Reflection on Mock Interview

On 09/05/2015 I attended an interview conducted by Miss. I. Egodapitiya who is a university

lecturer. This interview was held at ACBT Kandy.
I had selected to apply for a Management Trainee position with Lucky Lanka Milk Processing
PLC according to my qualifications. The job requirement was that I should have a bachelor
degree or diploma in fields of marketing, management, accounting, food science or mass media.
Since I had completed my diploma in business at Australian College of Business and
Technology, I decided to apply for this particular job.
I waited with other candidates who had applied for various job positions and we were called in to
the interview room one by one. When it was my chance and I walked in. I was feeling nervous
because it was my first interview.
Miss Egodapitiya stood up and pleasantly introduced herself to me and I was asked to take a seat.
Then I introduced myself to her. Afterwards the interview started.
Firstly, she asked me to tell her about myself. I told her my name, my education background in
brief and rather than going on with my explanation, I said thats it and stopped. I was asked to
carry on and then I gave her some more information about me. Later on in my evaluation, I
learned that thats it is a word I should never use in an interview for it is too casual a word to
be used in a formal interview. On the other hand it gives a wrong impression about the
interviewee to the interviewer.
Since my job advertisement had selection criteria such as excellent communication and PR skills
I was asked to tell her about the situations in my life where I had use those skills to overcome
challenges and to elaborate on how successful I was in handling those situations.
I used the STAR approach to address these questions and it was a successful way of answering
the questions because it covered everything I had to say. It was a useful learning for my life as
well because I gained the skill of applying the STAR approach.
Then I was asked what my future plans were in my career life. Answering this question was a
good reflection upon me. Then I was asked why I have applied for this certain job. My answer
was that, because it will help me utilize the knowledge and skills I have gained in my diploma in
my job. So that I can apply my knowledge to practical scenarios in the work place and learn from
them.
After the interview I was given an evaluation form, which evaluated performance skills of mine.
The four performance skills were as below.

Content and communication

Preparedness

Motivation for interview success

Mannerisms
Attire and personal

I was ranked 4 in all the skills above. It meant that there was very strong evidence in all my
skills. Ranking was done from 1 to 4 and rank was the highest rank.
This whole experience was a very new and valuable one for me. I learned what to do and what
not to do in an interview. Also I learned what to say and what not to say when Im answering
questions in an interview. I learned that proper communication, eye contact and some powerful
non verbal gestures like mirroring are important elements of being a successful candidate for any
job.