Share Your Caregiving Story to Establish Credibility

Caregivers interviewing for a new caregiving position can prepare ahead of time for the interview questions.  Recruiters like to find out what life experiences led you to become interested in working in the senior care industry.  Take time to think back on why you became a caregiver and practice telling a story about a caregiving experience which will provide an interviewer to understand your compassion and desire to work in senior care.  This will allow you to standout from the crowd when applying for a senior caregiving job.

My own story begins with my experience assisting my friend Carol while in junior high school.  I met Carol in the 7^th grade, when all the students from each elementary school joined together to go to the town’s junior high school.  Instead of being in one classroom all day long, we went to a different classroom for each subject.

The school required the teachers to seat us alphabetically in each class.  Carol’s name was just ahead of my last name in the alphabet so she sat in front of me in every class we had together.  Carol was very skinny and sometimes would cough but I never thought too much about it, because she didn’t make a big deal about it either.

We became friends because we both were kind of shy but also liked to laugh at things.  We would take it all in and then between classes crack jokes about whatever was happening in each class.

Carol never told me she had Cystic Fibrosis until the winter when she started coughing more and some days did not feel well at all. I learned this was why she was also super skinny.  But she didn’t complain about not feeling well and we still had fun.  Then she didn’t come to school for an entire week.  I then found out she was going to have to stay home during the rest of the winter because of her cough.

The school worked it out for her to have a special device at her home that would allow her to hear the teacher’s lessons in each class. To do this, she needed to have a speaker box in the classroom that looked kind of like a big walkie talkie box.  It was my job to carry the walkie talkie box to each class.

Carol couldn’t talk during the class or everyone would hear her, but in between classes we would talk to each other on the box and she would tease me that she was eating candy bars and doing other fun things while I was stuck in class.  I would fill her in about the silly things that were happening in each class, too.

Carol and I always stayed away from the mean girls and the trouble makers.  We would just take it all in quietly and then find our own humor in everything.  We were also from different sides of the same town and from different cultures but that didn’t matter to us.

When the weather turned warmer, Carol came back to school and each year in the winter we would go back to the routine of Carol attending classes through the walkie talkie box.

Then when I was in 10^th grade, I ran on the track team.  At the end of the year, in May, I qualified for the state track meet for the 2-mile run and was going to be able to skip class for two days to travel to the state meet.

On the morning that we were leaving, I showed up at school and had to wait for my coach to finish a few things before we were going to leave.  I decided to dance outside the door of my English class to tease Carol and our other friends that I did not have to be there.

When I did this I did not see Carol in the room.  I then noticed that everyone was very serious.  Then one of our friends gave me a serious look and waved at me to come to the door.  I had been trying to make sure the teacher could not see me outside the door.

When I did walk to the door, the teacher looked at me and then my friend stood up and came over to the door and the teacher nodded that it was okay.  She pulled me aside to tell me that Carol had passed away.  I was shocked.  I still had to leave to go to the state track meet to run the race that day.  I remember that when I saw my parents in the stadium, I started crying but I ran the race and I did finish in 6^th place and medals were awarded to the top 6, so I just squeaked by.

I still miss Carol.  I was her protector but she was also mine as she was strong on the inside.  There was no replacement for her friendship.  But my experience helping Carol when she was weak physically gave me compassion and empathy.  It was horrible to hear her coughs and not be able to stop them, but it made me want to help her in every other way that I could.  And it made me appreciate my health and have understanding for others who don’t have the gift of health.

What is your caregiving story?  Share your caregiving story with your future employer and share it with others who are thinking about becoming professional caregivers.