When thinking about what would happen work wise in Italy our assumption was that Al would easily find work as he has a trade and useable skills that are not solely reliant on language. Everyone is always desperate to get hold of good chefs because the work is hard, the hours long and anti-social, and many people don’t stay in the industry for long. Our concern was about what I would do given my skills rely almost totally on my ability to communicate, in English, and I do not have anything like the comparable level of Italian. In the event both Al and I managed to get jobs quite quickly, however both of our interview experiences were quite different.
It’s unfortunate that in an interview sometimes things can seem so black and white.
Gisele Bundchen
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Al’s interviews
Al’s first interview was at an out of town hotel which specialises in conferences and weddings. Al had been applying for jobs in Italy before we left and although we had only been in the country for three weeks we were a bit surprised to have had no responses at all. He had sent emails to many places and trekked across Bologna to personally deliver his CV to a couple of others he thought would be good to work at. This was the first response he had so although the Hotel did not look all that great, and the cooking not really his thing, he drove out to it with a great deal of concern about his level of Italian and how it would stand up in an interview.
When he arrived at the Hotel and went to reception, he discovered that the person interviewing him was a manager not the chef. Not something he was used to, but it is a different country so who knows what else is different, perhaps the chef would join the meeting. The previous candidate told Al to go through and he met the manager who did not get up from her desk to greet him or shake hands. Most of the exchange was completed in Italian, but from the beginning it was clear that the manager had deep suspicions about the idea of a British Chef. Her interview style can best be described as adversarial. She wanted to know why he was in Italy and why he could not get a job in England. He told her that he could get a job in the UK but wanted to learn Italian cooking. This incensed her more. They needed a chef who could already cook not one that needed training. He told her that he was a qualified chef with 10 years of experience. She wanted to know what he could cook, for him to actually describe all the things he can cook, the ingredients used and the methods deployed. She delighted in telling him that she had eaten in Italian restaurants in England many times and they were all bad. As Al began to lose his temper and if you know him you know that this is a fairly slow burn, the Italian slipped and he spoke more English to express his anger and frustration. He left the interview confident that even if he had somehow miraculously got the job, he didn’t want it. We are still not sure why he was invited to interview in the first place, unless she wanted to see a British chef with her own eyes or just used arguing with potential candidates as a stress reliever.
So, it was with a natural increase in trepidation and concern that he set out for his second interview. He had been invited to attend the interview at FICO, which I have talked about in the Stuff and Things post. It is a “food centric theme park featuring eateries, pop-stores, demonstrations & hands-on exhibits” (Google search result for FICO, 2019). This invitation followed a weekend where he had handed out CVs at every restaurant on site. He met with the co-owner of the restaurant and discovered it was the sister restaurant of another, Michelin starred, restaurant in Rimini. The Head Chef joined them when he could, service permitting. The interview was conducted largely in Italian and about 15 minutes in Al was offered the role. English was only used when they were talking about contract specifics as it turned out the owner lived in London for a couple of years and spoke excellent English, but thought Al was doing so well in Italian that there was no need to interrupt him! The Chef at the restaurant does not speak English and the fact that he was able to do the interview in Italian helped him get the job. He has been working in an Italian kitchen where none of the Kitchen Staff speak English (the waiting staff speak good English) for 5 months now and has learned a lot in both cooking and language terms.
Jennie’s interviews
As I mentioned previously, when we told people we met here that I was not sure what I would do for a job, it seemed to them obvious to them that I would be an English language teacher. I have no experience of teaching, but as a native speaker with a degree the feeling seemed to be that it was natural I would do this and so I enrolled in the on-line Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course and set about researching English schools in Bologna.
When you are trying to get a job in a new field obviously you must tailor your CV to bring out the relevant experience and remove anything irrelevant. I have designed and run multiple training courses and workshops and presented on complex topics many times so I was able to draw those elements out, as well as working with and managing teams which were located in different countries and for whom English was not their first language. However, it was hard for me to remove my other achievements which were hard won with some of them leaving (metaphorical) scars. Ultimately, they would mean nothing to someone looking for an English language teacher. Just because I had removed them from my CV didn’t mean that they had not been achieved nor that they would not make a reappearance on a future CV. I pacified myself that if I was able to shoehorn one or two of them into any competency-based questions or examples in an interview then great, but otherwise it was time to let it go.
I sent CVs to the top English language schools in Bologna and two weeks later I received a call from one of them to come in for a chat. English Language Schools are looking to assess your level of English and your ability to communicate clearly so my phone calls and interviews were in English, which is handy for me. I received the call to the second English school a week later. Both of my first interviews were at the Bologna branches of two different nationwide English Language school for adults and had a number of similarities. For both I was super careful not to make it sound as though I thought that because I had provided training and had other educational related experience, I would automatically be able to teach. They both agreed that the skills I had picked out in my CV were transferable and would be useful for me as a teacher. They thought that having me teach English at a business client’s might be the best fit. They had other people to interview so they would let me know if I was going to go onto the next phase of recruitment. Initially I thought they went quite well, but obviously both times I got back to the Air B&B I had convinced myself I had stuffed them up however, both schools invited me for a second interview.
There were also a few differences in the interviews at the two schools. While the first interview at the first school was over in fifteen minutes, I found the Programme manager at the second school much easier to talk to and the interview took longer but mainly because we were talking about Trump and music. The two schools also diverged in the later stages of their recruitment processes. I don’t know how regularly English speakers blow into Bologna looking for work, but certainly often enough for some healthy competition.
At the first school, during the second interview, they invited me to come back and to do an example lesson. This was the first I had heard of this kind of thing, but apparently, it is quite common in education. This does make sense but given that I had confessed to having no experience, had 2 weeks of the professional online course under my belt and had checked that the school provided both full training and lessons plans, I was a bit flummoxed. They wanted a 15 minute lesson on “anything I liked” and their staff would “play” my students. I am not a gifted actress. While I have no issue delivering training, running workshops or presenting, this is because I am an expert in what I am training or presenting. I felt that delivering a class I had made up, with no experience to two people pretending to be foreign students, was a performance. I must admit, I even curtseyed at the end glad to have survived it. I left the example lesson feeling confident with the good feedback I received, but once again by the time I had walked home I was full of “shoulda, woulda, coulda”.
For the second interview at the second school I was not alone. Another candidate called April was there and this was also her second interview. The Programme leader was quick to say his school did not do Example lessons. He would provide training on how the English language course worked and then we would discuss the next steps of recruitment. He told us that he had two roles available, but that he had more people coming in for interview. He was hoping to set up one larger training course so we could all do it together, presumably as part of the selection process. When he stepped out of the room, I introduced myself to April and we had a chat. It turned out she had done an example lesson at the first school on the same day as me but, had already been told she had not been successful. At the end of the interview April and I exchanged phone numbers so we could swap tips about the job and living in Italy generally with each other.
I don’t know if there were ever any other candidates or not, but on the scheduled training session it was only April and I. We learned all about the levels and the course material. We observed different lesson types and I was not sure when the training would end and the getting paid for our time would start. At the end of every training session there was another training session scheduled and we didn’t know if we were even going to get the job at the end of the training. Finally, when we were being told about yet another training session I just came out and asked when we would know if we had the job? It turned out we both had the job provided we successfully delivered an hour-long class, with real students, while being observed! We had a weekend to prepare and I opted to go first because my nerves did not need more time to undermine me.
During the lesson the Programme Director and the Centre Director observed from behind a class divider screen, which meant I couldn’t get Shakespeare’s line “…behind the arras.” out of my head through the whole thing. I had a great student and the feedback I received was very positive indeed so I went home to await my first week’s classes (5 hours the first week and rising until the end of the month). I am not going to go into the many weird vagaries of Italian contracts, partly because it is really boring and partly because I am not sure I understand. Anyway, I had it, a contract for a job in a completely new field!
Post script
On the first day of work April and I were due to be teaching at slightly different times so the Programme Director could be on hand. When I arrived he asked if I had heard from her, and I hadn’t. Apparently, she had messaged him to say she had to return to the UK immediately. I sent a message wishing her well and asking if there was anything I could do to help and have not yet had a reply. There are an infinite number of things that could have happened ranging from the mundane to the sinister and I will probably never know which. I would just like to say wherever you are out there April, I hope everything is ok?
