Mock7.JPG

For many, job interviews can be intimidating. It’s all about that first handshake, presentation of appropriate attire and leaving a lasting impression — and it can be nerve-racking. Thanks to partnership between Your Standout Brand and the University of Texas at Tyler Soules College of Business (SCOB), both high school and college students can learn how to enter the workforce with confidence.

Mock team interviews

Since 2009, SCOB has been offering its upper division students a class specifically focused on teaching and preparing students for a full range of professional activities: interviewing, networking and navigating a successful career upon graduation.

Leading this effort is nationally recognized professional branding author, lecturer and keynote speaker Gail Johnson.

“According to our economic development leaders,” Johnson said, “the East Texas community is growing, the economy is strong, and the Gen Z population is poised to transition into the slots that will be vacated by the baby boomers. However, the question remains, are they career ready? And what are educators and the business community doing to prepare these young professionals for the demands of the East Texas job market?”

She guides students through a four-step branding process called Your Standout Brand. This helps students communicate their value to potential employers by considering their skills, experience and education. They learn to create an engaging introduction to improve their networking skills and to answer interview questions effectively.

Johnson, who is also an adjunct professor at UT Tyler, observed as the course progressed that student learning is improved by practical experiences. Therefore, in 2011, the course introduced mock team interviews to facilitate UT Tyler students’ networking and interviewing with established business professionals.

The course has also reached students throughout high schools in East Texas, and they receive the same teachings as college students.

“So we have the college students with their teams, and now we have the high schoolers, and they go through the same thing,” Johnson said. “They learn to network, they get dressed up (and get) ready for an interview. They’ve got their resumes. They’ve practiced communicating their brand. We’ve worked with them and they love it.”

This event is now held three times a year – once in the spring, once in the fall, and a summer mini session.

The most recent mock team interviews in April hosted nearly 40 business professionals from the East Texas and Dallas-Fort Worth areas working with students to sharpen both their networking and interviewing skills.

“This is the combination of building and managing your career into a successful one,” said Krist Swimberghe, Dean of Soules College of Business. “It ultimately prepares students to go for that all-important interview as they graduate and prepare for the next phase of their life. Oftentimes we hear students get all of the class preparation, theoretical preparation … but they are not prepared to really communicate their value to employers.”

With many of the younger generations depending on social media platforms to communicate and network, even for jobs, the handshakes and proper greetings have become a lost art. By providing classes and mock interviews, students can see what skills they have to offer, what skills need to be polished and how they can be of value to employers.

“It’s all about needing to do a better job preparing the next leaders,” Swimberghe said. “(We) need to do a better job preparing them to communicate properly, communicate a message. It’s about those soft skills … and oftentimes, I think we forget about that. We take these things for granted because a lot of us as professors and teachers, our previous generation didn’t grow up with technology like these kids have, and we fail to recognize that there really is an effort that has to be made in order to enhance and put their communication skills to the test.”

More than 200 students – both from area high schools and Soules College undergraduates – participated in the Mock Team Interviews at UT Tyler.

“I will say that the growth of this group has changed as it has grown significantly, the level of involvement from the businesses has increased,” said Chris Cox of SAM, Surveying And Mapping, headquartered in Austin. “A number of the high schools also were involved in this and some of these students are the brightest, and their involvement … is a reflection of leadership from their schools.”

SCOB undergraduates are management, marketing and finance juniors and seniors.

“I feel like it’s very important, especially for people looking to get into a career,” said Anthony Lafollette, a student at UT Tyler majoring in business management.

Lafollette is looking to get into project management with a construction company and recognizes the benefits of networking and preparing for the workforce.

“There’s a lot of managers, company owners, CEOs here,” he said. “And they’re interviewing us, helping us get more comfortable with the process.”

Although she’s just a sophomore at Crandall High School, Genesis Young is prepared for networking.

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” she said. “And it’s just … inspiring to know that people like me became these big CEOs and managers. They’re all just like us in their own way but they … build up the knowledge for the places that they work.”

Students in Career and Technology High Schools came from Tyler ISD, Whitehouse ISD, Chapel Hill ISD, Kilgore ISD, Henderson ISD, Brownsboro ISD, Winona ISD, Lindale ISD, and Crandall ISD.

Business seminar

Inspired by a Tyler Morning Telegraph article on Tyler’s growing economy vs. the workforce, Johnson reached out to several businesses and school districts about putting together a seminar.

“It was apparent that businesses were not aware of the work that educators were doing to prepare students to be ‘success ready,’” Johnson said.

After contacting Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce President Henry Bell, Johnson suggested a panel discussion to educate and encourage local businesses to engage more actively with students looking for internships, part-time or full-time opportunities. As a result, Your Standout Brand and SCOB organized a seminar for the local businesses, which was held on May 1 at the chamber.

The discussion included how Generation Z (those born between 1996 and 2010) is the largest generation and coming into the workforce and how businesses need to plan for them.

“The other largest generation is the boomers,” said Kelley Gerwig, co-principal of Your Standout Brand and moderator of the seminar. “They’re aging out of the workforce and then the Gen Zs are coming into the workforce and in addition to them taking the jobs that are as people migrate forward in the next level of their role, boomers retire, then the next generation takes their roles.”

Generation Z is the first cohort to have grown up entirely in the digital age. They have never experienced a world without the internet dominating every aspect of their lives. Their reliance on the latest technology sets them apart from older generations, including millennials.

“Gen Z has some differences that we have to pay attention to as a workforce to be able to tap into the fullness of that generation,” Gerwig said. “Sadly, a lot of people talk about … social media, how there’s all these negatives and we’re here to say … that there’s many, many more positives. It’s definitely worth tapping into.”

According to Johnson, Hood Packaging, Southside Bank and Heartland Securities represented businesses that have been actively engaged with the education community to prepare students for the workforce.

“Those activities included providing internships, part-time jobs, and engaging students on campus where they assisted instructors,” she added. “They also participated in networking events such as career fairs and mock team interviews.

Several panelists from Tyler and Longview economic development corporations, the East Texas Workforce Commission, Career and Technology initiatives from Whitehouse ISD and Tyler ISD, and SCOB detailed to attendees how they have all been working determinedly with businesses to engage and prepare that workforce.

“The opportunity for the businesses to integrate into the educational community as early as possible is important,” Gerwig said. “I want the community to understand that there’s opportunities here on all sides of this conversation to plug in and be a part of the solution.”

The organizers hope the seminar will help businesses understand recruiting goes beyond just job posting on LinkedIn or Indeed in hopes someone will apply.

“It’s … about engaging more purposefully with the educational community and going out there and being present in these schools so that a student who is contemplating a career path can hear directly from someone in that industry,” Gerwig said.

“I was very pleased with both events,” Johnson said. “The Mock Team Interviews were the most well attended and the feedback from the business professionals in attendance was overwhelmingly positive.”

For more information and tools from Your Standout Brand, visit www.yourstandoutbrand.com/.