How do I improve at interviews?
Hello tilderinos! I'm currently on the hunt for a new job, and it's been a very long time since I've had to do any kind of real interviewing to compete for a position. I'm looking for some general tips and, if anyone is experienced in the field of education, tips specific to teacher interviews.
Background
I've been working in ECE (Early Childhood Education) for 15 years. I and I male, so I buck the gender trend, and additionally I'm a bit alternative in appearance (long hair, braids, beard). I have an excellent track record (steady improvements, increasing my education and my responsibilities at work) and have been able to implement some innovative programs at my center (teaching chess, music, by far and away the best math teacher at my center).
I recently got my BS degree in ECE, and my PEL to teach up to 2nd grade. I'm looking for a spot in a scent district or at least a nearby one to get started.
My strengths in interviews are that I'm generally a confident speaker, I know my field well, keep pace with recent developments, and have an enormous amount of experience to draw from.
My weaknesses are that I tend to ramble (adhd!), I lose track of multi part questions (adhd strikes again!), and I'm terrible at quickly recalling specific examples from my mountain of experience. I also feel that, especially when interviewing for positions a bit outside my experience (Eg a 2nd grade teaching position) I come across as naive at best and ignorant at worst.
I also generally have a hard time selling myself with words. I'm very much a man of action, and would love to demonstrate my skill firsthand, but that isn't terribly easy to do in an interview setting.
I hope this topic isn't too selfish of me and I appreciate any feedback I get! Thank you all.
While I don't work in education, I'm a hiring manager that's also sat for many interviews myself. I recommend choosing ~5 stories that you feel best demonstrate your skills and experience and practice steering common questions back to those prepared stories. For example, teaching your students how to play chess can be a response to:
Regarding the rambling, you can use framing methods like the STAR method to do the legwork for you and provide concise structure to your stories. What I do is write down the main point of the panel's questions as they ask them and refer back to it periodically to ensure I haven't gone off-track.
If you feel like demonstrating your experience firsthand, do it! I'm over the moon when a candidate shows up with receipts. A physical item or demonstration displaying the candidate's actual work is worth 1000 words and I now have a general idea of the kind of work the candidate will do/create/perform were they to be in the position. This has the added benefit of reframing the hiring panel's minds to think about you in the position instead of just vying for the position. Seeing teaching aids or (brief!) lesson plans you've made will tell me far more about you than a response alone could.
Finally, if you've made a series of steady improvements it may be worth it to visualize this for the panel, such as average test grades over time, math scores in your class compared to other classes (if you have this information), etc. It's pretty simple to whip up a graph in Excel but there's more robust options as well, including open source options. Youtube is a great resource for learning how to do this.
But really my best advice is to interview often. The more you do it, the more practice you get and comfortable you feel in the interview. You don't have to accept every position you interview for, but every interview is another opportunity to practice.
This is fascinating. Granted, I'm not applying for any education roles, but I'm curious if I could throw something like that in when interviewing for SysAdmin and related positions.
I've always thought projects were a great way to demonstrate skills, assuming they are reasonable (1-2hrs of effort at the final stage of the interview process, and not a 4 hour endeavor before even talking to a human). But this seems even better.
If you really want to entertain the idea of bringing something physical. A few years ago a colleague created a Kubernetes cluster with Raspberry Pi's in a single neat casing. It effectively ran GitLab and then used the cluster for all the pipeline automation for GitLab. He created it in his free time, but we ended up using it at conferences as a conversation starter. Where we had it on a little stand with a screen behind it running automation software clicking through a GitLab pipeline on a loop.
Something like that could work to physically showcase you your skills and interests. Of course doesn't have to be a kubernetes cluster. I am just saying that something visually appealing centered around small boards like that might work.
Very cool. With most interviews taking place via video conference these days, I would probably try to give a 5min demo of some of my homelab stuff. If it was in-person, it'd be hard to do that.
Physical items to demonstrate your work... such as... an immortal vampire encased in stone?
eyes narrow
Right! And when you're demonstrating your work, always be sure to include the project outcome. Something like:
"I facilitated systemic change by introducing ancient frameworks to new markets, rapidly scaling influence as part of a high-impact emergence strategy."
To get my last job, I used ChatGPT to generate interview questions and then video recorded myself answering them. I did that for about 4 hours a day for a week, reviewing my answers each time and looking for ways to improve.
As I am not part of the field I'm going to preface this by saying these are all general interviewing tips. I don't have anything to add that would help you with the field in particular.
Prepare written materials that are not for the interviewer, but for you. You won't be submitting them.
Direct notes for the interview can take many forms, but the most commonly discussed is probably STAR. Even if you don't want to write down full STAR responses just having a list of the points you want to hit is useful. Usually the points you should hit will be the biggest, most complex, or most impactful. To help resist the urge to divert to more interesting topics that have lower impact consider even adding such topics to your notes with reminders to avoid them unless specifically probed for or they demonstrate a very particular skill.
Another document that is useful to have is something that resembles an annual work summary, but is a forever-growing document over the course of your career. If you have this, review it prior to interviews and as part of building your notes. Where possible, keep numbers and dates in this document so that you can reference them later.
Depending on the interviewer you can also get a lot of mileage out of tailoring your resume in specific ways. Some interviewers will make heavy use of the resume to probe into specific points on it, which gives you an avenue to proactively guide the conversation. This is not universally true though and some will just ask broad questions, such as "Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a coworker." Those broad questions are your invitation to drive the discussion to the biggest and most impactful thing from your notes that you can make any kind of connection to.
Finally, "cheat" to sell yourself. Don't consider what you would say about yourself as that'll tie you down with humility and imposter syndrome and other "problems" that aren't conducive to interviews. You want to describe yourself as what you hope your favorite coworkers would have to say about you. Personally, I've found AI can be pretty decent at this part. You can basically feed in what you would say about yourself, and then tell it to keep making it sound more impressive for as long as as you still hold the thought, "I don't think I'd ever have said that about myself, but it isn't wrong." Write some of this down, get a feel for them so you're comfortable saying those sorts of things, and also don't hesitate to include them in written form where appropriate.
Small add:
Along with your written notes, make notes about the question, especially when it's multi part. I've never judged a candidate for asking me to repeat the question at the beginning or in the middle of a question, or for them writing down a note about the question as they go. That shows you're paying attention to me and care about your answer. (Not answering it afterwards is a problem of course)
That's a good point. I was mostly referring to prep material notes, but additional notes can and should be taken during the interview. Especially if worried about losing track of things such as multi-part questions.
The moment of writing also helps you gather your thoughts usually letting you construct a more thoughtful answer
Honestly this is one of my biggest takeaways so far - I need to take notes, on the question and on responses to it. Thank you.
This is fascinating and I love it! I’ll definitely try to incorporate it into my own life, because yeah I can immediately see the value down the line when I’m trying to rebuild my resume!
I’m a little surprised at myself that I’d never heard of it, given I literally work in recruitment and have tried to go out of my way to pick up all the different tricks and strategies that can help with all this stuff!
I was a teacher and school counselor. One thing you have going for you is that there is a huge shortage of teachers, especially highly qualified and experienced ones. And male ones. At least that is the case in the US, not sure where you are.
That said, my experience (in the US, and in the specific districts where I have worked) is that the hiring process is heavily influenced by factors other than experience and expertise. In particular, references (formal and informal) carry a huge amount of weight. If you are leaving your old position because of some turmoil, getting some positive spin out there can really make a difference. In any case, good references from influential and respected colleagues and administrators may overcome any minor shortcomings in an interview.
Secondly, I personally have found that the people doing the hiring are often more concerned about you liking them than perhaps seems logical. At least where I have worked, hiring committees aren't PR professionals, but a group of teachers and admin you would be working with. They are looking for someone they want to work with, even if they never say that out loud. Knowledge and enthusiasm about the school and its community can help, of course, but if you can make a personal connection--making them feel heard and appreciated during the interview, it can get you a step up past other applicants who may look better on paper or even have more experience or expertise.
I don't have a lot of interviewing experience but it sounds like you have a good idea of where your weaknesses are. You just need to practice. So what about getting friends to mock interview you? Or even just recording yourself answering some mock interview questions and then listening back to try and strategize what you could do differently? With ingrained patterns, like rambling, I think there's no help for it but to just try and practice being more mindful of it and doing things differently and that just takes time and repetition.
I coach students for interviews. While it's often hard to teach them technical skills if they're lacking, the good news is that behavioral questions, which sound like the ones you struggle with the most, are absolutely trainable.
Someone above suggested the STAR method, but I dislike this because it takes a little bit too long. I prefer the CAR method, where you combine S & T into C, context. The most important part of your answer is always what you did (A) and why it was good (R). The background is usually not that deep and can be summarized very quickly anyways. Being cognizant of this might help you ramble less, or at the very least ramble about the important parts.
With that out of the way, what I always recommend then is to think of a handful (~5) situations where you did something interesting or faced an interesting problem. Once you have this scenario bank, you can almost always twist (or slightly exaggerate and modify) at least one of these scenarios to answer any behavioural question. This helps with recall, because now you don't need to dig through your mountain of experience to answer a question. You just need to look at a small number of situations that you can talk about in detail, and pick one of these.
I recommend spending some time to think of these scenarios. Then, ask a friend to pull up a bank of behavioral questions (tons exist online), and ask you some. Try to answer them within a CAR structure. Your first few answers will be not great, but after a bit of time (a few hours) you'll be very comfortable with these.
I really like the idea of building a list of a few scenarios which I've dealt with in the past, to draw from for future interviews. I don't know why I haven't done this before!
Brilliant. I'll put some together, thank you for this.
Job application processes, online B2B sales, and online dating all have very similar skill sets.
You need to find out how to stand out of a crowd to get them talking to you one on one by thinking about what they are looking for and communicating that you are what they are looking for in the 15 seconds of attention they may pay to your initial outreach.
Once you get the interview scheduled, try to find out what specific qualities they are looking for in a candidate. The job description, company values on their website, and even the interviewer’s LinkedIn profile have clues to what things they want to hear.
Pick 3 qualities in yourself that you think align with what they want and think of stories that can show how you have those qualities. Keep those in mind and try to direct the conversation towards those. You can really steer any question someone asks you in an interview towards the topic you want and the rambling issue you have is actually a strength in this case.
When you get to asking them questions at the end, don’t go for the generic ones you find in advice on the internet. Look at what your interviewer is interested in, or something interesting you learned about the company that you want to know more about. They want to see you have genuine interest in the company. Starting a normal conversation about their interests or how the business works can turn into a pleasant conversation instead of an interview. These subconscious good feelings about you matter a ton when they are deciding which candidate to move forward with in the end.
I actually used to be on the teacher interview panel for my previous school, so I've sat through a large number of teacher interviews specifically (in addition to being on the other side of the table as someone interviewing for teacher positions myself).
The biggest things you can bring to the interview are your warmth and personality. When evaluating someone who's going to be working with kids, someone who comes across as cold or closed off is automatically opting themselves out of the pool.
Furthermore, teaching is very empathy-forward as a career, so you can turn things like nervousness into a strength. Getting a little scattered with your thoughts? Feeling the pressure? Name it directly in the interview and link it to your students ("Sorry, I got a bit scattered there -- this must be how students feel during tests!"). Showing that you understand what students feel and experience is huge.
Have three "stories" ready beforehand. People mentioned "STAR" or "CAR" methods which are new to me, but it helped me realize I've been using that method for years without knowing what it's called. Your three stories should be your biggest successes. I refer to them as your "brag about yourself" stories. You want them to highlight your strengths and show off key skills. You also want to have them ready to go so you don't have to think up things on the fly.
Having some data in them will make some people's ears perk up (there are some administrators who love "number go up" stories), but even better is something that externally validates your skills. What I mean by this is that you want to choose stories that aren't just "I worked hard" but "Someone else complimented my work." This could be a parent, a department head, whatever. The idea is that the story isn't just you talking about yourself but that you had an impact on others which is the whole point of education.
There's also a believability factor here that plays in your favor. Everybody talks big about themselves in interviews, so we're often naturally skeptical. If the "I'm good" message isn't coming from you in your story but from someone else in your story, it feels more real and is more likely to be believed.
Be ready for questions about difficult students, students with learning difficulties, etc. These questions aren't asked because we're looking for a perfect "correct" answer: they're asked because we're looking for a thoughtful, considered response. We don't know how you'll work with kids, but by asking you these types of questions, we can get insight into how you might. Be thoughtful, be personal, and show some of your content and pedagogical knowledge here. If they ask you how you might teach something, it's probably not just about instructional process but about how you approach teaching in general.
Another tip is to be "solutions-minded." I hate how jargony this sounds, but it's a legitimate mindset. In one of the interviews I was in (as the interviewee), they asked me how I would handle a difficult student. After giving my answer, they then said, "okay, so you try that, and it doesn't work, what do you do now?" I had to come up with something new to try. Then they did it again and I had to think of something else. It's not something we're known for, but teaching is often complex problem-solving on a daily, minute-by-minute basis, so showing that you're able to flexibly tackle things and try out new ideas when something isn't working will go a long way.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me. This is just what I thought of off the top of my head, but I'm happy to help in any way that I can. I'm optimistic for you because you have a lot of things working in your favor: teacher shortages are particularly acute so candidate pools are dwindling, and, as you mentioned, your gender makes you stand out from other candidates already. This is also the time to apply, so don't wait! Most people leaving positions will have already given notice (or been notified) by now, and admins will want to fill those up before next school year.
That said, if you don't get anything right now, keep trying. Teaching demand works very different from other fields in that the pressure to fill positions goes up quite quickly, reaching a peak at the beginning of the next school year. I know it can be demotivating if you don't hear back from positions, but know that your likelihood of getting hired significantly increases over time. Furthermore, there are always last minute resignations or changes that leave schools scrambling to look for someone when school starts in, say, a week (or the next day, or school already started and there's still a vacancy, etc.).
The persistence and perseverance point you make at the end is something I'm really struggling with - my anxiety is through the roof as I feel a lot of pressure to provide for my family and ensure a set schedule for the coming year. This is a huge change for me - my entire adult working life has been at my current job, which is unusual in this day and age.
Others have made the point to have stories/scenarios ready to go, and to find ones that can be used to answer a variety of questions. I have some in mind already, I'll take some time to write things out and solidify them. Luckily, some of my biggest successes have also been some of my biggest challenges.
I appreciate your response - I see you around a lot here, and hold you in high regard.
Thanks for the kind words, and hang in there. I know how tough it is. When I was last looking for a job, I developed these hideous rashes on my hands. I later learned they were essentially stress-induced eczema, which isn’t something that I even knew could happen. I hate that you’re going through a similar situation right now and wish you peace.
Also, by sheer coincidence, I spoke to one of my colleagues today about one of our open positions for an ELA teacher. He said that when he applied for that same job a decade ago, he was one of 90 applicants. This time, we only have 10 (and we’re considered a “good” district that people specifically want to work in, so you’d expect us to have more applicants than most positions). I feel like this captures the decline in teacher supply quite well — a phenomenon which is sad at large but will also acutely work in your favor.
So, as stressful as it is, know that you stand a very good chance of landing something eventually. I’m hoping for the best for you!
Things that help me:
Get practice interviewing as much as I can. Initially not being choosy about where to get in rounds with less pressure.
Writing down answers to questions I am expecting, like by hand. Honestly multiple times to get comfortable with thinking of the answers as fast as I can write. This also helps me from getting anxious about all the possible questions they might ask as I can start going in circles, repeatedly worrying about the same questions over and over again. Any questions that come up in a real interview that I think I could do better on or stress me out at all go in this list too.
Finally, this is a privileged position, but I generally wouldn't want to work at a place that doesn't want me to work there. Some interviews are adversarial and while I don't do well in those, I don't really want to work at in that kind of environment so I don't feel to bad about it afterwards.