Show notes
You asked for it, so here it is! The 2020 Occupied guide to job interviews. With the assistance of the awesome Erin Jeffords we give you the extent of our knowledge and experience to best prepare you for your first or next job interview. If you’re a student, a newgrad or an OT looking to brush up on their job-hunting skills then tune in and learn how you can give yourself the best shot at landing that job! We explore tips for everything from the preparation right through to what to do post interview. How to nail down your preparation How to practice for your interview What to research prior to your interview Being self-aware and open to feedback How to present your 100% authentic self in the best way Types of interviews Followup post-interview Keep Occupied Brock @brockcookOTbrock.cook@me.com Transcript of Episode 086 The 2020 Occupied Guide to Job Interviews 00:00:01 – 00:05:02 I am excited about this one. This is hopefully going to be the start of a brand new thing. We’re going to try and update this like annually so that it’s always the latest information for you guys. You guys told me that you wanted an episode about how to prepare for a job interview how to get ready give yourself the best opportunity to nail down that job. So here it is the 2020 occupied guide to job interviews i So a little while ago. I threw out a message on the instead of asking what people were wanted to hear about. I got quite a few really amazing topics this being probably the biggest one and that’s how do I interview? How do I get a job? What is this process? And how can I be better at it off? So this is the occupied 20/20 guide to interviewing and trying to get a job. Obviously. I have some experience in that but yep. Definitely not all-encompassing in that experience. I’ve brought along the lovely orange efforts to give me a hand with this episode. So thanks for coming in and helping out with the this you have a myriad of experience throughout your your career and your family apparently with regards to interviewing. So I’m hoping this is this is going to be a bagger and really useful. That’s what we want to do is try and create a really useful resource for not just new grads going for their first interview, but anyone really that’s prepping for a job change on, you know going for a promotion or any way that you’re going to find yourself sitting in interview. So I think one of the first things Is I guess firstly to kind of recognize that yeah interviews stressful. That’s probably one of the first things it’s normal for you to be stressed going into a job interview. It’s normal. It’s it’s usually going to bring about some kind of large change in your life in your career. It may even been precipitated by a change in your life or your career. You may have other things going on that may have led to you applying for this job or going for this change or moving or anything like that. So there’s usually all the stresses that can accompany this additional stress of going for an interview. So, I think the first thing to acknowledge is that yeah, it’s it’s normal what you’re feeling is normal when you’re coming up to this situations, but there are definitely things that you can do to better process and better manage them and we’re going to have a look wage. I guess some of the preparation stuff. So one of the things that Aaron mentioned to me before we recorded this is some of the stuff that you can prepare for with regards to your normal routine or kinds of things can can people do for their normal routine with regards to getting ready for an interview error. I I think personally when I think about like when I have gone interviews in the past or things that I recommend that my students who are just like think about the routine of the day before the interview or the day of the interview, you know, making sure you know, you get enough rest possibly like for me, I’m not a breakfast person but you know, I am a coffee person. So making sure you know, I have some time to have my cup of coffee and you know, making sure that you know, I do whatever I can to manage my stress for the day, you know, just kind of setting I hate to say it sounds kind of cliche but set yourself up for Success. So like doing all those things that you would do in a if you’re going to any important meeting or presentation or or in this case an interview, so making sure you know, you’re getting enough rep rust possibly, you know, whatever you need if you need to eat breakfast or not put any laying out. This is like a I’m treating it. Like I was my my children laying your clothes out the night before, you know, but really knowing what you want to wear for the interview, you know, don’t just wake up and grab the you know shirt out of the laundry basket kind of thing, you know, you need to to actually treat it you need to make sure that you treat it that it is the important event that it is, you know, you are you’re going to place you want to make that great first impression. 00:05:02 – 00:10:14 So what can you do, you know that day or the day before to kind of prepare for that interview so that those are kind of the things that I was talking about the rules of making sure that you’re giving yourself enough time, you know, and not you know rushing to get there and knowing the parking situation as well, you know, just kind of the planning the whole planning of the day is something that I think will really help make you feel more confident when you get there because you’re not going to be worried birth. That your day didn’t start off on the right foot, you know, just making sure you kind of do everything. You can’t now sometimes it’s unavoidable. You know, you you might sleep through your alarm or and there might be an accident on the way to the meeting and I mean the interview and you might be 5 minutes late, you know, so don’t let those things, you know really creeped in as far as like yourself doubt. But if you can do things to avoid those things like setting a second alarm or leaving extra early. So if there is an accident, you know that that’s what I’m talking about. Just trying to implement some extra steps to make that routine as smooth as possible on that day. I think I think times of massive one especially for for me personally am so like you said like getting yourself organized so there’s less things that you have to put mental energy into on the day, but another thing with regards to time is you can give yourself too much time off. A really bad this so for job interviews if I have say an interview in the middle of a workday, it’s not uncommon. I have done it in the past where I’ve taken the day off just so that I can prepare myself and I’m not running around nothing comes up at work that is going to make me late or stressed or anxious or anything like that but in doing that because I’ve got everything prepped the night before. I’m just sitting there all morning just going over things in my head and to me that I can always suck myself out of it. So being self-aware about that and we will get onto self-awareness in a little bit, but knowing how much time you need and then just adding a little bit extra like if you are going to take all morning and you know that you’re not going to have a lot on then maybe you can leave some of that sort of getting a warning these colors and that sort of stuff to the morning as long as you leave plenty of time. So knowing how much time you need adding a little bit extra not going completely overboard. Otherwise, yep. It is a potential there to to stress yourself out and kind of has the opposite effect, unfortunately. What about actually practicing for the interview? How how can we do that? Cuz one of the questions and the one of the reasons actually we’re connected was answered the question. I’m trying to bring this up now because I think it’s one of the funniest. So I just go ahead and on Instagram around the same time as what do you want me to talk about about what interview questions people have had recently found Aaron came back that one of the interview questions. You were given were what was it? What chocolate bar are you? It was what candy bar, you know, we’re shopping. Okay. Yeah, you have to you if you were a candy bar or what candy bar would you be and why and I was so I had probably I have eleven years of experience. Now. This was a few years ago. So I think I had nine years of experience at this point and you know, I was not expecting this interview question at all, you know, and and I I tried to I think I probably did laugh cuz it was just kind of awkward, you know, I didn’t know what to say. And and I told you I responded cuz you you came back and said well, what did you say and I said a crunch Nestle Crunch bar because I think that was honestly I think that was the lack of candy bar I had eaten so that was the first thing that came to my mind and then I had to make it work and I said well, you know, it’s smooth on the outside but it has texture, you know, you don’t know what they’re getting you know, and and and so the girl you know, she kind of laughed and and then I asked her. Well, what what would you what what’s your answer and I can’t even remember what hers was off. But yeah, that was definitely by far the most out-there interview question I’ve ever been asked and it’s I did get some interesting ones in a lot of them typical ones like tell me about a time you had conflict and how you managed it that kind of stuff. But sometimes I I have heard quite regularly questions like that, which is So seemingly weird. When I think a lot of the time questions like that are designed to see how you react not honestly your answer itself. Probably is negligible. Yes, you managed to come up with a cool story about how the front bar but it was probably more to do with how is she going to react under you know, this is sudden pressure cuz it’s a pressure. 00:10:14 – 00:15:08 You’re not expecting that kind of question and it could be anything. I’ve heard all sorts of things. The chocolate bar one was definitely a new thing. But you know, I’ve heard about one I have heard is sort of if you were if you had a superpower, what would it be just random question. Just nothing necessarily to do with OT or health care in general the one thing I would say is a lot of people those questions aren’t necessarily their way to test your Healthcare knowledge or your dedication to healthcare. Sometimes they’re there to learn a little bit more about your personality. Sometimes they’re they’re like, I suspect the chocolate bar one was just to see how you might react and I think in preparation for those kinds of questions, you just kinda need to be yourself. I I’ve heard people when I get that especially the superhero question. I’ve heard some very out their answers for that but people try and rather than just answer like, you know, I like Batman like I thought I would be Batman why because I liked the sort of underground Underdog Story of you know, coming from this sort of traumatic experience and becoming for whatever the reason is dead. But I’m not going to sit there and try and come up with an answer that makes me look like I’m model for health professionals. Like I’m not going to you know, I would be dead. He falls prevention man or something like it. I don’t that’s not the purpose of those questions. There’s plenty of other questions in an interview that are there to test your knowledge on health but wage that is not the only thing that people are looking for in a in a in a in an interview. So be aware that not every question needs a health answer. Oh, absolutely. And like you said, they’re looking they’re kind of teeth out your personality a lot of times interviews too. So, you know, I mean they are I mean, they’re just trying to figure out wage you are what makes you different think everybody at that point has a license to practice. So what makes you different from the other person you all have the skills you all pass your you know, your certification exam. So what’s so special about you or you know, what? Can you bring to this job role that someone else can’t bring so sometimes those questions. I think you’re right. They’re just trying to figure out who you are as a person and you know, So sorry to hear you. I want to say like, you know, if you’re authentic or not, you know, like you said like if you try to come up with some like off-the-wall, you know answer or if you just walk in like hey, I like like you said like like that. I’m an eighties child. So I would have probably said like he bad or sheer or somewhere somebody like that, you know, which the people at their students who that is. But yeah, that was that was who I was obsessed with when I was a kid, you know, so that’s probably the first thing that would have come to my mind, you know, not like anybody else cuz I don’t know other superheroes. Yeah, and I think a lot of the time a lot of interviews I’ve heard from yeah, like people conducting interviews that quite often what they’re looking for is is this person is their personality is the attitude. Are they going to fit in team that we already have so like you said everyone should if it’s an OT position everyone replied off An IT everyone is registered. Everyone has passed their exams passed all of the different things that they need to, you know be a registered OT and it might come down to the fact that this person personality-wise seems like they’re going to fit better with the team that we already have cuz we have a really good team. We don’t want to upset that we want to be better and be more productive as a team. So they’re quite often looking for that. They want to it’s hard to gather. I mean you can understand when you when you meet new friends how long it takes to get a handle on their personality. And that’s without sort of the really sort of formal interview process adding to that barrier. So it’s difficult to try and get a good understanding of someone’s personality when they’re putting off. It’s very professional front. So questions like that random questions like that can sometimes almost be like a jolt like a bit of a shock to the system and can can help give some insight into the the kind of person that they are and it might be that might I don’t feel like there’s a wrong answer for those which is I know probably not what I was hoping to hear because everyone wants to know that this is what you have to prepare for and these are the questions that you’re going to get but every interview is going to be different. 00:15:08 – 00:20:04 I’ve done interviews my like I’ve gone for jobs and had interviews where they’ve asked all the various standard questions, you know, tell me about a time when you had conflict with a team-mate and how you managed to tell me about a time when you managing Difficult situation or when you showed leadership or whatever it is. Tell me about your experience. But I’ve also had interviews. We’re probably the most unique one where I had to just come in and present the case. I had to prove a power was given it like the brief beforehand to present a case of it. Obviously, you’re going to choose one that you did. Well Ali and I had a I had a power point everything I had to go in there and press office annal and like that was that was it that was the interview was me doing a presentation and then the panel asking me a couple of questions afterwards managed to get that job by the way, just saying. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that was a completely different set up and there was no way if I had have been practicing interview questions and then got the email saying oh you have to present. Okay, so I’m not ready for this month. So Luckily that played into my strengths and that’s that’s another thing that you need to be aware of is that not everyone I know many people that will say I am really awesome and interviews Wicked and if you give me an interview any day select group assignments when you’re unique no…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
