Impactful Interviews: Selling your Strengths
How Will This Session Help Me Get Ready For Work?
To get your first job and move from this to other opportunities, you will almost always need to have an interview. These can seem really nerve wracking and the better prepared you are, the less stressful you will find it. This session will look at how you sell the skills and character attributes you have to convince a potential employer that you are right for the job.
Questions to get started
When you think about a job/college interview - how does it make you feel?
Why do employers/colleges interview people? What do you think they want to find out?
What happens in a typical interview? Can you describe it?
Focused Virtues
The Focused Virtue for this session is Resilience.
Resilience gives us the strength to overcome our nervousness in interview settings and be honest about strengths and weaknesses and clear with examples of skills and character traits we have.
Ask Yourself: "Can I grow in resilience to face challenging situations where I have to speak?"
Listen with focus, speak with your heart.
Skills Development:
Walking into your first job interview can feel terrifying, but it is the perfect place to show off your wisdom. Being wise in an interview means having the self-awareness to know your own strengths, whilst using real-life examples to prove to the manager that you are the right person for the job.
The secret to a great interview is self-awareness. Employers don't expect new candidates to know everything, but they love candidates who understand their own skills, knowledge, and character. Before your interview, reflect on your experiences at school/college, in sports/hobbies, or during volunteering. What are you naturally good at? Where do you need to improve? Having the maturity to talk honestly about a weakness—and showing you are open to learning—instantly makes you stand out as trustworthy.
When the interviewer asks a question like, "Why should we choose you?", don't just give a vague opinion like, "I'm really hardworking." Use facts and examples to prove it. Humans love stories, and backing up your claims with evidence from your life makes it difficult for the interviewer to disagree with you.
Try using this simple structure to answer their questions:
Opinion: State your skill. ("I have great teamwork skills...")
Rationale & Facts: Give a concrete detail. ("...because I was captain of my local football team for two seasons, managing sixteen players.")
Example: Tell a quick story explaining the who, what, and how. ("For instance, when our team was losing a match, I organised a quick huddle to refocus everyone, which helped us turn the game around and win.")
By mixing honest self-awareness with clear, factual examples, you will show the interviewer you have the workplace wisdom to thrive.
Interview Practise: Case Studies and Questions
You go for your first job in a coffee shop. You have never worked as a barista but you love coffee! The interviewer asks a question like, "Why should we choose you?" What could you say?
How would you describe your strengths and weaknesses?
Can you give an example of when you have shown courage?
Guidance and Resources for Facilitators
1. Content & Background Knowledge
Uncovering Hidden Capabilities: Adult women entering or re-entering the workforce frequently claim they "have no real skills or experience" because they lack formal UK work history. Facilitators must explicitly guide them to translate home management, caregiving, community volunteering, budget management, and bilingual/multicultural navigation into recognized workplace competencies (e.g., organisation, multitasking, negotiation, empathy, resilience).
Evidence-Based Answers (The O-R-E Formula): EAL candidates often give short, one-word answers out of modesty or nervousness. Teaching a simple, structured formula transforms brief answers into compelling stories:
Opinion / Skill Claim ("I have strong problem-solving skills...")
Rationale / Facts ("...developed over 3 years managing community fundraising events.")
Example ("For instance, when our venue fell through, I contacted local centers and secured a new room within 24 hours.")
Framing Growth Areas: Discussing weaknesses with maturity and self-awareness demonstrates integrity. EAL candidates can frame language learning as an active growth process rather than a barrier.
2. Key Misconceptions to Address
"Taking care of a family or volunteering doesn't count as real experience." Reframe: Life experience builds vital transferable workplace skills like time management, conflict resolution, and reliability.
"Talking about my achievements feels like bragging."
Reframe: Stating true facts and real examples is not bragging—it is giving the employer the information they need to hire you.
3. Step-by-Step Workshop Activities
Activity 1: Translating Life Skills to Workplace Skills (20 Mins)
Setup: Provide a 2-column chart: Life Experience Workplace Skill Name.
Task: Learners map their everyday activities:
Managing a household budget Financial planning, resource management.
Caring for children/relatives Time management, empathy, conflict resolution, multitasking.
Navigating health/school systems in a new country Problem solving, resilience, adaptability.
Activity 2: The Interview Answer Builder (25 Mins)
Setup: Give learners common entry-level interview questions (e.g., "Why should we hire you?", "How do you handle a busy workload?", "What is a challenge you overcame?")
Task: Using the O-R-E Structure (Opinion - Rationale - Facts) , learners write bullet points for one answer and practice delivering it to a partner.
Feedback: Partners give encouragement based on: Did they give a clear real-life example? Was the message clear?
4. Reflection & Discussion Points
"What is one major strength you developed through your life experiences that makes you a good worker?"
"How does using a real-life example make your interview answers feel more natural and believable?"