Coaching Experience – Be The Right Candidate
This week I met 2 very different candidates. The first, candidate one, had applied for an insight day. She doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do but has enough of an idea to head towards something. Before she came to the session she had prepared, in a small notebook, a few questions.
The other, let’s call her candidate 2, came to a session without any real idea of what to do. I got the feeling she was expecting our session to be more like going to the theatre – she’s the audience and I the actor. What this girl was expecting from me wasn’t knowledge or guidance but decisions. She wanted me to tell her what to do with her life.
This second candidate had the wrong attitude and may find she’s unsuccessful in finding a good job. This is because she was expecting other people to make large decisions in your life. In fact, graduate schemes are mostly designed for people who are able to make big decisions! She also demonstrated no initiative in the situation. She didn’t tell me about what she’d done to try to solve her own problems so far, she only waited for me to serve answers like cheesecakes at a café.
I really do sympathise with candidate 2 because a large change is required in the situation and it’s really not that easy. Think about it, if you’re not the sort of person who wants to take the initiative to work out problems and if you can’t (for whatever reason!) make big decisions about your own future, don’t worry, graduate schemes aren’t for you anyway.
If you’re reading this you probably do want it. So go for it with all your effort. Be candidate one. Change, adapt, identify your weaknesses and work on them. When you hit blocks or have questions, contact us. Remember, this is the sort of candidate graduate recruiters are looking for.
Martin Archer
13th August 2013