Learning how to go through a job interview is one of the last steps before landing a job, and making high school students career-ready would seem to include preparing them for job interviews.
Seniors at Milford Mill Academy in Windsor Mill, Maryland, just west of Baltimore, went through a mock job interview process with business leaders and professionals from the community recently. But, according to one report in the Milford Mill Messenger, the student newspaper at the high school, the interviews weren’t exactly the real-world learning opportunity they were supposed to be.
“I felt as though the interview was a young-minded interview and the questions were basic,” reporters Xela Wooten and Lola Ekwalla quoted one student as saying about the experience.
But another student seemed to gain more from going through the process.
“Before the interview I was really nervous,” she was quoted as saying. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to do OK or even if I was dressed well. But after the interview, I felt good because my interviewer was really nice, and he helped me with my résumé. I was more confident afterward.”
The mock job interview mirrors the experience of many high school seniors across the country. Just last week, for instance, students in Ardmore, Oklahoma, did exactly the same thing.
The “Heroes with Hope” program in that community works on transition programs to help kids prepare to join the workforce after high school, the Daily Ardmoreite reports.
Students work on interview skills, they practice filling out job applications, and they explore local job opportunities as part of a broader program run by the nonprofit that also brings much-needed food and other supplies to residents of the community, including the families of students in the schools.
“We have a supply, and periodically we call the schools and ask them if they need anything,” the paper quoted executive director Melissa Woolly as saying. “And now, with the school break over and the weather so cold, they were all like ‘Yes! Definitely!'”
