the Interview Club

the Interview Club : Structure

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Structure / How It Works

The Moderator
Each meeting is run by a moderator. This person begins by giving a brief description of how the club runs fornew comers. The moderator then directs the meeting, conducts the impromptu interview questioning, sets up the mock interviews and collects group feedback on the meeting.

The Personal Pitch
Also known as the elevator pitch, this is your 30 – 60 second commercial. It includes what you are doing (or want to do), what are your skills or accomplishments, and what position are you looking for. At the meeting, people can just give a generic pitch. But, members are encouraged to think about the context and find out more about whom he or she is talking to before you go into pitch. This way they will be able to change it or tweak it to really fit the situation.

Participants should be prepared to present their personal pitch of no more than 30 to 60 seconds using the following as a guideline:
- who you are
- what you do
- what you are looking for
- something that stands out about you
- one sentence major accomplishment (tripled sales, doubled portfolio size)
- try to tailor the pitch to the specific person whenever possible

Impromptu Interview Questions
First, a moderator gets up and starts going around the group and asking impromptu random questions. This gets people warmed up and gives them a chance to answer some typical and some off the wall questions. One member keeps track of the time of the answers and warns people if they go over one minute and thirty seconds. Another member watches for grammar and verbal distractions (umms and ahhs, etc.).

Mock Interviews
Next, the meeting breaks up into smaller role-playing groups and one or more person(s) volunteer to be a hiring manager and another is the interviewee. We try to tailor the questions to that person’s goal and the other members provide instant written and verbal feedback. Other meeting participants become observers and take notes and give ratings to the interviewee on a feedback chart.

Participants should bring copies of their resume.

Feedback
Another aspect that is important for improving personal selling skills is feedback. Feedback is provided to each attendee following the impromptu interview session and if they are a mock interviewee. The group also gives feedback on the meeting and possible areas of interest/discussion for future meetings.