The Importance of Mock Interview

A mock interview is an interview which you practice before the actual interview. It can be practice weeks or days before with your friends, family, coach, or mentor. Read this blog to know how you can practice mock interviews effectively. You might think that a mock interview is not that important as long as you have your documentation in order, choose the right outfit and be punctual during the actual interview. Yes, those are important too, but if you add mock interviews to your interview preparation list, it could give you plenty of advantages.

In this topic, our mentors: Marie Claire Andrea, a Product Designer, and Hellem Pedroso, a Design Strategist and CEO, will share some input that highlights the importance of mock interviews.

Marie Claire explains that mock interviews are important as :

• We gain confidence telling our personal/professional stories.
  Practicing beforehand gives us confidence in setting the right tone, body gestures to focus our interviewer’s attention on our points. Even if you know the topics that you are going to share with your interviewer, odd tones and the absence of body language could bore the interviewer to listen to you.
  
  
• We get comfortable with our portfolio.
  So, you know your portfolio inside out. You are the one who created your portfolio (duh!). But say that you need to choose a project in a split second to answer one of the impromptu questions by the interviewer, which one will it be and why? Perhaps, the pre-planning of categorizing the content of your portfolio will help you in this type of scenario.
  
  For example:
  
  -“I am going to talk about this if they ask me about…”, brainstorm a few reasons why you think a particular case study is worth sharing, etc.
  
  -“Case study A is where I learned a lot about…” perhaps if the interviewer is asking about your learning experience, you can talk about that project. Take this time to highlight 2 to 3 reflections that you have learned from the experience.
  
  Mock interviews give you time to prepare the content of your answer ahead of time. Some questions might have caught you by surprise but with the content that you have prepared and practiced, you could still relate them with the question or use them as examples.
  
  
• We get to practice both basic and curveball questions interviews might ask.
  Curveball questions are questions that have nothing to do with the position that you applied to. For example, “If someone is pushing you to do their job, how would you manage that situation?” or “Would you rather go home late to finish your work or stay up all night to complete your task?”
  
  Click this link to learn how to tackle curveball questions.
  
  
• We increase our public speaking skills by saying things like "um, oh like" less.
  Mock interviews give you space to work on your public speaking skills by preventing yourself from taking too many or too long pauses. You know, the time where you could hear as if the air-conditioner sounds louder than it should be, or the time where you feel the sound of you swallowing your saliva could be heard by the entire floor of the company.
  
  Mock interviews give you time to structure concise and clear sentences beforehand.
  
  You could practice your listening skills as well. Listening skills are as important as your verbal skills. This skill could prevent you from interrupting the interviewer while asking a question and avoid giving an answer that does not relate to the question.
  
  
• We can practice things like negotiating salary and/or benefits.
  Absolutely! Towards the end of your interview. Usually, your interviewer will ask some questions about your expected salaries or explain what the company has to offer. This is the time for you to put your negotiation skills to the test.
  
  If you want to brush up on your negotiation skills our mentors have plenty of tips for you, click here.
  
  

“If you don't practice mock interviews,  you can definitely "wing it" but there might be some blind areas that will arise once the interview takes place.” - Marie Claire. 

Watch this Ted Talk video by Ashley Rizzoto where she shares some tips for Mastering the Art of the Interview. 

Resources for interview questions & answers:

• Graphic design interview questions. 
• UX Designer interview questions and answers.
• Product Design interview questions and answers
  
  

Our mentor Hellem has an interesting perspective on the importance of mock interview:
 

“I don’t do them a lot, cause I think some mentees don’t learn much because they think I (mentor) can be biased and ‘go easy on them’ (not true) but prevents them from even trying. So, I tell them,“You don’t need mock interviews,”  just do TONS of interviews instead, bring them (the experience from the interviews) to mentoring sessions and we will unpack them together. It works like a freaking charm for me.”- Hellem.

Contributors:

Marie Claire Andrea (ADPList Mentor)
Product Designer II at Cvent
ADPList Profile:https://adplist.org/mentors/marie-claire-andre
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/marieclaireandrea/ 

Hellem Pedroso(ADPList Mentor)
Design Strategist & CEO at Cari.Design
ADPList Profile: https://adplist.org/mentors/hellem-gollin-pedroso 
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellempedroso/ 

Editor and Writer
Farah Radzi
Content Marketer and Writer at ADPList
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/famr/