Career Services Resource Spotlight: Practice Your Interviewing Skills

Are your interview skills well developed?  Do you have experience interviewing? Are you confident during interviews?  If you answered “no” to any of these questions, the Office of Career Services encourages you to practice your interviewing skills using our online mock interviewing resource – Optimal Job Search’s Interview Module!

Interview Prep helps prepare you for even the toughest of interviews with real life, multi-media interview scenarios that were developed by seasoned employment professionals. This resource allows you to video tape a mock interview while receiving advice from an interview coach for those hard to answer questions. Once you have recorded the final version of your mock interview, make an appointment with the Office of Career Services to have your mock interview critiqued. Appointments can be requested online. 

To begin, all you need is access to a computer with a Webcam and microphone. If you do not have access to a webcam, contact the Office of Career Services to reserve one of our computers (advance reservation is required). Additionally, the Office of Career Services has a limited number of webcams available for check-out for a 24-hour period.

The online Optimal Job Search resource is available for UT students and alumni and can be found under the Job Search Toolbox.  A video tutorial on how to effectively use the Optimal Interview Module is available here.

Follow these steps to get started:

Select the Create New Interview option (or choose from an existing interview type), name it, and then select Start Interview. Once you have started a new interview with a name of your choosing, select an interview type from the list of options. If you select custom interview, you will build your own interview by selecting the types of interview questions you will be asked.

Under format, select the video option. You are now ready to begin the mock interview. You will notice that there is an Interviewer, as well as, a Coach. It is important that you listen to the built-in coaching advice to learn how to best answer the interview questions.

Once you have the finalized interview recorded, you can request an appointment with Career Services. Once you receive confirmation of your appointment with Career Services, send the link to your interview by using the share feature.

I hope you find this online resource helpful!