The Los Medanos College Transfer and Career Services hosted Ace The Interview! May 8. The event was hosted on Zoom by Program Coordinator Cynthia Perez-Nicholas and she was joined by Edward Beanes, a Career Exploration Coordinator. 

Ace The Interview! was a workshop meant to help students who are graduating soon and applying for jobs or internships in their respective field. 

Perez-Nicholas began the workshop by explaining to  participants how she had struggled with the interview process most of her life, in an effort to provide students with a perspective they could relate to.

“It always felt unnatural to do interviews, it always triggered my anxiety. I want students to know that everybody feels that way. But there are ways to overcome those feelings during interviews,” said Perez-Nicholas. 

Perez-Nichols and Beanes broke down the process of getting interviewed into multiple subcategories during the event, such as: can you do the job? What’s your attitude during the interview? Do you fit in with the organization? 

All of these are major factors, they say, in making sure that the interview process goes as well as possible. Beanes advised students to do a significant amount of research before the interview as well. 

“You’re interviewing the company just as much as they’re interviewing you. You want to know if you’ll like working there. Go feel out the organization, how do they treat people that walk in? Doing this helps to make sure you’re comfortable and happy, that your skills are going to somebody who will appreciate them.” 

On top of the in-person interview process, Beanes went into detail on the intricacies of virtual interviews. 

There is a lot of overlap between the two different interview styles, but the main things necessary for successful virtual interviews are “having a stable internet connection, staging a nice background or having a virtual background that works well, and most importantly, make sure you have good lighting and always look directly into the camera.”

Perez-Nicholas and Beanes closed the workshop by asking students if they would like to have another workshop in which they will participate in faux interviews in order to practice, so look out for that. 

To ensure you don’t miss that or to register for another one of the scheduled workshops, you can visit the Transfer and Career Services website or email Cynthia Perez-Nicholas at [email protected].