Afterwards the session steered towards self-analysis. The
relevance of this was that in any negotiation, you have to be aware of your own
weaknesses and strengths. In many respects, an interview is like an abstract
negotiation. The applicant aims to show the interviewer what they can bring to
the company, along with how and why they are better or more employable than all
other applicants. In return for your services, you will be paid, and it is up
to the interviewer to choose the deal which yields the highest quality
applicant for the sum of money offered.
We learned the importance of not only knowing the company
that you want to work for, but actually knowing yourself too. It is all too
common a scenario that you will be asked about your personal strengths and
weaknesses in an interview, and it is your job to ensure you know what answer you
are going to give in return.
In the session we were given three minutes to come up with
three genuine personal strengths and weaknesses, and then present them to the
rest of the group. The managers from Enterprise Rent-A-Car were looking for
fluency, individualism and ‘good weaknesses’. Good weaknesses are things like
being a perfectionist, paying too much attention to detail etc.
After this, we had another short presentation on interview
preparation. This focussed on what areas of the company to research before
attending. For example, green policy, corporate social responsibility (CSR),
company culture and customer service. It is essential to know the company
inside out. We were told that one of the best interviewees they had ever had
actually rented a car before the interview to internally evaluate the workings
of the company! Maybe you could think of a way to apply this idea to your
interview preparation.
We were then split into 8 groups, each of which represented
a charity. We were set a scenario where there was £6000, and this money had to
be allocated to 3 of the groups. Each group had to pitch to everybody else to
say why their charity should be chosen. At the end we had to come to an
agreement as to which charities should get the money. We were able to use the
skills we had learned in the rest of the session and apply them to this
activity, and it also highlighted areas of improvement. I felt that I gained a
lot from the session as a whole, as the information given will definitely come
in useful for interview preparation!
Chris
(Student Ambassador for the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health)
(Student Ambassador for the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health)
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