In late November this past semester we had to attend a workshop/lecture described as assessment center for our Science & Employability Skills module. At first I was unsure whether to attend as it was scheduled to be 3 hours long and I had some deadlines coming up and I had heard some rumors about it having a mock job interview which I wasn’t very excited about.
However I decided to go anyway with some of my friends just in case. And I am quite glad I did.
Airplane Crash & Survival of the Smartest
For our first task we were split into groups of 6-7 people and given a list of items and a scenario. We were asked to imagine to have had an emergency landing on a snowy mountain in the middle of nowhere and to pick ten of the available items before the explosion of the plane crash.
We were asked to discuss with our group members what we would take with us and why and decide together what to bring with us to survive in extreme conditions of the mountain before being saved.
I can’t exactly remember what we took with us (mostly food and drinking supplies and items to build a shelter with) but I remember that two people from our team really wanted to bring a handgun because they thought it would be easy to hunt with it and they knew how to use one, decision of which I was a bit skeptic about.
The Mock Interview
The second task of the day was to be interviewed one by one by the rest of our group that had individual tasks such as pick a random question to ask or keep the time.
After each interview the interviewed person would leave the room for a few minutes while the “employers” would discuss how he/she did and what could be improved.
I was honestly terrified by the idea of an interview but I think it went much better than I expected and not going first really helped with the stress. I took my time and answer the questions assigned to me (although I struggled with one of them as I didn’t immediately understood what it was asking and how to reply).
Final Thoughts
This event was definitively useful and not as boring as I expected (partly might be because there were a lot less people than there should have been).
It helped me realize some of the skills that I have to work on to be able to carry out a good interview in the future and I learned important details about what to say and how to talk during an interview both while I was being interviewed and while I was the interviewer.
And although it might have not directly helped me in making a choice of what I would like to do in the future it will come in handy whenever I will be applying for my dream job.
Wild Nature 