Today I lead ‘high impact interviews with student voice’ as part of our Vice Principal interviews as the opening activity. Here is how we delivered it.
Before
- Meet with student voice, student leaders and invited them to take parent and represent the College.
- Gave them a steer on the type of questions and areas we wanted to investigate. We gave them a range of questions as examples that they rewrote in their own language and also encouraged students to write their own questions as well.
- Next we supported with the students on their ‘meet and greet’ technique. How to introduce themselves, how to offer candidates a seat, how to thank candidates at the end of the interview.
- We showed students a plan of what the room set-up would look like.
- Took the students through the feedback sheet and summary questions. Briefly explained the role of the reserves / moderators.
- Provided an outline sheet for candidates with a brief outline of the task to be included in their packs or given to candidates at briefing.
On the Day
Set out the room with desk numbers. Provided labels for students. Prepared in the timer display, in this case http://e.ggtimer.com/120. Meet with students 5 minutes early.
What did I learn?
First, IMHO this is a very suitable activity for task 1 on a gruelling interview schedule. It showcases the students, it get candidates straight into interviewing mode and as an observer you can learn a great deal from just observing and listening. Your
Reserves are essential. Ours were used, stepping out when the students arrived. The reserves, then acting as moderators made one or two excellent observations.
Do ensure that students start the feedback sheet on desk and candidate number. If you rotate clockwise, working ‘up’ the sheet, or in descending order. This caught out one interview pair.
On shortlisting candidates, request a passport photo for identification, or provide a space on the sheet for candidate names, or get a copy of the candidate photographs at the start of the session. This is not essential but I believe the students would have felt more comfortable.
We originally had three voting summary questions to allow us to quantify student feedback. Students often ‘liked’ a candidate generally, and therefore voted that candidate in 1st place on all three questions in all but one example. The number of questions has been reduced to two.
Two minutes provided sufficient time for response and keep the candidates focused. We then gave the candidates the opportunity to hold an open discussion with our students to close the session before the interviewers escorted the candidates to their second activity with time to spare.
What tasks have you used? Experienced? Contribute them here.
Amended Planning Sheet High Impact Interviewing
This is completely an unsubstantiated view of the effectiveness of the task. If I get the opportunity I may ask the returning candidates for their viewpoints.
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