Meet VITA a training avatar to help people prepare for job interviews in a non-threatening way by providing virtual job interview simulations.

Preliminary Introduction

Name: Ella G

Date of Birth: May 1, 1996

Ella’s self-description:

Ella is the daughter of David (a PE teacher) and Noga (who works in tourism) and has an older brother. She shared that she lives in her parents’ home but that she dreams of living with a partner and living independently. It is clear that she feels loved and secure in her family framework.

She studied at the Ramat Sharet elementary school in a special-education class. According to Ella, she was diagnosed with ADHD, and previously took Ritalin but due to its effects on her mood (depression), decided of her own volition to stop taking it in grade 10. Since then she has described constant improvement and growth with age. She completed her high school education at the Keshet school and has few social connections from there.

After high school she began national service at a number of institutions without successfully maintaining positions at any of them (“El Halev”, “Maon”, “Beit Elisheva”) and finally completed a year and a half of service at the Jerusalem Theater, where she felt very bored and was frequently absent.

Ella spends her free time enjoying a wide variety of activities, she’s studying belly dancing and even performs, and she’s taking a course on film in which she created a movie about herself and her partner. She enjoys having a busy schedule.

Generally Ella feels that she is high-functioning and has many capabilities.

Indications of upcoming challenges: Difficulty maintaining diligence and focus, particularly when she’s not interested or “bored”.

Professional Background

Work experience

• Ella says that she has held several job interviews of different kinds and is confident in her ability to deliver the required message pleasantly and without shyness.
• She worked at “Lev Smadar” in the framework of the SHEKEL program but did not enjoy it and did not remain working there.
• As part of her National Service she worked at the Jerusalem Theater.

Background in professional training

• Will begin a chef’s course at Shalva shortly in collaboration with the “Taamim” culinary institute.
• She previously completed the first two stages of a pastry-making course (at the same time as her National Service).
• She completed two photography courses during her high school studies.

Professional ambitions

Ella is very passionate about starting to work and she has three target fields in which she would like to work:

1. Office work
2. Reception and hosting
3. Pastry-making

Preliminary strategies for VITA following initial conversation with Ella

• Ella requires a varied professional environment to feel interested and challenged and to help her remain focused throughout her training and future employment. Furthermore, she needs to practice consistently and acquire a personal awareness of her degree of diligence also concerning mundane tasks in her personal life. Acquiring this skill will benefit her success in navigating “real life” situations.
• A clear schedule with mapped goals will greatly assist Ella. All topics of routine and organization are critical to her ability to understand completely what tasks are required for her to complete vis-à-vis the tasks of the people around her.

Small Screen Session

Training transcript

Therapist: We’re going over the questions from the VITA program, I’ll introduce myself and conduct a job interview with you. We are just practising and can stop whenever we want. This is a dry run.

Ella: I’m Ella, age 23, from Jerusalem, what else do I have to say?

Therapist: Anything you want to say about yourself

Ella: I studied at the Keshet school

Therapist: Do you have any basic, general questions? Generally, they ask for a short description and then they ask for more details.

Ella: I’m Ella, age 23, from Jerusalem, and I would be happy to hear in this job interview what you are offering.

Therapist: I will start asking you questions to get to know you better.

How do you feel about your interpersonal skills?

Was that a difficult question? Did you understand?

Ella: I understood, I’m good at this.

Therapist: Can you give me an example?

Start with yourself. I’m an optimistic person.

Ella: I’m an optimistic person. I light up my surroundings. I have a lot of friends.

Therapist: So when we talked about your interpersonal skills, it’s important to be detailed.

Ella:  I’m persistent and hardworking.

Therapist: Right, so you’ll work on your diligence, and you can say that you bring a good atmosphere and you have initiative.

What are other strong points of yours? What things are you good at?

It’s a good idea to mention things related to work, and you also need things connected to the job you’re interviewing for. For example, being a chef is different from office work.

So what can you tell me?

Ella: I studied pastry-making.

Therapist: Very clean is important, aesthetics are important to me. In pastry-making it’s important to note aesthetics. It’s also important to emphasize your ability to follow instructions. For example, when working with a recipe it is very important to follow instructions.

Do you have any points you want to improve about yourself?

Ella: Diligence.

Therapist: Honestly, I wouldn’t say that in an interview because that’s a subject that raises doubts for the manager.

Ella: It’s fine, I want to.

Therapist: If I ask your previous employer or your teacher about you, what would they say?

Ella: That I’m not diligent.

Therapist: Why start with something negative? Let’s focus on the positive – that you’re friendly, organized, light up the room.

We like to know that our employees have ambitions. Where do you see yourself five years from now?

Ella: That I have a bakery with pastries and I hire people.

Therapist: Our guests appreciate a positive approach and being treated warmly. Can you tell me about a time when your positive attitude helped you succeed? We want to know that you have a positive approach to clients. When were you positive and it help you?

Ella: I don’t remember.

Therapist: It helped you with me, the fact that you smile made the connection between us stronger.

Ella: It helps me with my studies.

Therapist: How does being smiley help with your studies? Can I help you? You said you have a busy schedule.

Ella: Tell Shimrit (my boss at Shalva), that I have a busy schedule.

Therapist: Yes, and your pleasant spirit makes it possible.

What does an employee need to be a good worker?

Ella: Being able to take criticism and being diligent.

Therapist: What days can you work?

Is there anything else you would like to ask?

Afterwards we’ll prepare an explanation about the program, about the characters there are, and the way you can choose a suitable character.

We’re ending for today

Tell me if there’s something important to you that you wanted to say.

Ella: To start to work! Is there something soon?

Therapist: I think so but sometimes you need to go through a process.

Observations:

It was fascinating to watch Ella’s readiness to work and her involvement in the learning process.

As you can see from the transcript we stopped to plan how to say and phrase things.

Large-screen Session

VITA: How are you?

Ella: I’m fine

VITA: Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

Ella: My name is Ella, I’m 23, from Jerusalem, I studied… Should I say?

Therapist: You can say a bit

Ella: I studied at a high school

Therapist: You can say the name of your high school

Ella: Keshet

Therapist: After that, National Service

Ella: I did my service at the Jerusalem Theater

Therapist: And now I’m looking for work

Ella: I’m looking for work in the field

Therapist: Let’s also add that you worked in the field of office administration

Ella: The field of office administration

VITA: What are your strong points?

Ella: Do you remember what I told you?

Therapist: Try to think of something you’re good at

Ella: Smiling for example. I am very smiley, I help people when they need it

Therapist: Those are things connected to your personality. You need to mention strengths connected to your work

Ella: Should I talk about diligence?

Therapist: Like what?

Ella: I want to improve my diligence. I do what I am supposed to do and I get criticism.

VITA: Everyone wants to improve something in themselves, what do you want to improve?

Ella: My diligence and that’s it.

Therapist: Is that something that’s very important to you?

Ella: Very

VITA: That was an excellent answer, what are your plans for the future? Do you have professional ambitions?

Ella: I would be happy to share them! My ambitions are a professional cooking class and if it exists a professional office class.

Therapist: What you shared was something you want to learn. Here you have to highlight something you would like to work in and now you say what your professional aspirations are.

Ella: In terms of working in an office, I would like to work independently in an office; to answer the phone, to scan things.

Therapist: I would like to arrive at the office, to find out my tasks, and to do them independently. Let’s go over the question again.

Ella: Go back?

Therapist: Yes

Ella: Okay so my ambition is to work in a professional office independently like filing things and scanning things and answering the phone and so on.

VITA: And now just one more question, how will you get to work?

Ella: Yes, on the bus. I’m independent, very independent.

VITA: I want to thank you, do you have any questions?

Ella: No, actually, I don’t have any questions. Everything is fine.

VITA: I think I got answers.

Ella: Thank you too.

What’s her name?

Therapist: Meira

I want to refine it – when the boss gives you an opportunity to ask questions you should take advantage. What should you ask?

Ella: Like what are the work hours?

Therapist: Right!

Ella: Meira, what are the work hours?

Therapist: From 9 to 2.

Ella: That’s what she says?

Therapist: We didn’t plan it, but she could say that.

Therapist: What else should you ask?

Ella: What’s the salary, for instance.

Right, Meira, what’s the salary?

Therapist: That’s an important question. You can also ask about training – who will train you. since you don’t know everything.

That was really great

Ella: Did I do okay?

Therapist: You were better than okay.

How did you feel?

Ella: Fine. I have confidence in myself about interviews.

Therapist: You mean that you have a good experiences from interviews and it contributes to your confidence.

Summary of session and observations:

It was fascinating to watch Ella’s learning process.

Throughout the use of the VITA program, we stopped to practice and phrase the answers correctly. I think there is potential to learn. We need to check how well lessons are internalized over time and of course implement them successfully in an actual job interview.