Campus Engagement #2

For my second campus engagement, I attended the Life After College Series: Interviews.  This seminar was very interesting and extremely informative. It was in a classroom setting and Dr. Rufus Barfield was the speaker. Dr. Barfield started with a brief synopsis of life; he studied at Brown and then he was a professor at FAMU in Tallahassee. When FAMU was not able to accommodate his goals and ambitions, he came to UCF. He held many career positions and he told us about the different interviews he had been through. One particular interview that stuck out to me was when he was interviewing for the police force. He said there was one interviewer who didn’t speak the entire time. He just sat there watching Dr. Barfield while he was answering questions. Dr. Barfield said he was confused as to why this interviewer remained silent the entire interview. He later found out that he stayed silent because he was assessing how Dr. Barfield handled stress and pressure and he was analyzing his body language and behavior. This example proved that an interview is not necessarily simply answering questions about yourself; it is a chance for the employer to see you for themselves, and to judge whether you would be a good fit for the position, based on more than simple answers to questions.

            This seminar taught me that there are many types of interviews. There is the informal-conversational interview, where there are no predetermined questions and he interview is just a free-flowing conversation. The general interview consists of the same general areas on information are covered with each person being interviews. Then there are the open-ended interviews where the same questions are asked of all interviewees and the fixed-response interviews, which are basically multiple-choice questions.

            Dr. Barfield gave us some tips for a successful interview. Before going to an interview, you should conduct a thorough self-assessment, acknowledging all of your strengths and weaknesses, as well as areas that could use improvement. After acknowledging these, you must be able to articulate these into conversation. Another tip he gave was to prepare an elevator speech. An elevator speech consists of your name, what you offer, what problem you will be helping to solve and why you are better than the other candidates for the position, as well as, why the listener should care about what you have to say.

            The seminar was extremely helpful and made me realize that I really have to start preparing now for possible interviews for graduate schools. This seminar was a part of a series of seminars to prepare students for life after college. I believe the next seminar is dealing with writing essays, and I will definitely be in attendance!

(Dr. Santana said she was going to email you to tell you that I was there. However, if she did not, I have an email that she sent out to everyone who attended that I can show you for proof!)