1. Lesson Outline: Explore
Aims and Objectives
To broaden the students understanding of the range of roles and jobs available by exploring the career pathway of the Business Ambassador.
To build an understanding of the skills and qualities employers are looking for in the young people they recruit and link this to how these are evidenced through the interview process.
To begin to explore the recruitment and selection process.
To consider employability skills from an employers perspective.
To identify where skills and qualities are displayed by students through activity both in and out of school and introduce the STAR model to help students to evidence achievement.
Activity 1: ‘How do people find a job?’
Activity 2: ‘What Employers Want’ looking at skills and qualities, and ranking these in order of importance to employers, discussing the reasons why there are important and so valued by employers.
Activity 3: Students create an interview top tips hand out.
Activity 4: ‘A week in my Life’ and a STAR example of students own experiences.

3. What is
Careers Lab helps us understand how to be successful in our careers, by bringing Business Ambassadors to talk to us throughout our time in school.
Today we will look at how to do well at an interview and what skills and qualities employers require in the young people they recruit.
We can then think about what we do now that will help us succeed when we go to work.
The teacher will introduce Careers Lab and explain the aim of the day is to look at the processes that employers use to decide to whom they offer a job. This lesson will introduce skills and qualities and help students prepare for their working life, and for the many interviews they may have to attend.

4. Learning Objectives During the session we will :-
Learn about the range of roles and jobs available by exploring the career pathway of our Business Ambassador.
Build your understanding of the skills and qualities employers are looking for and show how these are relevant in the interview process.
Outline the recruitment and selection process.
Consider employability skills from an employers perspective.
Identify where important skills and qualities are displayed through your activity both in and out of school.
Introduce the STAR model to help you to be able to evidence achievement in the application process.
The teacher may run through the learning objectives on Slide 4 with the class.

5. Welcome to our Business Ambassador. Please tell us about your job?
Who do you work for and what do you do?
How long have you worked there?
Is this your first job?
What do you need to be good at to be successful in your job?
Any other questions from the class?
The teacher will invite the Business Ambassador/s to explain their job title and role and give an overview of their company. The students may be in groups to ask questions of the teacher may facilitate this. This activity can be extended if the class are engaged.

6. How do people find a job? How did our Ambassador find their job?
How did our teacher find their job?
What is the recruitment process in your company?
What skills and qualities do employers want?
The teacher will organise the students into groups and ask them to work together to create a list/mind map the thoughts on the question ‘How do people find a job’.
The teacher will facilitate feedback and then the teacher will invite the Business Ambassador/s to talk about their experiences of finding a job and the recruitment process in their company. The teacher may also give their personal experience of applying for jobs.
Common responses on how to find a job are:
Someone you know may give you a job; you apply on line; you take your CV into a shop; you may see an advert in the newspaper; you may visit the Job Centre or a recruitment agency.
Key Messages: Interviews are one of the key parts of the recruitment process. It is important students understand what employers are looking for when they go to an interview, they can prepare and give themselves the best chance of showcasing their abilities. The teacher may explain, or invite the Business Ambassador/s to explain, that there are many ways employers test skills and qualities, such as verbal and numeracy tests, Assessment Centre’s, presentations and case study exercises.

7. A survey asked 63 employers which qualities they prized most in recruiting young people
The teacher will distribute one ’Explore Worksheet: What Employers Want' and ‘Explore Word Bank’ per group. The teacher will ask the students to work in small groups to decide which of the 21 skills and qualities they think are ranked most highly by employers. (The answers can be found at the end of this lesson plan.)
The Business Ambassador/s can join the groups for a short time helping the students understand the definitions and inputting into their discussion.
For example, skills are: time management, taking initiative, listening, coaching and evaluating. Qualities are being assertive, ambitious, careful, noisy or quiet.

8. 4 Good team working skills
1 Good attendance
2 Willingness to listen
3 Respect for others
4 Good team working skills
5 Regular punctuality
6 Smart appearance at interview/work
7 Honesty & integrity
8 A ‘can-do’ attitude
9 A desire to work
10 Politeness
The teacher can reveal the answers on this slide one by one (slide is set to step through). As each answer is revealed the teacher can ask the students how many groups had it right and why the class think it’s important. The teacher may ask the Business Ambassador/s to talk about why that skill/quality is important in their workplace.
Key Messages: It can be useful if the teacher or Business Ambassador/s highlights that qualification related attributes are number 34 in the list and not in the top ten. This is because in some jobs, particular qualifications are important and therefore interview won’t be obtained without them. In many other jobs, these other factors will always be significant in an interview.

9. Interview Tips Handout
As a class we are going to develop and produce a hand-out of top interview tips. 1: In your groups work out what would be a good way to answer these classic interview questions. 2: We will pool our responses, check our answers with the Business Ambassador, refine our suggestions. 3: Come up with some outstanding ways to help someone prepare for an interview. 4: What else should be included in the Interview Top Tips Handout?
The teacher will hand out the ‘Explore Interview Top Tips Worksheet’ and allocate groups 2 or 3 standard questions from the list on the worksheet. In their groups the students have to devise the content for and design the layout for an ‘Interview Top Tips Handout’. The teacher may decide to give all groups the same questions or to give different questions to different groups. 20 minutes is allocated for this part of the task.
The teacher can facilitate the class feeding back their answers to the Business Ambassador who will be invited to provide constructive comments to help them improve their answers and to give a range of ways an interviewee can talk about the skills and qualities they have. For example, if one of the answers suggest the applicant is very sociable, or love socializing with friends this might imply that they spend a lot of time chatting or not concentrating on a task, which is not a good impression to leave a potential future employer with. The lesson plan allocates 20 minutes for the discussion part of this exercise.
The groups then move onto to amending their content and creating the ‘Interview Top Tips’ handout. They may be able to use paper or laptops. 20 minutes is allocated to this part of the task.
If the teacher and class go through this exercise with speed and there is time left, the groups could be asked to present their ‘Interview Top Tips’ handout to the class and Business Ambassador.
Standard interview questions
Tell us about yourself.
Why have you applied for this job?
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Give an example of how you’ve worked in a team.
Give an example of when you’ve been placed in a position of responsibility.
Give an example of how you’ve dealt with a problem.
Give an example of how you’ve worked under pressure.
Why do you want to work for our company?
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
What interests do you have?
Tell us about your last job.
Do you have any questions for us?

10. A Week in Your Life
Using everything you have heard today you can now look at your own experience and see what skills and qualities you are already using in your life.
You will find more than you expect once you start!
Complete the first page of the work sheet.
The teacher to explain that in this activity, students will look at their daily life and start to identify what they have do or have done that highlights skills and qualities they already have.
The teacher will distribute the ‘Explore Worksheet: A Week In Your Life' and ask students to complete part 1 individually where they look at things they do and the skills and qualities they use.
These may be things like babysitting, walking the dog, any household chores or job such as a paper round, even getting their homework in on time or organising their own homework timetable could be used.
The teacher will then facilitate a class discussion where students share the ideas they have had to see the range of ways they could illustrate when they have gained various skills and qualities. Students can add to their list of example activities.

11. tell them what you learned…..
Also known as
“Tell them what you did
and then
tell them what you learned…..
The teacher may explain the STAR model or may ask the Business Ambassador/s to do this and outline how it helps people put their answers together in an interview situation.

12. STAR - Example Have you ever taken responsibility?
Situation: Peter helps at his local youth club, every Wednesday, between 4 and 5.30pm.
Task: Peter has to make sure the children have all signed in.
For new children starting at the Youth Club he explains what happens and shows them around too.
Actions: Peter welcomes everyone who comes in and introduces them to the others and talk to the children. He makes sure they can join in and take part and if they are nervous or shy .
Results: Peter enjoys seeing the children have fun and enjoys
making sure everyone has a good time at the Youth Club. He also understands why it is important to keep accurate records of who attends for health and safety reasons.
In slide 11, the teacher will use the example to reinforce the STAR Model.The teacher could outline that in this example Peter has to be reliable and friendly, which are qualities. To complete the task, he has to be literate (which is a skill) and organised (also a skill) as well as being friendly again
For the action part, Peter has to be confident (a quality), aware of other people and their feelings (a very useful skill) and he has to facilitate introductions and people joining in (facilitation is a skill). And in the results, Peter shows himself to be organised again (a very employable skill).
The teacher may ask the Business Ambassador/s to give some examples from their work to illustrate how they use the STAR model to explain what they have done, or to understand what their colleagues have done. The teacher will then ask the students then complete the ’Explore Worksheet: A Week In Your Life’ part 2. If there is time, students can practice explaining different examples and sharing these with their group or the class.

13. Examples – Articulating skills and qualities
I am responsible, reliable and patient.
I entertain, keep safe and provide a snack for younger siblings every week while a parent finishes work
I am dedicated, reliable and passionate
I play a in a team sport (or participate in a theatre group etc) each week and always turn out for practice rain or shine
I am punctual, organised and well presented
I am consistently on time for school, always hand my homework in on time and look smart
Slide 12 just highlights some examples of where students may be able to articulate skills and qualities in employability language.
Key Messages: Interviews are a vital part of any recruitment process. Students can plan and prepare for an interview to improve the chance of being offered a job. It is important to remember what an employer is looking for when you plan an answer.

14. And finally… For the class:
What would you tell someone at home about today?
For the Ambassador:
What will you tell your boss about today?
The teacher will revisit aims for the sessions and ask the students to highlight what they have learned. The teacher will invite the Business Ambassador/s to tell the class something they have enjoyed or learned too.

15. Extra activities
Take the Buzz Quiz online quiz to find out what animal you are.
Twitter Job descriptions characters or less to identify/describe or guess your dream job.
My ideal lifestyle. Create a poster/presentation of "Me at 25" - include aspects of place, type of work, salary, holidays, car etc.