Support workers spend a lot of time, money, and effort to attain practical knowledge and experience. Support workers will then use their expertise to provide first-rate physical and emotional support to their clients.
If you’ve completed your training and are ready to start supporting people who need your assistance, you’re ready to secure a rewarding career within the care industry.
Equally, if you’re still unsure about what kind of support worker you want to be, then it’s time to familiarise yourself with the support worker jobs that will become available to you after you’ve enrolled in a revered community services course.
Fortunately, support worker jobs are in high demand. Nonetheless, in order to impress hiring managers and procure permanent positions in your chosen field, you’ll need to prepare.
That brings us to the topic of today’s guide. Within our informative guide, we’ll reveal how you can discover and obtain new jobs that will see you flourish as a proficient support worker, providing high-quality personal care to those who need it.
Step One: Deciding What Type of Support Worker Role You Want to Secure
A support worker is an umbrella term that covers a vast array of roles within the healthcare sector. Although a lot of roles within the healthcare sector require the same skills, deciding what you wish to specialise in will allow you to explore and explain context-specific competencies in your resume.
Needless to say, by demonstrating your specialisms, you’ll have an increased chance of being qualified for more jobs within your desired sector.
With Sage Education, you can train to become a disability support worker, an aged care support worker, or a childcare support worker. To help you make a well-informed decision about what kind of support worker you want to be, we’ve provided brief walkthroughs summarising what each role entails.
Disability support workers tend to the needs of disabled individuals in their daily lives. Providing support for individuals with a diverse range of physical disabilities and mental health needs, disability support workers foster the independent living of their clients.
Aged care support workers are responsible for assisting elderly clients with their personal tasks and daily activities. An aged care support worker will primarily assist their clients with their personal hygiene, domestic chores, meal preparation, and administration of medications.
A childcare support worker specialises in assisting vulnerable children with emotional, social, and behavioural difficulties. Typically, childcare support workers will support the child’s educative journey, monitor the child’s development, and prepare nutritious meals.
No matter which role you pursue, it’s important to remember that the work you do will empower and enhance the personal, professional, and social aspects of your client’s lives.
Step Two: Building A Strong Resume
Building a captivating resume is your ticket to catching the attention of hiring managers. Sage Education provides an abundance of incredibly valuable tips to help you optimise your resume.
To summarise our points, we’ve compiled a useful checklist that you should follow in order to create a high-quality resume.
- You must choose appropriate formatting.
- You must use a simple and readable design.
- You must include your contact details.
- You must include a brief summary that introduces yourself, your motivations and why you’d be a great asset to the company.
- You must include relevant work experience, starting with your most current role.
- You must include key qualifications that demonstrate your capabilities within the industry.
- You must include a skills section that covers a range of hard skills (a knowledge of body systems, a knowledge of administering first aid, etc.), as well as a range of soft skills (strong communication skills, empathy, patience, etc.)
- You can include optional resume sections that demonstrate the other ways you’re the perfect candidate for the position. This may consist of extracurricular activities, volunteering, or even being able to speak another language.
Step Three: Preparing For Your Interview
Having a strong resume is one thing, but being able to demonstrate your expertise on the spot is when you’ll really stand out to prospective employers. At Sage Education, we strive to enhance the employability of our graduates, and thus, we will now explore the types of questions you’re likely to encounter in an interview (and how you should answer them).
- How would you define a support worker’s role?
The hiring manager wants to evaluate your knowledge of the care industry. How you answer will demonstrate that you know what will be expected of you if you’re hired. It’s important to emphasise that you’re aware of the challenges within the care sector, which will then allow you to talk about how you can/have overcome said challenges.
- What would you bring to the team?
This question pops up in most interviews, regardless of industry, and in every instance, the hiring manager is looking for one thing. The hiring manager wants you to upsell yourself to see if you can confidently address and demonstrate the skills that you know will be useful within your role. Draw on your previous experience with clients while you were volunteering or even when caring for a member of your family.
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
This question enables you to discuss your professional and personal strengths. A hiring manager is looking to see what you would deem as one of your core qualities, such as your passion for supporting people who require assistance. As you can see, answering this question by revealing your soft skills will prove to be most beneficial to you.
As for your weaknesses, it’s always best to know where you could improve your performance. You should address your weaknesses candidly and explain what you’re doing to refine actively said weaknesses.
- How do you assess a client’s needs?
Support workers must know when to advise and when to help their clients. Remember that an incredibly important facet of being a support worker is encouraging the client’s independence. However you choose to answer this question, you should express the value of allowing your clients to utilise the capabilities and skills you’ve helped to develop.
Step Four: Advancing Your Skills with Sage Education
Now that you’re ready to amaze hiring managers with your resume and interview preparation, it’s crucial that you know about one of the top registered training organisations in Australia. Meet Sage Education.
Sage Education was founded in 1998. We’ve spent the last twenty-five years guiding over 3000 successful graduates towards rewarding careers in well-paid industries.
Supported by the abundance of practical prowess, specialised competencies and transferrable skills that Sage Education provides, you’ll find that securing your dream role within the care industry has never been easier.
We take our inspiration from you, an individual who wants to enhance the lives of the members of your clients and their families, and so we go the extra mile to ensure you have faultless employability.
Our mission is to see you thrive within your chosen career; thus, we aim to secure every one of our graduates relevant jobs within three months of completing their studies.
With strong connections to the top employers in the care industry, it’s safe to say that we’re on track to completing our mission.
So whether you see yourself as one of the many extraordinary disability support workers, aged care support workers, or childcare support workers that make up our community services, you know that you’re in the best hands with Sage Education.
Job Boards for Support Workers
When you search jobs that relate to support workers, it can be challenging to filter through jobs for this search that will actually be a good fit for you. The job you choose should be in an ideal location, and it should offer shifts that you can work comfortably.
So whether you wish to work in the major cities or remote areas, with young people or elderly individuals, you’ll need to be pointed in the right direction.
We’ve assembled a list of job boards for support workers who are ready to join the workforce in Australia!
Disability Support Worker Jobs in Australia
– SEEK.
– LinkedIn.
– Jora.
– Adzuna.
Aged Care Support Worker Jobs in Australia
– SEEK.
– LinkedIn.
– Adzuna.
Childcare Support Worker Jobs in Australia
– SEEK.
– LinkedIn.
– Glassdoor.
Enrol With Sage Education
Now that you know how to find support worker roles, it’s time to bolster your resume with unparalleled education.
With Sage Education, you’ll develop an impressive skill set that will enable you to transform the lives of your clients. By studying with us, you’ll gain unsurpassable experience that will allow you to achieve the dreams of every budding support worker – to effectively and efficiently improve their community with their compassionate service.
Start an exceptional educative journey and enrol in our Certificate III in Individual Support (Ageing or Disability) course or our Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care course!All you need to do is get in touch!
