And though few employers will ask awkward questions with malicious intent, you still have to deal with them without losing your cool. Awkward questions might seem unkind but interviewers are keen to draw out how you react under pressure. The key to handling them is thorough groundwork and the ability to think on your feet. "A big mistake people make is not preparing for the interview," says Dr Rob Yeung, business psychologist and author of Successful Interviews Every Time (How To Books). "People think they can just walk into an interview and be themselves and talk off the top their head." But without doing your homework you're likely to end up kicking yourself and feeling that you didn't do yourself justice. 'Can you describe a situation where they might have demonstrated leadership skills?' for instance, or more awkwardly, 'Can you tell me about a time when you were working with a team that were having problems getting on?' The interviewer isn't interested in understanding how the emotional saga unfolded but how you coped. "We do a survey every year on organisations recruitment and retention practices.
In years gone by an interview would have involved a chat through your CV but these days many more companies are focusing on competencies."Organisations identify a set of skills and qualities that are important to the job and ask questions based on how your past experience is relevant to the current post And they want specific examples. "Teachers want to do a good job and are interested in how to do it better," he says.Most teenagers who leave school aged 16 prefer to learn in an adult environment prior to entering higher education. Pryce welcomes the Foster Review as a further opportunity for reflection: "He is a positive figure for the sector and sees that we have a vital social and economic purpose."Andrew Thomson, chief executive of the Learning and Skills Development Agency and a former college principal, says that student surveys and focus groups provide important feedback. "In the past, we have probably fallen over ourselves to address every single new initiative," he says.Bedford has a student council and surveys students on each course three times a year. But while the DfES promotes schemes such as modern apprenticeships, ministers are less willing to highlight the sector as a whole. "Maybe their worry is that if they promote FE, more people will want it and they can't afford to pay for it," says Brennan.Ian Pryce, principal of Bedford College, says that the sector's "under developed" national voice is partly due to the fact that it is accountable to two or three different government departments as well as regional development agencies and the Learning and Skills Council. Colleges, he claims, are generally better than schools at testing the opinion of learners and are normally well appreciated locally.
A large part of the population is not that clear about what FE colleges do."Colleges have had more publicity than usual during the past few months following widespread cuts in adult education. But Kat Fletcher, who studied at Sheffield College, says that much of the misunderstanding surrounding further education lies in the fact that most government ministers have not experienced it themselves.John Brennan, the chief executive of the Association of Colleges, acknowledges that there is a lack of clarity caused by the fact that colleges serve a wide range of students with different needs. "Students don't get enough say over course content and structure."A year ago, Sir Andrew delivered a report to the DfES criticising the level of bureaucracy and regulation in further education. This time the former chief executive of the Audit Commission wants colleges to be self-critical as well as to consider how they can raise the reputation of the sector.The latest review follows a series of government initiatives that has left colleges with a wide range of responsibilities: from persuading disillusioned teenagers to remain in education beyond the age of 16, to improving literacy and numeracy among adults.Sir Andrew, who was impressed by the motivation shown by staff and students in the colleges he visited, says: "Most people have a fairly clear idea of what a school or university does. She says that the impact of student unions and other student bodies varies considerably, with some colleges taking far more notice of them than others.Among the issues students are likely to raise as part of the review is the pressure of having to learn in an environment dominated by examinations "They are not learning knowledge They learn how to pass an exam," says Fletcher.