Interview Techniques and Employability Skills are workshops that have been developed by CCLLEN over years and delivered as face to face sessions to students in schools across our region.
Interview Techniques help prepare students for an interview, be it for part time, full time work or when arranging a work placement. Topics covered are creating a resume, writing application letters, employability skills, first impressions, body language, personal presentation, handshake practice and how to answer questions in an interview.
Students then get the opportunity to use this new knowledge by writing an application letter addressing selection criteria and submitting their resume for an advertised position. “Mock Interviews” are scheduled and the students attend these live sessions as if really going for the job.
Employability Skills is an interactive and fun session is which is shared with students to explain and allow the students to discover, their Employability Skills. Employability Skills are the work skills and personal attributes that employers look for when hiring a new employee. They are also known as transferable skills because the employability skills that are learnt in one workplace or setting can be applied and further developed in other workplaces and roles.
Industries emphasise that employability skills and the right attitude are essential for young job seekers in securing employment; training can cover most other aspects.
A high percentage of students don’t believe they have enough experience and skills when they are applying for jobs whilst at school. They often underestimate the importance of highlighting these skills such as communication, teamwork, leadership and problem solving. We also encourage young people to not underestimate their knowledge of current technology and emerging social platforms. This is valuable knowledge to share in the work place.
These presentations have proved invaluable to students; we had to find a way to continue to contribute and support students on the journey to the world of work.
The new challenge in delivering these two sessions was to keep them engaging and helpful while still being interactive, but from a distance! The powerpoint presentations were streamlined and adjusted to better represent the current “norms”. The fun and highly interactive handshake sessions has been transformed into a collection of friendly, distanced greetings and a new slide appeared with tips on conducting an interview on line.
A new workbook was created and delivered to students and teachers on line, offering activities, checklists and reminders that “Preparation is the Key”.
After practice and checking we had the technology right, the presentation went live for the first time with ten Year 9&10 studentsand 3 teachers from River City Christian College. This was in collaboration with the Echuca Moama Beacon Foundation as part of the ‘Real Futures’ program
The presentation went well with no technical hitches and students joining in the Chat room offering their career aspirations and asking questions. This enabled us to answer those questions on the spot.
We are looking forward to engaging with other schools with this new technology throughout the year.
May 2020
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