Entry by Pat Patterson – from the January 2011 INTERNnetwork
Non-traditional Interviews
Virtual Interview
With today’s technology, interviews do not necessarily need to be face-to-face. If you are unable to meet with students for interviews or vice versa, conducting an interview via video/audio equipment may be a viable option. Many career services offices have webcams and Skype accounts to accommodate students and employers for virtual interviews. If your organization typically conducts preliminary phone screening interviews, you may even consider a virtual interview as a substitute.
Meal Interview
If you have a client-focused organization that regularly involves interacting with different individuals, including lunch or dinner meetings, consider interviewing students over lunch or dinner. By doing so, you may be able to gauge a student’s social skills and mannerisms in a more relaxed setting. Even if you are not a client-focused organization, conducting interviews over meals may generate more word-of-mouth awareness of your internship program.
Non-traditional Interview Questions
Some organizations ask non-traditional, out-of-the-box interview questions to gauge a student’s thought process and learn more about his or her personality. For example, if you ask a student how many baseballs he or she thinks will fit in a standard size yellow school bus, the answer is irrelevant (if known); how a student answers the question is what is important, as it can help you understand his or her analytical ability. As another example, asking a student what superhero he or she would want to be if given the choice can give you a little more insight into his or her personality.
Following are examples of non-traditional interview questions:
- How many grains of sand are in an hour glass?
- How long would it take you to get home after this interview if you walked?
- How many gallons of water would fill this interview room?
- If you could be any character in fiction, who would you be?
- If someone made a movie about your life, what would the title be?
- If someone made a movie about your life, who would you want to play your role?
- If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?
- If you were stranded on a deserted island, what three items would you want to have with you?
- If you won a million dollars, what is the first thing you would purchase?
