Computer Technologies Program The Bridge to a Career
Spending a morning doing practice job interviews with CTP clients was the highlight of my week. The clients were motivated and eager to improve their job search skills. They all appreciated my help and advice, and I came away feeling like I had really made a positive impact. CTP is doing great work.
CTP students who’ve gone through our core training programs are no strangers to what it takes to land a job within their vocational goal, but it can be trickier to practice – and receive targeted feedback on – a key career skill: the job interview. From Courtesy Clerk to IT Help Desk, interviews are a crucial aspect of landing the vast majority of internships or jobs, and it is important that students understand how best to successfully prepare for them. For this reason, the Wardrobe for Opportunity (WFO) along with Bank of the West employee volunteers hosted a mock interview workshop for CTP students at WFO headquarters in Oakland.
After having had experienced professional development events like this before, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a great amount of helpful feedback related to my resume and interview answers that I had not received in the past.
— Jessica, CTP Student
Students from both PRO and CTT training programs recently made the trip to downtown Oakland for the mock interviews. Judging from the feedback I received the students had a blast while taking great strides forward in their professional development. When asked about her experience following the event, CTP student, Jessica said: “After having had experienced professional development events like this in the past I was pleasantly surprised to receive a great amount of helpful feedback related to my resume and interview performance that I had not received before.” At CTP, students know there is no such thing as a perfect resume and that it is important to pick and pull suggestions from a variety of professionals and resume writers along the journey to employment as they may have suggestions the person before them didn’t even think to suggest.
On the other hand employee volunteers from Bank of the West did great work in providing CTP students with the feedback they could immediately utilize and benefit from whether the students were looking for work now or in the near future. Volunteers clearly had a good and positive experience. Jim Cole, Vice President of Internal and External Communications said “Spending a morning doing practice job interviews with CTP clients was the highlight of my week. The clients were motivated and eager to improve their job search skills. They all appreciated my help and advice, and I came away feeling like I had really made a positive impact. CTP is doing great work.” It is always great to see both the CTP consumers and volunteers mutually benefit from events like this one.
Overall a great time was had all around.