The Art of Interviewing

Interviewing isn't natural and there is definitely a knack to doing one. I'm not here to offer any sage advice on how to do a successful interview because I don't know. I thought a lot about how to be in an interview before going to my first. I was prepared with possible answers to questions they may ask me and when it comes to intervention, I know my stuff. But doing a school interview is difficult. The friends in my life right now are almost all business/IT workers and were kindly giving their advice on what to do. My father-in-law has a saying, "educators are in the people business". Keeping this in mind, you cannot apply regular business techniques to an educator's interview on the public school level. You have to be professional because education is a serious business, however, you have to show the school your personality. A school needs to know what kind of person you are and how you will fit into its dynamic.

Keeping this in mind, I decided to be sincere. I thought this would work best for me. I'm serious about education and my children with disabilities. I'm passionate about it. But the personal me; the me you hang out with is a real goofball. I sing and dance randomly, I have a love for Jim Henson and his muppets, I tell really bad jokes and will usually laugh at them, I get excited about the small things, I take it personally if my tomato plants decide to die, and zombies scare the bujeezus out of me (no really...they do). With that mix of crazy, is it really smart to let it all show through? Well, to a degree, yes. At least that's what I decided. I'm going to make new friends and work with these people and the personal me is a part of the professional me (not that zombies are going to play very heavily into my curriculum). Being sincere will show who I am professionally and give you a glimpse of the person that will be roaming the hallways.

Now another element that goes into an educator's interview is who is going to be there and what you are going to be doing. Districts can vary greatly between each other and so can their interview process. I generally had three different types: A group interview, a one-on-one interview and a "teach" interview.

The largest group interview that I did was with 5 other professionals, however, I have heard of teachers who had a panel of 10 that will fire questions at you like it's the Fast Money round on Family Feud. Everyone would ask at least one question and I had resolved to answer each to the best of my ability and be as honest as I could be. Also in these interviews, they would ask a question and after I began to answer, they would begin to write furiously. This can be intimidating as no one is actually looking at you so it can be hard to know where to look.

The one-on-one interviews tended to be more like talking with the person over a cup of coffee. These were by far the most relaxing situations for me. If you just let me talk about what I care about, I think I will do so much better than coming up with contrived answers to questions.

The last type of interview I did was called a "teach" interview. This is an up-and-coming method of interviewing which is popular with school districts that have found teachers who are great in interviews but may not be very good in the actual classroom. In my teach interview, they gave me 2 state standards and had me write a lesson plan (including how to modify that lesson for 2 students with moderate to severe disabilities) and then teach that lesson to 4 preschoolers. I have also heard of having to teach to teachers acting like preschoolers. I was thankful to have the students. I was confident with type of scenario as well. If there is one thing I am confident in, it is my ability to work with students. The most difficult part of this situation was the fact that I didn't have any information about the students including the abilities that they had. It went as well as I hoped it would. Of course it could have gone better...it always can. Given the circumstances, however, I was pleased.

With everything that happened, however, it worked for me. I had 3 job offers and am still getting calls for interviews. I like to think my passion and sincerity for what I wanted to do came shining through. I'm just thankful that I'm done with that process for now.