The Hidden Art of Interview Hacking course offered by ZYGAVERSE, which originated in Melbourne, Victoria, has started to make a global impact. The interview hacking course, initially conceptualised in 2015 by Jayden Kafanelis for his first start-up company InternMe Australia, has slowly but surely found support and evolved into a valuable educational resource for job seekers, and evidently universities, resume writers, and international charities focused on professional development. The course leverages knowledge from biology, neuroscience, and psychology, pairs it with industry needs, applies it to interview settings, and teaches job seekers how to craft job-winning experiences for interviewers who are on the hunt for their next star employee.
The beginning of the journey was anything but smooth sailing though. Originally the course was offered as a scientifically informed text-based online course and struggled to find an audience. It wasn’t until Dan Grant, cofounder of ZYGAVERSE, years later, suggested the course be made into an easily digestible video course, that the course really started to make headway. What’s more, Dan’s wife Nadia, a trained actor, was the perfect person to present it. Following this prophetic realisation the team at ZYGAVERSE knuckled down to reword, present, and animate the course.
Realising the value of the course, a Bosnian charity ‘BH Futures Foundation’ translated it into its local dialect and partnered with ZYGAVERSE to deliver the course to emerging professionals. Australian industry partners in the form of resume writers and career agency also partnered, offering it to customers as a cobranded interview preparation resource. Shortly after, a department at La Trobe University struck a deal with ZYGAVERSE to provide the course to undergraduates as a micro-credential – giving their students credit points for units upon completion. Adding even more value to the course, Dr Zinka Bejtic, a Professor at the American University of Sharjah in Dubai who teaches personal branding, interpersonal communication, and media, joined the team, contributing another 40 minutes of high-quality content.
“It’s an exciting time when things start to fall into place. 4 years after I created the first iteration of the course it had no take-up, but now, alongside an awesome and talented team of people, universities are using it and it’s being delivered internationally, it’s all surreal”, Jayden Kafanelis, cofounder of ZYGAVERSE said. Whatever happens, one thing is for sure, the ZYGAVERSE course is just getting started and despite the pandemic, they are progressing at lightning speed.
About ZYGAVERSE
ZYGAVERSE is an innovative technology and science-based company founded in 2019 and is focussed on boosting the employability of job seekers. It offers an evolved resume building platform with an interactive, automated resume coach to guide users through the resume creation process; a scientifically informed “interview hacking” course which is currently being micro-credentialled by universities; and a book on personal branding. In 2021 it formed partnerships with resume writers, career agencies, international charities, universities, and professional development bodies for graduates.
