Learning How To Sell Yourself

More than 700 Concord Regional Technical Center students recently got a taste of what it’s like to sit across the table from somebody who is trying to find out whether or not they’ve got the right stuff to be hired for the job. The annual two-day Job Interview Training workshop, held November 22, was taught in individual classrooms with the help of 33 volunteers from the Human Resources Association of Greater Concord.

Volunteers were chosen to align with the career fields studied by each CRTC program, which meant that students were learning from people they may one day have job interviews with.

“This kind of practical experience provides both relevant and valuable instruction as students have the opportunity to ask questions of and sit down for mock interviews with experienced professionals who come from the career fields these students hope to pursue after high school,” said CRTC Principal Anne Fowler.

The CRTC is a regional high school Career and Technical Education center that serves more than 750 students from 12 regional public and private high schools. The CRTC offers 12 career pathway programs designed to help students to jumpstart their college and career ambitions by earning college credits, industry certifications and professional licenses, and engaging in work-based learning experiences that provide a robust jobsite experience to help them better prepare for college and career decisions after high school.

This is the seventh year the CRTC has held these job interview workshops, and thus far more than 4,000 students and over 100 different industry professionals have participated in this valuable career readiness training program. Student polls taken after each year’s training consistently show that more than 96% of students participating think that job interviewing is a valuable skill to learn while still in high school.

This training focuses students on three things:

• Gaining a basic understanding of the process and objectives of a job interview.
• Compiling an inventory of their accomplishments, and the hard and soft skills that are the essential elements of their individual “stories.”
• Learning and practicing the techniques and challenges of linking that story to the answers they provide to job interview questions.

“Whether our graduating students are going on to postsecondary education, the military, or into the workforce, they need to be able to tell their story in a complete and compelling fashion,” Fowler said. “They also have to be aware that things like dress, eye contact, and verbal skills all contribute toward creating that all-important good first impression that recruiters and employers say is key to a successful job interview.”

According to the US Department of Labor, the average worker today changes jobs about every five years and could hold up to a dozen jobs over their working career. With almost half of those job changes coming between the ages of 18-24, the need to prepare students is apparent, and the benefits students can reap from this kind of training should pay dividends both immediately and throughout their working life.