The Empowered Job Seeker Series, v.13 - Helping Ciera to Effectively Prepare for Competition - Setting the Interview Stage.

Over the last few weeks, we have introduced you to the ways in which we help the former employees who you enrol in the CMS outplacement program, market their skills and career histories - whether that be through online job postings, LinkedIn, networking, the hidden job market, via recruiters, employment agencies, etc.

Once our marketing efforts start coming to fruition, we must then work with our candidates on preparing them for the all-important interview process!

There are No Prizes for Coming in 2nd Place!

As job seekers like Ciera quickly come to understand, an interview is an unnatural meeting between two human beings who likely don’t know each other.  Trying to interpret unspoken cues of an unfamiliar interviewer, while answering unknown questions and while trying to maintain composure, is bound to cause stress and anxiety in any enthusiastic, hopeful interviewee!

Ciera was provided our career transition service after the lost her job following the sale of her company.  She was looking for another Quality Assurance management role and although she didn’t fully take advantage of our program at the start, she re-engaged with her Program Coach when she found little success after subsequent failed interviews. 

Our first task was to help Ciera to understand and overcome her awkward feelings and unplanned reactions during the interview process.  We helped her to become keenly aware of the possibility of strange interpersonal dynamics, behaviours and questions she might experience in an interview room.  Part of that task involved detailed discussion with her CMS Program Coach around emotional intelligence, how to build rapport and manage interpersonal chemistry, and how to avoid embarrassing ‘stumble-blunders’ through effective listening skills and how to influence the line of questioning to her advantage.  Her new awareness of how subtle interpersonal dynamics between polite strangers can vastly affect the outcome of an interview, was enlightening to her and extremely important to her career transition journey.

In addition, we helped to set the interview stage for Ciera.  We taught her about what she may expect in regards to interview format, the types of interviewers and the types of technical and behavioural style questions she may be asked – All of which were all extremely important in setting Ciera up for success – especially since she hadn’t interviewed for a few years. 

Interviewing can take a multitude of different forms and it can be difficult to anticipate what is going to happen at each meeting.  Variations in the person interviewing us, the format chosen, the sector or industry, and of course the variety of questions being asked can be immense.  Ensuring our candidates are well prepared for and are aware of the variety of circumstances they may find themselves in is key to their success.

Over the next few weeks, we will delve in deeper to the intricate ways we work with our job search candidates like Ciera, through the interview preparation process, and we invite you to stay tuned!