Seniors in the Vicksburg Warren School District’s career and technical education program are gaining experience in a valuable life skill before graduating in a few months.

Wednesday, students began participating in mock job interviews to help them prepare for life after high school, whether they are going to college and looking for a part-time job or planning to enter the workforce full-time after graduation.

“Mostly building confidence,” said JoAnn Oliver, student service coordinator for Vicksburg Warren School District, on why they hold the interviews. “So many of our students, they have never had a job. They have never had an interview. One of our students after talking to someone said they had no idea these kinds of questions were asked and they felt so much better about encountering this in the future.”

Oliver said about 86 seniors will participate in the mock interviews. The goal is to set up interviews with someone in the students’ chosen career fields so they can gain relevant experience on what to expect during a job interview.

“I interviewed each student, even though they are in a particular program out here, to find out what their career plans were,” Oliver said. “I try to match them with somebody in the community in that field. Not only do I want them to be interviewed, I want them to get some feedback from someone in their career.”

Grayson Shealy, a senior at Warren Central who will attend Hinds Community College next year, interviewed with Amy Deason the special education director for VWSD. Shealy said he plans to go into ministry working with special needs people.

“It went really well. I was really confident, it was smooth, just like I was talking to a friend,” Shealy said. “She wanted to know why I wanted to go into the field. What college I wanted to go to, what skills I have, what was my biggest failure, my biggest success and just examples like that.”

This is the second year the CTE program has held the mock interviews after seeing them while taking a tour of a similar program in Mobile, Alabama. The students prepped for the interviews this year by going through a six-week course discussing soft skills such as networking, teamwork and professionalism. Oliver said they added the soft skills training after receiving feedback from industry professionals that students needed additional training in those skills.

“It helped a lot,” Shealy said of the soft skill training. “It really prepared me and had me ready for this and the communication skills.

“For the future, it will be easier to have the experience to know what is going to be ahead of me and know some of the questions that are going to come and answers I can be prepared to have.”