I was wondering what you are supposed to bring to interviews. I have a portfolio and I was wondering if I should bring it or not.
Last edited:
Interviews
- Thread starter sayruhlou
- Start date
I actually asked that specific question to the admission director at SCO. I had to compile a portfolio similar to yours for a class this semester, so I asked him if it would be helpful for me to bring my portfolio to the interview. He told me that he didn't see a reason to bring it, so I took that as him saying it was inappropriate. My undergrad school advised me to only take a nice folder with a few pages inside that had a list of questions to ask my interviewers after they finish asking me questions. The others who were interviewing at the same time did not bring anything. Hopefully this helps!
I only bought the letter of invitation for my interview, I doubt your interviewer will have time to go through the portfolio. Usually your interviewer will have a list of questions to go through and make notes based on your response in a limited time, I'd prepare those questions and do your best to answer them.
interview feedback/questions: http://www.studentdoctor.net/schools/?view=optometry
interview feedback/questions: http://www.studentdoctor.net/schools/?view=optometry
I didn't bring any of that stuff. I had a portfolio with just some questions/talking points and reading material. I honesty did not open that portfolio once during the whole interview day.
Remember that you might be interviewing with 30 other students that same day. The interviewers may not have time to accommodate your stack of paperwork when they have other students to get through
Remember that you might be interviewing with 30 other students that same day. The interviewers may not have time to accommodate your stack of paperwork when they have other students to get through
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2010
- Messages
- 597
- Reaction score
- 234
The point of an interview is for the interviewer to find out about you directly, not to look at indirect sources about you, such as paper records. So unless they've specified otherwise, the interviewer won't want to see anything except you yourself.
It's also likely that the interviewer will be operating under certain restrictions (eg on equalities issues) and with set goals (ie how well do you meet the specified essential/desirable criteria), which seeing extraneous paper records might intefere with.
Finally, you want as little as possible to get in the way of putting yourself in the best place to interact with your interviewer. You need to know where and when you have to turn up and who you have to see. Beyond that, it's best to remove as many distractions, such as having uncomfortable shoes or hauling around a lot of documents, as you can.
It's also likely that the interviewer will be operating under certain restrictions (eg on equalities issues) and with set goals (ie how well do you meet the specified essential/desirable criteria), which seeing extraneous paper records might intefere with.
Finally, you want as little as possible to get in the way of putting yourself in the best place to interact with your interviewer. You need to know where and when you have to turn up and who you have to see. Beyond that, it's best to remove as many distractions, such as having uncomfortable shoes or hauling around a lot of documents, as you can.
I would say that it is definitely inappropriate. They already know all of that information about you, which is why you were offered an interview. The whole point of a closed-file interview is to determine what your personality and people skills are like apart from your portfolio. The interviewer in a closed-file interview knows nothing about you, which is the way it is intended to be so that they can judge these skills objectively. All of the schools I interviewed at were closed-file.
This is really interesting. My advisor at school recently suggested that I put together a CV, especially for the interviews. So no one on here would agree with this? I haven't gotten so far as to looking up which of my schools do closed versus open filed interviews yet.
