Developing an Improv for Interviewing Workshop

Meredith Metsker:

Cool. Well, we’ve got about 35-ish people joining us, and I know we’ll have more joining in the next couple minutes, but I do want to be mindful of all of our time, especially our esteemed guest, Michael DeAngelis from the University of Pennsylvania. We are super excited to have him here for this live session to talk about this really cool Improv for Interviewing workshop that he has developed at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s been a hit with students, so I’ll let him talk more about that here in just a minute.

As per usual, if you have any questions throughout this live session or towards the end, please put those questions in the chat. I will relay those to Michael and we will address those as we go and again at the end. So Michael, I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to you. If you could just introduce yourself and tell us about this Improv for Interviewing workshop.

Michael DeAngelis:

Sure. Thanks, Meredith. Thanks so much for having me. And hello, everyone. It’s a real pleasure to be here. Thanks for coming. So my name is Michael DeAngelis. I’m the senior associate director for technology and communications at University of Pennsylvania Career Services. I have been at Penn for, it’ll be 20 years next month. Almost all of that time has been in career services and I’ve been in my current role for about 15 of those years now. The title has changed several times, but the core of what I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing it for about 15 years.

So one of the things that’s key to my conversation today is that I was a theater major in college. I have a sort of second career in the performing arts outside of career services as an actor and a playwright. And I was just telling Meredith that I’m very lucky that the folks who hired me at Penn were not only theater fans, but really encouraged me to use those transferable skills. And who knows better about those than career services professionals?

They often asked me to approach things as I would approach things if I were working in the theater, so sort of outside the box, creative thinking. And so having been encouraged that way very early on in my career when I started as an assistant that by the time we got to a few years ago and I was in more of a leadership role, I really felt empowered to create this workshop.

Where this came from was during the pandemic. One of my colleagues at the time, Claire Klieger now over at Swarthmore College was working with our center for undergraduate fellowships, and they were doing mock interviews with people who were getting ready to interview for prestigious fellowships like Rhodes Scholarships.

And the feedback that they had and that they were hearing from other mock interviewers on campus is that the students were doing great talking about their research, talking about their academics, and then they were totally floundering on the things, like tell me about yourself, or answering a question that was unrelated to their academics, like what’s your favorite book or your favorite movie. That they really were just sort of had a pre-prepared script in their mind about what they needed to talk about, what they needed to highlight about their research or their academics in order to secure these fellowships.

And that sort of gelled with some of the feedback we had been hearing from employers recently too, that students were keen to talk about their resume, but they couldn’t really, as soon as you diverted from that, they were stumbling. And so they asked career services if there was anything that we had in our bag of tricks that could help people with that. My colleague turned to me and said, “I don’t know, I feel like maybe something from your theater background would be helpful here.” And so out of that came my idea to hold an improv workshop with an aim of helping people prepare for interviews.

So the first couple of times we did it, we actually did it over Zoom, which was its own challenge. I have to give huge shout-outs to anyone who had to teach acting classes over the pandemic over Zoom. But the programs went so successfully in the virtual space that I felt like, “Well, as soon as we’re back in person, let’s really develop this so that it’s an offering that we can make all the time.” And we’ve been doing that ever since. I’ve been able to offer it about once a semester since 2020. So it’s been a couple of years now and it’s been really great.

So I’m happy to walk through the program and give people a sense of the games that we play and the ideas behind them. I like to open by telling everyone that’s participating that the workshop really does rely on participation. It’s not a lecture, it’s really a hands-on workshop, we’re going to be playing games. But I want everyone to know that it’s a safe space and that they do not have to participate in anything that they don’t want to do. So if they really don’t want to get up and do a scene with just two people at the end, which is the last game we play, they don’t have to. And if there’s anything they just feel like they’re not comfortable with doing, they can always tag out.

I think that that helps establish just a baseline, a comfort level. And I’m really happy that I’ve always had a hundred percent participation. There have been people that at the beginning are like, “Well, I’m not going to do the scene.” But by the end they’re like, “Oh, if I’m the only one who hasn’t gone, all right, I’m going to do it.”

My ideal size group for this workshop is between 10 and 20 people. I’ve been asked to do it recently for a group of 200 and I had to pass. I don’t think it’s scalable in that way unless you have multiple instructors on hand. These are all small group activities, and I think as I talk about what some of the games are, you’ll understand why it really cannot be scaled that large.

So typically what I’ll do if there’s high demand is I’ll offer multiple sessions, maybe a morning session and an afternoon session in a day or two different dates. It really depends on who’s doing the requesting. For example, if it’s at the request of the performing arts clubs, you can imagine the signups for that are very high. You’ve got a very keyed in audience who’s already eager to play theater games and make it applicable to their professional development. So I’m typically offering that two or three times for that group. Whereas other times, if it’s for the fellowship group, it might just be once. It’s a smaller group of people, but to me, small is fantastic. So definitely no more than 20 is … I think the largest group I have ever done this for is 20 and that was about as much as I could handle.

So the first game that we play is a memory game and it serves a double purpose because it’s a way for me to learn everybody’s names. And it’s a great exercise for remembering a lot of information that you’re in-taking from a group, which is part of an interview sometimes. So we do a game called Going on a Picnic. This is something you may have played in school or as part of some sort of professional development course.

And what happens is we’re all standing or sitting in a circle and we go clockwise around the circle. And it’s an exponential growth game. So I say that my name is Michael, and I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing a hamburger. And then Meredith, if she was next to me, she would say, “Well, my name is Meredith. I’m going on a picnic with Michael who’s bringing a hamburger, and I’m going to bring lemonade.” And then the next person next to Meredith would say, “I’m going on a picnic with Michael who’s bringing a hamburger and Meredith who’s bringing lemonade. And I’m Cathy and I’m bringing cookies.”

So you go around and around and so obviously if you’re the person on my right, you have a lot more to remember than the person on my left. I always make myself the first and the last person so that I have to remember everybody’s name and everybody’s picnic basket. And it’s a great way for everyone to learn everybody’s names. It’s a great way for me to learn everybody’s names. I’m really terrible with names, and so hearing everyone say their name up to 20 times, it’s very, very helpful for me.

And once we get through that, we can talk about it. I have found, I have learned by doing this workshop over the years that it’s really important that you pause after every game and reflect on it and ask the students or the participants what they liked about it, what did they learn about themselves or about each other while doing it, and how do they think it applies to something they might need in an interview?

So remembering people’s names obviously, but also being able to retain information that is given to you that you’re going to come back to later. Particularly if you’re in a group interview, someone might say something, but you’re not going to get the chance to respond to it right away. And you want to be able to remember and circle back and say, “Oh, Meredith was saying this really interesting thing about lemonade a few minutes ago,” and be able to carry on the conversation that way.

After that exercise, I delve a little bit more into what improv is and what it isn’t. I have learned that it’s important to stress because when people think about improv, they typically think about comedy. They may be fans of Whose Line Is It Anyway, or they may have gone to an improv show or they might be part of an improv scene on the campus. And so improv can be hysterical, but it certainly doesn’t have to be.

So the goal of improv is just to keep a scene going and to be able to listen to one another to advance those goals. So we talk about the classic rule of improv is to say yes, meaning you’re always extending the conversation. So if Meredith comes into a scene and says, “Ah, Michael, the cat’s missing,” the worst thing I could say is, “No, it’s not. It’s right here.” Because where can you go from that? That’s it. That’s the end of the conversation. Meredith comes in and says, “Michael, the cat’s missing,” then I should extend that and go, “Oh no, and the cat show is in five minutes.” So now I’m upping the stakes. You want to be able to, in a scenario like that, to sustain it, raise the stakes.

And so I stress that in all of the exercises, though we’re going to have fun and we might do some silly things, we don’t have to be intentionally funny. Don’t approach the games as what’s the cleverest thing I can say, just think about how do I keep the conversation going. And that’s a great way then to circle back and say, because what is an interview anyway, but a conversation?

I always tell students that I’m working with, if you are in the interview, you’ve been invited to the interview, then they already think you can do the job. They’ve looked at your resume and they said, “This person could be okay, let’s find out what they’re like.” So a really huge part of the interview is just them getting to know you. Are you going to be a good fit? What personality do you have?

And I have learned talking with Penn students anyway, they have a real fear that there’s a right and wrong answer. And in some cases there might be, you may not fit culture-wise in certain work experiences or certain office cultures. But generally speaking, there’s no right or wrong. If you say your favorite movie is Star Wars, that’s not going to lose you the job. And in fact, it might actually create conversation. Someone might say, “Oh, that’s my favorite too.” Or, “Oh, I like this or that.” When they’re coming down to the finalists, they might remember, “Oh, we had a really interesting conversation about the movies that they liked.” So instead of being afraid of that, we need to embrace it and we need to not overthink it.

So the next game that we play is something I have called The Very Hungry Ewok. I am at home today, but in my office at Penn, I have a plush vintage Ewok from Return of the Jedi. And he’s only about yay big, but the idea is that he is incredibly hungry, ravenously hungry. And so once again, I have everybody stand in a circle and I say, “This is a game in which I’m going to toss someone the Ewok, and as I toss it, I’m going to ask a question.” You have to then grab the Ewok and answer the question as quickly as possible because if you hold onto that Ewok too long, he’s going to gobble you up.

So it’s a game of hot potato and all of the questions are very simple, don’t overthink them questions, what’s your favorite color? Where do you like to go on vacation? What’s your favorite dessert? Things like that. And I have found that it is slow to start. People tend to overthink both the answer and then they have a hard time coming up with an easy question. But once it gets going, we get into a nice rhythm, then people start really picking it up. And that’s the goal because these are not questions you should be frozen about. These aren’t things you should be overthinking. And again, it’s not a right or wrong type situation.

So I want to just get the idea into their heads of just answering quickly and honestly to be able to keep a conversation going. And I have found about 9 times out of 10 when we do this exercise, the longer we go, the more complicated the questions become. People get more comfortable and they start actually asking each other job interview questions and they do a great job. And so very rarely do we have too many people eaten by that Ewok. It really gets them into a nice rhythm.

And again, we stop and we reflect. And there’s generally a lot of really good conversation after that exercise about how it applies to interviewing and what they got out of it. I’ve had multiple people say that they had a really hard time saying the first thing that came to mind, and some people said, “After I said something, I regretted it. I said chocolate cake, but I should have said apple pie.” But I was like, “But what did it matter in the end? You managed to keep the conversation going.” I was like, “Do you hate chocolate cake?” No.

And so I really enjoy that game and the students tend to really enjoy that game too. And by that point, now they’re really starting to understand the idea of listening to each other and the idea of not overthinking, which is one of the goals that I think a lot of the students coming into the workshop have, how do I get out of my head?

I realized that I did leave out one component of the opening, which is I actually lead everyone in a relaxation exercise to open. So after we talk about it being a safe space, we do some basic relaxation and breathing exercises to just be ready to be in the moment. It’s something that if you’ve ever taken an acting class, you do at the top of every acting class.

So when we do that, I also remind people that part of the nerves of an interview, the physical way that that manifests itself, can create the mental blocks that we experience. So if you’re going to an in-person interview and you’re waiting in the lobby, it’s really important that you check in with yourself, do a couple of deep breaths, find where you’re holding the tension in your body, try and relax. It’s even better if you’re doing a Zoom interview because you can be in a private space to begin. Do whatever you need to do to get ready, take a few deep breaths and then go into the exercise because the more relaxed that you are going in, the easier it is to get rid of those mental blocks.

I see a great question in the chat about how long the workshop is. It is now a 90-minute workshop. I used to do an hour, but with an hour, it wasn’t enough time to have decent conversation as well. So I’ve extended it to be a 90-minute workshop, and that way you have enough time to go through the four or five exercises and have some really good conversation as well. So thanks for that question.

I also see a question, if I have documentation with outlines that I could provide. I do have something like that and I can share it with Meredith and we’ll put it in the forums after. It probably needs an update to reflect the latest version of the workshop, but I do have something that I can share. So-

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome. Yeah, I’ll be sure to include that in the event page. And then I’ll also put this recording in the video library, so we’ll make sure that those resources are included.

Michael DeAngelis:

Fantastic. And please keep sharing your questions in the chat. I told Meredith I can monologue, but I would be very happy not to have to continue to monologue.

But moving on, the next game that we play is a storytelling game called Yes, And, and, No, But. It’s again, where we sit in a circle and I give myself a task that I need to do. And so let’s say I really have to get to the post office by the end of the day. We go around the circle once, or if it’s a big group, I’ll go halfway around the circle and then the second half of the circle does something else. But the idea is that everyone’s going to add an obstacle along the way.

So I really have to get to the post office before the end of the day, and Meredith said, “Yes, but the highway is closed.” And then the next person goes, “Yes, and the post office is closed because it’s Arbor Day.” So everybody adds a complication on and it grows and grows and grows, and it comes back to me, or again, if it’s a large group, it gets to the halfway point. And then we go around and we counter with solutions.

And again, I stress that the solutions can be ridiculous, but try and make them actual solutions. So you have to get to the post office by the end of the day, but the highway is closed, but the bike lanes are all open, so you could take your bike. You just try and solve each problem in reverse.

Again, this is about retaining information, but it’s also about problem solving, be able to very quickly think on your feet, which you’re sometimes asked to do in an interview when presented with a problem. So it’s a lot of fun, and it’s another one where I really stress that, don’t overthink it, really keep the conversation going, but also listening to what each specific problem is and coming up with a specific solution.

Sometimes it gets super ridiculous. I remember the last time I did this, somehow I ended up with two broken legs and a baby on my back, but somehow I was still riding my bike to the post office and it all made sense. So it can be a lot of fun, and the more relaxed the students get, the faster and the more interesting the information that they provide becomes.

Angela asked, do all of the problems come first or is it problem, solution, problem, solution? It’s all of the problems come first and then we reverse it. So again, it becomes a memory thing so that you have to remember what the problems were in what order. So it has worked well for me that way, but you could certainly alternate that way too. It wouldn’t be an issue where somebody offers a problem, someone offers a solution, and then someone goes, “Ah, but …” and it continues to grow from there. Either of those would be well.

Tanya asked what would I recommend for virtual settings when doing these activities? That’s a good question. The biggest problem I had doing it virtually was I did have one group that was very camera shy and they really did not want to be on camera or on mic. And that was a killer because we could not play the games.

I recommend and I was very fortunate that not only were my career services colleagues interested, but the folks from the fellowship office where after we did it the first time, they were so engaged, they loved doing this workshop that when I offered the second session, they knew what to expect and they dove in and helped me as participants. So it’s great when you’re doing it particularly virtually if you have a ringer in the audience with you, whether that’s a colleague or a student that you’re working with. But I would say it’s really important that you try and get people to have the camera on and have the mic on so that they can participate.

And really, I didn’t do any special settings beyond that for most of the exercises. I did have to establish because when we’re doing it on Zoom, everybody’s Zoom order typically looks different. For the games that required us to be in a circle, I had to establish the order of things. So I just made an attendance list and I said, imagine we’re all standing in this order.

But for all of the quick stuff like the Ewok game, which I was afraid would not translate well, it actually translated really well because you could just look on the grid and say, “Okay, Meredith, what’s your favorite color? Claire, what’s your favorite book?” You just mimed the throw and people caught on. The one I thought was going to be the hardest, actually translated the easiest and that’s sometimes the way. I will say I’m happy to do it online, but I do love doing it in person. I get more out of it when I’m doing it in person, so I recommend it. But definitely, most of this translates fairly easily online.

Francis asks, are there any tips that I can give that help to get students to sign up? Well, the first time we did it, it was not required, but it was helpful that it was really being pushed by the fellowship office as something that would be helpful for you to prepare for your fellowship interview. So I had a lot of buy-in from a peer office that had the ears of the students. So finding really strong partners was great.

And then the first time I did it in person, I did it in the performing arts center. It was part of a weekend of events aimed at professional development for students in the performing arts, and that was a real easy group to attract. And then from there, by then I had done it about three times, word kind of got out. Like you said, once word gets out, people start to like it. And now when we advertise it, it fills up pretty quickly right away.

I think just the fact that it is so different from the regular stable of workshops that we offer, it’s not a resume workshop, it’s not a traditional interviewing workshop, it is something different. And we stress in the description that it is a hands-on, participation-heavy workshop and it always fills up. So I think once you start doing it and the word gets out, you’ll start attracting the right folks.

And by the right folks, I don’t mean necessarily the theater students. They’re great and they love it, but I’m always happy when it’s folks who don’t have that background. The last time I did it this past spring, I don’t think anyone in the workshop was a performer or a theater student. They were all very self-aware that this was a stumbling block for them, that talking about themselves or answering questions quickly was a stumbling block for them, and they wanted some tools. And they were all very gracious about participating and hopefully by the end, everybody had a really good time too, and were able to take some things away from it.

So that’s always very rewarding to hear because I know if I do it with theater students, they’re going to have a good time and hopefully learn something. But to do it with folks who this is not something they would normally consider in their comfort zone, that’s even more rewarding.

Meredith Metsker:

Michael, I have a quick follow up question to that. You mentioned that you advertise it. Where are you advertising it? On your virtual career center, email, social?

Michael DeAngelis:

Yeah, all those places. So we definitely will have it advertised on our calendar events, on our virtual career center, on the website. We are a Handshake school, so it’s in our Handshake calendar events. It gets pushed out on uConnect. This past year, I was again fortunate to have a really good partner. I did the workshop, actually the last two years I’ve done it at our library. And so the library is advertising it as well, and that’s really great because the library has a super huge reach. They’ve got their own events calendar, they have their own newsletter, they have bulletin boards up all over library with their events.

And even though at Penn I work in the central career office, we actually don’t serve the entire university. There are little pockets that have their own career center or they’re not served by us, but the library serves everybody. So they have this massive reach, even larger than we do. So it’s been very beneficial for both of us. The library loves having career programming in there, and I love that I’m able to get a huge group of students, including some that I normally wouldn’t get the chance to interact with.

So yeah, we do all the traditional things that you would do to advertise a workshop. I think also just having the title, Improv for Interviewing, just is eye-catching. And like I said, I think it’s just different enough than anything else that’s been offered that it seems like an attractive workshop.

Sarah asked a great question. For students who are quieter, was I able to use certain techniques to help them encourage to participate? Yes. I think the most important thing is just to establish again that it’s a safe space, that I’m never going to force anyone to participate. But if I do have a quieter student or someone who is struggling with the exercise for whatever reason, I make sure that nothing is punitive. Even if they take too long with the Ewok, if I can see they have something that they want to say, they’re not eliminated. All right, take a breath, let’s go through it.

It is just about being gentle and being encouraging and asking them, asking questions, did you have a thought about this? Did you have something you wanted to say? And I think certainly if you have a group that’s otherwise participating, then the quiet people do eventually catch up. Like I said, I don’t know if I have the magic recipe, but I’ve been very lucky that in every session I’ve done, except that one virtual one where too many people wouldn’t turn their camera on, people have been willing to participate.

I think that one of the things that’s important is that I’m doing it too, so it puts me like everybody’s in the same boat. So even though I’m leading the exercises, I’m also participating in the exercises. I think that’s a great equalizer. And just being as no pressure as possible. If you can just take the pressure out of the situation, then people are more likely to participate.

I don’t know how better to put it like that, but if I just say there’s no requirement to participate, people tend to participate. I think if you just take that scary expectation out of it, which is also part of the point of the workshop is that there’s all of this scariness around going on an interview and we need to just get out of our heads and not worry about that and just embrace it, then I think that people are more willing to participate.

Meredith Metsker:

And it sounds like you’re pretty clear about what they should expect in your advertisements too? [inaudible 00:33:37]

Michael DeAngelis:

Yes. Certainly, we don’t spell out exactly every game, but in the advertisement, it’s very clear that we are going to be playing theater and improv games to better our performance in an interview and that participation is heavily required. And I think we describe it as an interactive workshop as well. I see Mindy is asking if I could provide a marketing blurb. I’ll include that in the materials as well, the description that we use. But I know that we call it an interactive workshop, so we don’t make any secrets about what it’s going to be.

Meredith Metsker:

Kind of on that note, I see Kelly asked a question. She said that she’s got a lot of technical programs. I think those students would be more reserved to talk. Do you have any ideas on making students more comfortable with a conversation that’s not necessarily related to their majors?

Michael DeAngelis:

That’s a great question. One of the things that I think works well is the way that the workshop is structured, that each of the games requires a little bit more participation in each level. It sort of scales up. So if you can have everybody make up what they’re bringing on a picnic, that’s one thing. Okay, I just need to know my name and that I’m bringing cookies. And then get them comfortable talking quickly about their likes in the Ewok game. And then it progresses and up and up and up that by the time you have gotten to the later exercises, they’re sort of comfortable with the way the workshop is going.

So the next exercise is called Secret Identity. This is an improv scene between two people. In a classic improv way, we ask the group to come up with a scenario. So let’s say it’s a waiter and customer. So one person’s the waiter, one person’s the customer. I then give each of them a secret identity and they are going to have to reveal their secret identity halfway through the scene. So the customer might secretly be the waiter’s boss, and the waiter might secretly be the customer’s mother.

And so I have them improv their scene a little bit, and I signal one of them to rip off their mask and change the scene, aha, but I’m your boss, I’m your mother. The goal is to keep the scene going within the fantasy logic of that, that they’re wearing masks and that they’re secret agents or whatever, they have these secret identities, to be able to keep the scene going and to be able to listen to each other and to be able to make that sharp left turn, which again, is what we were hearing, particularly from the fellowship program. I can ask all the routine questions about why you want this fellowship, but then as soon as I ask something that’s slightly to the left or right of that, the student was really unable to keep the conversation going.

So again, that’s now the fourth or fifth exercise you’ve played. Hopefully people are loosened up, they’re understanding what the workshop’s about, they’re understanding what the work’s about. They’re having fun. They’re getting to know one another too. And again, that’s the one where I always thought, “Yeah, I get it. Not everyone’s going to want to get up and make a scene and be a character.” But man, every time we get to the end and I go, “Okay, anybody else? Nobody else? Okay.” And then just as we’re about to go on, that person in the back goes, “Oh, no, you know what? I want to try.” Great. Come on up. Who wants to do it?

So I find that it happens naturally. I think part of it is my ability to facilitate. I think it’s in part because I have experience running this and I have experience as an actor and I’ve created a comfortable space. And again, I really think the most important thing is I make it really low stakes, and I just say, “There’s no pressure. If you don’t want to do it, we’re not going to do it. It’s cool.” And then everybody wants to do it. Yeah, I’ve never really thought too deeply about that, but I think that’s a big part of it.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think another good idea you mentioned earlier is having a plant or someone in the class who is kind of friendly and willing to jump in.

Michael DeAngelis:

It’s very, very helpful to have somebody who’s willing to do it with you. I have had great partnerships. Like I said, the folks in the fellowship office were so game to dive in and play, and my colleagues at the library this past spring. So it was the second time I’ve done it at the library, and the first time the people from the library just kind of watched from a distance. And then when we did it again this past spring, two of them actually came in the room and participated and we just had a lot of fun.

So definitely, if you have a colleague that you can do this with or you have a work study student or somebody that can be a little bit of a plant or a little bit of a ringer or just your support team, that really does help keep things moving.

Meredith Metsker:

Cool. Well, I see we have a couple specific game-related questions.

Michael DeAngelis:

Great.

Meredith Metsker:

So I’m going to throw those at you, rapid fire. I wanted to make sure we addressed the first half of Mindy’s question, how long is each game typically?

Michael DeAngelis:

That’s a great question. Most of the games are about five minutes long. Most of the games are about five minutes long. The longest game is secret identity game because those scenes tend to go on a little bit longer. I try and manage that to not go on too long, but you want them to be able to do the full scene. So I would say that game can go 10 to 12 minutes. Most of the other games are about five minutes.

And I’m really in control of everything, so if something is not going well, I can pump the brakes. But if it is going well, there’s no reason to stop. We can keep it going, which is again, another reason why I made it 90 minutes so we have that flexibility. If, well, it’s just over in an hour, okay, but I’ve got that 30-minute buffer to have things extend or have good conversation.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, cool. And then related to the secret identity game, Sarah asked, do both participants reveal their identities at the same time?

Michael DeAngelis:

Pretty quickly one after another is how it tends to happen. So somebody takes off their mask and goes, “Well, I’m your boss and I’m a secret shopper.” And then the next person goes, and so the scene just does two really quick pivots.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. And about the same game, Angela asks, do you ever have pairs just attempt doing a scene all at the same time, so everyone is participating at once and getting to try without an audience?

Michael DeAngelis:

I have not tried that. That would be cacophonous to my ear, but it’s interesting. It has been suggested. As I mentioned at the top of this, I was recently asked to do this workshop for an audience of over 200, which would be for RA, GA training this summer, so all of the RAs and GAs on our campus. And we were trying to figure out a way that I could do it, and it was suggested, “Well, could you present the game and have everyone go off?”

I don’t think that would be as effective. I think, one, there’s something about having an audience and you’re going to have an audience when you’re in an interview one way or another. And I think it does help to have who is ever leading the workshop, be able to observe what’s happening and be able to give feedback and course-correct if necessary, if things are going astray, if they’re getting too silly, or they’re not quite understanding the game.

I would also fear that if everybody went off, you could run, I don’t want to say run the risk, but some people may just chat and not really do the exercise. So that would not be my preferred way of doing it. Not saying you can’t because there is no saying you can’t in improv, but for the way I work, it would not work for me.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, cool. We have a few more questions, but I know we’re almost at time. Are you okay to stay for a couple more minutes?

Michael DeAngelis:

Yeah, let’s answer questions.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Going back to the hot potato game, Sarah asked to confirm for that one, did you have students answer the question they were asked and then they ask a new question?

Michael DeAngelis:

Yes, that’s correct. So you get tossed the Ewok, you answer the question that was asked of you, and then you pick someone else and ask them a question and toss them the Ewok.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, perfect. And then Angela asked for that one, does the leader … Oh, I guess it’s the same thing. Does the leader ask all the questions? [inaudible 00:44:08]

Michael DeAngelis:

No. That’s right. Every person generates their own question.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, perfect. That’s good experience. You have to learn how to answer a question and ask a good question.

Michael DeAngelis:

I see Kelly asked, do I wrap it up with how it all relates to interviews? Yes. Again, this was something I felt when we had an hour we didn’t get enough of. But now with 90 minutes, having a little bit of a buffer at the end, we discuss it. And again, I have found the best thing is to have little conversations after each exercise and then have a full conversation, a wrap-up at the end where we talk about how it all relates to interviews, what do they feel they can take from today as they go into an interview? What are they most afraid of? What are they most nervous about in their upcoming interviews?

I used to open by asking what people were most nervous about with their interviews, and did they have an upcoming interview, something specific they were preparing for? And I’ve moved all that to the end. I think it was useful to know, but I have to assume that everybody that’s in the workshop, whether they have a specific interview lined up or not, is getting ready to interview and wants to improve their interview skills.

And I found that by opening with that, it was creating a little bit of, for lack of a better word, tension because it was bringing up all the things they were nervous about. And then you just get that natural, “Oh, Meredith’s got an interview with Goldman next week. I don’t have an interview with anything yet.” So just eliminating that and diving right in and then having those questions at the end, is there something specific that you’re getting ready for that you can apply today’s lessons to?

Meredith Metsker:

I think Robin’s question kind of relates to that a little bit. So Robin said, our campus relies heavily on behavioral interviews. How do you help students connect these skills to prepping for STAR/behavioral interviews?

Michael DeAngelis:

That’s a great question, and it is something that, I’ll be honest, I feel I could improve still with this workshop. I’m not a career counselor. I have absorbed a lot of career counseling through 20 years of working in career services, but I don’t work directly with students that often, and I don’t run traditional interviewing workshops. So I have relied on my peers to help me with all of that. And I have felt recently that if there’s a piece that I could improve, it’s exactly that, how can I connect this with something like STAR? How can I connect this with behavioral interviews?

I think that I’m very good about talking about it in a general sense and being able to apply the specifics of the workshop to general interviewing advice. But I think I could take it a step further and make some of those deeper connections. So that’s another part of this. Certainly, when I got asked to do this five years ago over Zoom, during COVID, I really didn’t think that I would be here talking to all of you about it, that I would be presenting at NACE about it.

And so it is something that should always be evolving and always growing, just like all of the work that we do, because there’s always room for improvement, and the students we’re working with are constantly changing, and the way interviews are conducted are always changing. So there’s always room to grow. And so the next iteration of this workshop, whatever that’s going to look like for next year, I would like to incorporate some of that STAR method more specifically into it.

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome. Well, you’ll have to give us all an update in the community when you’ve got that part figured out. Let’s see, just a couple more questions if you have time.

Michael DeAngelis:

Yeah, sure.

Meredith Metsker:

I want to be respectful. Okay. Shantoria from Spelman College asked, have students ever come back to share how the techniques they’ve learned in your workshop helped them prepare for their interview?

Michael DeAngelis:

Yes. Actually, I was really pleased. Just this past semester, I did this workshop and then I heard back from someone that they were asked, I believe it was what was their favorite movie, and they did not worry about it. And they talked and they ended up having a really good conversation with their interviewer and they got the internship. So that made me feel so good, because that was exactly the goal, right? Don’t get hung up on what’s expected of you, because on a question like that, the only expectation is that you’re going to give an answer. So to know that I was able take that pressure off of someone and that it went really well for them was terrific.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s what it’s all about, right? Let’s see. Eric Anderson, oh, he’s a fellow Vandal from the University of Idaho, go Vandals, he says hello from a fellow theater major. This is really insightful. Are you connected with the American Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor? I think they would be very interested in what you do.

Michael DeAngelis:

I am not, but I will look into it.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, it sounds right up your alley. Let’s see. Tina says she’s sorry, she missed the beginning of the secret identity. Do you create the scenes or do you just give them their identities and then they take the lead?

Michael DeAngelis:

So what we do is at the start of that, we group-think the initial scene. So we’ll just ask the audience, if you will, what’s a good scenario for Meredith and Michael? And someone will say, “Oh, mom and dad, customer or waiter.” Someone on an airplane and a flight attendant is one that always comes up. So we group-think that, and then based on what the audience suggests as the initial scene, I come up with the secret identities on what the twist will be.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, cool. I think most of the rest are just comments in support of this and saying how awesome it is. Sarah did just ask, she says, this is a great workshop that I’d love to bring to our career center. If our team moves forward with it, how would we provide credit to you for spearheading this?

Michael DeAngelis:

What another fantastic question. I will have language about that in the follow-up materials.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, cool. Well, we’re already over time a little bit here, but Michael, is there anything else you want to add before I close this out?

Michael DeAngelis:

No, just thanks so much for coming. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for listening to me ramble. I am really excited if people want to try this in their own office. So if you want to connect with me on Career Everywhere or you want to find me on LinkedIn, I’m happy to connect with people, get you started, share some ideas, and we’ll take it from there.

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome. Sounds great. Well, thank you, Michael, so much again for your time. And again, for everyone who attended, I’ll make sure to share those materials that Michael referenced so you can all bring this to your own career centers. But Michael, thank you so much again. We appreciate it and hope you have a good rest of your week and hope everyone else who attended has a good rest of your week.

Michael DeAngelis:

Thanks so much for having me, Meredith, and thank you all for coming.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. Thanks, all. We’ll see you next time.