academy that students in the program complete before heading out into the “real world.”
“This helped me plan on what an employer might ask and what's going to be important to them when they're looking for an employee,” student Morgan Hayes said. “Good practice makes perfect. This is just a great, great learning experience.”
Stacy Kosier, coordinator of the dental hygiene program, said the mock interviews are often nerve-racking for students ahead of time, but they usually find it to be an invaluable experience afterward.
“Some of these students have never had a professional interview before, so it helps them when they have to go out in a couple months and start interviewing,” Kosier said. “It helps them get their resume ready, and it helps them figure out what questions they're going to answer.”
After completing their 20-minute interview, each student got immediate feedback from the staff member who met with them. They received scores on their handshake, posture, confidence level, avoidance of filler words (like “um” and “uh”) and more. The following week, the students write a synopsis of their experience.
Candance Reed worked as a dental assistant for three years before enrolling in Sandburg’s dental hygiene program, but she said the mock interview was beneficial, even with her professional experience.
“It's been very helpful for me to talk to a stranger and come up with information off the top of my head about myself,” Reed said. “I’m better able to keep it professional with someone I’ve never seen before and just describe myself. This helped me get that practice and get the jitters out.”
With this experience in hand, the students can come armed with confidence once they face real interviewers.
“Let your personality show,” Hayes said of the biggest lesson she learned from her mock interview. “There's no reason to hide behind a question or be nervous because that's the point of the interview. They want to see who you are and what you're like. So don't ever hold back any part of your personality.”
Second-year students in the dental hygiene program participated in mock job interviews April 2 as part of the Employability Skills Academy.