First Impressions

Had an interview for an educator position at a childcare centre. Hadn't had one in awhile. But this time I think I was a bit more ready. 

Last few times I was apparently too under dressed. Didn't know how I had to dress at the time for interviews. I thought nice pair of pants and a polo was good enough. However I only found out at a compulsory job search training thing. Unfortunately while I was driving to the interview I noticed I was still wearing nail polish on my right hand from the weekend (read about it in my mushroom picking weekend post). I tried to scrap it off but it didn't work so I just consciously avoided showing my nails up.

So the one thing about this job that makes this job quite concerning is that it's in Cheltenham. The drive took 45 minutes in off peak time!?! While they I asked about the other centres linked with their one so they showed me a giant map and pointed out several areas even further from Box Hill. They asked me where I was from and I told them. They were quite shocked, looking at the distance on the giant map. But this was at the end of the interview so most of the interview went reasonably like any interview.

Probably the thing that was different was the Chinese test. I was told initially they were looking for a Chinese speaking educator to speak with the children and parents. They were informed that I was only a conversationalist so they had one of their Chinese speaking converse with me. It went well enough that I convinced her I could least speak in Chinese. 

I think it was better than my other interviews I've had before. It has been several days since so I'm not quite hopeful. Try get myself another interview. 

Difficulty Setting

Been playing B-Sieged which looks quite difficult/daunting with the hordes of enemies moving ever so close to siege the citadel. Lost the first two game miserably so didn't have much hope for the third. However with a bit of luck rolling we managed to beat the game. 

That night we had Koinonia. Talked about the difficulties serving those we work with. The mentality of the work place is often to put yourself first. So to serve others in the workplace is pretty counter productive right? Well it really depends on the goal of why we do things. As Christians we are serving to show God's love. 

The reason I put these two different subjects together is that they both talk about difficulties. Difficulty is a subjective idea because everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Was just thinking of the things that I found difficult or not difficult. I mean looking at some games I play, some people wold say how hard it is and tell me how I make it look easy or such, even though to me it is neither hard or easy. Then there are things others do that I find extremely difficult/impossible but they seem to do it with such ease. Now breaking that down there are aspects of things we do that I find easy but others that I find hard. Like I don't find it hard working, doing menial tasks but I find it hard to get a job. So would it be said that I find work in general hard because I can't even get work? 

I find interacting with children relatively easy to what others have said but I find it hard to study to be able to work in the business even though I have the skills. But this comes down to how the world works. You need a piece of paper to say what you can do, and you need the skills to be able to put that proof on paper. Reading and writing isn't my thing as you can probably find reading my blogging but these are required skills for general education. Practical skills are great but doesn't exactly transfer to paper to hand in to my teacher. I know there are Cert and Diploma level stuff that grade more on practical skills but to teach you need a Bachelor. Even the guy I talked to study a Diploma said it was a waste and that I should study Bachelor if I wanted to teach. Does that mean I should just give up on teaching?

Practical skills also don't transfer to job interviews. All they can see is what is written down and possibly what they hear from referees. I don't have any interview skills so that's mostly what they see. Apparently I didn't know what was appropriate to wear to interviews (no I didn't wear anything dodgy) and that I need to practice interview answers which shows the little I know about interviews ... 

In the end it looks like I have the wrong skills to enter into what I want to. I think what I need to do is get some help. Some professional help ...