Life skills 2016 - Tips

Some tips from the recent Life Skills sessions organised by school captains Georgie and Monique.

LIFE SKILLS 2016

Life skills - Interview tips

Pre-interview phase:

• Learnt about the company and their goals. 
• Attempt possible interview questions - ask people who might be working in the field what possible interview questions there may be and prepare dot point answers. When attempting possible interview questions, slant your responses to the company’s values. 
• Find out what you can about the nature of the environment of the workplace. Find out by looking through their social media accounts like LinkedIn, Facebook. Twitter. 
• Find out the qualities the company looks for in their employees (e.g being a team player). 
• Do mock interviews (preferably with someone who has experience in the field and is able to be critical). 

Interview phase:

• Dress appropriately with clean hair (and makeup). 
• Eye contact is important and answer the question properly. Don't ramble or waffle.
• Confidence- sound confident when giving responses. 
• If you don't understand the question ask for clarification.
• If you don't know the answer, say so. It's okay to not know the answer.
• Don't rush into a question. You can say to the interviewer that you need some time to think about the question and give yourself a minute to think about your response.
• Don't ask about how much your salary is going to be.

Life skills - Presentation tips

3 keys to a presentation: 

• Theme of presentation - tell a clear story without too many points
• Structure
• Simplicity

- Start with real life statement

- Time your talks

- Recap at the end

- Make sure the PowerPoint is legible

- First slide is the outline of the talk

- Slides should be used as aids

- Not too many slides - use 1 slide per minute of talking

- Eye contact - engage the audience

- Get to presentation venue early to check the mic and how to use the relevant tech there

Life skills - Finance tips

Super account:

• Start up your super account as soon as possible.  
• These days super is not enough for your after working life so make additional contributions to your super. 
• Monitor your super and what funds you are paying. 
• There are different fee structures. 

HECS-HELP: 

- After you enrol in uni and you select your subjects that is when you will be able to apply for HECS-HELP through the uni website (not on an external website). 

- Start repaying once you earn above $54, 000. When you start repaying you pay about 4-5% of your income towards your HECS debt and the government will automatically do this for you. 

- Indexes to inflation (not on an interest rate). 

Financial planners - check of they are an authorised financial planner as they must be authorised. Before getting a financial planner research what their fees are. The most reliable financial planners are found through word of mouth (people you know may recommend financial planners they are clients of as they have had positive experiences with that financial planner). 

Key tips:

- When creating bank accounts create a “Needs account”- an account where all the money towards bills, food, rent (basic needs and payments) go to, a “Savings account”- an account where you will put a portion of your income in order to save money, and a “Wants account” - an account where you have money to spend on your wants (maybe concert tickets or some new clothes).

- Spend less than you earn- the best way to accumulate wealth is to not overspend and save little by little. 

- From every paycheck put a portion of your income into a savings account. Don’t put whatever money you have left over from spending on your wants into your savings account, rather, commit to putting a small portion of your income every week/month into your savings account before determining how much money to spend on your wants.