Preparing pharmacy graduates for interviews: A collaborative statewide mock interview session to improve confidence

Objective: Present a statewide collaborative mock interview session for students and assess the impact in building confidence. Methods: Students participating in a mock interview session were surveyed to assess for changes in their interview-facing confidence. Results: In all, 33 of 54 mock interview participants responded to the survey. Of the 33 students, 17 students (51.5%) strongly agreed or agreed that they felt confident in their ability to face interview prior to their mock interview sessions compared with 33 of 33 (100%) after their sessions. Conclusions: All students who participated in the survey found the mock interview sessions and CV review beneficial. Arming graduates with an array of professional and technical skills is important, and acquiring strong interview skills can increase their self-confidence. Collaboration between state organizations and other colleges of pharmacy can create powerful opportunities to unite student pharmacists with interviewers.