Employment Interview Preparation: Assessing the Writing-To-Learn Approach

Abstract

Many career experts, including the authors, agree that job-seekers are better prepared and perform better in job interviews when they have written and rehearsed answers to common interview questions. Novice job-seekers, such as college students, often have little or no interviewing experience, and because of this inexperience, some college instructors assign various interviewing-related projects to students. This paper suggests that, based on solid theory taken from a variety of fields, the experiential practice of mock interviews accompanied by written preparation of interview responses may enhance students’ preparation for real-world job interviewing. The paper describes a study to test whether using a writing-to-learn approach to interview preparation made a difference in an actual interview situation.