InterviewStream’s online video interviewing platform has been adopted by employment agencies and business schools nationwide, but the Bethlehem company never placed a city’s mayor on video.
That is, until Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter sat in front of a webcam.
As part of InterviewStream’s work with the city’s Employment, Retention and Advancement Network program, Nutter was taped posing a series of typical job interview questions. The videos are available at Philadelphia’s nine EARN centers, which provide job training services for welfare recipients. Job seekers and EARN center counselors can pick Nutter-posed questions to view and then practice answering in front of a webcam. Armed with video of themselves answering mock interview questions, job seekers can see how they did and learn how to do a better job in a real job interview.
“It’s a non-threatening way to interview,” says InterviewStream co-founder and CEO Randy Bitting. “It really reduces your anxiety going into the real interview.”
Videos of Nutter have been available for a few months and an estimated 400 job seekers use them a month.
Bitting considers the mayor’s inclusion a way to highlight how much job seekers can benefit from practicing job interviews on video before they find themselves sitting across from a potential boss. “It’s the whole idea of seeing and hearing yourself that’s really important,” he says.
Source: Randy Bitting, InterviewStream
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen