The first and second questions I ask during the interview are (1) What prompted your interest in our school? (2)What do you know about our school? An applicant's answer to these quetions will demonstrate their desire for the position, and their initiative. Poor responses to these questions are deal breakers.
We do most of our interviews by phone since most of our applicants are located across the country. So we have to have good communication skills and a list of questions that we need to ask each applicant. Our requirements are very strict so that helps with the questions. The hardest thing to determine is how the applicant will handle student concerns and problems. We do administer a personality test that helps with this.
One area to improve on is to document a standard list of questions to ask every applicant.
Hi Shanel
Do you use a structured interview? It helps in covering the information you need to make a decision. What information is it important for you to receive?
We hire adjuncts from around the country, therefore we mainly do telephone interviews. We discuss their qualifications for the course that they may teach and what they know about our school and why they feel they are qualified to teach at our school.
As a result of this module, I will allow the applicant to speak more. I have been doing much of the talking by giving them information about our school. However, now I can see that I can email them the information and direct them to our website prior to the interview. If a decision is made to hire them, then I will send them an official catalog as I currently do now.
Hi Ricardo
Thanks for your response. What would your KSAO's include?
Our job interviews are definitely structured we do follow a script where questions are designed based on the areas of need and the general institution's policies and guidelines. What I would change after completing this module is to have a KSAOs analisis and have a plan in place to implement as a process to interview candidates.
Ricardo Ortolaza, Ed.D.
Director of Faculty and Currciulum
Hi Mary. I like the way this class was structured. It made the process seem simple and to the point. We will use this method from now on.
Thanks, Cliff
Hi Heather
I certainly agree that students benefit from good hiring practices. Good instructors improve student retention.
Having a set of interview questionsd help compare candidates (apples to apples), makes interview time more productive and helps if there will be multiple interviews of the same person.
It might take some effort to get everything statrted, but it is time well spent to have a
focused, useful and legal interview.
Currently, our hiring process closely follows the pattern discussed in this section. Applicants are directed to submit a resume for available teaching positions. From the group of resumes, a very abbreviated phone interview is conducted mainly for the purpose of clarification of experience/education and to set a time for a face to face interview. When applicants arrive on-site, they are asked to fill out an application before the interview. Once the interview has been completed, worthy candidates are asked to conduct a short 10-minute "mock teaching" presentation. We ask both staff and faculty members to sit in on the "mock" and to provide feedback. Finally, the best suited candidate is offered the position by the hiring manager.
Although our process is sound, the interviewing skills of hiring managers can be weak. I would like to see our current process better define a structured interview based on the KSAOs discussed in the earlier sections. If we can better define what is important to us as a college, we will do a better job of pulling that information out of potential candidates. I like the idea of developing a handful of questions that can help candidates demonstrate those KSAOs we are looking for.
Not all hiring managers are good interviewers! It's been my experience that good interviewing skills develop over time. If new hiring managers were given a set of proven questions to use during a structured interview, perhaps the pains of trial and error would not be as great for everyone involved (including the students)!
Well, Jeff, I'm glad this can be both informative and entertaining.
Developing interview questions saves time, gets necessary information and is a better practice legally. It removes even the impression of differential treatment. Of course, don't include questions you shouldn't.
Thanks for your response.
Laughing, I'm a perfect example of why everyone should use a structured interview. In the future I will always spend an appropriate amount of time preplanning the interviews I'm going to give. I will be doing some more investigation on top of the example in the course of good structured interview questions. Also the consistency this provides will be huge.
Jeff
Job interviews are done without consistency. Some are group interviews. Others are individual. Focus on asking questions rather than providing information about the job will be incorporated.
Thanks Kim. Another good thing about structured interviews is that you use time effectively. While there are points you need to make, there is also information you need to receive.
As with most things, in time, it will be second nature.
These suggestions are great. For me this has been the most helpful part of this course. We already implement most of the other modules. I have hired a few people and do not have a structured way of conducting the interview. I find that I do most of the talking and it is mostly positve about the college and I spead way to much time before I have gathered the applictions & other forms. I plan on using these ideas and creating a more formal structure.
Interviews at my school are conducted in traditional form. Potential instructors may be asked to do a mock class so we can sample their teaching skills, as this course suggested. Changes for the future are perhaps a more structured/standardized interview question list. Currently, interviewers ask questions at will, and not on a script. I see value in a script, as it were.
Thanks Maureen. You really do (in both a positive and realistic manner) need to manage potential instructor's expectations. It is never as easy as it looks, but it can be very rewarding.
As for the interview process, you have to determine what works for you. If the multi-
step approach doesn't work--don't use it.
Especially when dealing with busy professionals
or referrals (as you mentioned previously) maybe
the proof of interest is already known if they come prepared for a teaching demo.
The format we use at our college is similar to the one presented in this module. I have started to conduct a phone interview (a new process) and based on the information I gain from that connection I make a decision whether or not to bring the individual in for an in-person interview. At this time, our process continues with the interview and again, based on the results of that, a decision is made whether to ask the applicant to return for a teaching demonstration. I have recently made a case to combine the in-person interview and teaching demonstration into one process. I gained support for this process by stating that we would be able to obtain a more complete picture of each applicant at one time rather than the piece-meal approach. What I will change as a result of this module is to develop a RJP. We do not have such a document and I can certainly see the value in letting prospective teahers know about the realities of teaching in a career college. This is most important especially when hiring instructors who do not have teaching experience but who have the potential.
I have been an educator for over twenty years and my on-the-job education along with my formal education (in psychology & eduation, BA; literacy education, MS, and a PH.D. in curriculum development and teacher education, educational leadership)provided me with knowledge and skills necessary to working in K-graduate school; I have worked in K -graduate school settings. I have utilized my organic knowledge of teaching and learning coupled with my academic knowledge, to create nurturing learning environments for each group of students.
I find the non-traditional students most facinating. They bring knowledge and experiences not available to traditional (younger) students. They have what is know as "foreground", concrete evidence of abstract concepts, on which to add new information. I worked as a Faculty/Mentor at Empire State College where all our students were non-traditional students. Part of my responsibility was to evaluate work-related expereinces and assign college credits, in education, to various students. Many of my students had knowledge and skills, garnered from their experiences, that were equivalent to varying levels of college courses.
Life-arts projects comes to mind. These are projects that marry students classroom learning with life experiences. These are mini theses if you will, that allow each student to demonstrate how they scaffold the new information unto prior knowledge and translate the whole into applicable actions into their everday lives for work or other forms of activities.
I am apt. to follow Howard Gardner's forms of intellenges. I am a visual/kinesthetic processor; I have to see it and I must take notes in order to make sense of the information, and in order to enter the information into my long term memory. I have always provided my students with the opportunities to use multi-input pathways in order to foster learning. Visual aide; co-operative learning that allows verbalization for the autitory learners; the creation of collages; the creation of poems or songs,; role playing etc., are some of the activities that I have employed in the classrooms in which I have worked over the years. I cannot say that any one learning syle is more effective than the other. Most students are forced to rely on memorization which is derived from visual learning, but research findings do not favor such an approach. There are no findings, of which I am aware, that would force students to comply with one form of information processing as the optimum leaning style.
1. Describe how your work and education experience has prepared you to become an effective educator.
2. Describe your view of the non-traditional student.
3. What techniques might one have to employ in a non-traditional education setting that would be different from a traditional classroom setting?
4. Explain what you know about learning styles and which learning style is most effective?
Hi Gerard
I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Alessandra. Which questions are most important to you?
We have a variety of experience in the class and your insight would be useful.
