ACPA
I am fresh off the plane from being at my first ACPA
conference. I can tell you it was quite the experience. There were so many
people there, so many amazing sessions and so many socials/ meetings that I had
no idea what to do with myself. My experience at the conference could be a
whole other blog post but I wanted to talk about my experience with Career
Central.
So as I mentioned last week, I had two interviews scheduled
on Thursday. One interview was for a multicultural affairs job and the other
interview was for two positions which were Student Activities and Academic
Advising related. I got there about an
hour before my interviews and got an orientation on the area. Once the orientation
was done, I went to the candidate area to read over the materials I had. About
15 minutes before my first interview, I went to the waiting area. As the time
got closer, I got more and more nervous. I was sitting there and then I heard
my name being called. Here goes nothing!
My first interview was with the multicultural affairs job.
As soon as we got to the table, it felt very relaxing. My interviewer, who
would be my direct supervisor, got right into talking about the job, the school
and the feel of what the office does. She asked me a couple questions related
to things that were on the job description. All the questions were things I
expected so it was good. I then got to ask her some questions that I had
prepped. The whole interview lasted a little less than half an hour.
When I finished with that interview, I went back to the
waiting area for my next interview. The first mistake I made was that I didn’t
block the half hour before or after my first interview to give me some time to
regroup. When I realized I should have done that, it was too late. I waited for
my name to be called again and within a couple of minutes it was. This time,
someone other than the person I had been in contact with came to get me. We
walked back to the table where I met the other interviewer. This interview was
also like the other one. Although they had more questions, it felt more like a conversation.
There was a lot of laughing which made me feel extremely good.
After my interviews, I went back to the candidate area to
write my thank you notes. I chatted with a couple other candidates and then
dropped the notes off and was done for the day. At Career Central they give you
a mailbox which you can check whenever you want. On Friday, I had gone to check
my mailbox and had a note from my first interviewer that she wanted to schedule
a second interview!
On Saturday, I went to my interview prepared for a longer
interview. However, that wasn’t the case. When she came over to me, she
suggested we go to get coffee and talk a little more about the area around the
college and the job. We sat outside and chatted for about an hour. It again
felt really relaxed. I didn’t feel like I was on an interview but rather that I
was chatting with a colleague.
One thing I noticed was that the interview setting wasn’t as
distracting as I thought it would be. I was able to focus on the interviews and
not get distracted by other people talking or walking by. It was easy to tune
into the interview and focus on what they were saying or asking.
I think both interviews went really well. I am excited to
see where things go from here. Both interviews said we would hear back until
April so I have a bit of a wait.
Til next time!
Graduation Countdown
= 67 days
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