Y10 Virtual Mock Interviews
11th - 13th June 2024
This month 300 Year 10 students took part in the annual Virtual Mock Interviews. This is a huge initiative forming an important part of the Year 10 World of Work curriculum and which culminates in their in-person Work Experience placement during C&C week.
The Careers Team are incredibly grateful to the team of 20 volunteer interviewers, representing a range of sectors, some of whom offered interviews on multiple days. The organisations offering this valuable experience to students were drawn from highly respected local, regional, national and multi-national employers including Deloitte, WM Morrisons PLC, Winston Solicitors, Switch2, RAF, Nationwide, Matthew Snow Advisory Ltd, Lloyds Banking Group, Learning Inclusion Service-Leeds City Council, KPMG, Health Education England, Halliday Clark Architects, Clip n Climb, RH Fulwood, Red Kite Alliance, Ashlands Vets, Peter Shelley Financial Planning as well as other independent interviewers.
With interviews increasingly taking place online nowadays, these virtual interviews complement the universal year 10 Work Experience offer in July and provide all students with the opportunity to be interviewed by someone they have never met before. To prepare for this, students prepared a mock application (including a covering letter and CV) and practised different types of questions in Personal Best Time in the weeks running up to the interview.
While strong exam results and a well-written CV may get you an interview, we know that it is those softer skills - a warm smile and the ability to make eye contact, respond to unpredictable questions and to read a situation which can often make the difference between success and failure at interview and this opportunity provided students with a valuable opportunity to do that.
Students will receive personalised feedback from their interviewer, but the overall feedback has been extremely positive and year 10 showed very high levels of punctuality and positivity (in spite of a few nerves), taking the whole experience in their stride.
A huge thank you to Mrs Marshall (Careers Lead), Mrs Crewe (Careers Administrator), Mrs Lowe (Careers Advisor) for organising the event which ran seamlessly.
The IGS Careers Team would also like to publicly thank all the interviewers for giving up their valuable time to conduct 300 interviews across the three days, and to give every student in year 10 the opportunity to gain the experience of a mock interview.
Mr Gutch | Deputy Headteacher: Post-16 & Personal Development