Using videoconferencing technology for enhancing students’ job interview techniques

The video-conferencing session is one of the units of a recently designed third-year English elective course, “English Skills for Employment” run by the English Language and Education Assessment Centre (ELEAC) at our University. The course aims to provide students with practical English skills for their future workplace. Mock job interviews are often arranged by a university Student Services Centre or English Learning Centre to help final-year undergraduates prepare for job interviews. The role of an interviewer is often played by members of the university’s teaching or administrative staff. The students who participate in these mock job interviews do not normally share their learning experience with fellow students since these interviews are often conducted behind closed doors and on a one-to-one basis. In order to make the learning process more authentic and accessible to other students, a collaborative initiative between a local consultancy company and our Teaching and Learning Centre has been established. Some students from ELEAC are able to participate in a ‘live’ job interview with senior staff members of a company via video-conferencing while other students can observe the process and participate in a feedback session after the interview. A follow-up survey was conducted after the video-conferencing session and students were asked to rate the effectiveness of the session in terms of enhancing their job interview techniques. The feedback was generally very positive. In this paper, the detailed procedure and learning outcomes of the video-conferencing session would be discussed in farther detail.