What do Employers look for?

Being able to understand what employers need is crucial when you are looking for your first job. You need to match your experience, skills and qualities to what they want.

What do I have to offer?

Many adults find it hard to sell themselves to employers, let alone young people just starting out. However, remember everyone has something to offer!

It is not always easy to talk about our good points publicly and we tend to under play our strengths, not wishing to seem boastful. But to get that job you must sell yourself and tell the employer about yourself, otherwise how else will they know?

See yourself as a product to be marketed. Before the interview, spend time considering what you have to offer. This will provide you with material to talk about with the employer and you will feel more confident and well prepared.

Think about what you can offer in the following areas:

• Experience
• Skills and Personal Qualities
• Achievements
• Attitude

Experience

Think about your experience, though your first reaction might be to say that
you haven’t got any!

Have you been a Class Representative, assisted younger children, worked in the tuck shop etc? It may be something outside school, involvement with the community, a Saturday job, collecting for charities, helping older people, baby sitting etc.

What did you do on your work experience placement? Be able to talk about all these things in some detail.

Skills and Personal Qualities

Skills are very important to employers and what you’ve learnt on your Work Experience placement or in a Saturday job may be of use in another job. For e.g. you may have learnt customer care, telephone or I.T. skills. Did you receive any training? If so, be able to talk about it.

Personal qualities are what define someone as an individual and they are to do with personality e.g. being enthusiastic, optimistic etc.

Employers look for the qualities that are important for each individual job or ones the company might value overall. There would be no point in appointing someone to care for children if they were not patient and understanding. Employers often mention the personal qualities they want in the advertisement or a job description / person specification.

Achievements

Achievements indicate your successes in and out of school. You’ll need to be able to explain clearly what you have done and back it up with evidence.

Obvious achievements are the qualifications you have gained but there are others too. For example you may be a trained First Aider, have arranged a sponsored swim/dance, organised a party or run an event at Youth Club. These achievements demonstrate your potential to an employer.

Here are some other examples of achievements

Ability with money

Employers are always looking for people who know how to manage money. Think of times when you were responsible for money either at school or elsewhere, e.g. at the school tuck shop or looking after sponsored walk money, whilst working in a shop etc.

Be able to talk about it, how you tackled it and what the outcome or benefit was.

Time Management

Being able to manage your time is very important to employers. Be able to give examples of your time management skills, for e.g. did you complete all your course work? Were you punctual for school or your Saturday job?

• Talk about times when you have met deadlines
• What was the outcome or benefit?

Organisational Ability

Employers want people who can take on a job from beginning to end and who can be relied upon to organise themselves. Have you planned or helped implement an event or project from beginning to end, for e.g. a sponsored walk, a play, musical or presentation etc?

• What was the project?
• How was it organised – what responsibility did you have?
• How did it turn out?

Talk to the employer about this.

Working in a Team

This is a very important part of working life. Employers want to know that employees can work well with other people – colleagues or customers. You will probably be asked a question on this. Consider what team projects or activities you have been involved with. These could include playing in the football team, participating in Enterprise workshops, team experiments in Science etc.

• What position or role did you have?
• How did you and your team work together when faced with a problem?
• What were the results?

Creativity

A creative mind is an asset to most employers as they build a balanced team. The only way to keep up with the competition is by keeping up with new ideas. The development of technology is a prime example of this – think about a mobile phone. How often are models replaced by others that can perform more functions etc? How often have you replaced yours?

Can you identify times when you have come up with new ideas?

• Describe the situation
• Where did the idea come from? How was it developed?
• What was the outcome or benefit?

Public Speaking

Good communication skills are prized by all employers. Have you ever spoken in public?

• In what circumstances (in assembly / class in school)?
• How did you prepare?
• What were the results?

Tell an employer about this.

Writing Skills

Written communication skills are also highly valued. Many jobs require employees to write reports, reply to letters, send memos etc. How good are your writing skills?

What project or assignment have you completed in which your written skills were shown?

• What was the purpose or context of the work?
• How did you tackle it?
• What were the results?

Adaptability

Change is a fact of life and employers need to know that their employees can cope with different situations and are flexible to change. Can you think of examples when you have had to change your plans and adapt to new situations?

• What was the situation and what change was made?
• How did you cope with it?
• What were the results?

Attitude

Companies expect a commitment from their employees to work to the best of their ability.

Commitment can be demonstrated in the following ways:

• By consistently doing a good job
• Through diligence, conscientiousness and taking things seriously
• Through good attendance
• Through enthusiasm and high levels of initiative and motivation

Having a positive attitude, showing interest and being motivated are vital in the work place. Do you have a positive attitude? Give examples of this to the employer in your interview.

So there are our tips for how to prepare for a successful interview. Remember, if you are well prepared, you will feel much more confident during an interview. Good luck!