Primary school clerical assistant

devils_vixen

I have an interview for the above on friday. Does anyone know what kind of questions I'm likely to be asked? Not had an interview in 5 years so I'm a bit rusty!

Many thanks

National_Careers_Service

Hi devils_vixen

Congratulations on getting to interview! You must have done a great job on your application, as there’s always lots of competition for clerical roles in a primary school setting.

There are a number of fairly generic questions that interviewers might ask, such as:

• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Why do you want to work here?
• What do you know about our school?
• What will the main tasks and responsibilities be in this job?
• What experience have you got from previous jobs?
• What makes a good team member?
• How would you describe yourself?

So you could certainly use these as a starting point for preparing. I’d also tend to suggest that you examine the person specification (if you have access to that), as it will give you a sense of the kind of skills & experience the employer requires, and also provide some sense of what your duties might be. If you familiarise yourself with what the employer wants, you can then start to anticipate the kind of questions they may ask. For example: If one of the requirements on the person spec is the ability to work well as part of a busy team, then it is reasonable to think that they may ask a question such as: “Tell us about a time where you’ve worked effectively as part of a team”. They will be looking for examples that prove that you have that ability.

At the end of the interview, they may well ask you if you have any questions for them, so it’s worth preparing a couple of sensible questions in advance, so you don’t get caught out. Something like: “Can you tell me a little about the induction process”? might be good, as it shows that you’re interested in the job and are envisaging yourself in the role already.

I hope this gives you a decent sense of some of the questions that might crop up.

Good luck for tomorrow! I’m sure you’ll give a great interview.


Victoria

dancingfairy

Know your cv and be prepared to talk about past jobs.
Normally the interviewer will ask you a starter question such as about your journey, or ask you to tell them a bit about yourself or ask why you want the job, that sort of thing.
As above the questions are likely to be around what skills you have and how you would/have reacted in certain situations so the more examples you have the better.
A quick google for interview questions will throw up load if the ones from the careers service aren't enough for you.
Also you might want to run through the star technique (a quick google on that might help as well). Basically it's S (situation), T (task), A (action), R (result). What was the situation, what was your task, what action did you take/not take and what was the result. This apparently helps you formulate answers and give examples of team work, coping in a difficult situation or whatever skill they have asked you about without waffling on.
Also I'd do a bit of research about the school, it's results. it's catchment, whether it has a high proportion of special needs/foreign students that sort of thing is useful.
There are different types of interview. Some are more generic and chat based whereas others are more competancy based and want examples of how you have behaved in certain way (which is where the star method comes in handy).
Another thing that might pop up is a short test - perhaps a typing test or data entry test in excel, although if that was the case they probably would have told you by now.
Good luck. I'm sure you'll be fine once you get into the swing of it (and no matter how much you have prepared they will always ask you a question you haven't thought of so don't stress about practising answering every question on the planet before hand ).
df

dancingfairy

Oh, go through the person spec/job description and highlight the key skills they are asking for. Make sure you have examples for those.
Also I'd write a few bullet points of the most important points you want to get across and pop those in your bag so if you get a moment before the interview you can have a quick glance at it.
Oh and write down the name, address and time of the interview and a phone number in case you get delayed.
df

dandelionclock30

They will almost certainly ask you questions to do with confidentiality, safeguarding and something on equal opportunities as well.