Part 3: Advanced Interviewing Techniques

5 course series

This specialisation will help you develop the English language strategies and communication skills you need to advance in your professional career. Whether you already have a successful career and are looking to move forward, whether you’re looking to change careers, whether you’re starting out in the world of work, or whether you’re coming back into the world of work after some time away – if you believe in working for more than a paycheck, then this specialisation will help you. The core courses cover preparing for a successful job search, including self-research and research of the job market and industries of interest; strengthening your interview skills by recognising what hiring managers are looking for and taking steps to prepare for the types of tough questions today's premier companies use; and preparing a resume, cover letter and supporting business documents. The capstone will allow you to apply the skills you learn in this specialisation to your own job search.

A key benefit of this specialisation is the opportunities you'll have to practice your interviewing skills with other job-seekers from around the world. You’ll give them feedback and they’ll give you feedback. In this process, you’ll gain new insight into what makes a speaker successful and you’ll gain confidence in your English interviewing skills.

People interviewing for jobs today often fail because they are using yesterday's strategies. Recruiting technology has become more sophisticated, and the best employers are constantly changing the way interviews are done. This course gives you detailed strategies for handling tough competency-based, or behavioral, interviews so that you can communicate the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you have and that employers demand.

You will be able to:

• Identify what the hiring organisation is looking for in using behavioural interviewing techniques
• List the steps in the S.T.A.R. response strategy and apply the steps, using reasonably correct language, to respond to behavioural interview questions
• Use your responses to behavioural and competency-based questions to communicate your personal values
• Identify what the hiring organisation is looking for in asking situational and wild-card interview questions
• List the steps in the P.R.E.P. and 5 W's response strategies and apply the steps, using reasonably correct language, to answer at least one wild card and two situational interview questions
• Develop an optimal strategy for responding to the weaknesses question, based on recognising why a hiring organisation asks these questions
• Demonstrate your personal strengths and maturity through your responses to the weaknesses question
• Correctly apply hedging language to soften a negative and boosting language to emphasise a positive aspect of your professional and/or academic background
• Ask questions to determine how well an organisation fits with your personality, career goals and salary objectives
• Ask questions that communicate your competencies and strengths
• Negotiate the best job offer and compensation package for yourself
• Perform successfully on telephone interviews

There are 5 modules in this course