How I Learned to Love the Interview

By nature, I'm an introvert. When I was very young, I refused to speak to most strangers (unlike my little sister who has never met a stranger). Even as a young adult, I still struggle with the more social side of things like networking and interviewing.

As of about five years ago, my interviewing skills were horrible. I didn't know what professional dress was, nor was I particularly good at expressing myself verbally. After all, at heart I am a reader and writer. 

As part of the application process for RA's, we are required to re-interview for our jobs every year. For me,  this has always been a torturous process. I frequently felt as if I was a fraud during my interviews, and my interviewers were just trying to prove that I was. 

For the record, I was an amazing RA. I'm not trying to boast; I've had every supervisor tell me that for the four years I served as one. However, I lacked the confidence to act like I was great in my interviews, and it negatively impacted other people's impressions of me. 

Based on my previous experiences with interviews, who could really blame me for being terrified of Education Interview Day? I thought for sure that nobody would want me. 

As I was expressing concern for my performance during interviews, my placement teacher asked me why I was so worried about interviewing. When I explained my checkered interview history, she told me that I have shown tremendous growth in my confidence over the past semester, and I should not be so concerned. 

What she said to me next is what gave me the confidence to walk in the door to the recruitment room the next day. My teacher told me that regarding content and pedagogical knowledge, I was advanced beyond most interns that she had ever met.

While this statement did not make me become an extrovert or overly-confident overnight, I was able to walk around the room with my head held high, sign up for interviews, and meet with each of the schools I wanted. I even got a second interview with one of the school systems!