24 Aug 2020

We had the pleasure of sitting down with the two powerhouses behind High School to Hireable! Kirsty Anne Ferguson and Tanja Perl have been interview experts for 20 years around the globe. Let’s just say, if you meet someone from the airlines, defence forces or emergency services, there’s a good chance they coached them.

​With their overwhelming amount of experience in landing anyone a job anywhere (no matter how contested it is), they want to make their red hot techniques and tools accessible to high school students and young adults and make you, hireable! So, let’s dive into the q’s!

So, what exactly is High School to Hireable?

Look, we know that talking about yourself in an interview with little to no work experience isn’t a walk in the park. That’s where we come in.

We offer preparation and teach skills for a casual job interview, apprenticeship, work experience or full-time position as well as scholarships and university applications.

Basically, we turned our expertise into creating an easy and affordable Interview Skills video course to help fill the gap, as the name suggests, from High School to getting hired. Career and Year Advisors around the country are now running this video course in schools and the response has been incredible from teachers and students alike.

In 2021 we hit the ground running, creating and recording more free resources, adding exciting new content.

How was High School to Hireable born?

2020 was not a fab year to be a Year 12 student or entry level job seeker. Work experience opportunities, casual and part time jobs dried up. As the economy starts its first tentative steps to recovery, it’s clear that 18–24-year-olds were among the most affected. Economists will tell you that youth employment is directly linked to economic growth and it’s one of the reasons we do what we do. Your success is all of our success!

What drives you?

We are aware that entry level jobs and apprenticeship will be fiercely contested for quite a while, and we are talking years, not months. We know how critical it is that people such as yourself, at the start of your working life, have access to the techniques and tools that prepare you to be a compelling interviewee and give you the confidence to perform at your best to get the job.

We know the dreaded questions that come up in interviews: ‘Tell me about yourself?’ Or ‘Why should we hire you?’ These aren’t easy to answer when you have little to no experience. We both still vividly remember our own first few job interviews and they were all cringeworthy. If we can save someone else from that and help set the next generation up for success, we will be stoked.

For the bigger picture, we are driven by the fact that Australia’s youth have the opportunity to impact all of our futures. The future of our economy, technology, health, housing and climate as well as all of those other worthy investments. We just want to do our bit.

How do I get my hands on this course and free stuff?

If your school can’t get their hands on our course or you’re in that post school period up to say age 22, we don’t want you to miss out, so we’ve launched our new brandInterview Chix to make our courses available to those who don’t fall into the ‘school category’.

We’ve been using the name Interview Chix for social media and launched our website where we can house all our individual courses and content. Feel free to suss out our blog, view our free content including free inspiring interviews and downloads such as Top 10 Interview Mistakes, and many other helpful tips and ideas, as well as our upcoming monthly magazine ‘Interview Star’ coming in late March 2021. It’s all about sharing resources, ideas and inspiration and shining a spotlight on opportunity.

Make sure to learn more about High School to Hireable for schools and Interview Chix to land you your dream job!