The entire interview process took a little over two months from the time I applied. First I attended a group interview with about 10 other people. Seneca kindly tries to lessen the pressure by pooling interviewees who are not necessarily interested in the same positions or locations. The interview did feel less competitive and nerve-wracking this way, but it was still awkward at moments. It's discussion based, so prepare yourself to jump in and formulate original answers to a question 10 people have just answered. It seemed pretty clear to me that the group interview's purpose is to find out how well you can listen to, talk with and work with others. Almost all of the open positions were described as very team-oriented.
The second interview was a 1 on 1 with a program supervisor. This experience was completely fine. My interviewer was a little late, but they asked fair questions and gave time for me to ask questions and pick their brain about the job. They even asked some repeat questions from the group interview. It would be a good idea to prepare a list of emotional/behavioral signs that indicate a struggling child in advance. The program supervisor then set me up for the third and final interview, which is an interactive at one of their school sites.
This is where things got odd for me, and I suspect it's probably why I didn't get an offer. If you get to this point, you will be expected to head over to one of Seneca's schools where you will observe a Classroom Counselor, and they will in turn observe you as you interact/don't interact with the children. They will then report back to the program supervisor and supposedly give their opinion of you.
This experience was the worst part of the process for me. My host was, honestly, quite rude the entire length of the procedure. They spoke to me, maybe, a total of three minutes out of the entire hour and a half interview. At the time, I brushed it off as them maintaining a sense of objectivity. I carried on and tried my best to interact with the kids while maintaining a sense of boundary. They gave no notice of interview time frames, no feedback or thoughts about my performance and no chance to ask ask about their job. I get the sense they were pretty annoyed that I was interrupting their day (understandable). If you have to do an interactive interview, I'd say be more assertive than I was about interacting with your host so you can better understand how they think a Classroom Counselor should act/carry out their job. I think I may have faired better if I'd tried to match my host's style of interacting with children in the classroom.
Final opinion, the strangest aspect of this interview process was being expected to interact with children who don't know you and won't continue to see you. Seneca seems to pride itself on building strong bonds with young people, but they think it's okay to send in random, transient strangers for the sole purpose of an interview. I didn't trust that my interactive host really took the time to assess how well I would have done the job. Even after asking for feedback twice, I was not given any. And, the process really just took way too long. I waited 3-4 weeks between each interview before I got responses.
