Interac Interview: Dallas, TX: October 26, 2013

As my Dallas Interac interview date was approaching, the company sent information that was very informative and helpful in preparing for the interview. We were told to prepare a demo lesson that would also be recorded and sent to the office in Japan to be evaluated. At first I had no idea what my demo lesson would be like! I don’t have professional teaching background and had no idea where to start on preparing a lesson for children. Thankfully, the company is very helpful and practically included a demo lesson in the care package of information. At first I was hesitant in the lesson contemplating, am I suppose to do this exact lesson or am I suppose to be a personal version of it. There were three different lessons to choose from and after some research it seems like the company just wants you to do an exact replica of the lesson provided. Well, that made it easy for me! Since I want to teach mainly elementary school level, I went with the simplest lesson about a food shopping dialogue between two friends. I just switched up the friends’ names and the items they were buying at the store. Along with a demo lesson, I also had to prepare a short self introduction monologue. After getting everything together, it was just not practicing to fit everything into 7 minutes. We had tips that suggested going too under or over time was not good so it was crucial to practice your interview. Along with the self introduction and demo lesson, we also had to read a paragraph about the company, to test our enunciation of words and projection of voice, as well as a warm up activity for kids.

On my interview weekend, I ended up taking the Mega Bus up to Dallas and having my sister Catherine pick me up. I went up the night before the interview to spend some time with her and also just be in the city instead of having to leave Houston like at 4am to get to an 8:30am interview time. The night was relaxed as I practiced my interview in my mind over and over. 

The morning came and the first strange thing was having to wear business professional clothes! That may sound silly but I’ve always had jobs where I basically wear the clothes I wear on a daily basis. I’ve never had a position where I had to wear a full pant suit until this interview! My sister laughed at my in my outfit and I even laughed at myself thinking “gosh I look so mature.” Catherine dropped me off at the hotel in which the interview would take place, wished me luck and I was on my way. 

When getting inside, it was easy to see where the other interviewees were. We all had big poster boards and all dressed up on a Saturday morning. When sitting with the group, I asked around where people were from and their current occupation. Nearly everyone was from different parts of Texas and occupations ranged from teachers to students. Everyone looked about the same age, perhaps a mix between 22 and 26. Oddly enough I felt like I was in the older section of the group. 

The first part of our interview was easy. We were greeted by a man who worked in the corporate part of the company. He introduced himself and told us he had actually worked for the company for over 5 years. He first started as an ALT and then was asked to be part of the corporate team in California. After his self introduction, we went over a presentation on the company, the policies, benefits, living situation etc. Through out the interview, he made it seem like we all already got the position. I already had an inkling of this because in my research, I had found a blogger that was exactly in my position two years ago. She wrote in great detail about her interview process giving tips on the demo lesson as well as the whole feel of the interview process describing it as “you already got the job.” So as I sat through the interview, I thought more and more, yes it does seem like we all each got these positions already. Which was really great because it wasn’t a competition any more. The competing part was over, now we were just trying to get everyone to the finish line. 

After the informational part came the video recorded demo lessons. I immediately wanted to go first to get it over with but was beat by one other interviewee. No worries, I just let my nerves settle a bit. Even though I had done theatre through out high school, I hadn’t done anything in front of people in years but figured, what the heck just be as energetic as possible and just do it! And just did it I did! After my demo lesson, everyone commended me on my performance and delivery. That definitely felt good. Even the man questioned my teaching history in our personal one-on-one section of the interview. He told me I did really well and I “was born to be a teacher.” That comment was for sure a solid one making me feel extra good about the interview. 

After the demo lesson and personal interview, we were told we could go and would hear back something within  a couple weeks. So back to the waiting game. I felt really good about my interview though, and was confident I did my best. Now it was all up to fate (or God lol)!