Using a Rubric to Assess Practice Interviews
Career Center Assessment Committee
Peter Hunt (chair), Dom DeLeo, Lou Gaglini, Rachel Greenberg
Practice Interviews
Assessment Method
Possible changes
• Students may schedule a one-hour practice
interview session with our professional career
advising staff at any time during the year or with a
Peer Advisor during the school year.
• At the conclusion of a practice interview, the
career advisor or Peer Advisor offers the student
insights and suggestions on improving their
interview skills.
What’s a rubric?
“A rubric is a scoring tool used to evaluate student
performance or work. It is … particularly … useful
at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Rubrics
include descriptions of what something looks like at
different levels of mastery, and thus provides
consistency between different raters.” (BC Student
Affairs Assessment Handbook, p. 18)
Each student’s rubric results are entered into
StudentVoice. We will look for patterns – areas of
weakness or strength beyond what one would
expect. These patterns could indicate the need for
any of the following possible changes:
• Changes to interview workshops and/or practice
interviews – emphasis on areas of weakness as
identified through Practice Interview rubric.
• Changes to the language of the rubric itself,
based on feedback from counseling staff and
Peer Advisors.
• Further training for counseling staff and Peer
Advisors on use of rubric, to standardize scoring
and to enhance our ability to use the rubric as a
teaching tool.
• Expanding the interview preparation services we
provide (e.g. online interview workshops).
How do we use the rubric?
At the end of a practice interview, the counselor or
Peer Advisor employs the rubric as a teaching tool,
reviewing each section of the rubric and helping the
student identify areas of competency as well as
potential areas for improvement.
Learning Outcomes
The key learning outcome is that students will
understand their interview strengths, know the skills
that need improvement, and understand how to
improve those skills.
The rubric provides a concise description of the
skills that students will need to attain the learning
outcome.
BC Career Center – Practice Interview Summary
Verbal
communication
skills
Listening skills
•
•
•
•
•
Spoke clearly and articulately in a positive manner
Demonstrated confidence in knowledge
Used professional language
Controlled verbal fillers such as ''um', uh, like"
Used tone of voice that reflected enthusiasm
•
•
Answers reflected an understanding of the question asked
Responses to questions were:
o Direct: specifically addressed the question asked
o Concise: focused on the question asked
•
Appeared engaged, poised, and composed:
o Body language conveyed appropriate level of eagerness to respond
o Sat in an upright manner; seemed natural and at ease
o Appropriate and consistent eye contact
o Gestures were appropriate
•
Connected background and skill sets, including transferable skills, to
position/industry
Articulated the value of previous experiences through concrete examples, such as:
o Academics (classwork), and/or
o Work / Internships / Practicums, and/or
o Volunteer service, and/or
o Extra-curricular activities
Non-verbal
communication
Ability to
communicate
value of prior
experience
•
•
•
Preparation
and interest
•
•
Comments
(optional)
Demonstrated an understanding of and interest in the position/ company/ industry
Was prepared for the interview (through research, appropriate attire, understanding
types of interview questions)
Reaffirmed interest in the position and reviewed fit between strengths and the
position
Asked thoughtful and relevant questions of the interviewer
Occasionally
Often
Consistently
(unclear on the
concept or concept
not applied routinely)
(understood the
concept, but did not
always apply it)
(understood the concept
and regularly applied it)
Creating and Testing the Rubric
Inter-Rater Reliability
Lesson Learned
We started with a rubric developed by the career
center at the University of Michigan and made
significant changes to make the rubric more
accessible and easier to use:
1. We replaced the usual rubric structure of
placing text in each column with one list of
behavioral indicators for each skill area.
2. Because we were not filling each text box in
each column, we actually had room to add
more behavioral indicators for each skill area.
3. We reduced the skill areas from 5 to 6.
4. We replaced the commonly used categories of
Beginner, Developing, Accomplished, and
Advanced with Occasionally, Often, and
Consistently, and we defined these words.
All Career Center counselors and Peer Advisors
viewed a taped student practice interview, and
rated the student on all criteria. The wide range of
counselor responses to certain questions helped
us identify and eliminate ambiguous wording AND
reaffirmed that there is a subjective element in
reviewing interviews.
Listen to the people who will use your
assessment instrument.
The career counseling staff and Peer Advisors
assisted the committee in defining our learning
outcomes; pointed out ambiguous wording; and,
through the practice session with the taped
interview, helped us identify obstacles to inter-rater
reliability.
Evidence of Student Learning
Using a rubric to quantitatively measure progress
toward our learning outcomes was not practical or
necessary. However, we do use our rubric as a
teaching tool, to add a learning element
summarizing a student’s practice interview.
BC
STUDENT
AFFAIRS