Interview With a Graduate Who Recently Completed a Teaching Job Interview

We at Everyday Interview Tips try to bring you real interview experiences from graduates, recruiters and working professionals just like you. Every month we will interview someone with job interview experience and bring you their own personal account of the events.

Today we interview Wendy. Wendy has two bachelor’s degrees, one in Business Management and the other in Psychology of human development. She is also a certified pharmacy technician with experience in healthcare. Wendy has recently completed a teaching job interview, which she completed successfully and will soon start the first day of her new teaching career. Though her memory of the events is fuzzy, she has graciously accepted our invitation to interview about her experience.

You recently completed a teaching interview, correct?

Yes, that is correct.

How would you describe the overall experience?

It was actually pretty fun, but I was nervous the whole time.

What was the class you were preparing to teach?

I am going to be teaching a number of different subjects including pharmacology, pharmacy law, pharmacy math, etc.

What did you do to prepare for the interview?

My interview was going consisted of teaching in front of a faculty board for 15 to 30 minutes, so I had to structure a lesson plan and prepare teaching materials. I also reviewed some of my old materials and looked for specific topics to cover that I wanted to discuss.

Going back to your interview, do you remember the types of questions you were asked?

I have forgotten a lot of them. It was pretty early in the morning.

What was the hardest question you can remember?

How do you plan on dealing with difficult students?

What was your answer?

My answer was that I would try to consult with the student privately and try to understand if there was a personal issue that I could assist with. In addition, I would try to devise a plan to help the student improve, and make sure they follow the plan rather than fall behind on homework and classroom materials.

How many interviewers did you have? How would you describe their behaviors during the interview?

I started my job interview with the dean of the department. Later about three different faculty members joined. All of them appeared pretty relaxed and positive. They seemed in good spirits the entire interview.

Overall, how would you rate your teaching job interview performance, what did you do well and where could you have improved?

I thought the interview went well. I think I could have improved on eye contact but I feel that the mock instruction went really well.

If you could give any interview tips for job seekers, what would they be?

My tips would be:

Be confident throughout the interview.

Try to do your best to remember names. One of my interviewers asked me if I remembered everyone’s name because they were looking for a candidate that would remember student’s names well.

Try to showcase your personality. They want to see that you are a person and not a robot. When an employer can see you are being genuine it can be extremely beneficial.

Be prepared to ask a lot of questions.

Do background research on the organization, including research on the company/organization/school long before the interview.

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