I've got an interview - please guide me

93123

I had the interview now.

[simon]

If you think you can do it, believe you can you it, you will do it

Be positive, be confident in what you say at the interview.

I wish you good luck

andrewjf

How can you ace the interview? In a word, preparation. The interview format is competency based, so expect fairly open questions like 'Describe a time when you solved a difficult problem', or 'Tell me about a situation where you handled a conflict'. You can prepare answers to some of these questions.

Also do some research into the company. Know what they do, their recent activities. Do they have a website?

Be aware of your own skills/experience and relate them to the requirements of the job. Why do you want the job? What makes you feel you can do the job well? What can you bring to the role?

Know your own strengths and weaknesses. Make a list. Note down situations from your past where you demonstrated your strengths.

Better preparation will give you more chance of success.

gibson123

Ok break it down...

make sure you know your work history - this can be voluntary and community based and that you can say something positive about everything you have done.

Professional services is a job serving people doing professional occupations, so you would do a range of different duties that support professional people (e.g. lawyers, doctors, teachers) depending on your , perhaps be opening and distributing mail to "professionals" e.g. lawyers, doctors, teachers. As the description mentions court I imagine the profession being support is the legal profession.

Do good research on the organisation you are applying for.

Go through the job competencies and use the STAR system to relate your experience against the competencies for the job.

A library is a professional situation, librarian is an accepted and respected profession, so you do have relevant experience to talk about.

vickystokes

Hi there,

You really need to look on there website, have a look at what the company do and research and more research lol!!!

Monster have great interview tips, so have a look on there, this may help you prepare yourself more!!!

Just remember to be you, go in with confidence but not cocky confidence lol!!!
Wish u all the best keep us updated

93123

Thanks very much Is this ok?

1. Describe a time when you handled a difficult customer/situation

Most of the customers are nervous and it's up to me to reassure them as it impacts their learning and they're less likely to remember things when under pressure. One way I do this is by telling them that everyone who comes in to see us is in the same position as them and it's completely normal that they don't understand things, even the people whose job it is to help them were in their position at first. I also let them know that we're there at the same time every week and they can come back as many times as they deem necessary, and we don't mind because we enjoy working with them. This makes them feel more at ease and they always leave with a smile.

Sometimes we get a customer that is visibly frustrated and can be rude despite our efforts. One example is a customer who had a patronising and sarcastic manner before we had started as she didn't know exactly what she wanted to do and felt it appropriate to take it out on us (this doesn't sound good, can someone give me a better way to word this last part please?). I dealt with it by treating her the same as everyone else and gave her as much time as she needed while presenting her with different suggestions. Fortunately I soon found out what what she required help with, although I did consider talking to her in private if she became aggressive or was at risk of disrupting the other customers but it wasn't necessary.

elsien

93123 wrote: »

Thanks very much Is this ok?

1. Describe a time when you handled a difficult customer/situation



Sometimes we get a customer that is visibly frustrated and can be rude despite our efforts. One example is a customer who had a patronising and sarcastic manner before we had started as she didn't know exactly what she wanted to do and felt it appropriate to take it out on us (this doesn't sound good, can someone give me a better way to word this last part please?). We dealt with it by treating her the same as everyone else and gave her as much time as she needed while presenting her with different suggestions. Fortunately we soon found out what what she required help with, although we did consider talking to her in private if she became aggressive or was at risk of disrupting the other customers but it wasn't necessary.

Don't call your customers patronising and sarcastic, even if they are. Find a less judgemental term such as an abrasive manner. Then go on to say that you understood this was due to her uncertainty about her situation. Or something.
And make a real effort to say "me/I" as opposed to "we." In competency based interviews when people say "we" it often means that they didn't actually do very much within the team to deal with that particular situation.
You need to make sure you focus on yourself and what you did as an individual within the team, rather than the team effort as a whole.

93123

elsien wrote: »

Don't call your customers patronising and sarcastic, even if they are. Find a less judgemental term such as an abrasive manner. Then go on to say that you understood this was due to her uncertainty about her situation. Or something.
And make a real effort to say "me/I" as opposed to "we." In competency based interviews when people say "we" it often means that they didn't actually do very much within the team to deal with that particular situation.
You need to make sure you focus on yourself and what you did as an individual within the team, rather than the team effort as a whole.

I know, I didn't know how to word it .

Funnily enough just before I saw your post I edited and changed all the we's to I's haha!

Thanks

quietheart

93123 wrote: »

Thanks very much Is this ok?

1. Describe a time when you handled a difficult customer/situation

Most of the customers are nervous and it's up to me to reassure them as it impacts their learning and they're less likely to remember things when under pressure. One way I do this is by telling them that everyone who comes in to see us is in the same position as them and it's completely normal that they don't understand things, even the people whose job it is to help them were in their position at first. I also let them know that we're there at the same time every week and they can come back as many times as they deem necessary, and we don't mind because we enjoy working with them. This makes them feel more at ease and they always leave with a smile.

Sometimes we get a customer that is visibly frustrated and can be rude despite our efforts. One example is a customer who had a patronising and sarcastic manner before we had started as she didn't know exactly what she wanted to do and felt it appropriate to take it out on us (this doesn't sound good, can someone give me a better way to word this last part please?). I dealt with it by treating her the same as everyone else and gave her as much time as she needed while presenting her with different suggestions. Fortunately I soon found out what what she required help with, although I did consider talking to her in private if she became aggressive or was at risk of disrupting the other customers but it wasn't necessary.

I think you've definitely got the idea here but you will need more scenarios as you may be asked 10 questions.
My recent competency based questions covered my reactions to:
confidentiality
hearing a colleague make a discriminatory comment
angry clients
following procedures
computer skills
customer contact
what i could offer to the organisation
etc

I tried to have a story for each answer to show examples. I recorded myself repeating the story as I always go red when talking about myself and kept listening back to my responses so they became really familiar.

Wishing you lots of luck!

93123

Thanks everyone

It went better than my previous two interviews, they didn't last long at all but this lasted about 20 minutes and he asked about 12 questions.

He said he was impressed by my typing speed and was interested in the website I built years ago as a hobby. I got stumped when they asked me about my salary expectations as that was the one question I didn't prepare for, I said "as it would be my first paid job I don't have any expectations, but what's the bracket for a job like this?"

It's mostly a blur now but was asked what do I know about the company, why I wanted it, what I felt I could bring to the role, what about it appeals to me, what I did in my role, about working as a team and something related to conflict in a team, to describe my knowledge of computers in more detail and to describe a time I went above and beyond in my (volunteer) role amongst other things.

I thought it was just going to be us but when I walked in this other lady was on a big tv via Skype lol, I thought that was cool.

I really hope I get it but can't imagine I will, what are the chances someone with great experience wouldn't have been interviewed?

Surprisingly I wasn't asked about a difficult customer or working under pressure.

gibson123

93123 wrote: »

Thanks everyone

It went better than my previous two interviews, they didn't last long at all but this lasted about 20 minutes and he asked about 12 questions.

He said he was impressed by my typing speed and was interested in the website I built years ago as a hobby. I got stumped when they asked me about my salary expectations as that was the one question I didn't prepare for, I said "as it would be my first paid job I don't have any expectations, but what's the bracket for a job like this?"

It's mostly a blur now but was asked what do I know about the company, why I wanted it, what I felt I could bring to the role, what about it appeals to me, what I did in my role, about working as a team and something related to conflict in a team, to describe my knowledge of computers in more detail and to describe a time I went above and beyond in my (volunteer) role amongst other things.

I thought it was just going to be us but when I walked in this other lady was on a big tv via Skype lol, I thought that was cool.

I really hope I get it but can't imagine I will, what are the chances someone with great experience wouldn't have been interviewed?

Surprisingly I wasn't asked about a difficult customer or working under pressure.

it sounds like a great interview, and don't despair I have interviewed lots of people with "great" experience, who just don't fit the job role. Attitude, friendliness, communicating well, fitting into my team, manners, community spirit, willingness to learn and not being a smart a**e, often count more highly than experience. No-one want an experienced pain in the backside in their team.