I'm Andrew Gibson.
I'm the Year 9 Horizon coordinator
at Our Lady of Mercy College in Heidelberg, Victoria.
Horizon is a Year 9 program
that tries to get students out of their comfort zone.
It provides them with rich learning opportunities in the community
that, hopefully, gives them the opportunity
to foster the independence, initiative and the resilience
that we want to see in our students
by the time they get to year 11 and 12.
R�sum�s are an important part of getting a job.
They're not guaranteed to get you a job,
but they're an important process of it
and what we know is that there are a number of other things you have to do
to be successful at a job interview,
and that's what our focus is today.
What I'm hoping for today
is that it's very clear that success is getting the job.
You will be given a character
and you will be going for a job interview in the next week or so.
Everyone will have success in that interview
if they recognise the role of the r�sum�
and the role of other parts that go into that job interview.
The structure of today was to provide an opportunity
for me to be explicit with what success would look like
and give the students an opportunity then
to break down how they would achieve success.
Today's lesson's an introduction
to what will be happening over the next week and a half
and the idea is it's to get students thinking about what they'll be doing
and the various goals they're going to set themselves along the way.
Erin, you mentioned the role of the r�sum�.
What else will we need to do between now and that job interview? Sara?
To make a cover letter for the job.
Thank you, Sara. What else?
Cover letter, r�sum�.
What other things will you need to be able to do?
You'll need to research your character
and make sure that the job's right for you.
Thank you, Chloe.
What other skills will we need to have that success,
to get that handshake at the end of the interview?
We're going to explore one of the four points we've got up there.
Each table group will be given one of these topics.
So for table group one, I'll talk to you in a moment,
but the cover letter will be your focus.
This is your focus area
and your focus is to think of what is important
to have success in each of those items.
So for table group one, here's some Post-it notes.
Each of you are to think and talk with your partner
about what are the mini goals, if you like,
to have success in writing a r�sum�.
GIRL: "Quality, not quantity." We put that down.
Yeah, and concise, that Georgia mentioned as well - being concise.
-You said that. -Yeah. (LAUGHS)
How long do you think a r�sum� should be?
-GIRL: A page? -I think a page is good.
-GIRL 2: Two pages. -Nothing more.
Nothing more than 1-2 pages.
GIRL 3: How long is a cover letter? Is it a page as well?
Normally it would be a page. Yes.
OK, so Georgia's got the idea of being concise.
GIRL: "Keep it concise."
What else do we need to know for our r�sum�? What else do we need to do?
Well, what's positive about you, what are your hobbies, your skills
and what sort of things you do after school and stuff.
OK, so that's other interests that you might have
such as community service or any volunteer work.
That would be great.
I think we should focus on our character research
so that we go in there, we don't get nervous and don't say...
Be confident about what we're going to talk about.
-The cover letter. -And the cover letter. Yep.
ANDREW: I'm happy with today.
I'm happy with some of the interactions I had
with the students as well, talking to them,
identifying some students who perhaps are not as confident
and being able to have that one-on-one conversation with them
and making sure they're paired up with someone
who is confident in their table group.
That's one of the concerns -
that the insecurity and the nerves and the apprehension
leading up to that job interview can really derail students.
So I'm very conscious about making sure we make those links
between the confident extrovert students, if you like,
and those students who find it more difficult speaking publicly.