On Thursday the 28th of January, the DoubleTree by Hilton in Amsterdam once again hosted a group of enthusiastic young women. This evening was all about creating win-win situations and in this light, TopFem had invited de Belastingdienst and Capgemini as possible future employees. Not only did these companies provide us with information on their training and talent programmes, tips and tricks were shared on job application procedures too.
To share some of the insights: of course recruiters Google you before they invite you for an interview, but did you know that even the person sitting at the front desk may be asked to give her judgement on you? In addition, before going into the interview, preparation is most important. Be sure to give a sturdy handshake (no “dead fishes”). Look for background information on the company and the people involved in the interview. Spend some time Googling frequently asked questions on job interviews and prepare answers for them. Examples of these FAQs are “why are you applying to this specific job position?”, or “mention some of your qualities/shortcomings”. According to de Belastingdienst and Capgemini, companies are especially fond of answers in the form of the STAR(R) method: describing a Situation, your Task in this situation, the Actions undertaken by you, what the Results of this outcome were and perhaps even your Reflection on how you could improve the outcome next time.
Provided with this valuable information, each of us will now enter (job) applications much more confidently! See you all on Thursday the 25th of February for our next event! And for all of you in doubt about joining us next time: for more info or signing up, please visit www.topfem.nl or contact us at info@topfem.nl.
Interested in the presentation used during the job application workshop? You can find it here.
