Interview Resource - Keller ISD Schools

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INTERVIEW RESOURCE | 27 After the preliminaries, Sanjai glanced over her résumé. “Tell me about an exciting Mock Trial experience,” he suggested, hoping it would be an easy beginning for the interview, something she had probably practiced at least once or twice. She mumbled, “Mock….mock trial?” and looked panicked. We waited a few seconds. No answer. Hoping to break the silence, I looked down at the résumé again and found another topic. “How about a Speech and Debate experience, then?” I asked. “Speech… debate?” Hoping it would be easier, we asked her for her favorite event. <strong>Interview</strong>, she said, because it gave her the chance to talk to people. Yet it was painfully clear she had a hard time talking to people in the interview. We spent most of the seven minutes asking her questions to which she gave one or two word answers. This taught us what we had always suspected: that there can be a correlation between the skills of an interviewee and the number of questions judges are forced to ask to keep the conversation rolling (or limping) forward. Weaker interviewees make judges work harder. Trying to lighten things up toward the end, I asked her for three words she would use to describe herself. She paused. “Interesting?” she offered finally. A few second’s later, she added, “Nice.” We waited for the third word. She was clearly straining for it. Then she sighed. “I can’t think of another word.” That’s all right, we told her—and soon after that she left the room, unable to answer our final question, “Is there anything else you would have liked us to ask you during this interview?” As judges, we stared at our scoring sheets for a long while before marking them. I settled on a score somewhere between 300 and 400; Sanjai, between 350 and 450; the third judge, between 200 and 300. In the end, we had to remind ourselves that we weren’t judging a person, we were judging a performance. The Upshot Early in the morning, judges are nearly as nervous as you. Many haven’t done this before; they won’t have a stock repertoire of questions to ask or answers to expect. The first few interviews really are evaluated on a different scale—easier at the bottom, and harder at the top, just because there isn’t enough basis for comparison. And the best interviews are definitely the effortless ones. If you see your judges straining to keep a dialogue alive, try to help them out. Don’t babble, but don’t hold back either. Bad posture was also bad for points. Shaking knees do not please. And we had a strong sense of when individuals were lying to us and when they were being truthful. We assumed honesty for the most part…and we never pulled the “Have you lied to us during this interview?” question that won a Decathlete from my school the gold medal when he answered, “Yes,” and apologized. Mostly, we discovered that judging interviews is an uplifting experience. To meet and get to know decathletes was a privilege. Remember that 20 many of your judges are out there to have their faith in youth reinvigorated. Make that one of your goals: to invigorate them. You’ll invigorate your scores, too. 20 Except at nationals, where they’re temp workers.
INTERVIEW RESOURCE | 28 Daniel Berdichevsky is an intermittent graduate of Harvard and Stanford Universities, the founder of the World Scholar’s Cup, and the former director of strategic innovation at CASIO, where his duties included buying toys, tutoring the son of the president, and inventing things that never went to market, including a pen that could read sheet music. Here Daniel is pictured practicing the impromptu at his high school in June 2005. Daniel’s most recent practice with the interview was in Santiago, Chile, where several newspapers and radio stations mistook him for an expert on social networking. About the Authors This summer Daniel traveled to Madagascar, where he determined that lemurs have a knack for nonverbal communication, though their answering skills leave a lot to be desired. Daniel encourages you to find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dan.berd or to e-mail him with any questions or thoughts you may have at dan@demidec.com. Greta Baranowski, who had the distinct pleasure of revising this resource, is a graduate of Arizona State University and a former member of the Arizona Academic Decathlon state board. She is now a librarian at Canyon Del Oro High School. The highest scorer at the 2004 national competition, she has three main goals in life: to write a novel, to get a tattoo, and to become adept in the art of ballroom dancing 21 . She feels a deep spiritual connection with Princeton from Avenue Q and loves the long-defunct Gilmore Girls more than anything else in the world, except possibly her long-defunct green 1999 Saturn wagon. 21 This, I tried once. My partner asked if she could find someone else after our first lesson together. – Daniel
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