RF senior exit interviews give students first interview experience

By Andrew Harrington
Posted 1/22/25

RIVER FALLS — Between managing the nerves and knowing how to conduct yourself, the first job interview people face can often be a challenge. The River Falls High School’s exit interview …

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RF senior exit interviews give students first interview experience

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RIVER FALLS — Between managing the nerves and knowing how to conduct yourself, the first job interview people face can often be a challenge. The River Falls High School’s exit interview system helps attack this challenge head on by giving seniors their first interview before a job is on the line and teaching the students interview skills.

Students are asked to come prepared to field a variety of questions, including presenting their portfolios to members of the River Falls and surrounding communities that were conducting the interviews.

RFHS College and Career Readiness Coordinator Melisa Hansen explained how the interview is beneficial to the students, but the process leading up to it also alters students’ perspectives.

“Academic career planning is both a process and a product,” Hansen said. “In the process side, we teach students to get to know themselves, get to know opportunities. In the explore side, the next phase of that would be to explore all opportunities… Then we put those first two steps together, and we look at thinking about oneself and then thinking about what the opportunities are and making a plan. Then, the last step is putting that plan into action.”

Through this plan, students are not only improving the likelihood of landing where they want to, but finding out more about themselves.

It is state mandated for the district to have an academic career plan. Within the mandate, there is a lot of flexibility for the district to take action in the way it feels is most effective. In the summer of 2021, the school board approved the portfolio and interviews as a graduation requirement.

“It doesn’t look the same in every school district,” Hansen said. “This is very personalized to River Falls.”

Each year since, the district has made small tweaks to perfect the process.

“When it’s required, it means that we truly have that level of emphasis and value placed on it,” Hansen said.

It’s not just the district or students who place value on the interviews, as the volunteer interviewers also see how much of a game changer they can be.

“For me, it’s just honestly learning about the kids and what they’ve gone through in the past four years to get to this point,” community member and interviewer David Hirstein said. “Everybody experiences school differently.”

Community member and interviewer Mandy Jeppesen wished the interview process was around years ago, as Jeppesen felt the future was much more up in the air than it is for the students who interviewed this year.

“Seeing how much school has changed for the better in prepping the higher grades and our upcoming graduates for either careers or continuing education has been really eye-opening and welcoming,” Jeppesen.

Jeppesen said the interviews are also massive for confidence.

“I think this is a huge confidence builder, because we don’t get to talk about ourselves a lot outside of social media,” Jeppesen said. “We get to showcase things that we have pride in. Our ability to set healthier boundaries in the future in the workplace and have more pride points in our work gets built here.”

These interviews do not just help the students. The school district sees what boxes are checked by the interviewers and which are not, and can use this information to evaluate which interview traits may need to be further instilled. The evaluated traits range from eye contact and posture to compassion and problem solving.

“One of the big things in the school district is character traits, and I think they start early on and hit on those character traits every single year,” Hirstein said. “Getting some of that [feedback from students] back will be able to help the school grow from it.”

Hansen emphasized the importance of the connection between the district and the community, as countless volunteers from around the area stepped in and conducted interviews for much of the morning Friday.

“It’s a bridge. You have your academic system and then you also have that community,” Hansen said. “This shows that bridge between the two, and it really, like I said, creates that woven fabric of River Falls and who we are.”

River Falls High School, exit interviews, job interviews, career readiness, career planning