Assignment: Work Experiences
One good way to prepare yourself for a job interview is to call to mind some of your best work experiences. Having 3 or 4 specific experiences in mind that you can keep referring to will make you sound confident, knowledgeable and, hopefully, worth hiring. To help you prepare for future interviews, describe each of the following situations in a full paragraph. These items are based on some of the most common job interview questions, so you need to have answers to them. It is best to base your example on a directly related professional experience. So if you are applying for a computer programming job, then the best option is to speak about some other computer programming job you’ve held. But if you don’t have that type of experience, then use a related work experience (maybe a job in a restaurant) or classroom experience (maybe an experience you had writing a program for a class).
- Describe an experience that shows you as a high quality worker.
- Describe an experience where you had to handle stress, conflict, or some type of challenging situation.
- Describe one more experience that illustrates a skill or ability you possess about which a prospective employer would want to know.
- Describe an experience that shows you as an effective leader or good team player(companies generally prefer leaders, of course).
The key is not to memorize your answers, but to keep these experiences fresh in your mind before any job interview so that you can keep referring back to them. In addition, having a friend or someone at IUP Career Services guide you through a practice interview is also an extremely useful way to prepare for the real thing.
Assignment Requirements
Knowing the information above is vital for preparing effective job application letters as well as preparing for job interviews. So please think carefully about your answers as you type them.
Your Work Experiences Assignment should meet these basic requirements:
- title the page Work Experiences
- in the upper-right hand corner print your full name, the date, and your email address
- use an 11 or 12 point font
- copy and paste the questions, then type your answers after each question
- you may single space your answers to the questions
- staple all pages together
- your final document should be about 1-2 pages in length