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Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

Mock interview feedback

6 replies

Watercress99 · 16/06/2021 17:01

I had a mock interview and one thing she mentioned is that she thought I was “frustrated” when all j was trying to do was elaborate on my answers. I often talk at speed when I’m tense and nervous. She said I also started every sentence with “yes, so” or “so I think x,y,z”

She stopped me mid way and said yiu just sound like you’re stressed which I wasn’t for the mock interview but I just didn’t understand what I did wrong and felt it became a bit personal. But I could be wrong. Would you say I’m taking it a bit too personally

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 16/06/2021 18:22

You are stressed. You can tell from your repeated threads.

Don't take the feedback personally, take it as something you need to work on. That's why you had the mock interview, right? Deep breaths, slowing down your answers, coming up with different ways to start answers are all going to improve how you come across.

TheZeppo · 16/06/2021 19:00

Agree with @noblegiraffe

They are probably just trying to help. Sometimes we don’t notice these things ourselves, so it’s nice to have someone help.

Random question, are you a name-changer? Your posts remind me of a previous poster. Apologies if not, I’ve just been wondering how they’ve been getting on.

Scarby9 · 16/06/2021 20:05

I was doing mock interviews with trainees today, all of whim have interviews tomorrow, Friday and Monday.
They really want the jobs; they would be good at those jobs. They need to be as good as they possibly can be at interview because the people interviewing them don't know them like I do. Competition round here is fierce currently (too few vacancies for too many ECTs) and I am going to do my absolute best to give them every advantage I can.
So, although we were on Zoom, I picked them up on slumping, not smiling, not making eye-contact, fiddling with hair or face, saying 'kids', starting every answer with 'Soooo' or 'Er', saying 'we' rather than 'I', or using 'like' as a punctuation mark, a well as talking too fast or too monotone.

Many of these are stress symptoms but unless you are aware of them, you can't consciously overcome them. But they can all be overcome.

We practised until they made eye-contact, consciously slowed down, sounded enthusiastic when talking about enthusiasm, eliminated 'like" unless used as a comparator or example, etc.

It is personal, OP, but at interview you are essentially setting yourself up for sale. You are saying, 'Choose me!' and you need to show your best side to stand out against the other candidates. We have to assume that, like you, they will bring strong performance on placements, wonderful references, good research into the school and great answers to the interview questions. The interviewers might end up with three they could appoint. How you would fit into their staff team then comes into play - and confidence, coherence, likeability all contribute to that final decision.

A mock interview is a grwat place to get honest feedback. Obviously ask for feedback after real interviews too, but it is rarely as detailed and often too 'kind', but you need to take what you have been told, be grateful, and try to act on it.

AttaGirrrrl · 16/06/2021 21:58

Didn’t you have an actual interview today? I was going to ask how it went.

LolaSmiles · 17/06/2021 13:11

From your many threads I think you seem quite stressed and seem quite quick to dismiss feedback if it doesn't fit with how you think something went, or decide there was something off about the school if it didn't go how you wanted.

If you're wanting to get a position then you're going to need to take on board what schools and colleagues are advising you and acting on the feedback that you're given.

TheZeppo I wondered the same on a couple of the threads

Watercress99 · 17/06/2021 14:12

Hey, I haven’t name changed. I’m
New to this so rarely reply because the notifications don’t ping up

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