First Step House Interview Questions

A basic outline is a phone interview, followed by a first interview with recruiters, then a second interview with the recruiters and your potential supervisor. It's definitely not the easiest interview I've had in my life. During my interview for Housing Support I had no idea if I would get the job or not. But it's incredibly effective at getting the right people for the job, and that's what they want.

I had a phone interview with the main recruiter for First Step House. She called 5 minutes late, seemed distracted, ADMITTED to getting distracted by an email at one point, and seemed uninterested through the whole interview. After asking questions about my background, interest in the position, etc, she asked why I left my last job. I told her why I left, and she seemed very skeptical, and seemed to want a deeper explanation or some drama along with it. She asked about it 4 or 5 times, asking basically the same question, not believing my answer (that I left my job because I wanted to grow my career in HR, and I didn't have the opportunity to do that there). Despite my qualifications, she seemed to ignore them all and got very hung up on that one point, which I feel is definitely a form of interviewer bias. She ended the interview and I never heard anything from her again.

I found a job opening on the D.W.S. website for a Line Cook position at First Step House, and sent an email to Rodney Symes, the Director of Operations stating where I have been, what I have been doing (Running the Odyssey House kitchen), and that I wanted to be considered for the position. It took around a month of run arounds before I finally got word that I was to be interviewed. The interview went fine, and I told them about my criminal background and being in treatment myself at Odyssey House. And that night I was called by Rodney and offered a position as a Line Cook.