Rinse & Reteach
Two students in a paired mock interview, one taking notes as interviewer while the other answers as candidate

Mock Interview Guide

A high school mock interview lesson where every student plays both interviewer and candidate — paired role-play, real research, and a reflection grounded in what actually happened.

At a Glance

Objective

  • Students will conduct a structured interview using prepared questions and at least one genuine follow-up question, in both the interviewer and candidate roles.
  • Students will research a real job, internship, or apprenticeship and summarize its title, description, and appeal in a written Role Snapshot.
  • Students will take active-listening notes on a partner's spoken responses during a live conversation.
  • Students will evaluate their own interview performance and identify one specific, evidence-based area of growth.
Topics Covered
interviewingcommunication
Subjects
CTAE (Career Technicial and Agricultural Education)Computer Science
Related Courses
Intro to Software TechComputer Science Principles
Type of Lesson
Group Activity

Related Unit(s)

Lesson Plan Notes Mock Interview Guide

Mock interviews can be fun, but they do prepare students for real interviews, which are a critical step in the job search process. Mock interviews will be taken as seriously by your students as you take them. If you simply state, “We’ll be doing fake interviews this week,” and don’t hype it up as a bigger event, your students won’t plan accordingly when the day comes. This lesson is broken into preparation and the actual interview.

Interview Prep

Before Interview Day, to get the most out of the activity, I encourage my students to:

  1. Practice their story and practice talking about themselves.
  2. Practice actively listening
  3. Research how to dress for success, considering the standards for their field, because each industry has different ideals for proper dress.
  4. Research the role and the company they are applying for.

Once each student researches a real job, internship, or apprenticeship, they build a one-page Role Snapshot — no invented or joke roles allowed.

The Actual Interview

On the day of the interview, students will take turns playing “the boss” and “the candidate” in two structured 15-minute mock interviews. Students will exchange snapshots so that when they play the boss, they’ll have a chance to properly act out their role. I provide questions, but also encourage impromptu, related conversation. Active listening is key to the success of the interview, and I highly encourage follow-up questions to gain a greater understanding. It’s more fun when students really lean into their roles.

Reflection

Finally, there is a reflection where students determine whether they would have hired the candidate when they played the role of boss, and when they were the candidate, they decide whether they think they should have been hired.

Where this goes next

This lesson completes the core Career Readiness lessons. But in the next lesson, we will look at the importance of thank-you letters post-interview and cover letters for outreach to potential employers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do students participate authentically in the interviews?
Yes, even though this is a mock interview, setting expectations and building hype beforehand help with engagement. For instance, encourage students to dress for success and really pretend, locking in on the role they are playing as an employer or a candidate. Give points (or candy) for teams who come up with their own unique questions
How do you handle students without any work experience?
Many students lack work experience in high school, and it will be important to guide them to speak about experiences where they've shown responsibility and reliability, such as household chores, academics, sports, or volunteering. Right now, school is their primary "job".
Is this only for computer science classes?
No — it's deliberately not CS-specific. The role each student researches can be any job, internship, or apprenticeship, which makes it a natural fit for school counseling mock-interview events, Advisory or homeroom career units, and general CTE Career Readiness courses, not just CS classrooms.
Do students need a finished resume before doing this?
Yes — each student's partner reviews their actual resume as part of the interview, so this works best after students have completed a resume (the Resume Writing Workshop series is designed to feed directly into this). It's not a hard technical requirement, but the activity is noticeably weaker without a real resume in hand.
What if I have an odd number of students?
Form one triad: the third student rotates in as a silent observer/note-taker for one round, then joins the next round as candidate while the original candidate observes. The Teacher Reference Guide includes this backup plan along with a vetted list of 12-15 roles for any student who arrives without a researched one.
How much class time does this take?
Two class periods total — a short ~25-minute Prep Day (research + Role Snapshot) the day before, and a ~50-minute Interview Day for both interview rounds, reflection, and debrief.
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