Partner Interview Reflection

Introduction

From doing practice partner interviews, I learned that my strengths include being very friendly and appreciative, good listening, and connecting to answers, while my stretches are to move a bit quicker, connect questions more/give questions a bit more flow, and to be more in-depth with each question topic. This information is great and insightful because I could not have come up with it on my own, as it is not possible to observe myself while practicing.

Stretches

I will take the information my observer gave me into my “real” interview by working on my stretches.

Stretch #1

Firstly, I will change from moving slowly with questions to moving a bit quicker. During the practice interview, I could tell that I was a bit on the slow side, making the interviewee slightly bored. If I were to speed up my rate of talking, asking questions, and responding, it would make for a much more engaging interview.

Stretch #2

Secondly, I will change from jumping to different question topics to exploring more in-depth in each question topic. This needs to be done so I may “squeeze more juice” out of each question, so to say. I agree with my observer’s comment about this stretch of mine because although I did ask some follow-up questions to expand topics, I could have done so more.

Stretch #3

Finally, I need to work on giving questions a bit more flow/connecting them more. The list of questions I had made was comprehensive, but I needed to connect each question to each other. In other words, in the “real” interview, I will ask questions in an order that makes them connected to each other. I could do this by saying, “Speaking of _____, I am wondering ______?” or something along similar lines.

Strengths

As for my strengths, I am glad my observer put those down because I daresay I agree. I am glad that my observer thinks I acted in a friendly and appreciative manner, because that is an aspect of being truly professional. It will be important to continue to do so in my “real” interview, even if my interviewee is an old Thai friend, because it indicates respect and will build our positive relationship even more. I am also flattered to know that I possess good listening skills. I agree that attentive listening is crucial to a good interview because the purpose of the “real” interview will be to gain information from my interviewee, and the only way to do that is by listening! Finally, my observer thinks I do a good job of connecting to answers. I think what my observer means by this is that I related my own experiences to the answers my interviewee gave and showed this in my interviewing.

Conclusion

In summary, there are three points about my interviewing that I will work on for my “real” interview. First, I will speed up a bit. Second, I will go a bit more in-depth with each topic. Finally, I will connect questions to each other. I believe doing all three of these points should make for a fantastic interview!

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