 Hi everyone and welcome back to another vlog. My name is Claire Carmichael and I am a general practice nurse. However, I did spend a lot of my time as a healthcare assistant working in elderly care homes. So today's vlog is all about how to ace that interview if you are going for a healthcare assistant position or a social care position and hopefully I can give you some great tips and advice if you've got your interview coming up. So in most interviews you will get the generic type of questions so why do you want to work for us? Where do you see yourself in five years time? What can you bring to the team? Talk to us a bit about team working but also working on your own initiative. Those type of questions pretty much anywhere you work will ask you because they want to know a bit about you, why you want to work for them, why they should be picking you for the job and what you're going to bring to their company in a way. Another common question is about your strengths and weaknesses so I just wanted to put a little tip in here. Obviously we want to show our strengths and show off and pass this interview with flying colours but when it comes to weaknesses we tend to go a bit shy and be like don't really want to tell them what I'm bad at but what they want to see in this question is you recognise what you need improving and you've got the steps in place to improve it. So for me I said something like in one of my interviews I said something like I take on too much because I do and that's something that I'm very aware of I can't say no to people and I just say yeah yeah yeah yeah and then I get burnt out so I gave an example in second year where I was taken on way too much so I put steps in place to reduce that for third years in my nursing degree and just took some time out and just sort of prioritised the things that I really wanted to do and the things that I didn't really need to do I sort of pushed to one side just to give myself that easier workload so it's about showing yeah okay I've got these weaknesses I'm not very good at that but actually I'm doing this training I'm going to look into this training to improve and build on that as long as you've got a solution to the weaknesses don't worry about it so some specific questions to sort of the care or social care sort of role could be things like what skills you can bring so have a little think if you've never worked in social care or care work ever before just think about the transferable skills that you can bring so your communication styles things that you've done out there um if you've just left school for example think about those timekeeping skills organisational skills your communication skills with your peers with your classmates with your teachers things like that think about those little things that you can bring into the care work and give examples as well one thing that people love is not only are you just giving your answer so say I'm a great listener but actually give an example so that you show that you understand what a good listener is so make sure you give examples with every question that you answer back it up with an example because the more you can do that the far better your interview is going to go and really impress them the next thing that you might get asked is something around how you're going to support those individuals so if you're going into care work for the elderly how are you going to support those individuals that really need it so that you're going to be working with some really vulnerable patients people with maybe reduced mobility frailty um things like that so think about how you would care for those patients as a care assistant and also if it's more like a learning disabilities that you're going into think about the specific needs of people the types of learning disabilities that people might have and also physical disabilities as well so have a little think about those sort of things and again use examples so think of things that you have done already in your life if you've supported someone like that in your life it might have been your grandparents it might have been a family member it might have been a friend or a colleague just use any examples you can and if you haven't ever had that experience before try and think about okay how would you support that person how would you put those things in place so it's really good to research the area that you're going into just get a lot of information and background on it and how you can best support those people and also social media is brilliant for that as well have a look at some forums different groups out there on social media have a look around and just see what other people have been doing and ask questions so another question that you might get asked you might get asked a lot of things around safeguarding because safeguarding is quite big especially with elderly and vulnerable people with learning disabilities they're very very vulnerable so you need to know your safeguarding stuff and know how you would recognise different types of safeguarding so have a look at the safeguarding website there's loads of different things out there on safeguarding and just figure out what you would do in that situation so for example we had a patient and we suspected that it wasn't like a direct family member but it was more of a distant family member but they were the carer for this person this patient and she kept making comments about money and stuff and how she was giving them money to get pads and things like that for her but she never saw the pads and things so we were massively concerned that this person was actually financially abusing this patient and we put in it to all of the safeguarding teams and it went to all sorts of people and actually it turned out he was actually abusing this patient financially and it was terrible this poor lady was well this neglect as well in a way because she wasn't getting the stuff she needs and he was spending all her money so yeah so think about things like that not just the physical abuse because that's the first thing that people think of is the hidden things and the hidden things are the hardest part of safeguarding because then you have to prove it so think about that and don't just automatically go okay physical and sexual abuse go into the deeper stuff go into the things that they're not going to expect you to say because you've looked into it and you're going to wow them. Another question that always gets asked in care and social care and even in nursing is always about aggression and violence so you will always get that scenario where what would you do with an angry patient or a patient that's upset or a family member and a family member's coming at you and being really angry and not happy how would you deal with that situation they're just trying to work out what sort of person you are how you're going to be dealing with that situation and are you comfortable with that sort of behaviour as well so it's about recognising that and again using your communication skills to sort of resolve the issue using your calm tone take them to a confidential area where they can speak freely get management and support if you cannot handle that situation always make sure you say that make sure you say you will always get support if needed because it's about protecting you as well it's not about the patient is always right it's also about you and protecting you and your team as well so yes balance it out so some of the things you might get asked especially more so in care homes is about pressure areas because pressure areas is quite big as you get older your skin becomes weaker people get a little bit more frailer and the skin is going to break down so much easier so you might get asked a question about how to recognise pressure source what would you do how would you report it what steps you would put in place to protect that patient from getting any pressure source so it's just being mindful around that as well and making sure that your patients are moving and being active and also nutrition and diet as well also plays a massive factor in it so yes just think about all the little things not just the big things and something that sort of coincides with that is a risk assessment so they might ask you what types of risk assessments do you think that we do in care homes again it's things like your care planning your frailty assessments your manual handling your health and safety they might use news charts they might use water low scores they might use must tools all these sort of little risk assessments that they might use but it's all again for the patient safety and the patient care everybody's different and everyone's going to have different levels that there are and extra needs maybe put in place to protect them so yeah have a look around about risk assessments another question I was asked actually was something around eating and drinking so if you have a patient that's literally refusing to eat refusing to drink and this is going on for a couple of days what do you do about it and for me it's I answered this as in what if it's me like what if they're not eating and drinking because they just don't like my face that day so I said I would make use of everybody so I've tried different team members see if they can help try the family family are amazing they are so good and they can help so much with these things especially at meal times when it's already manic everyone's rushed off their feet family are really really good to help in these sort of situations so use and abuse the family members as well whilst they're there but also thinking about underlying conditions so okay they're not eating and drinking why is that and trying to get to the bottom of it and find out why and what you can do to help and just being open with your patient as well and just saying to your patient you know I've noticed this are you okay are you enjoying your food is there anything else we can do do you feel okay your observations okay is are you going to the toilet normally and all of this because there might just be something really minor also teeth oh my god sorry to interrupt um also teeth so some older people do have their own teeth still but a lot of them also have dentures so there might be a problem in their mouth which is why they're not eating why they're not drinking because it's really sensitive and painful so it's asking about that and seeing if they've anyone's cleaned their teeth if they can't do it for themselves if they can do it for themselves make sure they are cleaning their teeth properly and there's nothing there that's causing a problem they haven't got mouse ulcers they might have a thrush in their mouth it's just really thinking about these little things why isn't this person eating and getting to the bottom of it so that you can help them and make sure they're safe and eating well and keeping that new nutrition and fluids balanced another little question that you might get asked is more about teamwork and management as well so they might say something like what would happen if you're working with someone and you really don't get on with them and you come to clashes like another carer or even the management how would you handle that situation so it is again about being professional respecting your colleagues respecting your manager but if there's something really really concerning and like you've seen them abusing somebody maybe it's about taking it higher and trying to resolve the situation because it's not nice to go into work and come to disagreements with people and it's definitely not nice witnessing abuse because I've been that person who has witnessed abuse before and I've just reported it straight away because I won't have my patients been abused I'm sorry I don't care who you are and yeah it's not nice so it's about being honest and open again with these sort of things if you see something make sure you speak up report it to management if it is the manager doing it you go higher than the manager and just report it back but also being professional and calm and maintaining your own dignity in a way that makes sense so I think that's everything I think I've covered everything if I've missed anything now I'm really really sorry I can only really go on my own experiences and what I had in my interviews and what I've heard from other people as well so I'm trying to give you as much information as possible for your interviews to best prepare you but the best thing you can do honestly is just relax shine show your passion and just research the area you're going into you need to know the place that you're going into and working in and that'll just help you so much during the interview if they ask you questions about their trust and the business as well and also if there's something that really stands out about them you can say that in the interview as well say I really actually like the way that you do this and this just shows because on your cqc report for example look at the cqc report last tip on your cqc report for example it shows that you're outstanding or you're good and these are the areas that you're really good in I really like that so doing that sort of thing shows that you're keen you're interested and you're invested in this job and they're going to be really impressed with you for doing that so yes a massive massive good luck to you all you're going to ace it chill out relax deep breath remember you're awesome and go for all it good luck