April Mock Interviews for International Health Concentrators!

in Conferences/Seminars
April 1st, 2013

Career Services Offering to IH Students:  April Mock Interviews

The Career Services Office will be holding Mock Interviews during April for IH Concentrators.  For those of you in active job or practicum searches, this is a great opportunity to practice and gain concrete feedback.  The interviews will be held in 30-minute intervals with either Jeff Waller or Patricia Burns, both of whom are IH Practitioners.  You will practice for 20 minutes and then receive/discuss feedback.  Please see details below.  For questions, please email Lisa Toby at ltoby@bu.edu.

Signing up for a Time Slot

  1. Log into your SPH CareerLink account.  From your home page, go to the “Events” section at top and then click on “Workshops”. 
  2. You will then see listings for “IH Mock Interviews” followed by each April date and the person with whom you will meet.
  3. Click on the date you would like to RSVP, and pick a time slot from the drop down list. 
  4. Once you have picked a time, hit “RSVP”.
  5. After you have RSVP’d, please send a current resume and target job posting no later than 2 days prior to your meeting to: 
    1.  For Patricia Burns – send to pjburns@rcn.com 
    2. For Jeff Waller – send to wililar@comcast.net
    3. Please write “IH Mock Interview with Interview Date and Time” in the subject line.

Preparing for the Mock Interview

Professional attire is recommended.  Students should prepare responses to the following potential interview questions:

  1. Tell me about yourself?
  2. What about our organization and this position appeals to you?
  3. Can you tell me about your XXX skills and how you successfully applied XXX during a project.  Note:  This “XXX” will be a technical skill that Patricia Burns or Jeff Waller will ask based on your target job.  Examples might be Monitoring & Evaluation, Data or Policy Analysis, Financial Management, etc.
  4. Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of.
  5. One “soft skill” question, such as, can you tell me about a time when you faced a challenge working on a team project?  How did you handle it?
  6. Where do you see yourself in 3-5 years?
  7. What questions do you have for me?

Receiving Feedback

After the interview (about 20 minutes), you will receive feedback on the following:

  1. Handshake, eye contact, body language.
  2. Did you communicate well in sharing examples of your skills/knowledge/interests in relation to the job?
  3. Did you showcase that you did research on the organization?
  4. Did you build rapport?
  5. Did you come across passionate about the job? 
  6. Were you confident?  Were you overconfident?
  7. Did you have 2 good questions prepared?