Ace that interview week began with students attending a workshop with Dale Willis from the organisation, My First Great Job. It was full of lots of useful information and practical advice on how to prepare for interviews.
It was highly engaging, with students learning how they can prepare and conduct effective research ahead of interviews. They also learned how to use their own experiences to form ‘stories’ to articulate their responses to interview questions. Dale also offered a session on creating an effective LinkedIn account and how it can be used as a research tool when preparing for interviews and finding companies that may be offering work experience, apprenticeships and internships.
To give students the opportunity to put some of this into practice immediately, the Careers department created a mock recruitment opportunity for an internship placement at ‘Sandy Lane Holdings’. A band of 85 parents and OMTs were engaged to conduct 1:1 online interviews for the post on MS Teams. Although some students have already had interviews, there were many for whom this was their first experience and on the day pre-interview nerves were evident as the students gathered. After putting on headphones and a quick check in the camera, they joined their Teams meeting and an intense mood built in the room as the students answered questions and then listened to feedback from their interviewers about where they could improve to present their best selves.
Self-reflection is a key part of the learning process and after finishing their interviews, students attended a workshop to reflect on the experience and any feedback given. They shared their experiences, recognising what they could have done better but also acknowledging what went well and processing some especially useful words of advice from their interviewers. With this advice, together with their self-reflection they were able to create new strategies to prepare for interviews going forward.
It is the first time we have delivered such a programme and the feedback from students has been very positive. The interviewers were very friendly and made them feel at ease, although they did also challenge them with some interesting questions! It was an impactful experience that generated quite a buzz amongst the year group and the overall student opinion was that it should form a permanent fixture in the careers programme. We’re sure they will find it useful when applying for part time jobs, internships, placements and graduate jobs in the future. Thanks to the workshops, attentive interviewers and positive feedback, the overwhelming result is that they have an improved confidence and knowledge of how to ‘Ace that interview’.
We could not have supported so many students without our extended community of parents and OMTs. It was clear that many enjoyed the opportunity to interact with the students and contribute to their development and we really appreciate them giving up their time to support us and share the benefit of their experience with the students.
If you’d like to be involved in future similar events the please complete the survey in the recent Careers newsletter, linked here for your convenience. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/S7KKG32
