Kaplan Interview

[twoinone]

For those of you who are teaching for Kaplan, can you please share what they asked you at the interview following the audition? Thanks!

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[xcrunner01]

Hey, don't stress about it too much. My interviewer had a sheet with about 10 questions on it with space to take notes...it could have just been the interview form for this particular Kaplan center, but it looked pretty professional, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the national "Kaplan interview questions" sheet or something, so you'll probably get these same questions.

Anyways, they asked stuff like:
Why do you think you'll be a good teacher? What are your strengths and weaknesses as a teacher? (I said that my strength was that I took the Kaplan class and have a lot of teaching and tutoring experiences. I said a weakness would be prepping for verbal classes- it must be hard to go through each question individually to rule out exactly WHY each answer is wrong so that you can answer any of the students' questions about wrong answers.) Have you tutored or taught before?

They also did a few "what if" questions with me, like what if you have a student who's really struggling and whose full-length scores are going down- what do you do? I said to first remind them that above all they need to study the material tested on the MCAT, and then after they've grasped the concepts they need to work on practicing passages/etc. I also said to try to go over old full-lengths to identify if there are certain problem areas that need work.

They also want to hear that you're interested in teaching for them long-term....they don't want to train someone only to have them leave in 6 months. If you are leaving to go to med. school, just mention that you're considering teaching a class on Sundays or during the summer while in med school, etc.

Really, it was a very laid back interview. Just talk about your experiences, and if you've taken the Kaplan class, that's a plus since you're already familiar with the material. Seriously, if you've got good test scores and are comfortable talking in front of people, I think you're golden.

 

[aloepathic]

For me the followup interview seemed like largely a formality. They offered me the job immediately upon finishing without conferring or anything, so I figured they must have pretty much made up their minds beforehand. Either way, don't sweat it too much.

 

[aznb0y129]

I'm glad someone started a thread about this because I had a couple questions. I had my audition about a month ago and I basically received great reviews from everyone. After a couple scheduling mix-ups, I had my follow-up interview 2 weeks ago. I had the same impression that it was essentially a formality and the guy told me he would get in touch with me to let me know about training dates, but I haven't heard from him since.

Also, when I call or email, I don't receive a response, which leads me to believe that I haven't been selected or something. Any ideas why this might be happening?

 

[oneandonlylo]

Depends on the center you're interviewing at... not all of them seem to be that organized. That said, interview was definitely laid back. Thus far working for them has been pretty good as well (though there's a lot of paperwork and training to complete b/c the company is a part of the Washington Post). I started teaching my first MCAT class this past Sunday. I'd say it's worth it.

If you're still interested, follow up.

 

[aznb0y129]

Yeah, I'm telling myself that they're just disorganized because it took them a while to schedule my interview in the first place, but my previous experience with job interviews leads me to believe that this can't be a good sign.

Anyone else had this type of experience after their Kaplan interview?

 

[PandaBrewMaster]

There was about 3 weeks between my interview at kaplan and when they called me to schedule training dates. I think the lag time is just so that they get enough people to organize a training, and then they have to plan everything out around people's schedules. If you haven't heard back yet don't sweat it. I guess you can try calling them to see.

I start training this friday and I'm pretty excited!

 

[beachblonde]

The centers will only do trainings a few times a year at most, so they might be waiting to set up dates before they contact you. Calling the center to express your continued interest can't hurt, though.

Dude, I don't even remember my Kaplan interview. I faintly recall answering some questions, but clearly it wasn't 1) very stressful or 2) very important in the scheme of things. Performing well during the training and teach-backs is way more important in actually getting hired for a class.

 

[aznb0y129]

Thanks to PandaBrewMaster and beachblonde. Those sound like reasonable explanations to me and hopefully I'm still in the running because I really would like to start teaching soon.

 

[xcrunner01]

yeah, our Kaplan center is super unorganized/slow when it comes to hiring new teachers. It usually takes at least a few weeks to start training after the actual interview date.

 

[twoinone]

Hey, don't stress about it too much. My interviewer had a sheet with about 10 questions on it with space to take notes...it could have just been the interview form for this particular Kaplan center, but it looked pretty professional, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the national "Kaplan interview questions" sheet or something, so you'll probably get these same questions.

Anyways, they asked stuff like:
Why do you think you'll be a good teacher? What are your strengths and weaknesses as a teacher? (I said that my strength was that I took the Kaplan class and have a lot of teaching and tutoring experiences. I said a weakness would be prepping for verbal classes- it must be hard to go through each question individually to rule out exactly WHY each answer is wrong so that you can answer any of the students' questions about wrong answers.) Have you tutored or taught before?

They also did a few "what if" questions with me, like what if you have a student who's really struggling and whose full-length scores are going down- what do you do? I said to first remind them that above all they need to study the material tested on the MCAT, and then after they've grasped the concepts they need to work on practicing passages/etc. I also said to try to go over old full-lengths to identify if there are certain problem areas that need work.

They also want to hear that you're interested in teaching for them long-term....they don't want to train someone only to have them leave in 6 months. If you are leaving to go to med. school, just mention that you're considering teaching a class on Sundays or during the summer while in med school, etc.

Really, it was a very laid back interview. Just talk about your experiences, and if you've taken the Kaplan class, that's a plus since you're already familiar with the material. Seriously, if you've got good test scores and are comfortable talking in front of people, I think you're golden.

Thanks a lot for the info!

Thanks to PandaBrewMaster and beachblonde. Those sound like reasonable explanations to me and hopefully I'm still in the running because I really would like to start teaching soon.

Like the others have said, definitely call. After the audition, I got an email saying that I had passed and that they will be calling me to schedule the interview. But they never called and I had to call to schedule my interview.

 

[TexasPhysician]

My interview = 1 question

"Can you start this weekend?"

I think they really needed people!