Common questions/answers EICC Flashcards
Tell me about yourself
Present, past, future - currently in career advising role, I’ve had jobs teaching and mentoring youth in all grades K-12, and I hope to continue working on workforce development with EICC
Walk me through your resume
Community college, AmeriCorps, working with youth, more AmeriCorps, working with youth while in school, substitute teaching, and now in an unofficial career advising position
How did you learn about this position?
Through your website! I want to leave this small town of less than 1000 people. I know this role is in the Muscatine campus, but I don’t mind a commute.
Why do you want to work at this company?
Community college makes higher education attainable for more people - it prepares a skilled workforce and strengthens communities
Why do you want this job?
The work-based learning program is a win-win - great for the workforce and great for students.
Why should we hire you?
I’m passionate about a well-equipped workforce that knows what they’re getting themselves into! I’ve worked with community partners to create relationships with the goal of forging new internships. I am eager to learn your best practices and what your partners and students need.
What can I bring to the company?
I bring experience with K-12 students, a passion for accessible/equitable education, and the desire to contribute to student success
What are your greatest strengths
Customer service for all! Everyone I interact with from partnering organizations to coworkers to students to custodial staff. Part of this is a focus on meaningful communication. People don’t receive messages the same way - I focus on making sure my communications can be understood by a broad audience. Once I learn a role, great at adapting to new situations. I enjoy problem solving and finding and testing new solutions
Weaknesses?
Organization doesn’t come naturally to me, but I adapt with timers and reminders. I can get distracted by little details, but I’ve employed a parking lot of sticky notes full of those details so I can address them later and they won’t deter me from what I’m working on
Greatest professional achievement
Any time I’ve successfully taught anything! But lately, it’s been making aspects of my job relevant to my customers. My department didn’t use QR codes before I started and I’ve modernized some things. I have a career fair coming up with a virtual component with no budget
Challenge or conflict
My counterpart wasn’t particularly motivated. I addressed it with him first before bringing it to my supervisor. My supervisor told me to let him fail and document everything. My ego got in the way because for him to fail was for me to fail, but I did document everything. Eventually, he was strongly encouraged to seek a new opportunity
Leadership skills
I’m always willing to step in and get my hands dirty, so to speak. I’m helping create an alumni group for my organization. This has entailed creating a board of directors to stand up a nonprofit. I’ve never been on a board of directors, let alone created one, but I found myself writing their mission, vision, and bylaws. I’d never done that either, but it needed to be done so I put time and effort into researching. Now, I’m a non-voting advisor to the board.
Disagreed with a decision made at work
Supervisor wanted everyone to switch dorms 2 hours into their vacation time - it just seemed rude to make folks move during break. Dorm assignments weren’t in the scope of my duty, but assisting was so I helped and later learned that this was done because of utilities - something I’d never considered!
Mistake
Career fair. It takes a lot of organization, which doesn’t come naturally to me. I delegated organization of it to a colleague who is a natural organizer and frequently quality checked my work. My mistake was not having her walk through her process. I just trusted that she had it, but she skipped a critical step in planning which made the execution messy and long. I learned from it, I am not delegating it this year, but will ask for help executing it.
Like least about job?
My specific program is like a gap-year program. Folks work with a variety of non-profits in a variety of geographic areas - it is not people contributing to their own community. I’m excited about EICC because it doesn’t exist in a bubble - it is people working in their own communities!`
