Let's pretend for a
minute that you are back in high school. You are excited about
your interview today for your summer job. You clean up your act
a little and go to the employer's place of business. The manager
greets you and tells you to make yourself at home in an office
in the back. The office is equipped with just a desk, a chair
and a computer. A voice from the computer says "Hello, come
on in."
Without warning, your interview has changed from a perceived one
with a person at the office, to a real one with a video camera.
This has already happened at the coast, and it will happen more
as the technology catches on.
Mary Merrill, the director of the cooperative work experience
program with Clatsop Community College, has worked hard to ensure
that our area students can take this kind of interview, called
a "Virtual Interview," in stride.
Mary and Cynthi Risan, former North Coast Eduction Consortium
representative, obtained $1,500 from a Workforce Quality Committee,
School to Work Grant to purchase over a dozen video cameras and
computer software. With the help of on-site volunteers at each
location, the equipment is now installed at Clatsop Community
College, Tongue Point Job Corps, the Community Information Center
in Astoria and the high schools in Jewell, Knappa, Astoria, Warrenton,
Seaside and Tillamook. The hub for the system is the Columbia
Technology Center in St. Helens.
Last month, the first students at Tongue Point Job Corps got to
use the technology, consisting of a video camera mounted atop
each computer monitor and some installed software, for their first
crack at the system. With the help of vocational accounting instructor,
Greg Simons student Dameon Kirchhefer was required to provide
a resume and a complete job description for an actual employment
opportunity. Mary Merrill then researched Dameon's selected company/target
job as a desktop technician for a Portland-based Fortune 500 company
and then posed as the interviewer. She asked questions of Dameon
that he might hear as part of a real interview, and observed his
performance.
While video or virtual interviews will never take the place of
a face-to-face encounter, one aspect of this technology is head
and shoulders above the next choice, which might be a telephone
interview. With a virtual interview, not only does the interviewer
get to observe the appearance and body language of the applicant,
they may also subject the applicant to some real-life problems
via software. If Mary wanted to confirm Dameon's ability to read
or update a spreadsheet on his company's performance, she needs
only to click on the "sharing"option of her computer
software to enable Dameon to utilize the software and spreadsheet
to demonstrate his talents. Another use for the sharing portion
of the software would be in brainstorming sessions for creative
input to a larger company's marketing plan. This software enables
art directors in one location to make changes to artwork on the
spot, while observing the facial expressions and reactions of
her audience on the other end of the video system: No longer is
there a need to revise comprehensive artwork and mail out samples
prior to developing art boards for printing. As they say, a picture
is worth a thousand words.
Other uses for the technology, just keeping within our Job Corps
example above, are to provide the students with school-to-work
experience for college credits, to enable the Job Corps students
to participate in an annual business competition coordinated with
area high schools called "Business Leaders of Tomorrow"
(See related story on page 10.), to correspond with other Job
Corps students from around the nation and work on coop projects,
to enable students and Job Corps placement officers at the center
where the student is enrolled to communicate visually with regional
placement officers where the student will go after leaving Tongue
Point, and to enable students to have actual interviews with real
potential employers, rather than the current system of an instructor/staffer
having to drive a student to each interview.
Business professionals may get involved with the program in a
number of ways: You may volunteer to pose as a potential employer,
giving the students good practice, and you may access the equipment
to conduct long-distance interviews of your own, to name just
two. As stated by Mary Merrill, "There is no need to reinvent
the wheel. We have the technology already in place. They should
access the technology where it is located already." LCB
Clatsop Community College
Contact: Mary Merrill, director of cooperative work experience
Address: 1653 Jerome Avenue
Astoria, Oregon 97103
Telephone: 503/325-0910-
Fax: 503/325-5738
e-mail: mmerrill@clatsop.cc.or.us
Hours: By Appointment
Back to June LCBO Home Page
Back to LCB ONline Home Page