First interview for 13 years tomorrow for admin assistant for charity-help!

[evelynj]

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone can offer some quick fire help. My previous job was various roles working up in a niche company & have good general & management skills. This role is 25% of my previous pay but have moved from England to NI-is very local & is half the hours meaning ds1can be dropped off & picked up from school-would never find a job at same rate of pay & don't want to do ft.

I have 2dc-age 4 & 9 months.
I'm not actually sure £7k p.a. Minimum wage will make us better off. Dh earns £22k but I can't find an easy way to work this out. Benefits seem so complicated. I'm currently on jsa.

Anyway I'm nervous about the interview & not sure if there's anything I haven't thought about. It's for an old peoples charity & it's a small team. I'm worried that I'll miss something important or over talk myself.

Any words of wisdom gratefully received!

ooh, how exciting. You can only know if it works for you if you give it a try.
I was determined to get whatever I could out of job interviews. They were practice if absolutely nothing else. No matter what think positive and remember to thank them for their time at the end of the interview.

ps: have they told you to expect a test of your abilities or anything like that? Read up on the brief so that you have a way of selling yourself in every desirable item they list.
But do be yourself. You want to know that you could enjoy working with them.

Thanks holiday :)

No mention of a test-will have a read over the duties again & my cv as copied bits for the application but didn't take a photocopy, grr! I did list on the cv how I fulfilled the brief for each area they had listed.

My usual star interview question at the end is

'After what we've discussed, can I ask of you would have any specific reservations about offering me the position?'

Has been good in my previous job going for promotions for directors to point out areas of concern & for me to address/correct their opinion of said areas. Is this an appropriate question for any role? I guess it will maybe be a see how the land lies sort of thing?

The only other thing I can think of researching a bit is issues facing older people in this area-poverty, socialising, heat or eat, integrating more Elderly Eastern European residents moving to the area. Internet usage by older people. Anything else obvious?

Cheers :)

gosh, your star question sounds a bit bolshy to me, but maybe I'm just a wimp. Is bolshiness a desirable trait they want in the role to be filled?

Are the oldies in an urban or rural area (or both)? Isolation and other forms of poverty likely to be the key problems.

I know, that's what I'm kind of scared of as it's not like the previous roles I've used it in. Perhaps I can rephrase it as have you any concerns that I'd struggle with any aspects of the job? Or something along those lines, ( an old friend used it once but just phrased it as 'why wouldn't you give me the job?'. He didn't get said job funnily enough!)

Oldies likely to be mostly rural. Though urban in this town isn't that urban! The community does value our oldies though. My only other issue is that I have a stinking cold & am v snotty. I'm hardly ever I'll so this is typical!

I like your rephrasings a bit better, but it's very direct. They'll each be making mental notes what they think of you & they'll want to compare notes privately before giving f/back. No one wants to blurt out the wrong thing before checking with the others, or contradict the boss who might be besotted with you & override their misgivings, anyway. I think better to thank them for the interview, nice to meet you, look forward to hearing from you soon, etc.

Rural oldies suffer esp. because of poor support networks. Like all rural dwellers, they have higher energy & transport costs, too, but more limited incomes to deal with it. Their offspring move away to get jobs. Or rural oldies move into the area from far away for a nice retirement, then become frail & isolated & their loved ones/support networks they might have had in town aren't there. Or they lose ability to drive & become dependent on unsuitable rural public transport. Rural elderly likely to be among the rural poor, too, unseen by official monitoring statistics if they are surrounded by more affluent rural dwellers. Fewer chances for social interaction of any kind, pavements less likely to be salted so that much harder to get out at all.

*All this stuff is part of a current project at my own work, btw.

Great-thanks so much for the feedback. I'll just avoid that line of questioning-what you've said makes complete sense.

Thanks for the other old folk info-part of this project is about socialising & interacting with them & lots if smaller initiatives to improve love of later life.

I'll update after on how it goes & best of luck for your project :)

Ask them how many volunteers they work with. If its the charity I'm thinking of, they are well known for having large teams of fab volunteers.
And always refer to 'older people' rather than elderly etc.
Do you have any first aid or safeguarding or food handling qualifications? Doesn't matter if not, but refer to them if you do.
Another issue on the theme of socialising and isolation is that males tend to socialize differently to females. They don't generally go to day centres, but might respond to darts groups or walks or talks from groups such as air ambulance. And small 'cooking for one' sessions.
Good luck!

I got the job! Woohoo. Am excited about it but lots to do sorting childcare for next week or so.

Love the idea of cooking for one sessions & think there's the opportunity to get quite involved with the community. Hadn't thought about the gender differences in socialising either but that makes sense. A lot of the older people groups I know of are church related so possibly congregation folk feel obligated to go. Will raise it when appropriate at one of the meetings!

Will take a while for it to settle into my head but really need to get over this flu now!

Well done! You sound like you've got a lot to give to the role.