So I had the phone interview a couple of days ago. I think that I did pretty good. But I guess we will shall see. The phone interview was about hour. The interviewer (If I get the job she will be my supervisor) was really friendly and she broken down what the interview would consist of. She informed me that if the phone interview went well, she would email me and tell me to look over three documents about VISTA, the company, my living allowance, and housing. If I believed that this job is a good fit for me then I needed to email her back telling her that I would like to move forward with the second interview with her and the Executive Director via Skype. If the Executive Director and her liked me, then I would move to my third and final interview which would be with the AmeriCorps VISTA that is currently serving in the position that I applied for. The last interview with AmeriCorps VISTA would be an informal interview and it would just consist of me asking the VISTA questions about the job, the city, and his/her thoughts on being a VISTA. If I get the job I would train in Alberkury July 19-July 22, 2011. I am not sure if that is in New Mexico or New York. I just simply said oh ok that's nice.lol. Since this will be my 2nd year as a VISTA, it is optional for me to go again. I informed her, that I would like to go again if given the opportunity. (Free food, free lodging, and I get to connect and network with other fellow VISTAs, why would I turn that down?).
The Job Itself
She did a really good job of giving an overview of the organizations and how long her organizations has worked with VISTAs. She informed me that her organizations currently has 500 volunteers and 300 of those 500 volunteers are older adults. (Which makes me feel a little better, because I wondering how I was going to recruit a lot of the volunteers for this job.) She also broke down, exactly what I would be doing if I got the job. She stated that their work environment is laid-back with an open door policy and all the VISTAs are independent and self-sufficient workers.
The Interview
During the interview, she asked me why did I want to work with the elderly? I told her that the elderly are a vulnerably population and if I got this job that would be a way for me to learn about myself, the population that I wish to serve, as well as to see if this is a field that I would like to truly be apart of. She thought that was very good answer and she liked that I wanted to work with the elderly. She told me that the deadline to inform AmeriCorps was June 3rd and they would like to have reached a decision by the end of this month. She also saw when my AmeriCorps position ended and they were willing to be flexible with my start date. Overall the interview was pretty good I believe. She asked me a lot of questions. She asked me questions like how I would describe myself and how would my boss and others describe me. She asked me what my favorite ice cream was? She asked me to discussed my job currently as a VISTA and what I have done there. She asked me some conflict resolution questions and ideas that I had for the job. She also asked me if I wanted to stay in their housing that they offered the VISTAs or would I like to live somewhere else. I informed her that I would interested in living in the housing they provided. She also asked me were there anything on the job description that I felt would be a challenge. And I honestly didn't have any, because the one thing that I was nervous about, I didn't have to do. I felt pretty confident that if I was given this job I could do it.
Interesting Fact:
I told her that I aspire to receive my MSW and she told me that she was a former VISTA member that came from a different state and was assigned to this company. She stated that St. Louis had several gr8 social work programs. She liked St. Louis so much that she decided to received her MSW in St.Louis and concentrate in gerontology and after she graduated she came back to the company to work. I thought that was pretty cool.
Closer/My thoughts:
The moment that she gave me the job description I began to do research on not only the company but ideas that I personally thought would be a a good fit and work well with the population that I want to serve. I love networking and meeting people. She emailed me about 15 mins after the interviews the three documents that she wanted me to look over, and if I was still interested to email her.I emailed her back and I told her thank you for interviewing me and I informed her that I would like to move on to the next round if the job is still available, I am currently w8n to hear back from her to tell me if I made it the next round. Keep the prayers coming and wish me luck! Thanks for reading and have a gr8 Sunday!
