Interviewing for a job can be an intimidating experience for students and recent graduates. Many individuals may feel unprepared for their first interview and uncertain about what they could be asked. Having confidence and strong interview skills is very important for professional development and career attainment. In this work, we describe a web-based platform designed to provide experiential learning and interview practice for job seekers. The system, called Virtual Interview (VI)-Ready, offers an immersive role-play of interview scenarios with 3D virtual agents serving as hiring managers. We applied Bandura's concept of self-efficacy as we investigated: 1) overall impressions of the system; 2) the impact on students' job interview preparedness; and 3) how internal perceptions of interview performance may differ from external evaluations by hiring managers. In our study, we employed a convergent parallel mixed methods approach. Undergraduate and graduate students (n = 20) underwent virtual job interviews using the platform, each interacting with one of two different agents (10 were randomly assigned to each). Their interactions were video recorded. Participants then completed a survey to reflect on their performance, using the Marino Interview Assessment Scale (MIAS), and answered questions about their preparedness and the system. Later, hiring managers (n = 2) watched the videos of the interactions and rated the students' performance using the MIAS. We used Mann-Whitney U tests to compare the students' ratings to those of the external evaluators. We also utilized descriptive statistics to analyze the closed-ended questions and thematic analysis for the open-ended responses. Although there was no significant change in self-assessed performance relative to external evaluations in hiring scenarios, we observed the need to help students improve their introduction and closing in a job interview. Furthermore, 90% of students agreed or strongly agreed that the system enabled them to identify areas for improvement in their interview preparation. The results from this work could be valuable for educators and administrators looking to enhance their curriculum and integrate new technologies to improve the career trajectory of students. We also hope to raise awareness of the effectiveness of using virtual reality as a career training approach to help students combat anxiety and gain practice using low-pressure interactive scenarios.
