Goochland High hosts 265 mock interviews with 22 community volunteers

Goochland High School packed 265 mock interviews into a single day, with 22 community volunteers helping students rehearse the conversations that can decide a first job, a college admission meeting or an internship.

The volunteer roster included County Administrator Dr. Jeremy Raley and Delegate May Nivar, along with private-sector partners and Goochland County Public Schools staff. At a pace of roughly a dozen interviews per volunteer, the event became less a classroom exercise than a countywide test run for the professional moments students will face after graduation.

The school said the effort was designed to give Bulldogs practice and feedback on the basics that matter in an interview room: eye contact, answers, demeanor and confidence. Those are the same skills that can make a student appear prepared before a college admissions counselor, a hiring manager or an internship supervisor, and the scale of the event showed that the practice reached far beyond a small group of participants.

Goochland High School has treated mock interviews as a recurring part of its career-readiness work. In April 2024, the school said it would host its sixth annual Mock Interviews Event on Thursday, April 18, with business leaders from the Richmond metro area interviewing seniors and junior CTE completers and offering feedback. A 2021 school article said the format was meant to reduce student anxiety, build interviewing skills and provide immediate feedback, especially for students facing college admission interviews or a first job after high school graduation.

That work fits into the larger framework of Goochland County Public Schools’ career and technical education programs, which the division says are built to make graduates college and career ready through hands-on, real-world applications. Its work-based learning program extends that approach through partnerships with local businesses and organizations, linking classroom instruction to workplace expectations.

The division also says it has been recognized as one of Virginia’s School Divisions of Innovation for designing alternatives to traditional instruction that strengthen student learning and college and career readiness. Dr. Raley’s participation carried added weight in a county where school and county leadership are closely connected. He began serving as Goochland County Administrator on June 9, 2025, after previously leading Goochland County Public Schools and serving as chief of staff for the Virginia Department of Education.