VIDEO JOB INTERVIEW TRAINING FOR OLDER DISLOCATED WORKER

This project will produce and evaluate a video-based training program for enhancing interviewing skills for older dislocated workers. Continuing downsizings disproportionately affect older workers, resulting in long- term unemployment and underemployment. Job interviewing confidence and skills, as well as age discrimination, are frequently cited problems. The proposed instruction is unique in that it can be implemented either independently or in a group training setting and includes specific strategies for countering age-related stereotypes. In Phase I, a 30-minute video will be produced, along with a written manual and audiotape. The video features a panel of experts, commenting on actors modeling interview behaviors in a variety of settings. Through representative samples, each segment will demonstrate do's and don'ts of interviews which cross blue collar, clerical, managerial, gender and ethnic lines. Participants rehearse their own responses to the video interviewer's cues. A randomized outcome study will be conducted with 80 older dislocated workers, to test the efficacy of the training program. In Phase II, written and video components will be combined and expanded into an interactive multi-media program to be delivered over Internet or CD-ROM.