Career Guidance Consultation
It is an opportunity to reflect on your career, whatever that means for you.
It's rare to find a space that is truly objective to talk about career within organisations as usually they have plans for us, and the internal systems often have the organisation's needs at the core rather than the individual's needs.
A career coaching consultation is really a space and an opportunity to listen to our own needs, thoughts, feelings, ideas and maybe the conflicts that reside within us.
Interview Preparation
Interview preparation can be broken down into manageable steps. The first step, getting started seems to be the hardest! That is one reason interview coaching can be helpful. It stops the procrastination, gets us started and provides some useful practise in answering those introductory questions, competency based questions and summarising questions before the big event.
Anticipating Questions
If you have the information you need to prepare for the interview then it is possible to anticipate most of the interview questions in advance of the interview.
- Go through the job description with a fine-tooth comb
- Highlight skills, competencies and experience required
- Identify your specific examples of competency
Structuring Your Answers
When answering questions tell the interviewer(s) about what you did, focusing on ‘I’ not we. The interviewer will want to know about your contribution and references to ‘we’ can dilute your message and leave the interviewer uncertain about what you did. Competency based interview questions tend to be ……. ‘can you give me an example of….’ ‘tell me about a time when …..’ ‘how do you, would you or did you…..’. A structure to follow when answering such questions is the STAR technique.
Situation – give the interviewer a bit of context (in other words what were the circumstances). Were you under any constraints or pressure, time, co-operation, unfamiliarity etc). E.g. “I was part of a team of four and I had been in the department a month when my line manager was taken ill and I was asked to take on responsibility for y”.
Task /challenge (what did you need to achieve, what was the overall goal or target)
“I was faced with the challenge of taking over the management of a project to introduce a new xyz system”.
Action – describe what you did (e.g. analysed, designed, produced etc).
Avoid the detail (if the interviewer wants more details he/she will ask). Describe the key steps; there are likely to be half a dozen or so. Your answer should be a description of how you approach your work (communication style, structure, informing, documenting, logical, influencing etc. Whatever is relevant in the situation.)
Result – describe the outcome, did you save time or money, improve satisfaction, efficiency, morale, systems etc. There may have been a mixture of results but focus on the best. If you are asked about the failures, focus on what you learned and what you subsequently did with that learning.
This structure is useful for keeping candidates on track and helps to provide a complete evidence based answer.
Contact
Mary Murphy Plunkett Chambers, 21/23 Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork
083 3518131 Click here to email
