Mike Bishop, senior director of the Career Center, sits down with Catalina Quiroz, senior civil engineering major, and begins a mock interview to prepare Quiroz for real-life interviews in the future. Courtney Coleman | Banner
To prepare students of all majors for the professional world, California Baptist University’s Career Center has set up staged interviews.
The mock interviews are scheduled with career counselors, who critique all aspects of the interview starting with the actual interview and followed by a 20-minute assessment.
The assessment gives the career counselor opportunity to critique the student’s performance, attire and resume.
“Our job is to prepare our students to be the very best they can be,” said Mike Bishop, senior director of the Career Center.
Bishop said the 45 minutes during an interview is crucial to the overall hiring process.
“You have to represent yourself, and if you can’t do that, if you can’t talk your way out of the box in that 45 minutes, then the four years (of education) can go tumbling down simply because you can’t represent yourself well,” Bishop said.
Before the mock interviews came about, business students were required to get in contact with local businesses or companies and schedule mock interviews through them.
The Career Center realized the need for students to be interviewed by professional career counselors and began to set up mock interviews starting in spring 2014.
Around 140 students were interviewed during the first semester of interviews. The Career Center plans to hire a new career counselor in order to schedule more students for semesters to come.
Bishop said CBU professors are beginning to see the value of mock interviews. Some professors, such as Dr. Chris Morgan, dean of the School of Christian Ministries, are making it a requirement for students to schedule mock interviews.
“We all want to be pastors, so (Dr. Morgan) wants us to have training, just to be better at interviews for when we get interviewed by churches,” said Matt Perry, junior applied theology major.
Mitchell Watters, junior applied theology major, said the mock interviews prepare students for when the time comes for actual interviews with potential employers.
Carly Merlo, senior communication disorders major, said the mock interviews were just what she needed to prepare her for finding a job after graduation.
“I was really nervous, but they are so sweet in the Career Center,” Merlo said. “Learning the extra professional things to be aware of and prepared for was super helpful.”
