11th Grade — Mock Interview & Career Pitch

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

If a stranger asked you 'so what do you do?' at a career fair, what would you say in one sentence?

🎯 Today's Big Question

How do we confidently present ourselves and our design skills to a potential employer?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Write a 30-second elevator pitch about their design skills and portfolio.
Participate in a mock interview, responding to common interview questions.
Give and receive feedback on presence and clarity.

🧰 What You'll Need

Notebook for drafting
Common interview question list (teacher-provided)

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: Writing Your Pitch

Do Now (5 min, above).
Mini-lesson (10 min): the elements of a strong elevator pitch.
Independent writing (20 min): draft your own elevator pitch.
Practice with a partner (10 min).

Day 2: Mock Interviews

Do Now (5 min).
Mini-lesson (5 min): common interview questions for a design role.
Mock interviews (30 min): pairs take turns mock-interviewing each other.
Feedback (5 min).

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

Day 1

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

Day 2

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

📚 Key Words

Elevator Pitch: A brief (30-60 second) summary of who you are and what you offer, used to introduce yourself professionally.
Presence: A presenter's confidence, eye contact, and clarity while speaking to an audience.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Elevator pitch + mock interview reviewed for clarity, confidence, and specific (not generic) content.

Exit Ticket: What is one thing you'll do differently next time you introduce yourself professionally?

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week (e.g. every Friday, or your class's last meeting of the week), add your best finished or in-progress work to a running portfolio folder with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, what skill or standard it shows. This becomes your formal Google Sites portfolio in Unit F -- keep it current all year so you're not scrambling right before your PBAT and portfolio review.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Mock Interview & Career Pitch.” This project asked: “How do we confidently present ourselves and our design skills to a potential employer?” I used Elevator Pitch by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

🎓 ACP Exam Prep

This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 1: Working in the Design Industry

🔗 Want to Learn More?

CareerOneStop — Résumé & Interview Guide

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same interview-skills practice a Business or Advisory class runs for college and job readiness.

Career Connection: Practice pitching yourself for a specific career from the Careers hub — use its actual entry requirements to prep real answers.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Record yourself answering three real interview questions and critique your own delivery the way you'd critique a design piece. Start here: write your three real questions, tied to one actual career from the hub, before you hit record.
Design a one-page "leave-behind" — a mini portfolio card — you could hand an interviewer after a real conversation. Start here: set your artboard to an actual business-card or postcard size in Illustrator before you add any content.