Communication
Year after year, the list of skills employers want from new graduates is growing. But there’s one important skill every grad has to master before they can use any skill on the job: their interview skills.
Great interviewers are hard to find these days. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), strong verbal communication skills are consistently in the top 10 attributes employers look for in new hires.
But sources like Forbes have found year after year that large percentages of new graduates lack communication and public speaking skills. And that lack often surfaces during the interview process.
Employers aren’t the only ones feeling shaky about new grads’ interview skills. According to the iCIMS 2019 report, only 35% of university students are confident their interview skills could get them the job they want. The vast majority aren’t so sure.
So what does all this mean for higher educators? How can college programs brush up their students’ interview skills and boost their confidence?
If you’re one of those educators helping students with their interview skills, then you already know there isn’t a quick, magical secret for teaching soft skills. Helping students become articulate and persuasive on the fly is extremely difficult—and not because students are unwilling to learn.
It’s because honing interview skills comes with a built-in pressure factor that can leave students paralyzed.
But there are ways around this. To build confidence and acclimate to stressful situations like a job interview, students need two important forms of support:
One great resource that can help you provide both is GoReact.
GoReact is a video-based assessment solution that helps students practice and perfect their interview skills at the exact same time. Here are five GoReact features that make it happen:
Your students can record any presentation or mock interview right from their laptop, tablet, or smartphone. And because GoReact is in the cloud, it’s easy for students to review their own videos. They can actually see how they look and how they sound during an interview. It’s the perfect recipe to promote practice, self-reflection, and self-awareness in your students.
Once students submit a video, instructors can leave time-coded feedback directly on an interview clip. Afterwards students simply click on your feedback to jump to that exact timestamp in the video.
This visual component is a strong ingredient for improvement. Until students truly understand what they’re doing wrong, they won’t have the tools they need to make lasting changes and improve their interview skills.
GoReact supports up to six camera feeds simultaneously. This feature is ideal for mock interviews even in an online class.
Peers in different states can practice asking and answering interview questions. You can even pre-record yourself asking the interview questions and have students record their responses live to the video you created. No matter how many students are involved in an interview, you can leave asynchronous feedback for each of them.
If you have a special rubric for teaching interview skills, GoReact can simplify your entire grading process. Simply build your rubric right into GoReact to fill it out during a live interview or later. GoReact rubrics can be used across entire departments for scalable grading standards and increased inter-rater reliability. Thanks to our seamless integration with all major university LMSs, you can post grades instantly after you finish reviewing a mock interview.
A camera rolling can be just as intimidating as a live interviewer. Sometimes more so depending on the student. This is a great way for students to get used to answering questions on the spot. Watching yourself on camera may be a rude awakening, but it’s also been proven to lower student communication anxiety over time. By the time your students are across a desk from a real interviewer, they’ll be far more prepared.
These are just five of the ways GoReact video can help you provide great interview practice and feedback for your students. And that’s a pretty solid recipe to help your new grads have the interview skills to ace any question that comes their way. To see GoReact in action, check out our official website or request a live demo from one of our friendly team members.
