I went to an interview on the other day. I arrived at the location a little early and at the appointed time the first interviewer came down to collect me at the appointed hour and we arrived upstairs around five minutes later. There were pleasantries and I got comfortable. As soon as I had the floor I wrote down everyone’s name. They presented me with several questions about the interdisciplinary elements of the position, my strengths and weaknesses, the laws that pertained to the job, state and federal acts and my background in development.
I started by talking about my undergrad experience to address my interdisciplinary background, moved on to my community based activities and ended up talking about my experience in grad school. I stressed my varied background as an English teacher, a Geographer and spoke at length about the value of my time overseas. I also showed then my most recent resume to showcase my abilities.
In answer to their question on my strengths and weaknesses I told them that I have a lot of knowledge with data management. I said that analysis requires an intimate understanding of what field methods one employs and stressed my interest in what the data I use means and where it comes from. I then said that my greatest weakness lay in the fact that I have yet take a job that puts all of these things together.
For the next question I said that I have had many chances to work with agencies and organizations. I talked about my field methods classes and relied upon my training in under- and grad school as well as my extended education experiences. I also recounted how my knowledge of school clubs and community activism contributed to this interagency and community engagement. These experiences included my organization of seminars and consulting work. I also mentioned how I had played a role in advocating with county transportation organizations. I also noted how the staffs at various agencies shared a lot of the same interests.
For the next question I recounted the parameters of the regulations that the interviewers were interested in and stressed the importance of public participation. It was at this point that I opened my cheat sheet and used it to talk about those regulations. I pointed out that their online resource was especially valuable but explained that it didn’t cover everything because of the role that public participation played. I also stressed that the public purse and time were major concerns.
In my discussion of the question on State and Federal regulations I tried to own the position because I wanted them to understand that this job is who I am. I went on to ask each person’s specialization and discovered that they all did the same job as the one for which I was interviewing. I noticed that the third interviewer wanted me to know that we had attended the same University.
For the last question I indicated that I my background included much experience pertaining to development. Here the third interviewer and I started talking at the same time here and this made things awkward. I used this time to review my recent experiences at my most recent jobs and I explained that they had given me a lot of experience and that my advocacy complimented that.
From here we went on to my questions. I started by asking about how the email I had received came from the adjacent district. They said that theirs was a small district and they relied upon other districts for support. I then asked about their backgrounds. The second interviewer said that he had gone to a different school than I had and the first interviewer indicated that she had gone to school locally. This prompted me to talk about my own local experiences while they looked at my portfolio. They kept my resume and portfolio description. The interview went ten minutes over but though they made no comments about it. However, I believe this would be a consideration in their decision. The first interviewer walked me out and told the receptionist that I was leaving.
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