Interview / Career Counselling
It is often difficult to think creatively about what drives you in your career. Most people find interviews stressful and feel that they do not come across in interview as well as they would like to. Career or interview counselling can help you think through how you are in relation to work so that you can prepare better for a change in career, or an interview. Just think how much of your life is spent at work, seeking some guidance and counselling before you make such a big change sounds very sensible to me.
Interview / Career Counselling can help you;
Identify clearly what motivates you in your work
Link your motivation to your skill and knowledge base
Bring out your personality in relation to work
Identify what you are looking for in future jobs that isn't necessarily in the job description
Highlight your strengths to sell to prospective employers
Identify your transferable and soft skills that make you such an asset to an employer
Discuss strategies for interview preparation
Explore your key messages and come up with ways of answering questions and phrases to use.
Start to focus on your future role, rather than stuck in your present job.
Process
My role as career/ interview counsellor is to lead you through a process of asking questions that help explore and identify your skills and motivation. This is done in a counselling style where I am listening for some of the unspoken and unusual aspects of your relationship with work. This may involve some hard questions but there will be constant feedback and clarification for you, as well as a written record of the session for you to take away at the end. The kind of things I will be asking about will be to do with how you see your ideal job + what motivates you at work and why?
The initial counselling session will last for about an hour and a half, from which you may decide to
'Duncan made me work harder than I had to at interview - so it was good preparation. And I still remember my buzz phrase to this day!!'
To date I have had a 95% success rate of people getting the job.
What you can do prepare
If you have got an interview lined up, it can be useful to have a copy of the job details in advance as well as an idea of your employment history. You are advised to do your normal interview preparation such as a list of expected questions and your answers, presentation key points, research into the organisation and or development of the post you are applying for, talking to people in similar jobs - as I won't be covering all that.
For career counselling, it can be useful to have a list of the kind of jobs you are thinking about and your employment history.
There are many books you can look through, suggestions include:
The Interview Toolkit - Richard H Beatty published by John Wiley & Sons, 2000, £9.50. This seems to cover everything and has a lot of suggested answers and phrases to use.
Takling Tough Interview Questions in a Week- Mo Shapiro and Alison Straw, 1999, published by Hodder & Stoughton & Institute of Management, £9.50. Part of the Institute of Management 'in a week' series, which provide good work books if you want to do 2 hours per day for 7 days working through exercises.
The Perfect Interview - Max Eggert, published by Random House Books, 1992, £6.99 Very quick to work through, well laid out with diagrams and clear points.
The Career Counselling Handbook - Howard Figler & Richard N Bolles, published by Ten Speed Press, 1999, £13.99
The What Colour is Your Parachute Workbook - Richard N Bolles, published by Ten Speed Press, £7.99. A very visual handbook looking through lists of all sorts of areas and getting to the transferable skills.
Cost:
I work on a no win, no fee basis, so you only owe me if you get the job. You can estimate what you think our work was worth when you get the job.
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