INTERVIEW RATIONALE
Five factors were used to determine who was who was accepted and who was not. I considered your academic record, discipline history, attendance history, interview, and the results of your clerical assessment.
ACADEMIC Record:
The average numeric GPA of all the applicants that applied was 92.8. Students whose GPA was greater than 92.8 were given priority, but were not automatically accepted. Students were disqualified from the process if they either did not take and Advanced Placement class or did not participate in a Career Pathway.
Attendance History
Students whose attendance history fell in the bottom 20th percentile were automatically eliminated.
Discipline History
Students with more than 2 discipline infractions were automatically eliminated. Students with egregious discipline infractions were disqualified.
THE INTERVIEW
The alternative interview compromised 50% of the decision-making process. Everyone wants to know why I ask what I ask. Every part of the interview is intentional.
The Clerical Assessment. No matter which internship you eventually receive, you will be asked to do some clerical work. It does not matter if you’re doing a medical internship or a marketing internship. The Clerical Assessment measures your basic clerical aptitude, speed, and efficiency. Students who scored poorly were disqualified.
Joke/Story. Communication is a core soft skills. Telling a story allows me to hear you to speak for an extended period of time. It also allows you to show your personality. I assigned a letter grade based on creativity and articulation.
Deserted Island. This questions accessed logical reasoning, creative thinking, and complacency. Logical answers included items that made sense for long-term sustainability. Some of the best logical answers were: knife, tarp, water filter, Firestarter, first aid kit, rope and flare gun. Bad answers included cell phones, refrigerators (no electricity), food, water, clothes, make up, soap, Chick-Fila stand, hot Cheetos, and a toothbrush. The truly out-of-the-box thinkers choose items related to getting off the island, not pure survival. Some of the best answers were a yacht, helicopter, cell tower, boat, map, and airplanes.
1 MM Mom question. This question measures honesty, integrity, and morality. The answer was not as important as the length of time it took to answer. The longer you took to answer the worse you did. Even contemplation of the scenario show a bit of lack of morality. Extended responses indicate a probability that you were lying. If you said no to 1 MM, but yes to 5MM it showed lack of integrity. If you said yes to 1 MM and yes to $100,000 then it shows low moral aptitude.
Chocolate vs. Poop. This question measure logical reasoning and dealing with adversity. No one should ever eat poop, because it could kill you. Secondly, we all had bad tasting food before. Eating bad tasting food is a temporary hardship. Unwillingly to eat one bad tasting meal shows an unwillingness to deal with adversity.
Questions.Anytime you come to an interview you should be prepared to ask the interviewer a question or two. Not asking a question show a lack of preparedness.