Scary interview task???

finallyfree_2

Hi all,

I have been invited to attend an interview for the post of a child & family support worker at a school. I have no formal qualufications in the field but have done lots of voluntary work in the family support sector.

So, very surprised to be asked to an interview however that excitement soon turned to intense fear when on the email it states there will be a 'task' to complete followed by formal interview


Does anyone have any ideas/ thoughts around what the task may be?

Thanks

rover2000

Could you not contact them and ask what it is likely to be?

Beachview_2

It could be a role play type task, maybe with you doing the support worker and one of the interviewers as one of the clients you'd be dealing with. If its something like that, they'll give you a bit of background info on the 'situation' and a bit of time to prepare before, maybe 10 or 15 minutes. I'd say the task itself would probably last for 5 minutes or so.


Don't worry too much about the task, it'll be far batter than you thought it would be. Just remember not to panic when you go in to start the task, and never admit to them that you're nervous or anything when you go into the task room. It looks better if you just get straight into the task, and act confident if you don't feel it


Remember you wouldn't have got this far if they didn't think you were up to the job, so well done on getting the interview as many others won't have got that far.

Beachview_2

Another way they might be going to assess you for the task is to put you into groups for a task, with a couple of assessors watching to see how you interact with each other, if they think teamwork and communication are important for the job. For anything in a group, make sure to speak out as you don't want to be seen to be quiet.


I had an interview and assessment day a couple of weeks ago, and I have to admit I did panic when I first read it in the email, but when I thought about each of the tasks, I calmed down then and knew I could do it. When I actually got there on the day, it was actually enjoyable, and it was a good chance to meet the other interviewees. There were other things we had to do too, but I don't think they'd be relevant to you as it was for sales job. I think its actually a good way to pick someone.

Katgrit

I've interviewed for NHS positions and here is approx the task we once gave to some clinic nurses (know its not connected but just to give you the jist)

In-tray exercise:

It's 5pm on Thursday and you have the following things to deal with. How would you prioritise them?

1. Ansaphone message from patient who has lost his appointment card.
2. Abnormal lab result on patient who left the clinic an hour ago
3. Slightly high result lab result on patient who has also left the clinic.
4. Patient requires a call back as receptionist took a call saying patient suffering bleeding.
5. Pharmacy dept need order code for new product.
6. A&E dept have asked for info from a patients casenotes.
7.Patient diagnosed with diabetes at another clinic today and phoned to ask advice on how this will need him to alter his medication for your clinic.

There's no right or wrong answers, we also asked for a quick explanation. The kind of thing we were looking for was: 1, 5 and possibly 6 could be handed to clerical staff to deal with. Or left until morning. If further help needed with 6 then this should be fairly quick hopefully so could be done first. Patient on 5 may need hosp admittion so call back immediately incase further liaison with other depts, ambulance, gp etc required. Patient in 2 probably had time to arrive home so phone and discuss urgent alteration to medication. If patient in 3 has had enough time to arrive home then phone to discuss, bit not major medical issue so leaving until clinic opens next morning would not be catastrophic. 7 sounds urgent but isn't - its been discovered today but he's actually had it for months without knowing so leaving it til tomorrow won't make any more dufference to his condition. Get junior nurse to phone him back with reassurance until you consult his diabetic clinic notes.

I'm not saying this will any help, just the type of thing we ask. We didn't ask technical things like "How often would you give XXXX drug to a patient suffering from XXXXX" or "What year was the legislation changed regarding feeding tubes in anorexics". Sounds obvious but I'd say it'll be something to assess how you react and practically deal with different parts of the job. I don't know what your job could involve but maybe someone similar.

I've tried to help but have a sinking feeling I haven't done!

Katgrit

Ooo just remembered something I had to do once like Beachview was referring to....so they could see how we worked in teams.

We had a build a copy of a very simple lego house (a flat 2D model, not a complex 3D one!)

Person 1 was allowed to look inside a box containing the house, on the other side of the room and then come back and tell us what it looked like, but was only allowed to look in the box 4 times. ("Its 12 cubes wide and the bottom row of bricks is black....theres two yellow windows 2 bricks up.....or was it 3?")
Person 2 had to visit the "supplier" and bring back lego bricks, but only carry 5 bricks at a time and no returns for wrong bricks were allowed.
Person 3 had to build.
Person 4 had to coordinate the others.
We had something like 5 minutes. There may have been other roles involved but I can't remember.

Was a very good task to see the different types of people in different roles and how we all got annoyed with each other when it wasn't looking right!

mattcanary

Katgrit wrote: »

I've interviewed for NHS positions and here is approx the task we once gave to some clinic nurses (know its not connected but just to give you the jist)

In-tray exercise:

It's 5pm on Thursday and you have the following things to deal with. How would you prioritise them?

1. Ansaphone message from patient who has lost his appointment card.
2. Abnormal lab result on patient who left the clinic an hour ago
3. Slightly high result lab result on patient who has also left the clinic.
4. Patient requires a call back as receptionist took a call saying patient suffering bleeding.
5. Pharmacy dept need order code for new product.
6. A&E dept have asked for info from a patients casenotes.
7.Patient diagnosed with diabetes at another clinic today and phoned to ask advice on how this will need him to alter his medication for your clinic.

There's no right or wrong answers, we also asked for a quick explanation. The kind of thing we were looking for was: 1, 5 and possibly 6 could be handed to clerical staff to deal with. Or left until morning. If further help needed with 6 then this should be fairly quick hopefully so could be done first. Patient on 5 may need hosp admittion so call back immediately incase further liaison with other depts, ambulance, gp etc required. Patient in 2 probably had time to arrive home so phone and discuss urgent alteration to medication. If patient in 3 has had enough time to arrive home then phone to discuss, bit not major medical issue so leaving until clinic opens next morning would not be catastrophic. 7 sounds urgent but isn't - its been discovered today but he's actually had it for months without knowing so leaving it til tomorrow won't make any more dufference to his condition. Get junior nurse to phone him back with reassurance until you consult his diabetic clinic notes.

I'm not saying this will any help, just the type of thing we ask. We didn't ask technical things like "How often would you give XXXX drug to a patient suffering from XXXXX" or "What year was the legislation changed regarding feeding tubes in anorexics". Sounds obvious but I'd say it'll be something to assess how you react and practically deal with different parts of the job. I don't know what your job could involve but maybe someone similar.

I've tried to help but have a sinking feeling I haven't done!

For what it's worth, I chose the order as (from most urgent to least):

4,6,2,3,1,5,7

gizmo111

It's likely to be something that you would do I the job - so may be read a book to a class of children, written scenario of how you would deal with a situation etc. It won't last long but is likely to have a high weighting on the final decision.

J_i_m

Indeed, it's basically the interviewer trying to probe how you'd organise your time effectively, prioritise tasks within the overall objective and also how you'd handle interruptions.

They're looking to see if your answers fit the role.

Actually I'm glad the "intray" example has been been brought up here, because it's reminded me that I need to brainstorm some framework answers myself, for my interview marathon this week.