AC : BEHAVIORAL INTERVIEW TRAINING IN ENGINEER- ING CLASSES

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1 AC : BEHAVIORAL INTERVIEW TRAINING IN ENGINEER- ING CLASSES Julie E. Sharp, Vanderbilt University Julie E. Sharp, Associate Professor of the Practice of Technical Communication, has taught written and oral communication in the Vanderbilt University Engineering School for over 20 years. She has published numerous articles and presented successful workshops on communication and learning styles. As a consultant, she has edited and written documents and conducted workshops for educators, industry, and professional organizations. In 2004, she earned the ASEE Southeastern Section s Thomas C. Evans Award for The Most Outstanding Paper Pertaining to Engineering Education. Dr. Sharp received her B.A. from Belhaven University and her M.A.T., M.A., and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2012

2 Behavioral Interview Training in Engineering Classes Introduction Many engineering educators believe strongly in including both written and oral communication assignments in their classes because of their desire to prepare engineers to be excellent communicators. Oral communication instruction in engineering courses usually prepares students for presenting various reports about experiments or projects. Some professors include assignments that mimic what students will do in the workforce, such as briefings, persuasive recommendation reports, or progress updates. One of the most important oral presentations, however, that engineering graduates will make is communicating in a job interview. In this case, graduates are presenting themselves to prospective employers for the purpose of being hired. This is a potentially life changing presentation, and a successful outcome is mostly based on their oral communication skills. In addition to graduates, engineering students often face interviews for internships, research positions, scholarships, and jobs. Thus, interviewing well is an important skill that they need to acquire. In courses where communication skills are an integral part of coursework, therefore, including interview skills training can be quite helpful to students. This paper discusses a particular strategy, the STAR method, used in a chemical engineering laboratory course to prepare students for answering almost any behavioral interview question. The behavioral type of interview question is the type most often used in many engineering companies. The paper describes use of the STAR interview response, in-class activities, practice using sample questions, and an interview chart assignment. Finally, students assessment of the method and interview chart is presented through the results of a survey. Some may question why professors from a school with a strong career center should even bother to offer interview instruction. Proponents of providing in-class training offer these reasons: 1. Students do not always take advantage of the career center for a variety of reasons. Maybe they have a heavy schedule and are pressed for time. Maybe they think they do not need the training. These doubting students often do not realize what they lack. Only after in-class training do they discover what they did not know and needed to learn. 2. Particularly in large schools, sometimes career centers cannot offer intensive training to everyone. For example, some years ago, a career center director spoke to my class and encouraged students to take advantage of the center s mock interview training. Thinking I was being helpful, I offered extra credit for this activity. About 20 to 25 students signed up for mock interviews, but that was more than the center could handle. Consequently, the director asked me to stop sending so many students. 3. Getting interview information and practice in a class in which they are already enrolled is usually easier for students than making time to visit the career center. More students, therefore, will likely be reached by in-class interview training. 4. Job seekers cannot get too much practice. The more they get, the better chance they have of getting a job, especially in difficult economic times. Thus, the classroom and the career center can complement each other. They should not be in conflict or competition;

3 one supplements the other. This synergy could be thought of as promoting job search communication across the university. Some engineering educators believe that training students to interview well is an important part of engineering education. For example, one chemical engineering professor at North Carolina State University offers a one-credit professional skills seminar where interview training fits in well. In my university, technical communication is part of the chemical engineering lab courses. For a number of years, I have included instruction and practice in interviewing skills in the technical communication portion of these labs. Not once has a student suggested that this instruction does not belong in the course. In fact, several students have asked that more time be spent on in-class practice. Furthermore, students value instruction that they can immediately see as useful and applicable to their lives and often comment about how helpful this process is to them. As shown by the students comments reported in the last section of this paper, most students value the STAR method as a way to organize their answers to interview questions. The STAR Method The STAR method is an effective tool for acing the job interview when the interviewer asks behavioral questions. A behavioral question is based on the idea that the best way to predict your future performance is to examine your past and present performance in a similar situation. It focuses on experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills, and abilities that are job related. 1 Indicators of behavioral questions are such phrases as Tell me about a time when 2 or Can you give me an example of x. For example, the interviewer might say, Tell me about a time when you experienced conflict on a team. 2 The interviewee would then think of a specific incident of resolved conflict with a teammate and describe it using the STAR method. One source gives these examples of behavioral questions: 1. Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way. 2. Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills. 3. Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem. 4. Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and were able to meet or achieve it. 5. Tell me about a time when you had to use your presentation skills to influence someone's opinion. 6. Give me a specific example of a time when you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree. 7. Please discuss an important written document you were required to complete. 8. Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done. 3 The acronym STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Results. When asked an interview question, interviewees should think of personal success stories and describe a particular

4 situation from these experiences to demonstrate a certain skill or characteristic. 4 The next step is to specify the task or goal to be achieved. Students should then describe specific actions they took to achieve the goal in that situation. Finally, they should tell the positive results of those actions. The most important elements are actions and results. Describing a particular situation ensures detail to show the interviewee in action. The interviewee is guiding the interviewer to see the interviewee as a proactive worker who gets things done. For example, to answer a question about showing initiative, a student might think of a time when as a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, he or she had the idea to streamline a procedure for installing the engine. The student would describe the task to be accomplished and the actions done to complete the task, such as devising the solution, troubleshooting it, making adjustments, implementing it, and seeing the successful result. Here is another, more detailed example from Drexel University s Web site: Situation (S): Advertising revenue was falling off for my college newspaper, The Review, and large numbers of long-term advertisers were not renewing contracts. Task (T): My goal was to generate new ideas, materials and incentives that would result in at least a 15% increase in advertisers from the year before. Action (A): I designed a new promotional packet to go with the rate sheet and compared the benefits of The Review circulation with other ad media in the area. I also set up a special training session for the account executives with a School of Business Administration professor who discussed competitive selling strategies. Result (R): We signed contracts with 15 former advertisers for daily ads and five for special supplements. We increased our new advertisers by 20 percent over the same period last year. 3 Professors wanting to include this method in their classes can easily access helpful resources. Some of these specifically explaining the STAR method are online, readily available through a search. In addition, most technical communication textbooks have a section on job search communication offering information about interview preparation and sample behavioral questions. 5-7 Other books also offer a wealth of information about interviewing skills. 8,9 Preparation time required may be anywhere from a half hour to an hour. Another option is to invite a technical communication professor as guest lecturer because many teach interviewing skills in one or more of their courses. Career center staff are also usually quite willing to give a guest presentation on the topic. In-Class Activities and Assignments In class, the professor may explain what a behavioral question is and then present the STAR method of answering, calling on volunteers for their responses. I prefer to ask the first student volunteer to answer a few questions before I explain the STAR method. After explaining the STAR technique, I discuss the student s answer and ways it could be improved. It is enlightening to all of us to see the difference in the answers before and after the STAR explanation. The main problems that occur are not using a scenario, giving a non-specific

5 answer about actions taken, and omitting the results of those actions. This activity may take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour of class time, depending on how many questions are asked and how many answers, if any, are analyzed in class. Interview Chart. One assignment that students find helpful is making an interview chart to study before interviews. To prepare, they must analyze their experiences to determine their skills, training, and strengths. Because students prepare this assignment outside of class, the professor need only take about 15 minutes of class to explain and give examples of the STAR method and interview chart. After learning the STAR method, students prepare an interview chart with four columns corresponding to the letters in STAR. In the first column, they list a minimum of six situations, which could be from work experience, schoolwork, or to a lesser extent, their personal lives. 10 In the next column, they describe the task or goal to accomplish for each of these situations. Next, they concisely list in the third column specific actions they took to reach the goal. Finally, they list in the fourth column the results of their actions. Table 1 presents an example. Students find the interview chart handy to prepare for an interview, whether it is face to face or over the phone. The chart helps them to analyze their strengths, remember success stories illustrating those strengths, and organize their thoughts. They can look over the chart before going to an interview appointment but, of course, they must not refer to it during the interview. However, for a telephone interview, they can place the STAR chart in front of them along with their resume, job description, and other helpful materials.

6 Students also may be able to adapt one type of experience to answer several kinds of questions, illustrating more than one attribute. For instance, in the example of membership in the Society of Automotive Engineers, the student used an incident to show creativity in problem solving. Another incident may show teamwork skills and a third incident illustrate communication expertise. Experiences in this organization, therefore, could provide a wealth of examples from which to draw. These will serve as a stockpile of information from which to select appropriate responses. The student should be aware, however, to avoid using the same situation, such as this society membership, to answer more than one or two questions per interview. In-Class Mock Interview in Pairs. One opportunity for students to practice is an in-class mock interview. The students pair off and ask a specified number of interview questions. One person plays the role of the interviewer while the other person is the interviewee. Next, they swap roles. Interviewers then critique the interviewees. In my classes, the students use a rating form to evaluate each other for four questions (Table 2). The instructor can then lead a class discussion on the experience. This exercise can be used in both small and large classes and may take a half hour or an hour, depending on the professor s preference. Table 2. Rating Form for the Paired Mock Interview Ques. No. Rating 1 to 5 Content (50%) Rating 1 to 5 Delivery (50%) 1. Organization (STAR) Posture Specifics Voice Qualities Clarity Eye Contact Overall Poise 2. Organization (STAR) Posture Comments Specifics Voice Qualities Clarity Eye Contact Overall Poise 3. Organization (STAR) Posture Specifics Voice Qualities Clarity Eye Contact Overall Poise 4. Organization (STAR) Posture Specifics Voice Qualities Clarity Eye Contact Overall Poise Impromptu Interview Question(s). Another assignment is for students to meet with the instructor outside of class to answer an impromptu question or questions. They will need to schedule these in advance. To prepare for this impromptu assignment, students should study their interview charts beforehand just as they would for an actual interview. This assignment would work well for small classes. An alternate method is to allow five minutes at the end of class throughout the semester for an impromptu interview question and answer. Students will need to know in advance that they may

7 be called on at any time. They must be familiar with their charts so that they can respond appropriately. This assignment, because it takes place in front of the class, does put some extra pressure on the student. I also ask students to prepare a two-minute answer to the question: "Why don't you tell me about yourself?" This question is actually more important than one might think. The underlying question for any interview interaction is "Why should we hire you?" Since the student is likely to be asked this question, a short, prepared answer modeled on the STAR method is in order. 11 Questionnaire Results Showing Student Feedback To determine if students attitudes toward the assignment were as positive as I thought, I used a questionnaire to gather their anonymous assessment of using the STAR method in my classes. The respondents were 35 of 38 seniors in two sections of a technical communication class as part of the senior chemical engineering laboratory. The main part of the questionnaire consisted of 13 items that the students rated on a scale from 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest rating. There was also a space after each item for students to comment if they wished. Table 3 presents the numerical results of the first 13 items collected from these 35 students. Following the 13 items, but not reported here, were six short-answer questions about the number and kind of interviews the students had experienced. The final two questions asked what they liked about the STAR method and interview chart assignment, and what improvements they recommended for future classes. The large standard deviations for some results in Table 3 may result from some students not having had any interviews yet. Many of these were international students who were not job hunting until they returned to their own countries. Table 3. Chemical Engineering Lab Student Assessment of the STAR Interview Method. Fall Sections 01 and 04. N=35 Please rate items from 1(lowest; strongly disagree) to 5 (highest; strongly agree). Mean SD 1. The STAR method should be continued in this class next fall I found the method to be helpful I learned something useful or interesting about the interviewing process The STAR method improved my interview skills I enjoyed participating in the in-class interview practice in pairs I used the STAR method in a real interview Using the STAR method improved my performance in my real job interview(s) This method helped me in a graduate school interview This method helped me get a job or job offer Using the STAR method helped me get one or more second interviews I found the STAR chart helpful I have used the STAR chart to prepare for a real interview Prior to this course, how experienced were you in interviewing? 5 = very experienced; 3 = somewhat experienced; 1 = no experience

8 A few comments may shed some light on the somewhat lower score of 3.9 for item 5 in Table 3 about paired interview practice. One person mentioned having to be in a group of three instead of pairing off for the practice interview. This student thought that this situation was not what a real interview would be. Since the class did not contain an even number of students, a group of three was necessary. From now on, I need to explain about the possibility of future group interviews and talk about how to practice for this type of interview. One person said that a partner was shy about criticism, and another complained that a partner did not do a good job. Only one person had a strongly negative remark, stating that the paired interview practice was unproductive and [the] questions were not relevant. Interestingly, one student found that the paired interview practice was helpful but somewhat awkward - like a real interview. The final two items asked students to state what they liked best and what they recommended for improvement. There were few recommendations for improvement. Eleven students commented in the recommendation section that they either liked the method or had no recommendations. One person mentioned that some people liked to keep their interview answers private. Two people asked for more practice. The positive comments are listed for the two sections of the course in Tables 4 and 5. These results were even more strongly positive than I had anticipated. Table 4. Chemical Engineering Lab Student Assessment of the STAR Interview Method. Question 20. Comments from students in section What did you like best about the STAR method and STAR chart assignment? 1. It helped me explain things better to the interviewer. I was better able to create a coherent story in response to their questions. 2. Helped me summarize major points related to the work [job] I applied for. Required me to focus better. 3. Very systematic and justifies why you should be employed. 4. It was organized. 5. The STAR method made me understand and pull out my achievements better, and I can organize what to say. 6. Gives real life experiences as examples on the chart. 7. Reminding to follow through and explain the results, as the results are what people want to know about. 8. I like that it made you think about the skills you have and how they are applicable and worthwhile to the company. Also this showed how important the results section was. 9. I think the STAR method kind of helped me to organize things or thoughts that I can use for an interview. I can memorize easily the things that I wrote down on the STAR chart assignment. 11. It made me more clear when preparing for the real interview. Besides, I think that it helped me to answer the interviewer s questions in a chronological way. First, from what situation I was in, what I did, and [then] what I achieved rather than just talking about the situation I was in. 12. It was the checklist I needed when doing my interviews. It showed what I got out of all my experiences. It also often led to follow-up questions from the interviewer. The assignment helped me generate a set of situations to reference in interviews. 13. It was easy to remember and apply.

9 14. Practicality and usefulness. 15. It was a great organizational tool. Helped immensely with the types of questions asked in behavioral interviews for consulting jobs. 16. I liked learning a method to answer questions and how best to phrase answers to show my best attributes and qualities. 17. It actually helps you think about what are the best situations you can bring up to an interview that highlight good/unique qualities. 18. It was applicable to real interviews. 19. Good idea to think of examples to use in an interview (for the chart assignment). 20. It really got me thinking about how to present myself during interviews. Table 5. Chemical Engineering Lab Student Assessment of the STAR Interview Method. Question 20. Comments from students in section What did you like best about the STAR method and STAR chart assignment? 1. It provides the recruiters with the information they re looking for. 2. Organizing it and being able to add on to it as I gained more experience. 3. Both of the methods helped me to answer questions in a more proper way and very neat! 5. The thought process it encourages when answering behavioral questions. 6. The organization of [the] STAR method. 7. Useful way to organize thoughts. 8. Simple yet effective. 9. It helped me organize my thoughts and maneuver around difficult questions when interviewing. 10. The flow. It helps you to say what you have to say next. 11. How useful it is in an interview. It makes the interviewer satisfied with the answers. 12. It got me to think hard about potential interview Q's and A's. 13. I like how detailed each scenario is. Really helps me to identify only key points to say during an interview. 14. Excellent way to prepare for a real interview. 15. I love how it points out the things that I do which will be helpful in interviews. It also is a good tool for organizing things. Conclusion Preparing students for the possibly life changing communication task of a job interview can reap benefits for professors who seek to integrate communication skills in the engineering classroom. As these questionnaire results indicate, students tend to value this behavioral interview training and find it extremely useful. In addition, several chemical engineering alumni, now recruiters, have told my classes that they rate interviewees by how well their answers follow the STAR method. Equipping students with this strategy, therefore, can be effective preparation for future successful interviews. Many engineering educators work toward improving students communication skills, both oral and written. Students seem to be getting the message that communication is important. As one

10 student recently said, An engineer is a communicator. Professors should consider adding a short module in their classes when appropriate to provide students with an effective interview strategy for success in this extremely important type of communication. References 1. Behavioral Interview Questions. Accessed Jan. 11, Oliu, Walter, Charles T. Brusaw, and Gerald J. Alred. Writing That Works: Communicating Effectively on the Job. 10 th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin s Press, 2010, p The STAR Method. Accessed Jan. 11, Center for Career Opportunities Career Training Handbook. Purdue University. Accessed Jan. 14, Dobrin, Sidney I., Christopher J. Keller, and Christian R. Weisser. Technical Communication in the Twenty- First Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, Pfeiffer, William Sanborn, and Kaye E. Adkins. Technical Communication: A Practical Approach. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Houp, Kenneth W., Thomas E. Pearsall, Elizabeth Tebeaux, and Sam Dragga. Reporting Technical Information. 10 th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, Whitcomb, Susan B. Interview Magic. 2 nd ed. Indianapolis: JIST Works, Veruki, Peter. The 250 Job Interview Questions You ll Most Likely Be Asked. Avon, MA: Adams Media, Bentley, Amy. Introduction to the STAR Method. Goizueta Business School, Emory University. %20Method.pdf. Accessed January 11, Scivicque, Chrissy. The STAR Method of Interviewing. Accessed January 14, 2012.