Steve Miller Jocelyn Orr_______

Sean Higbee___________ Doug White_________________

Amelia Gulling_____________________

Highlighting The Green Campus Internship in Your Job Search

Session Purpose & Format

•  Offer some tips on interviewing best practices and the related value of the GC internship

•  Present (multiple) peer testimonials and tips from recent GC alumni

•  Call out your own experiences and ask burning questions!

A Few Interviewing Tips

•  Preparation: They key for keeping control –  Know your strengths –  Know what you like to do –  Know what type of contribution you can make

•  Typical process: –  A screening interview: Often conducted over the phone, and

many times by an employee within Human Resources. Important to emphasize your technical skills and educational/employment background.

–  The employment interview: One or a series of discussions, that will includes the hiring manager. Important to emphasize your compatibility/fit to:

•  The organization’s goals and mission •  The people/culture •  The job function and technical requirements.

A Few Interviewing Tips

•  Networking happens all the time - Practice the 30 second drill (your elevator speech): –  Tell me who you are –  What you want –  How I can help

•  Prepare for all interviews –  Focus on the 3 main points that you want to leave behind –  What the organization does and how it’s structured –  How you can make a difference –  Ask pointed questions –  Take control…It’s your future! –  99% of all interviews are cultural

Behavior Based Interviews

–  Based on the assumption that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior (and performance)

•  Research shows that traditional interview questions (e.g.: Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What are your strengths and weaknesses?) yield little predictive validity

–  Requires the interviewer to ask a pre-defined set of questions (organized around core competencies), that challenge you to describe how you have handled situations in the past.

–  Even when posed with a ‘traditional’ interview question, you can still utilize behavior-based examples in your answers.

•  (e.g.: If asked about a particular job-related strength, answer, but then provide an example of how you successfully exhibited this quality/skill in the past.)

Behavior Based Interviewing

•  Examples of behavioral interviewing questions/probes:

–  Tell me about a significant work/school accomplishment, and what steps you took to get there.

–  Describe a particularly difficult problem that you recently had to solve.

–  Describe how you approach learning a new technical skill/task.

–  Describe your work style, how a new manager can extract the most contribution out of you, and a recent example of this.

–  Tell me about a time when you have taken a risk and it’s paid off. What did you do and what were the results?

Behavior Based Interviews and the Green Campus Experience

•  Some behavior based questions where you can clearly leverage the Green Campus experience.

–  Tell me about a time when you were part of a team, charged with a timely and ambitious goal.

–  Describe a time when you were able to apply your coursework to a campus/community problem or challenge.

–  Tell me about a situation in which you had to sell a project, program or concept to classmates or campus/community members.

The Case Study Response Using the STAR Method

When answering a behavioral question, remember to tell a story!

•  S (State the situation – the problem or challenge.)

•  T (Define the specific task, strategy or objective.)

•  A (Describe the actions that you took.)

•  R (Relay the results that you achieved.)

The Case Study Response Using the STAR Method

•  Example: Tell me about a creative idea that you pursued in an attempt to foster more sustainable practices on campus?

–  Situation: Talk about campus pressures (AUPCOCC, Campus/System Green Building and Clean Energy Standards,) students concern for taking local action to address climate change, etc.

–  Task: As part of a student-led team to address energy waste on campus, I saw a need for and proposed Project ‘A’…

–  Action: First, I developed a scope of work. Next, I presented the project plan to a collection of critical campus stakeholders, etc.

–  Result: After just one quarter of rolling out this project… •  500 kWh in measured electricity savings, that translates to 700

pounds in avoided carbon emissions. •  Based on these results, the Housing Services Department agreed

to expand this pilot effort to all first year residence halls…

Green Campus Alumni Experiences

BUT DON’T TAKE MY WORD ON IT…

• Jocelyn Orr • Sean Higbee • Doug White • Amelia Gulling

Open Q&A

•  Can you offer additional interview experiences?

•  What burning career search questions do you have?

•  How do you suggest talking about your Green Campus internship in order to set yourself apart from other candidates?