Dear Janet 1973,
Happy belated birthday. In relation to you wanting to work in elderly care, the fact that you are getting to the interview stage means you are doing something right. I retired last year from my job as a hospital matron after nearly 38 years in the NHS and have interviewed hundreds of people over the years, many of whom seemed over qualified for jobs such as healthcare assistants.
There is absolutely nothing wrong in your supporting statement asking them to see past your qualifications and to look at what is in your heart. Sometimes in life we get to a stage when a vocational role is more important because you have so much to give and so many transferable skills to offer. Your business as a dog groomer means you have customer care and communication skills, problem solving, time management, and maybe conflict resolution skills as not all customers and clients can be happy all of the time. Your skills with dogs mean you have to look for non verbal signs of distress, exactly the same as with elderly patients or clients. You need to ensure respect, dignity and compassion in your role. You obviously can work alone or as part of a team and can take instruction as well as delegate. And you would never take on any task without the appropriate training, these are all things we would look for.
Many areas now use value based questions so you need to think of real examples of situations where you have perhaps gone that extra mile for someone (a dog or client or friend), when you have demonstrated care or compassion, when you have had to challenge poor performance or attitude, it’s about what YOU did, not what you might do or what we may do.
I wish you the best of luck and I am happy to offer any help or suggestions, take care.
