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Reflection
Simulated Interview

Student Name: Noor Rabeea

ID: 201000085
Tutor Name: Dr. Rhea Fitzpatrick

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Job interviews are very important part for most of the companies, as its
part of the evaluation process for the candidates so the interviewee should be
well prepared to get the position. According to Rowan Manahan founder of
career management consultancy, stated that the; investigation, attitude, have
effective communication, response to/ask hard questions and developing an
elevator pitch (30 seconds summary of the candidate's abilities, knowledge and
achievements) (Minter & Groves, 2010), are the key elements for a successful
job interview.
The experience of Simulated Interview
The whole experience was very helpful for me and I have learned a lot.
My job interview was arranged on 8th of December 2014, for BAPCO Assistant
Manager Graduate Training Program. I arrived before about 30 minutes from
the interview time with hard copies of the required papers (CV and cover
letter); I dressed formally, and I was worried. Generally, I was well prepared
where I searched about BAPCO history, their operations, departments and their
customers. Also, I have developed my own elevator pitch which we learn about
in the class and it helped me so much to organize my ideas and increase my selfconfidence because it made me focused on myself, my goal, and my skills. This
interview has helped me how to deal with job interviews in real working
environment, as this experience was my first interview I had one before for
training course but it was totally different than this so I searched about
expected questions and right answers for them as well as the right behavior,
right language and the appropriate way to end the interview. Furthermore, I
benefited from class notes that are about values, employability skills, interview
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tips, techniques and common questions. Where at the beginning of the

interview I was asked "talk about your-self" I knew that the interviewer was
looking for a summary of my CV so I use my elevator pitch to talk about my
specialty, my skills that are related to the position, previous experience, and
what position I am looking for, but I was nervous, I talked very fast and I didnt
mentioned my values. Examples of other questions were, "how your skills will
benefited the company" "why we should hire you" and "why would you stop
working for the company" I answered well on the two first questions as I was
very confident talking about my leadership/communication skills and how I well
benefits the company but the last one I answered "maybe the environment
wont suits me as a female" so the interviewer asked me "so, you are telling us
that you can't work with us" here I got worried, I didnt answered well, and I
used wrong phrase to express myself where after the interview I knew the right
answer.
I learned from this experience the importance of eye contact, how to
deliver your message short and clear, the interviewee should be fully prepared
in terms of required documents and hard questions as he/she should be able to
fast response with smart answer in order to sell your skills/knowledge to the
company. Furthermore, I learned how to write a CV and cover letter in a correct
way that can get me an interview through knowing the most important
elements, although I faced difficulties in writing them in terms of making the
elements related to the position requirements but I manage to do it as the
templet that is posted on Moodle has helped me as well as the class practice on
showing different CV's mistakes. In the future, before the interview I will
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practice more on the different questions to be confident, less nervous and get
used on the situation, make more focused on my skills that are related to the
position rather than having general employability skills. Also, I will develop my
speaking/listening skills as I will listen carefully to the question, think about it on
my mind and organize my ideas to have the exact answer that the interviewer
wants to hear, at the same time I will eliminates unwanted talks. Add to that, I
will talk notes about the questions/my answers to avoid the mistakes that I did
in the future interviews.
Connection to my life/myself
I had a similar experience of the interview last semester when I took life
coaching course, as I had to be the coach who is similar to the interviewer job
but it's different in terms of contents and expectations where I think it's more
complicated role than the candidate due to the amount of responsibilities. For
instance, I was required to do an analysis for different types of people, with
different personalities and background to conduct their best employability skills
depending on their specialty. In order to do that I had to look at their different
profiles which are similar to the CV but with more information regarding their
personalities like; their satisfaction score about their career, and if it's low I
should find the reasons behind that, refers to picture#01. Because a lot of
information included, I should be updated about the clients profile in depth to
discuss with them their possible weakness in order to increase their
personal/professional potential. Moreover, the questioning/listening skills are
the core concept of the coach so I was responsible to make the client feel
comfortable in order to be able to talk about his/her personal matters which I
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did through the suitable eye contact, voice tone, careful listening, as I was able
to tell what the individual is trying to say without being said. Furthermore, I was
trying to balance between watching the client's body language, taking notes,
and making eye contact at the same time which I think is the hardest obligation
of the interviewer. I had benefited from the coaching experience in BAPCO
interview where I was able to think about the interviewer's ideas and
expectations from the candidate, watching the body language of the
interviewer can tell me about my performance, being punctual gives positive
first impression and it's important to make connection with the interviewer by
having effective communication. Generally, I like to be the coach/interviewer
more than the candidate where I like to have control, not being under pressure,
and not answering questions.

Picture #01
Wheel of life (examples of areas included in the client's profiles)
Source: Moodle, coaching class notes

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Connections to texts
I have viewed two video clips from movies related to job interviews.
Firstly was from "Say Anything" the part where Lloyd Dobler explains what he
wants to do with his life as the lesson was to start and end your answers with
the same level of confidence. Before the candidate speaks he/she should know
what exactly they are going to say and dont confused with the message that
they want to deliver at the end and being lost or weak (Thorell, 2014). Where
actually this happened with me in BAPCO interview while answering "talk about
your previous experience as a trainee" I start talking about skills, knowledge
that I gain (ex. flexibility) and describe who these things helped me in my
life/university (ex. being adoptable for new things) however I didnt know how
to link it to the position or to my specialty so I ended up my answer by repeating
the skills benefits. Secondly, was from "Fun with Dick and Jane" where Jim
Carrey is trying to have an interview to get a job while the labor market is facing
unemployment and economic crises. I found that this clip is an
interesting/funny one where they send a clear message to the candidate to be
unique and different than others in order to have a greater opportunity to get
the job (Fields, 2013); the clip is very inspired to watch because it shows the
importance of being a step ahead of your competitors. Where In my interview
we are few who are studying logistics which is a new field in the country, also I
choose to work in the storage department and I had a prove (university project)
of working in warehouse mapping. Moreover, I read a wisdom on Instagram by
Mark Amend says "Rejection doesnt mean you aren't good enough; it means
the other person failed to notice what you have to offer" so the candidate
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should know that its not always his/her fault sometimes the interviewer is
having a bad day or it's just there is no communication between them.

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Article I.

Bibliography

Fields, C. (2013, Augest 13). Hollywoods 6 Best Job Interview Scenes. Retrieved
from

smartrecruiters.com:

http://www.smartrecruiters.com/blog/hollywoods-6-best-job-interviewscenes/
Minter, H., & Groves, N. (2010, November 29). Careers Talk: Five steps for
interview

success.

Retrieved

from

theguardian.com:

http://careers.theguardian.com/audio/careers-talk-five-steps-forinterview-success
Thorell, L. (2014). Five Job Interview Lessons From the Movies. Retrieved from
talentzoo.com:
pivot/blog_news.php?articleID=8177

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http://www.talentzoo.com/digital-