Interview questions for Cleaning job

geminilady

I used to work 30 hours a week as an office cleaner but got made redundant.Those hours are very hard to come by but I could make them up by a combination of a 20 and 10 hours but am struggling even to find twenty hours. I am 55 so a bit old to train for something else.Anyway I am hopeless at interviews,I was 13 years in my previous job and in those days it was just have you any experience and if yes start Monday.At the few interviews I have had they asked mt to describe a problem and how I solved it? also a similar one.Describe a situation when you were under stress?All I could think of was when someone did not turn in and we had to cover their job.Any ideas what sort of answers they are looking for?

Savvy_Sue

OK, well let's practice those two questions.

What problems might you have had? Vacuum cleaner not working? "I spoke to my supervisor, and suggested that as there was too large an area to clean completely with the equipment I had on hand, I would concentrate on the public reception area and then move onto those areas which appeared to be most in need. On my next visit I ensured that all areas I hadn't been able to cover were carefully vacuumed and checked."

Stress: "A colleague didn't turn up and we had a lot of work to get through. We knew we couldn't skip anything, so we agreed what extra jobs each of us could do, and which jobs we could do faster if two of us worked together."

Get the idea?

brightonman123

safety, hygiene must be important- think of something around that-
how you deal with a spillage, perhaps?

caeler

I think a cleaner should be - efficient, safe, not afraid of hard work (or spiders ;-), have attention to detail, confident on deciding how to clean particular things (when mopping, vacuuming, etc is needed), aware of etiquette (ie if an office - when to move personal effects, etc), as others have suggested awareness of chemicals and health and safety (ie. different cloths for toilets, sink, etc). So, think of ways to talk about your experience covering those things and you'll find answering any questions easy because you'll have memorised things to say and examples. It's all competency based interviewing these days...'give me an example of when you...' Good luck!

National_Careers_Service

Hello geminilady,

Hopefully with some preparation you’ll feel much more confident about your next interview. To me, it sounds as though your main stumbling block at the moment is you’re not quite sure what the interviewer is really getting at when they’ve asked these questions.

I would imagine that employers often like applicants to show some evidence to back up statements about their skills. Giving examples can help the employer to understand exactly how you cope with pressure and solve problems, for example.

In the case you described, it sounds like they wanted to hear about evidence which proves you are a good problem solver and are able to work under pressure/stress.

To break this down a bit, they might like to hear about three things:
a) what the situation/problem was
b) what you did to deal with or overcome the problem
c) what the outcome was.
As the other posters have mentioned, there are certain key skills that employers might look for in a cleaner. It looks as though this particular employer wanted to know that you are able to sort out problems when they arise and you cope well under pressure. Can you think of other skills that employers might be looking for in a cleaner? Could you perhaps think of a situation that you’ve experienced which would help you talk about each of these skills?

Are you able to think of the situation and the outcome for each of these skills? If we look at the examples you gave, are you able to describe what you specifically did to help you cope with the pressure and solve the problem? Perhaps, as an example, you may have broken down the situation that caused the stress into manageable chunks to deal with one at a time – how do you keep a cool head?

In the example that Savvy_Sue mentioned about the hoover, she talked about how she broke the problem down and found a solution to the problem. She also talked about who she asked for help from to solve the problem.

Does this help a bit?

Good luck with your interviews and I hope you find some more hours soon!

scooby088

Do you have knowledge of COSHH maybe a question too.

MoneyMate

geminilady wrote: »

I used to work 30 hours a week as an office cleaner but got made redundant.Those hours are very hard to come by but I could make them up by a combination of a 20 and 10 hours but am struggling even to find twenty hours. I am 55 so a bit old to train for something else.Anyway I am hopeless at interviews,I was 13 years in my previous job and in those days it was just have you any experience and if yes start Monday.At the few interviews I have had they asked mt to describe a problem and how I solved it? also a similar one.Describe a situation when you were under stress?All I could think of was when someone did not turn in and we had to cover their job.Any ideas what sort of answers they are looking for?

What type of Cleaning job is it ? Office, Catering etc :beer: