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Attending a formal interview for many people is a nerve-racking experience. In particular for young people with SEND, these feelings can be greatly magnified and become overwhelming. It's hard to self-promote and showcase the best version of yourself when you are uncomfortable being in unfamiliar environments and find communication with new people challenging.
On the Altogether Now Project, we recognise these challenges and the barriers that they can create for our participants. We are always looking for alternative ways to work with our business members to overcome these challenges and barriers. Bespoke interview technique sessions or "mock interviews" are extremely beneficial to our participants and we have adopted a creative and agile approach to enhance the support we provide to our SEND young people.
Recently, Jenny Hailes from Everards Brewery held a bespoke mock interview for one of our Altogether Now participants at a local café. This was a relaxed interview over a drink, in a familiar setting to the young person, which allowed conversations to flow and our participant the time needed to showcase his skills, aspirations, hobbies and interests.
It was a great experience and it felt really authentic too.
Altogether Now participant
These bespoke sessions are adaptable to meet the needs of our participants, and it would be great to match participants up to our business members with similar hobbies, interests or "secret skills." If you can think outside of the box and would like to get involved in our bespoke interview technique sessions for our participants with SEND then please get in touch with Ross or Kym. Ross@leicestershirecares.co.uk Kym@leicestershirecares.co.uk