BY KENDRA DICKINSON, Ellen Hill, Lauren Evans, & Patricia Ratcliff

Whether you want to go to graduate school or to get a job, an interview is almost certainly going to be part of the process. An interview is an opportunity to present yourself in the best possible light and show why you will be an asset to the school or business. Preparation will help ease your nerves and will show the employer or program that you are qualified for the position. Here are some steps that you can take to prepare for your interview:

1) Examine the job description

Knowing exactly what employers are looking for can help you think of the kinds of questions that may be asked during the interview, and help you to frame your skills within the context of the position.

2) Consider why you are interviewing and your qualifications for the position

Knowing what you want the job and how your skills match the requirements will prepare your to explain to future employers why you are a good fit for the position.

3) Research the company and the position

Knowing more about the company you are applying to work for will not only help put you at ease during the interview, but it will allow you to anticipate the kinds of questions that the interviewer may ask, and prepare your own thoughtful questions to ask about the company.

4) Review and practice common interview questions

• Read through a list of common interview questions.Don’t memorize your answers but do have a plan for how to answer them.
• Practice answering out loud with a friend or family member. Ask a teacher or guidance counselor if they know of any resources or would be willing to do a mock interview with you. Many colleges have career offices where trained professionals can help you practice for an interview and provide helpful feedback.

5) Prepare thoughtful questions for the interviewers

Many interviewers will ask interviewees if they have any questions about the company or the position. Preparing thoughtful question ahead of time and asking them during the interview will not only help you get even more information about the position and the company, but will also show future employers that you have researched the company and are invested succeeding.

6) Consider what to wear to your interview

What you wear to your interview can depend on the industry and the type of position you are applying for. For many positions, business casual attire is appropriate, but for some positions you may need to wear formal business attire.

• For helpful hints about what to where to you interview: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/what-to-wear-to-an-interview
• Ohio State offers a Career Closet throughout the year where students can browse through donated clothes, shoes, handbags, belts, and ties to find professional attire for free.
• Many thrift stores [Goodwill, Plato’s Closet, Salvation Army] offer gently used business apparel for a relatively inexpensive price

7) Print copies of your resume

In this day and age, most employers will ask for digital copies of your resume. Still, it is a good idea to have a few hard copies on hand to show that you are prepared and organized, and so that your resume is on hand during the interview.

8) Prepare your travel arrangements

In order to avoid stress before arriving at your interview, considering what method of transportation you are going to use, how long it will take, and if there is anything that could potentially cause you to be late. Be sure to look up the location in advance, plan how you are going to get there, and make sure to leave early in case of any unforeseen circumstances.

9) Sell yourself!

For many people, selling themselves can be a challenge. However, remember that the goal of the interview is for you to highlight your skills to future employers! To prepare for the interview, make note of particular skills and achievements that relate to the position you are applying for, and mention them in the interview. It is important that you accurately and positively highlight your past experiences, skills and achievements! You got this!

For more tips on preparing for your interview:

“How to Prepare for an Interview”

“100 Top Interview Questions”

“How to Sell Yourself During a Job Interview”

The first Latinx Role Model event of 2020 took place on January 31, when students were visited by medical interpreter Darsy Amaya, whom many involved with IMPACT already knew from her video interviews about the interpreting profession. This series can be found in the “Interpetting Profession” section of the IMPACT site’s resources page. In person, she shared even more about her history interpreting for her community and what life is like being a professional interpreter. She is very conscious of the value her services bring to members of her community, like kids at Nationwide here in Columbus and their families.

Darsy continues to be a valuable collaborator of IMPACT as well. She returned to Westland High School one evening the week following her presentation to talk to new students interested in joining the IMPACT Program!

Two weeks later on Valentine’s Day, Jessica Cáceres of the Ohio EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, visited Westland HS shared her love for her career in environmental science. Her message to students was to find what it is in life that you love to do most, then find or build a career in it. She brought snacks and successfully encouraged active participation from students. This was her first presentation of this nature, and she could not have done a better job!

This quote from a 2017 ¡Dímelo Columbus! interview with Cáceres explains what she means by letting what you enjoy most become your career. “I was interested in environmental science as a child – I was always playing outside. My mom recently sent me a photo of me picking up worms… So I think I’ve always had that interest in being in the outdoors and college helped me focus it through sustainability and eventually to environmental science.” That full interview with our very interesting visitor is available here.

Our third visitor for Spring 2020, Denise Arizpe, presented on March 3rd. She was not expected to be the final Latinx RM of the semester, however it was during that week that Ohio’s response to COVID-19 began. (Read about how IMPACT has dealt with the outbreak here.) Coincidentally, these times have a direct relationship to the importance of Denise Arizpe’s line of work as a Wexner Medical Center social worker with a background in mental healthcare. She shared with students how she came to this profession. In her current practice at Ohio State’s General Internal Medicine Clinic, she specializes in treating depression, anxiety, and adjustment during life transitions. In her work she has encountered a variety of patients including a wide range of ages and the LGBT+ community.

The variety of backgrounds and experiences which our Spring 2020 presenters brought to share with students represents the main purpose of the Latinx Role Model event series, to expose young Latinx students to the vast array of opportunities in the field of health and to give successful Latinxs in the Columbus area a platform to inspire.

From participating in the Ohio Latino Health Summit to other field trips and special visitors, IMPACT students had a busy fall semester! Here is a recap of the Latinx Role Model events that gave students opportunities to learn about a wide variety of careers:

On October 3, Cohorts 3 and 4 took a field trip to labs at Davis Heart & Lung Research Institute and Nanotech West coordinated with Dr. Daniel Gallego Perez. Students received facility tours and overviews and demos of the various lab work done in these locations.

Davis Heart & Lung Research Institute

On October 17, trilingual scientist and educator Carla Mello came to Westland High School to tell students about her life and career as well as transitions from her home country of Brazil, to Chile where she lived for six years, to finally the United States. You can read more about her visit in our last blog post!

On November 4, students were visited by Paloma Peña, Director of Quality and Customer Experience at Martti, a tele-interpreting network which provides healthcare facilities with “ready access to interpreters on any device, anywhere and anytime.” Ms. Peña spoke to students about her life and work with medical interpreting via distance conferencing computers.

On November 21, students welcomed the final Latinx Role Model of 2019, licensed professional counselor Ana Berríos-Allison. You can find an episode of the podcast, Ohio Habla, which features Ana Berríos-Allison discussing Latinx mental health here.

On October 17th, IMPACT students received a very engaging and unique trilingual presentation from scientist and educator Carla Mello. Carla recently changed jobs from her position as a Youth Career Exploration Specialist at COSI to her current role with Ohio History Connection as manager of the Ohio as America curriculum.

Carla focused her presentation on her the trajectory of her life and career as well as transitions from her home country of Brazil, to Chile where she lived for six years, to finally the U.S. Her presentation’s visual components representing these periods were organized by the language associated with each place. Slides on Brazil had text in Portuguese (though she presented this portion in English) while those on Chile had Spanish text (which were presented in Spanish also) and those pertaining to the U.S. had English text (presented once again in English).

Carla shared about her professional  experience, starting with her degrees in Biology and Education which helped her navigate through a variety of career fields, from molecular biology research to public health, before discovering her true passion for working in informal education environments, particularly museums. She answered students’ questions about the financing of her pursuits and how the process of immigration factored into all of it. She interacted with students in both Spanish and English. Our students were also very interested to hear about the 14 other countries which Carla has traveled to in her life!

IMPACT greatly appreciates Carla’s ability to get our students engaged and thinking about their futures by sharing her story with them.

The annual Ohio Latino Health Summit was hosted at the OSU Fawcett Center on October 8th this year in partnership with the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission, the Ohio Commission on Minority Health, and LULAC. The 2019 summit theme was “From Cultural Competency to Cultural Humility.” This theme was represented in presentations such as “Congregational Partnerships for Latino Health,” “Trauma Informed Principles through a Culturally Specific Lens,” a keynote speech from Lisa Stewart, Senior Engagement Officer with the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and more.

IMPACT’s own Laura Ornelas (red sweater) and Anais Fernandez  gave accounts of their experience in our program during the first session of the portion of the summit focused on building capacity in the medical fields for care of multilingual, multicultural patients through education.

Laura Ornelas sharing her IMPACT experience during “Medical Spanish Across the Pipeline”

Cohorts 3 and 4 attended the summit as a field trip. IMPACT’s founder, Dr. Glenn Martinez, was a key coordinator of the Latino Health Summit and moderator of several sessions including that in which the IMPACT Program was showcased as an example of capacity building.

We would like to extend thanks to Dr. Martinez, as well as Lair Marin-Marcum of OCHLA and all others involved in the planning of the 2019 Ohio Latino Health Summit. 

In order to help you accomplish one of IMPACT’s main goals, becoming certified as a medical interpreter, you’ll want to spend time with this great resource! The NBCMI has an online practice test meant for familiarizing candidates with the oral exam component of getting certified. To take the practice test, make sure you are using a PC computer. Go to the testing site: http://hosted.owlts.com/ and log in using the username practicetest and password practicetest

Also, it will be helpful to take a look at this fragment of the NBCMI Candidate Hadbook, all about how to prepare for your certification exams! NBCMI- candidate handbook, preparing for the exam

Best of luck! & Feel free to email evans.2127@osu.edu with feedback on wether you find these resources useful.

On February 5th, students received a visit from Zobeida Cruz-Monserrate, Ph.D, who works in the Department of Internal Medicine at The James. She also holds an Assistant Professor position with OSU, and is the Director of the GHN Molecular and Cellular Biology Program and Laboratory at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.  Dr. Cruz-Monserrate’s main message to the students was to seek opportunities to follow their passions. She encouraged them to consider all the different paths to do so, like continued education (med school vs. grad school) and the wide range of fellowships and grants to apply for to fund their passions.

We greatly appreciate Dr. Cruz-Monserrate taking time from her very important work and research to share her career advice and expertisse with the class.