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Bonnies Blog

BICT interviews

You have to be cruel to be kind! Well, not really cruel but the recent invitation to attend the mock interviews being held for year 3, soon to graduate, BICT students gave me an insight into the lengths staff will go to get their students ready for that all important first “real job” interview. 

Picture this: the room is full of fairly nervous senior students. Soon they will have their own interview with three people, Pat Debney from Fujitsu and Carol McGillivray from Advantage Computing, as well as Catherine Snell-Siddle, Head of School.  Pat and Carol give the students a warm up, a presentation about what employers are looking for and how to best prepare for an interview and present yourself. They go into detail about CVs, handshakes, standard of dress, speaking clearly.  I’m feeling a bit nervous myself by now and I am not the one with the sword of Damocles suspended over my head!   

Now, this is not “The Apprentice”, no bad comb overs, no shouting.  But it is demanding. The judges, I mean interviewers, ask some curly questions.  Like, “What would you do if your office mate was clearly contravening work policy?”  The candidate gave a thoughtful, intelligent response.  Or “Paint me a picture, use a big brush and let me see what sort of person you are.” Or “Tell me about yourself, what gets you out of bed in the morning?”  The answer, intended to be funny,   “My alarm clock” was then fleshed out with motivation and main IT interests.  There were hard questions and easier ones, but the nerves of candidates made some harder than intended. Three questions were asked of each candidate, then on to the next person.

It is hard being a self-booster, especially when your peers are behind you knowing when you are gilding the picture.  Each of the students gets personal feedback later from their lecturers.  Turning up, surviving and being there for this morning is brave and all the students should be proud of their performance. They can also learn from what others do and how they might handle things a bit differently next time.

 It was a fascinating to watch this and the day was very well set up so that people can be supported if they need that in order to give this a go.  I thought the students did very well. They managed to be articulate and intelligent even in this pressure cooker.   I thought all the interviewers played their parts well.  Congratulations to the lecturer, Joanne Cleland for setting this up so professionally and preparing the students for this experience, here, with a safety net and useful feedback.

Last night was the BICT students poster showcase for their final projects.  I went along to check out what was happening and there was quite a good turn out. Some of the projects looked pretty good, most of it was a bit over my head though (had to get some things explained once ot twice).

After 3 years of study I am sure the students are relieved that it’s all finished, judging by what I could see – I am sure they will all do pretty well in the industry. I took a couple of random photos; if you want to check them out HERE.