BEAUMONT – Shannon Kitchens has been through a few professional job interviews, but the one on Thursday took the cake.
After it was done, she knew exactly what she had done well, and exactly what areas more work.
The interview was a part of Lamar Institute of Technology’s annual Project Interview day, an event where LIT students get the opportunity to practice their interviewing skills with actual employers.
Kitchens, an instrumentation technology major who plans to graduate in May 2010, said that the event was a “great experience.”
“In most job interviews,” she said, “you don’t know what you did right or wrong. You just know that you either got the job or you didn’t.”
In Project Interview, after a 20-minute interview, Steven McKinney of ExxonMobil took some time to talk to Kitchens about the positives and negatives of the interview.
McKinney told Kitchens that her responses to interview questions showed enthusiasm and confidence, two important characteristics to have in an interview situation.
One thing that he suggested she work on was a gap in her resume where she wasn’t working outside the home, but was homeschooling her children.
Held each year at the school, Project Interview gives graduating students an opportunity to hone their interviewing skills as well as provides employers venue to evaluate potential employees.
Students sign up and provide resumes. Yolanda Avery, placement and student activities coordinator at LIT, matches up students with employers relevant to their majors. Students participate in an interview session, and then, the most valuable part, receive a critique of the process.
Companies participating include ExxonMobil, TOTAL, Valero, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Southwest Building Systems, American Valve & Hydrant, West Corporation, M&I Electric, Air Product & Chemicals, Shell, Invista and AGL Resource.