Job Coach

Through an odd series of fortunate events, my oldest son is attending a second interview with a mortgage banking company. He worked there many years ago, and it just turned out that he struck while the iron was hot on a current position open in the same company. Yesterday I helped him through the intricacies of Microsoft Office Suite so he could complete several timed tests. (I'll admit; I was a little rusty on the Office 2010 since I've been using the latest version for the past nine or ten months.) He passed those and answered several "probing questions" to the company's liking -- after an initial interview on Tuesday -- and now he's meeting with the hiring manager. I've spent at least half the day coaching him.

When I started volunteering as a job coach almost a year ago, I never thought I would get anything from it beyond the satisfaction of helping. But today I pulled all the questions (or at least most of them) that I use in the mock interviews from the top of my head and posed them to my son, over and over, in an attempt to prepare him for his interview. I should probably mention that this wasn't me being an overbearing mom. He asked me to drill him.

My son is a personable guy and a good worker, but his employment hasn't been steady over the past few years. When he had surgery on his wrist after a bad break, he lost his high-level landscaping job, and he spent a lot of time after that helping my mom. He's been sending in application after application, with no response. I can relate; the same thing happened to me, with most organizations not bothering to even acknowledge receipt of my application or cover letter. It's truly frustrating. This looks like it might work out though. Keep your fingers crossed.