Interview Advice

[tiggerai]

It's the NHS, so I have no idea about what level of technical skills they have! The job role includes presenting fairly basic PC related tasks to people who have zero clue about IT and need a helping hand. From the job description, this can be as simple as "How to check your e-mail".

I was considering the How to build a PC, because it's a technical subject I enjoy a great deal and it's moderately complex. If I can get a presentation together that would explain it to say, my fiancee, it shows that I have the ability to wrap up a complex subject in simple terms.

Simple mailbox maintenance in outlook? Not too low level as how to check email, but not over techy either.

[Rosaline]

I agree with the translating-something-techy-for-the-layperson approach. Showing them how to build a PC would be interesting, but could you maybe do something more related to the work at hand - maybe show them how to use some software? Examples could be basic things e-mail (like you say) or something like how to create a website or create a facebook profile? I'm sure there's something (much more) interesting that would fit the bill.

Good post

This sort of open question tends to be a type of code, from what I know of recruitment, for the following:
1) Something that is interesting to you personally (as they want to know about you and how you'll fit in on the team, and they will try and spot an insincere choice)
2) A presentation that they find interesting (mainly a test of technique, but also some expectation of guessing what the recruiters as human beings may like)
3) Presentation skills, presentation skills, presentation skills (if they find it interesting, this is less important, but your technical ability to present is the real test here.
4) A presentation about something that is interesting to you that is then linked into to the work.

The first two are simply sanity checks, really. Few recruiters want people to answer such questions with entirely faked interest, and indeed doing so will put them off. If a presentation is done well, it should be interesting, and that is far easier to judge than the technical ability of presenting. Remember that 'interesting' in this context doesn't mean 'that they have an interest in', but rather 'gets excited and engrossed'. Telling them something they know well means you have to have good presentation skills, telling them something they find curious and worth listening to means more of a gamble, but finding that angle tends to be a good presentation and teaching technique.

Above all else, the whole point of the exercise is presentation skills under time pressure. This we can't easily give advice on, but five minutes means if you are going to use slides, you will want only a few handfuls' worth of just a summary guide for your speech.

If your presentation skills pass muster, they might then consider the 'meaning' of your choice of topic. The topic itself is of little direct importance, what matters more is how well you 'sell' it and if you can tie that topic into the future line of work. It doesn't have to relate perfectly, feel free to look outside of the box. For instance, you mentioned that you LARP ( ), and of course roleplay is considered a vital training technique. It's not always appropriate for using with software training, of course though

I would personally recommend picking a small and simple-to-the-experts area, as you only have five minutes, and that precludes you from going into any sort of depth. If you are training end users, the most important thing to demonstrate would be explaining complex ideas simply and in a way the layperson can understand. Simply stating that "This is a complex area, but like many thing, you don't need to know everything to understand how it works" should serve to tie it back in to the work itself.

As such, I would recommend against "Building a PC", since this is a very big topic indeed, with many caveats which are hard to cover sufficiently to keep a feel of accuracy despite the simplification.

Finally, A brief warning from my past experiences: Whilst you should always prepare for recruitment experts, sometime you really do run into people who should not be in that field, and are just a little bit too naive, assume modesty not self-promotion, and work from some sort of guide or rough guessing rather than proper recruitment practices. And of course, an experienced interviewer might just have a laugh and pretend to be inexperienced. Unless you know for certain you're going to get experienced recruitment personnel, also be ready to deal with the clueless type and innocent reasons for asking things of you.

[Dingo]

Anyhow, the position is Training and Applications Test Analyst for the L&D Hospital....

You should be in a good position here as if past history is anything to go by your patients won't last long enough for the feedback at the L & D!!.

... which as far as I can work out means I have to learn the systems, and then teach people how to not completely break them

A rubber mallett, 6' of high tensil rope, and duct tape are your friends for this type of training. I am aware that the Americans favour electrical current and water torture, but to be honest, it's just not worth the extra jail time.!

You may not want to get into the bondage scenario's, but they can be fun, but the duct tape will ensure all trainee errors (and the ensuing terror for them) are stymmied once you wield the mallet.

I have found in my experience that three whacks of the mallet is the optimum for each trainee, going beyond that only antagonises their Human Right's reactions, and ultimately leads to you having to dispose of the bodies, although, if you play your cards right, the on site crematorium staff can be bribed to dispose of the odd "extra" body or two......who'd work for those NHS salaries eh?!!.

Good luck with the interview, and remember, they are human too......well, sort of!

[Lucio]

You should be in a good position here as if past history is anything to go by your patients won't last long enough for the feedback at the L & D!!.



A rubber mallett, 6' of high tensil rope, and duct tape are your friends for this type of training. I am aware that the Americans favour electrical current and water torture, but to be honest, it's just not worth the extra jail time.!

You may not want to get into the bondage scenario's, but they can be fun, but the duct tape will ensure all trainee errors (and the ensuing terror for them) are stymmied once you wield the mallet.

I have found in my experience that three whacks of the mallet is the optimum for each trainee, going beyond that only antagonises their Human Right's reactions, and ultimately leads to you having to dispose of the bodies, although, if you play your cards right, the on site crematorium staff can be bribed to dispose of the odd "extra" body or two......who'd work for those NHS salaries eh?!!.

Good luck with the interview, and remember, they are human too......well, sort of!

This entire post makes no sense!!!

[TiG]

Erm it so does. Maybe you will understand if you get the job

TiG

[Lucio]

Erm it so does. Maybe you will understand if you get the job

TiG

I'm mostly confused by the reference to patients.... pretty sure that staff training doesn't require me to go and deal with patients.

[TiG]

He only mentions patients in reference to how poor the luton and dunstable hospital is, anything you are training people on won't be quick enough to stop the poor medical quality there for killing off patients.

TiG

[TheAnimus]

if you've not already done this.

please, please, please don't make it boring. That should be the primary concern.

Think of the poor interviewer who has to sit through this crap when they could be at their desk reading the register websit rather than working!

Make it light, and intresting. A hobby is always a good one, because its not work related, so is immeditately more intresting.

A begginers guide to PC building, just sounds dull by its very nature, and to do something useful in 5 minuites? no way.

So choose something that can be summed up in 3 minuites with no pauses, thats probably about 550 words. Thats not much at all if your doing a presentation along with it.

The best one i've seen someone do was titled "Rejected from the Extreme Ironing Club", it was informative, told us everything we needed to know about extreme ironing, had a lot of humor, showed their presentation skills, and they'd obviously never actually extreme iron'd, they just picked something intresting!

[Lucio]

Well interview is next week, so gonna spend the weekend on this. I've been spending some time on Video Jugg for ideas on how to present a fairly mundane topic in an interesting fashion

Just a shame I can't use the "How to put on a condom", but with two female managers interviewing me, it might just get me arrested!

[SiM]

Just a shame I can't use the "How to put on a condom", but with two female managers interviewing me, it might just get me arrested!

Or you will have the time of your life

[Lucio]

Or you will have the time of your life

Well, it'd be the *last* time, cos when Mrs Lucio finds out, I will be a dead man, given it's less than 2 weeks before our wedding

[SiM]

Well, it'd be the *last* time, cos when Mrs Lucio finds out, I will be a dead man, given it's less than 2 weeks before our wedding

Get her in on it as well, then you will have the time of your life

Just kidding. Congratulation for your wedding!

[Lucio]

Get her in on it as well, then you will have the time of your life

Been there, done that, planning it for the wedding night anyway

[MSIC]

Will you be working directly then with non-IT staff (i've read the first few posts of the thread, then jumped to the end...)?
If so, i'd suggest that the presentation, whilst it will have to be technically acurate in what you say, will in fact be all about judging your ability to present potentially complex information in a user friendly manner.

The trick to this I find is a balance between slow(ish), efficient and friendly delivery but avoiding being patronising. And that is a tricky one.

Remember the IT guy from 'The Office'? They will be wanting to avoid employing anyone like that.

I have to say, although you might want to chose a topic that makes you 'memorable', when I interview anyone I always take notes on them, so they wont be forgotten whatever they do. Anyone who looks like they can do the job will be remembered just fine.
Nerves are expected - you can still apologise for them if you want, but don't worry about being worried, that's fine.
And at the end, ask if they would like to see or hear any more, or if they are satisfied with what they have seen - it's a surprisingly useful trick that they will be perfectly honest with you about, and can score you extra points in case you have forgotten something. Plus you can walk out of the interview satisfied that you have done your best.

Good luck mate

[Lucio]

You know what, sod it.

I'm doing it on the History of Chocolate, because a) It's got some fairly complex ideas to communicate and b) it's gonna be different and memorable and c) if I bring along samples to illustrate the point, it might score extra brownie points.


Not to mention it's a subject I actually know a bit about from my time working at Hotel Chocolat.

[SiM]

You know what, sod it.

I'm doing it on the History of Chocolate, because a) It's got some fairly complex ideas to communicate and b) it's gonna be different and memorable and c) if I bring along samples to illustrate the point, it might score extra brownie points.


Not to mention it's a subject I actually know a bit about from my time working at Hotel Chocolat.

That sounds like a great idea...!! bribe them with chocolates!!!