Interview with Jessica
To prepare for the interview with Jessica who is having some problems at work, I first did research on some of the factors that contribute to employees’ problems at work. Research is an important element in an interview, it helps one understand factors that help in proper selection of topics to be handled through the interview (Okun, 2001). By doing this, I was able to gain insight to the issues that Jessica could be facing and it helped me formulate relevant questions for the interview. The interview took about 20 minutes and I will have to admit that this was not easy because Jessica is a really open individual that loves to express herself and so it was so hectic moving from one question to another to ensure that the interview took the set timeframe.
This interview was unstructured in nature and this is why I chose to use open ended questions. Open ended questions are effective because they give the client a chance to expand their answers and this gives the interviewer more conclusive answers that help make the right diagnosis (Sarason, 2015). In this case the open ended questions were effective in helping me understand what is going on with Jessica’s life and how this is contributing to the issues that she is having at work. Some of the questions that I selected for the interview included;
- What is your name and how did you get it?
- What do you like to do for fun?
- What is the most important thing to you and why?
- Do you enjoy working here? Why?
- What changes have you experienced at your workplace in the last few months?
- How have you coped with these changes?
- How is the relationship between you and your co-workers?
- What are some of the changes that have happened in your family in the last few months?
- How have you coped with these changes?
- Where do you see yourself in regard to your career in the next ten years?
The venue of an interview should be in a place that makes the client comfortable and more importantly, a place that is quite (Okun, 2001). I set the interview to be in one of the private rooms within the library during the early morning hours when there are few people at the library. The interview began with informal greetings, general introductions between me and the client and general talk about the weather which greatly helped her to be comfortable and ready for the interview. I made sure that I had my notebook and a tape recorder which I asked for her consent before we began the interview. The interview started off well but getting her to open up about her family issues was not easy, judging by her non-verbal cues, she was embarrassed to talk about her family most especially to a stranger.
A good interviewer should ensure that the client is comfortable and free to talk which makes it easy for a client to talk about him or herself (Sarason, 2015). It was not easy getting her to trust me most especially because she was nervous that she was about to lose her job as a result of the recent mistakes that she had been making at her work. I however made her comfortable by letting her understand that everything that she said to me was confidential and it wouldn’t be shared with any other individual. I made her understand that sharing what she was going through would help ease the burden and it would help her get ideas on how to deal with the issues so that they stopped affecting her job. The interview was effective because I got Jessica to tell me what was happening in her family life and I understood the effect that this was having on her work life.
References
Okun, B. F. (2001). Effective helping: Interviewing and counseling techniques (6th ed.).
Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Sarason, I. G. (2015, September 21). Personality assessment. Retrieved from
https://www.britannica.com/science/personality-assessment#ref415021
