Week 20 - Youth Into Jobs End of Year Celebration

What's a youth employment program without a little end of year party? We had food, drink, speeches and gave every a +1 to bring a friend. We also invited Momtaz Ajid, CEO of LiC and Helal Ahmed, Head of Spotlight Youth Centre & Youth Services for Poplar Harca.

We started with a little presentation on the 5 steps we took to making our young people employable. This step by step system was news to the participants as well as the guests. 

Step 1 - Get them to bond and unite

Step 2 - Build their CVs and interview skills

Step 3 - Turn them into professionals

Step 4 - Crank up the competition

Step 5 - Send them out into the big, wide world

It was a funny but emotional day for them, looking back on photos and videos of the journey they had all taken.

Afterwards, we presented them with their Youth Into Jobs t-shirts to remember it forevermore.

Helal Ahmed commented on how the enthusiasm from the participants was "second to none", which was great to hear coming from someone who oversees youth projects across the whole of Tower Hamlets. 

Congratulations and best of luck for the future for Youth Into Jobs graduating class of 2012! 

Week 19 - Y2J Round Up Day

Anhar took some time to get everyone to reflect on everything they have been learning in Youth Into Jobs over the whole program.

It was a very emotional time and we got to see how much they really bonded and got to know each other.

There was wide spread agreement that they all feel much more confident in their ability to find a job compared to before Youth Into Jobs.

We gave them a chance to tell us their plans and how they are going to use their new found skills in future. Several had plans to repeat the Westfield CV exercise from Week 16. One had been preparing for 2 interviews, one with Jaguar and the other with Transport for London. Another had an interview with Natwest, and a third was due for an assessment day with John Lewis.

Youth Into Jobs graduating class of 2012

Week 18 - Y2J Diary Room

Youth Into Jobs Diary Room

Following on from last weeks 'ripping off television programs' theme, we're allowing the group to give feedback on the entire Youth Into Jobs program through what we like to call:

The Youth Into Jobs Diary Room

They can choose to be filmed in pairs or individually, as long they really b**** and get everything off their chest that they didn't like about the program.

This was prompted by the pathetic answers received on the feedback forms for the following question:

"Is there anything you would add, change or remove to make Youth Into Jobs better?"

"No"

...this answer was given across the board by every one of them, independently and without knowing what the others had written.

As much as I'd like to believe that we've managed to create a perfect program first time around, it's a lot more likely that they are apprehensive about criticising the program on a form that they know we will read.

That, and they are probably too lazy to use up precious brain power in thinking up creative ways we could to improve it.

Having them in front of a camera with no one around created an atmosphere where they can really open up and tell us what wasn't so good. 

We were expecting the this total freedom of speech to result in the b****ing levels reaching epic proportions, but the actual results were surprisingly tame. 

One major point that came out through the diary room was that they all truly loved the program as well as the trainers (yay!)

Despite how it may look, we did not put them up to this. 

And it is by sheer coincidence, that we have a go karting trip organised for them next month.

Week 17 - John Lewis Factor

John Lewis Factor
This week we had special guest Terry Saunders, Community Liaison Coordinator at John Lewis, coming in to let our candidates know which four people had made it through the interviews to do a work placement.

Please don't tell Simon Cowell... we can't afford to get sued

We had envisaged it being like the last stage of boot camp on X Factor: Split them into two groups (one successful, one not), bring one group into the room, line them up (pause for dramatic effect) and tell them they've all made it through to the work placements (queue the screaming and hugging).

Instead, we've opted for the last stage of the judges houses. Terry will be taking them to the lounge room couches to give them feedback on their interviews before letting them know whether they are through.

Terry stayed true to the X Factor tradition of leading the successful ones on to believe they hadn't made it through, before giving them the good news. All unsuccessful candidates were given feedback on how improve and give a stronger interview in future.

Anhar enjoyed plagiarising The Matrix in telling candidates that what was said was said for them alone.

Week 16 - How to hand in your CV to a shop

As you can probably tell, it's been a busy week. Our approach for this next task comes from the teachings of the all wise Neil Strauss and his book The Game. 

We swapped the stuffy workshop room for a local shopping centre. First, one candidate picks out a shop where they want to work. Then we send everyone else into the shop in 2's and 3's to loiter near the counter. A minute after, the candidate approaches the counter alone and makes conversation with a member of staff, attempting to see the store manager to ask about vacancies and hand in their CV. 


I did the first approach and let them pick which shop I'd go into.


Handing in a CV to Polarn O. Pyret (kids clothes)
Peter: Hi, how you doing?


Acting Manager: Very good. You?


Peter: I'm great! I was hoping I could talk to the store manager. 


Acting Manager: She won't be in until tomorrow. 


Peter: Ah bummer. I was just out shopping today and I really wanted to talk to her about working here...


Acting Manager: ...well I'm acting manager today.


Peter: Great! So you're the person I need to speak to. Are you guys hiring at the moment?


Acting Manager: We have a recruitment freeze at the moment, but it should be over soon. Do you want to hand in your CV?


Peter: I do, but I don't want it to end up in the middle of a massive pile of CVs. I'll give it to you if you swear you'll get whoevers in charge of recruitment to see it. 


Acting Manager: (smiling) I swear I will! We don't even normally take CVs, but I'll make an exception for you since you're so nice and polite and friendly.


Peter: Great! I love getting special treatment (hands over CV). Hope I hear from you soon! Bye and my names Peter by the way. 


Acting Manager: See you. Take care Peter!


She seemed genuine, so hopefully I wasn't deceived by her line about not usually taking CVs. 


After that, it was approach after approach for our Y2J candidates, with immediate feedback outside the shop afterwards. 

Bobby checking for vacancies in Nandos

Fokrul checking for vacancies in republic, with Anhar and Bobby strategically placed  to listen in and give feedback

Ruman checking for vacancies in Paperchase

Foot Asylum
In Foot Asylum...


1) Ruman goes in, hands in his CV and is told they will be recruiting next week.


2) Fokrul goes in, hand in his CV and is also told they will be recruiting next week. 



3) Bobby goes in...

Bobby: "I hear you're recruiting next week"



Store Manager: "How did you hear that?"



Bobby: "2 little birdies told me!"


She hands in her CV and leaves. 


Best approach I saw all day!

We debriefed at the end of the task and found that everyone was really pumped up after all these approaches. They had gone out of their comfort zones and found that it wasn't as bad as they imagined. 


They had simply built it up in their own heads. 


All have made a good start on their way to their 100 job applications. 

Sports Direct

The job interviews go so well on Monday that the deputy manager passes the next three on to the manager. 

On Wednesday the manager is so impressed, he passes it onto to the Area manager to interview them all next week. 

The deputy manager asked to hire one of our candidates on the day. Anhar quietly calmed her down and reminded her she has three more to see. 

Money 4 Life Winners
Our winners by a whopping margin (509 likes vs 216) was Bobby, Rahima and Rajina's group: 
If Money doesn't grow on Trees why do Banks have Branches?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/If-Money-Doesnt-Grow-On-Trees-Then-Why-Do-Banks-Have-Branches/291912810874406

They very graciously agreed to treat the whole group to an outing rather than spend the whole £400 prize on themselves. Should be such a fun day!

Week 16 - 3 Steps to working at Wagamama

Step 1

I approach any random worker and say...


Peter: Hi. Is Sarah still the store manager here?

Random worker 1: (puzzled) No, the store manager is called Boris.

Peter: Oh, ok. Thanks.

Step 2
Ten minutes I come back and talk to a different worker...

Peter: Hi, I'm here to see Boris. He's not expecting me, but I was passing by and was wondering if he had a minute to spare.

Random worker 2: Just a moment (goes and checks)... Boris is busy at the moment, can you come back in ten minutes?

Peter: Yes, that will be fine

Step 3
Ten minutes later...

Peter: Hi, I'm here to see Boris. He's expecting me. 

Random worker 3: Just a moment please

Boris walks over

Boris: Hi, how can I help you?

Peter: Hi Boris, my name's Peter. I was given your name by the store manager at the Canary Wharf branch. I know you're busy so I'm not going to take up much of your time, but I just wanted to hand deliver my CV to you so you could put a face to it and know that I'm not some lazy job seeker handing out a million CVs to anywhere that will take them. This is the only place I've come in today and I'd love it if you'd consider me for any vacancies you have. Are there any at the moment?

Boris scans my CV, skeptically.

Boris: You should know that we don't usually hire university students

Peter: I understand and I wouldn't usually get a job during university, but I would love to work if it means I can work at Wagamama. I love this restaurant and I'm such a big fan.

Boris: I can see you're enthusiastic, but your time schedule means it would be part time. The main problem is that training part-timers takes twice as long as normal

Peter: That's fine with me, I learn twice as fast as normal. Plus I eat here all the time so I already know most of your menu. I've seen how your employees work and I know I could do just as amazing a job as they do.

Boris: Okay Peter. I'll give you a call later this week so you can come in to show me what you've got on a day when we're less busy.

Peter: Great! (shakes hand) I'll see you soon!


Later that week I was called back and invited to an on the job trial session in store. Of course, not every approach went as well as this. We were constantly told things like:

• "We're not recruiting at the moment"
• "The store manager is not here / busy / doesn't see customers"
• "Leave your CV and we'll get back to you"
• "It's all done online"

The trick is getting around these autopilot responses whenever you can, which are designed to weed out the lazy job seekers. These are basically road blocks stopping you from getting to the destination of working at the store. The only way to keep thinking of ways to get around those road blocks. 

Week 15 - Interviews at John Lewis & Sports Direct

This week we watched them go off all by themselves to their John Lewis interviews.

The human equivalent of sending our kids to "the dropoff".

They are as prepared as they can be.

We used our free time off from leading the workshop to test out our 'CV handing out' session the following week.

I'd insisted we dumb down our CVs in an attempt to prove that we can find work relying solely on our attitude and personality instead of our skills and experience. 

As far as anyone who sees my CV is concerned, I am currently in my first year of university with 2 weeks work experience and currently doing volunteer work at a local youth charity called Leaders In Community!

After finding the clothes stores incredibly busy we decided to head for the food court. We agreed to only give out our CVs where we deemed we had a 70% chance or more of getting a call back. We based this on our own judgement of how much the store staff liked us.

Some good approaches including me getting tips from the girl behind the counter on how she got the job and getting a meeting with Wagamama store manager in 3 steps.

*For more information on the Wagamama aproach see "Week 16 - 3 Steps to working at Wagamama"

Anhar also had his moments: 

Store staff: "All our recruitment is done online. You'll have to register through our website"

Anhar: "But I'm right here in front of you now. I'm saving you time and money by cutting out the steps in between!"

And then again at Sports Direct, he'd gone in looking for a job and 15 minutes later, he'd come out with job interviews lined up the following week for our candidates to fill 3 vacancies.

This guy is a serious professional.

Week 14 - Guest Speakers Momtaz Ajid (CEO) & Kobitha Sultana (Office Manager)

This week we have special guest speakers, Momtaz Ajid (CEO of Leaders In Community) and Kobitha Sultana (Office Manager at We Are Peas).

Kobitha Sultana

Title: Office Manager

Company: We Are Peas

Age: 19




Kobitha started off by talking about her journey into employment.

At the age of 17 she had dropped out of college, against her parents wishes, and started her first apprenticeship in Business Administration.

She later participated in 2 other apprenticeships and numerous training courses, working in temporary reception and administrative roles whenever she could find the work.

After a year and a half she finally secured a permanent position as an administrator at We Are Peas and currently works as its Office Manager.

All at the tender age of 19.

Our young candidates found Kobitha's journey refreshing to hear as many, despite parental pressures, were considering not going to University. Partly due to the recent and massive rise in university fees.

She made it sound easy, but had actually sent out over 100 CVs before securing her first apprenticeship.

And her motivation had all come from herself. No one had pushed her to apply everyday, or go out to shops handing in her CVs.

I took this as an opportunity to ask how many CVs our young people had handed out since they had started the program. The answer was around 40 total, between all ten of them.

Their target is now 100 CVs each before the end of the program.

Momtaz Ajid

Company: Leaders In Community (LiC)

Title: CEO & Founder

Age: 28





Momtaz spoke on the importance of volunteering.

It's an opportunity to do something you love and gain working experience.

A chance to show a company your potential, possibly leading onto a paid job.

LiC employs 7 members of staff, and almost every single one started as a volunteer.

Momtaz herself was also a volunteer at another company before creating Leaders In Community

Dressing Professionally
This week was especially useful for the girls who got to talk about how to dress professionally as a woman (Anhar and I had been distracting them with shiny objects whenever they asked us).

For the boys, was quite simple... wear a suit.

The boys made the poor choice of choosing a pink pen to jot down ideas on good interview appearance

For the girls, it was slightly more complicated with issues to worry about such as:

• Make up application
• Shortness of skirt
• Hair styles

Some ideas from the girls on good appearance for females going to an interview

*Special thanks to Momtaz and Kobitha for giving up their time to come out and speak to the group.

Week 13 - Interview Preparation, Top 4 Y2J Trade Secrets

Interview Preparation
As our candidates are still quite young, we likened preparing for an interview to preparing for an exam:

• Know where it is and plan to get there in plenty of time
• Revise on the questions that you think will be asked
• Do some mock questions as practice

Add to the above that you need to:

• Be dressed business smart
• Revise on the company and role that you're applying to

Stress levels at both an exam and interview can be equally high.

Our candidates admit that they have not been as prepared as they would have liked in exams, so we'll be working to shape up their forward planning skills for future interviews.

A lot of the essential planning stages were covered in week 10, including:

• Preparing clothes and appearance
• Planning the journey
• Revising the Job Description and Personal Specification
• Researching the company

Below are our Top 4 Youth Into Jobs trade secrets that they won't teach you at regular employment workshops:

1. Talk to people before your interview

Chat with the receptionist, security guards, cleaners. Ask how long they've worked there, what it's like, etc. Anything to keep your mind off your own nerves. 

Otherwise, you're giving yourself too much time to sit there stressing out about what you'll be asked you and are guaranteed to be a nervous wreck by the time your name is called. 

Small talk also warms up your talking muscles, meaning you'll be a lot more relaxed and comfortable in your interview.

2. Drink water

You know that glass of water they offer you?

Take it.

I don't care whether you're thirsty or not.

Accepting that glass of water shows you are comfortable being there.

It allows you some extra time to think if you time a sip correctly after a question is asked.

And of course, it gives you a chance to drink something if your voice gets a bit croaky from all the talking you'll be doing


3. Go to the bathroom when you get there
Whether you drove or took public transport, likelihood is you had to walk through the elements to get to the interview.

So whether you immediately need the bathroom or not, going there when you arrive gives you a chance to fix up your  appearance. Hair, face, clothes, etc.

Use the toilet if you can, you don't want it to creep up on you when you go into the interview.

4. Ask good questions
Anyone who's ever given a presentation, speech or led an interview knows it's customary to ask if there are any questions at the end.

This can often lead to what we call "tumble weed moments" or "one minute silences", leaving you wondering whether anyone was even listening.

But sometimes, you get someone who will ask a really insightful question.

It could be a member of the audience asking about a part of your presentation that you wanted to talk about but was forced to cut out due to shortages of time.

It could be an interviewee pointing out a potential problem (and possibly solution) that you yourself have already been having within the job that they are applying for.

These people don't come along often, but they are the special few who stand out.
The ones you go and make conversation with at the buffet table afterwards.
The ones you will remember due to the fact that they were truly listening and "getting it".

Money 4 Life (Update) 
The teams have now created their FB pages under the following names:

Team 1 - Money Matters

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Money-Matters/256399841109230

Team 2 - If Money Doesn't grow on Trees then why do Banks have Branches?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/If-Money-Doesnt-Grow-On-Trees-Then-Why-Do-Banks-Have-Branches/291912810874406

Within the first week both teams had already smashed the target of 50 likes, although the "If money doesn't grow on trees..." or dinosaur team only very closely scraped through the criteria ("tsk tsk"). 

The winner will be announced in 2 weeks times on Wednesday 21 March 2012.

Week 12 - Personal Development, Money 4 Life & Subway

"When life kicks you in the ass, at least you're moving forwards"

Personal Development Day
Personal Development Day allowed us to give them feedback on how everyone has progressed over the last 12 weeks. Anhar, my fellow trainer, also likes to use it as an opportunity to motivate people using one of 3 methods:

1. Criticise them - Tell them how much they have to improve on and how far they have to go
2. Relate to them - Tell them about when you've been in a similar situation as them
3. Praise them - Tell them how amazing they are doing

Different approaches were used on different people, depending on which we thought would work with them. On the whole, their attitudes have improved dramatically and interview performance is up but in order to keep them moving forwards, some needed to be kicked up the ass.

Money 4 Life
The group are taking part in a project funded by Money 4 Life, whereby they have to teach others on the importance of budgeting and saving using the magic of Facebook pages.

To increase their competitiveness they are being split into two teams with a budget of £50 for each team. The Facebook pages must be related to money management and after 2 weeks, the team with the most "likes" wins.

The winning team will get to go out on a trip worth up to £300. The losing team will get nothing (a lot of thought went into this decision).

The level of hard work, sneakiness and undercover espionage on this day was unrivaled throughout the whole program.

Team 1 immediately get to researching about popular
Facebook pages and what makes them work

Team 2 follow onto the computers shortly after seeing
Team 1 do it

Subway

Midway through the Money 4 Life project, Anhar enters the room talking loudly and causing everyone to stop their work...

"...you want to know if they'll be interested? I can find out for you right now"

(he holds up the phone to the room)

"Anybody want to work at Subway?"

The room erupts with noise as everybody tries to signal their interest in working at Subway. 

Anhar makes a sideways zipping gesture to silence them and exits the room.

He later re-enters informing them about 2 part time positions available, but they have to be ready to be interviewed in two days time.

They all rush to phone around, canceling plans and rescheduling appointments to be available.

The ones that can't are instantly out of the running and learn a valuable lesson: this is how fast the recruitment industry works, and you need to be equally flexible and fast reacting to give yourself the best chance of being hired. 

Week 11 - Mock Interviews & Mid Term Review

"The only way to get better at anything is to practice"

Peter

Being able to see the interview from the point of view of the interviewer is a good way of improving your performance at interviews.

From my experience, performing actual interviews will have you cringing at some of the things people will say, and just praying for them to mention some of the key points to score higher.

When the roles are then flipped and I am being interviewed, I can then answer questions while keeping in mind the kinds of things I would need to hear if I was the one interviewing. 

For our mock interviews, we split the group into 3 interview panels, one representing Marks & Spencers, one representing JD Sports and one representing Asda.

The panels took turns interviewing someone from another team before we would announce "SWITCH", and they would shift around to interview somebody new.

At the end, each team picked the person they would hire using the tried and tested X Factor method of moving photos of each candidate around and criticising each one whilst still providing reasons why they are a strong candidate.

The participants anxiously await their panel interviews

At the end a clear winner was announced from Marks and Spencers and Asda, both hiring Bobby, with the JD Sports panel hiring Shahina. Bobby later accepted positions at both companies to help support her starving family.

The exercise gave everyone a chance to see what it's like from the side of the interviewer. We'll be testing how this has changed their interview performance in our 1-1 interviews in week 14.

Fokrul keeps his cool under the pressure of being interviewed

*Video coming soon

Week 10 - Why People Fail Interviews

"The best interviews are when the candidate doesn't know he/she is being interviewed"

Peter

Interviews are like auditions.

Except in an audition, you are given a helpful snippet of how the person will actually perform if you hire them. Whereas in an interview, you only get to hear the person talk about how well they will perform a job if you hire them. 

So many people who are very capable of performing a job, are incapable of talking about how they will perform the job. They put all their efforts into performing a job, e.g. selling phones, but never practice how they will talk it up in an interview to display their capabilities. 

We've been teaching our Y2J candidates how to structure their answers and make it easy for the interviewer to see how capable they are. When answering interview questions, remember to:

PEE in your CAR

PEE stands for Point, Evidence, Explain and CAR stands for, Circumstance, Action Result. 

Every answer you give can follow this structure, so for example, when asked a questions about customer service for the role of sales assistant at John Lewis:

Point - I believe good customer is about exceeding customer expectations

Example - While doing my work experience at Asda...
     Circumstance - ...I noticed an elderly lady struggling to reach a jar of mayonnaise on 
     the top shelf

     Action - I rushed over and got it for her. I also offered to help her carry her bags to 

     the car

     Result - The lady was really glad to have some help and couldn't stop thanking me

Explain - I am naturally giving person and find it genuinely rewarding to exceed someone's expectations

Answering questions using this structure makes it really easy for the interviewer to see your strengths. A John Lewis interviewer hearing this answer could then assume you would go equally far for John Lewis customers as you did for Asda customers. 

Ruman answers some tough mock interview questions for a fake panel of interviewers

Some tips our candidates came up with about preparing for an interview include:

Before the Interview

• Know the Role - examine the person specification, job description and your CV/application form
• Know the Company - have some key facts about what makes it different from others
• Practice your answers with a friend (a Google search will usually show you what kind of questions are asked about the role by the company)
• Plan your journey - find out how to get there and how long it will take
• Dress smartly
• Trim your nails and hair (especially facial hair)
• Bathe the night before
• Don't smoke

During the Interview

• Look positive
• Speak clearly and confidently 
• Show positive body language (only 7% of communication is verbal)
• Answer the question asked - take you time and answer the question relevantly to the role
• Sell yourself
• Turn off your mobile
• Don't be late!
• Don't swear or use slang
• Don't slouch
• Don't criticise former employers or colleagues

After the Interview

• Ask questions - prepare some relevant questions to ask at the end e.g. when will I be informed if I'm successful? Where is the job based? But don't ask about salary
• Call them back - if they haven't informed you when they said they would, give them a call and ask

*A top tip is to remember that it is not the end of the world if you don't get the job. SERIOUSLY keep this in mind and it will help you to be more natural and calm at the interview, rather than a trembling, nervous wreck! 

Week 9 - How to Be Confident

"Confidence... that feeling you have before you fully understand the situation"

Confidence increases with experience. 

On a scale of 1 - 10 (low - high) the first time you ride a bike, confidence is probably below 3. After riding to work everyday for a year, it's probably at 9 - 10 and so high that you don't even need to think about it. 

As most of our young participants have never had paid jobs or been to an interview it is perfectly normal for their confidence to be low. 

To find out where confidence levels were everyone was given a note with another persons name on it. They were asked to stick it (face down) onto a confidence scale from 1 - 10 of how confident they believe this person is. They were then asked to write their own name on a sticky note and place it on the scale of how confident they felt. 

A green tick represents outward confidence sticky note

The first note represents outward confidence, or how confident a person appears to others. 

The second note represents inward confidence, how confident a person feels inside. 

When the first stick notes were turned around, everyone realised that their outward confidence (average = 7) was higher than their inner confidence (average = 5) i.e. everyone appears more confident that they feel. Seems everyones been practicing how to look more confident than they feel. 

Our plan for today was to raise their inner confidence levels as there is almost no situation where it would be useful to have low confidence. I write almost as Rahima helpfully pointed out the following dilemma:

"...but what if you're actor playing a role of somebody who has low confidence?"

The 3 things we chose to concentrate on when talking confidently are:

1. Volume
2. Speed
3. Breathing

We split the group into pairs and had them talk one at a time for a full minute on any subject they felt strongly about. They then took turns telling their story to the whole group who would then rate them on their volume, speed and breathing. Everybody found it very difficult to have the spotlight on them and there were frequent fits of giggles or pleads to stop and sit down, which were promptly ignored by myself and my fellow trainer. 

On the whole, everyone improved by their second or third turn and were given individual feedback on what to work on including:

• Breathing between sentences
• Eye contact to the whole group
• Open body language (no leg twisting or hand ringing)

At the end, they were once again asked to rate their confidence level which had (wonderfully) improved now that they had a little more practice on speaking to a group!

Week 8 - How to speak to an Interviewer / Manager

"There is a very big difference between being professional and being a professional"

Anhar

Our young people have a good internal understanding of professionalism and are able to recognise it in people (i.e. workers slouching, chewing gum, talking inappropriately). But they find it hard to define what exactly being professional is. 

Anhar defines it as:

"performing the role that you've been hired to do to the best of your ability"

It's difficult to define since there are so many ways of being unprofessional, but far fewer examples of being professional. We started by improving one part of them to quickly boost their professionalism: language. Every time somebody used slang or a swear word they word receive a point against their name. As a prize, everyone with 0 points would get an extra 30 mins of help with their CV. The game went on for the full 2 hour session, and ended with only three people on 0 points. Some of the really high scorers had as many as 10 points to their names.

At the end, each person was given a work based scenario and asked how they would deal with it professionally. Some of the scenarios and approaches include:

You see a close friend at work stealing from the shop...

Bobby and Shahina both (independently from each other) decided they would approach their friend and try to reason with him/her to give the item back, one going so far as to threaten to go to the manager.

Both gave great performances and did exactly what we would want them to do when confronted with this situation within a working environment!

Week 5-7 - CV Building from scratch

"Never lie on a CV... just tell the right version of the truth"

Peter

Many of our group are creating CV's from scratch. Most experienced trouble getting their ideas down onto their CV's in a professional way, but also in a simple enough way that they can understand and elaborate on in an interview. The toughest part is getting the words to come from them, which is taking longer than expected as they have never created CV's and are unfamiliar with the language and layout needed. 


A lot of our group are relying on mine and Anhar's expert input and although it's tempting to take charge and show them how it's done, we had to insist on them learning to create it themselves. They will all need to continuously update and change their CV's throughout their life and so need to learn as soon as possible. Some of the key points include:

• Using the right words
• Keeping to one page
• Using an easy to read font and format
• Having good use of white space
• Keeping it all relevant to the job

Psychometric Test
We performed a psychometric test to discover the type of learner each of our participants are. We purposely kept the language in its original (and complex) language to test how our participants would deal with a situation which was out of their comfort zone. Only one person really shone and tried her best to understand the words using the context of the sentence. Others had an extremely difficult time and made no effort to hide how they felt about what we were putting them through. Some wanted to stop midway and had to be encouraged to finish, while others asked about what words meant after literally EVERY question. 


The results of the test displayed what kind of learner they were. But their approach to completing the questionnaire said MUCH more about their personality and ability to cope with a situation where they are out of their depth. 


We finished up with a quick game of "the tired robot" to de-stress afterwards. It's very interesting to see how quickly they flipped from stressed out to giddy with excitement after such a simple game.