Can I trust you, let alone employ you,

Without a LinkedIn profile?

When trying to find people to employ, in the old days, we used to use the Telephone Directory. Problem was, at least 20% of people were unlisted or ex-directory, so if someone really wanted to find you they had to use the electoral register. These days, with a simple tap and click on Google or Yahoo, you can unearth a whole number of things about anyone instantly. But you can improve your chances five fold with a LinkedIn profile!

Modern Recruitment

Last week we got a recruitment brief to find a person for a IT job involving some political interfacing: not our normal brief, but we were happy to help out. A quick 5 minute search in Google using a suitably developed boolean search string, and up pop less than 50 suitable potential job applicants. We then start doing some research on these people to get down to those that are worth approaching to see if they might be interested in a new career opportunity, and quickly eliminate some, in part because either they have poor or limited social media profiles.

One person particularly interests me. Male, he is located in the ideal geography, and he is certainly into politics: lots of letters to the editors of various papers, all about political subjects. A Google search on his name and lots of stuff comes up, but he has no LinkedIn profile. In a 5minute search, for free and using nothing more than following key threads and words, I find:

• His full name
• His home address
• His credit report, and hence…
• His full employment history, and hence why he took a job in the northwest to…
• Stand as an unsuccessful Conservative candidate in a long held Labour seat in a national election
• His wife’s current and maiden name, plus her full contact details (I downloaded these from her employers website, which offers them)…
• That enables me to go to her college and professional society and obtain her date of birth: that’s enough details for anyone to gain credit in her name!

Now, in terms of the job brief we were searching to fulfil, that’s enough details revealed so that we actually at this point dismissed him from our search, by placing him on the second reserve list.

Social Media Profile

But what confused me about this person was while his Facebook page was sufficiently open for me to confirm many details, why as he works now in the commercial world does he not have a LinkedIn profile? If its good enough for political heavyweights like Ken Clarke and Barack Obama, why wouldn’t someone in the commercial world not have a LinkedIn profile?

A social media profile today has gone past the point of “should I have one,” in light of the way in which buyers and particularly employers are using the internet. While nearly half of all recruiters have knowledge of simple boolean strings techniques, over 80% of employers will Google your name after having CV sifted job applicants, before they decided if they will telephone interview you.

Social Media employment

Hence right now, your social media profile accounts for a large portion of your chances of getting employed. If I take the statistics from our own recruitment experience, then for every 20 job applications we receive:

• 6 will get past the CV sift to potential telephone interview stage
• Where 1 will be rejected due to social media profile issue
• Resulting in an at least 5% influence on a job application

While some people have gaping Homer Simpson like “Doh!” issues in their social media profile (do I really want to employ someone who’s main claim to fame on their Facebook page is working their way through the world’s production of Cannabis plants?), the opposite end of the spectrum are those who have never engaged social media and have no or only a limited footprint: and its these people that I am aiming this post at, particularly when they are job seeking.

LinkedIn employment

Much as your children may wow about Facebook, the truth is today that we all have a social media profile: its really just a question of what it shows up about you. If you think that you don’t have a social media profile, then simply Google yourself. The truth will be that much as though you may not be a member of Facebook or any other social media site:

• Your friends are: so that camera phone picture from your mates birthday now ranks well
• Your company is: so last years Christmas party pictures, or the companies latest press release rank well
• Your meetings are: be they work related conventions or public and private social events, which now all have the habit of listing all attendees
• Your public records will be: sites like 192.com or ancestry.com and other collecting points

So if all this information about you is out there, why not manage it? The simple way is to create information that you want people to find out about you, to hide – or at least get lower ranked – stuff that you may not have control over, let alone now regret ever posting at all. Secondly, creating a free profile at LinkedIn shows that to anyone searching for you or your skills that you do care about your professional reputation: and that’s better than seeming not to care by not having a LinkedIn profile.

You may not care about social media, and you may not understand social media. But when today it is directly affecting you career and you ability to be employed, you can no longer afford to ignore it.

Good Luck!

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(Even if you want to work as a cold caller!)

As someone who works in the employment market place, I was interested to read from a job coaching website recently that one of the techniques that they coach their clients on to get employed in this tough market place is cold calling. This is apparently an extra special course that goes above and beyond their normal service, and teaches the job seeker how to get to the employer – note, not hiring manager, but employer – and get employed even quicker.
This staggered me on two issues:

• Most job seekers are not nor have they ever been sales people. When most find selling themselves so hard, how are they going to adapt to what is bare and blatant raw sales?
• Anyone who has undertaken cold calling, either commissioning campaigns or undertaking the calls themselves, will know that success is measured in the 3% to 5% level: so that’s 95%+ rejection. For the average job seeker at present, that’s a double dose of rejection on top of rejection!

But, in this modern and internet driven age, here’s why adopting cold calling as a job seeking tactic – let alone a strategy – confuses me most:

Why cold call when you can easily find the hiring manager

and get a personally introduction through social networking?

What is cold calling?

In its purest form, cold calling is about processing a list of names and telephone numbers, and having an output driven script conversation with them. In a recent survey by UK consumer group Which!, 75% of respondents wanted cold calling banned

Cold Calling and me!

When I was in the corporate world of telecoms, I ran one of the biggest call centre design teams in the UK. What always confused me when we were asked to design outbound centres were the operational statistics: so much effort for often so little a result, with most marketers happy with a 3% engagement/sales point. To me that just meant 97% rejection, which would be totally unacceptable on inbound calls to the same call centre!

When I left the corporate world, the new organisation I joined were quite positive on cold calling as a method of engaging customers. You could either DIY or outsource, and there were a list of approved cold calling service providers who would take raw list information and gain you a series of sales appointments with the target decision maker. I divided my list of target customers into two: core targets which I DIY approached; and non-core which I outsourced. I then went on a series of cold calling courses – I like learning! – and learnt a whole series of cold calling techniques. One set of techniques converted call approach to meeting quite well, at a ratio of around 40%; one didn’t do so well, at only 20%. But here’s the thing I found of interest measuring the whole sales pipeline: using the first technique, I got fewer sales; using the second technique, I got three times as many sales – an almost 70% conversion ratio.

Cold call problems

What was the difference between the two techniques? The first used some classic cold calling tricks to create a meeting, and it almost didn’t matter what you were selling, you stacked the psychological and hence outcome odds in your favour and – being wholly critical – conned the person into a meeting. I was never comfortable with this from day1, but having paid for the course out of my own pocket tried it, for about 20 calls and one month. But measuring the overall effectiveness of the whole sales approach, I noticed that suddenly my sales conversion ration fell dramatically in the meetings et up using this technique. The targeted person didn’t feel engaged.

Research to success

The second technique applied some things I had learnt from working with a couple of large corporate investment institutions. I sat down with their sales director one day, who explained that they didn’t approach an organisation for a meeting until they knew both that this organisations was right for them AND that they had an inside contact. Hence their sales people spent around one third of their time doing research on potential targets, one sixth selling, and the rest revenue earning. Their conversion level of targeted to engaged organisations was 90%! Basing my second technique on what this had taught me, I researched organisations so that I knew that they had a need for our services, and then wrote to the key decision maker for our services, then wait 5days before making my telephone call. The advantage was that these people were briefed, and even if they said no then, they would often say “call me back in three months time.”

Cold call versus warm employment

Always wishing to improve myself, I wondered if the ratio of targeted organisations to customers could be improved? This is where I started to use the power of social networking, and where now in our Professional CV Service we teach and coach on the use of LinkedIn. I am a registered user now of over 70 social networks, but at core around 90% of what I do is undertaken on or via LinkedIn for two reasons: scale (70million people) and ease of use (via its own tools or Google). Others are useful, including Doostang, the IoD and Facebook, but if you can’t find someone on LinkedIn then they probably don’t exist or are not a decision maker (70% of the people listed on LinkedIn are decision makers).

LinkedIn introductions

By using various techniques on LinkedIn, but all with the goal of finding the decision maker for the user of our services, I pushed my “target to customer” ratio – so measuring the whole sales cycle and not just the list to meeting ratio – I got my statistics up to 70% across my whole pipeline. These techniques using LinkedIn included: researching target organisations on LinkedIn (this was four years+ before May 2010′s introduction of company profiles on LinkedIn), researching decision makers, and gaining introductions to decision makers using either common connections or groups. In fact, now tat LinkedIn has developed it services further, the efficiency of conversion has improved, and we teach these techniques to our CV Writing clients.

Never cold call!

So, back to my core point: why cold call? If you take a list of 50 target employers and cold called them (it will take you a week to complete the list), then at best you might get 3 jobs interviews. Take the same list of 50 employers, and then research them and connect on social networking using LinkedIn, you should get 10 job interviews (in the same time scale), which should result in 3 job offers.

I always coach job seekers to initially measure the ratio of job applications to job interviews, but the key ratio is job offers from organisations that you really want to work for. When cold calling has such a bad set of statistics on both counts, why bother cold calling?

Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, please call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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Salary Checker: job advert tells you the wage (without having to ask)

One thing that constantly amazes me is that job seekers do not read job adverts, even the information that the employer has written, let alone the stuff they don’t. For instance, using salary checker websites and other similar job advert information you should know a jobs wages before you even apply?

Salary checker: reading job adverts

I was reading the website of a telemarketing company recently, and here are two statements from their website that gave the jobs wages level away.

On the front page: At (telemarketing company) we deliver unscripted 100% outbound telemarketing, telesales and lead generation services… This tends to suggest that they use people with experience, who know what they are doing in the sales environment. I would only point out that customers will want certain outcomes defined from every call made, so no scripting is technically impossible. Low scripting would be a more accurate statement, but of course does not sell as well as suggesting you have “no need for scripts” experienced sales people!

The second statement was on the Recruitment section:
We offer:

• Good salary plus commission
• Flexible working hours to fit around study or family commitments
• Ongoing training and support within a friendly team
• An excellent office environment
• Full or part time positions

Now, the order of the listing should tell you a lot! Why do they say to fit around study or family commitments? Its either an include or exclude statement, and like most could be both? I don’t know, but the fact that they then say Full or part time positions at the end doubles the effect of the first statement: twice in five points is a hard clue that their clear core recruitment is from the student and stay at home Mum’s brigade.

Salary Checker: what is the wage?

There is nothing wrong with this employment profile, and it should be encouraged: students don’t want huge debts, and Mum’s want to get back into the work place quickly. But, what does this say about the salary levels? What type of wage would a student or a stay at home Mum consider a good  salary?

These statements tend to position it at the lower end of the spectrum, probably not much above minimum wage. The package will also be highly results orientated – they always are in call centres – so expect an at least 30% multiplier for reaching certain targets.

So if you are a job seeker, and are looking for £10/hr+, is this a job worth applying for? The basic will be well below this level: £8/hr tops, probably closer to £6.50, but could make £10/hr subject to you hitting your targets. If you were looking for a move into sales – as they provide training – and could hit that £10/hr target in less than six months, then I would look to move on quickly after that.

Salary Checker: job advert wage

Before applying for any job, you need to know: the amount of money you need to earn to cover your bills; what the market rate is for that job. If you don’t know these things, then how do you know if the salary is good, let alone if the job is right for you?

Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, please call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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How often do you job seek?

I bet you buy carpet more often!

How often we do certain things in life, often has a direct correlation – all things be equal and likeable – as to how good, well informed or successful we are about achieving that particular activity. Job seeking for instance.

How often do you?

In looking to put together this article, I thought I would find some statistics on how often people on average do every day and not so every day things:

• Walk the dog or tend to the family pet – twice a day
• Eat – three times a day plus a snack or three
• Brush your teeth – twice a day
• Food shopping – once or twice a week, plus one big shop a month
• Exercise – good and healthy lifestyle three times a week; average use of a gym membership card bought in January, until mid-February
• Going to the dentist – once every six months
• Car service – once every six months
• Holiday – one major, two minor plus four to six mini-breaks annually
• Go to the doctor – once every 18months
• Changing the car – once every three and a half years
• Moving house – once every five years

But, how often do you job seek?

I ask this question, because I was watching a video recently which suggested that the average carpet should last between 10 and 15 years. There are 9 rooms in an average 3 bedroom house, so that’s one carpet or wooden floor renewal per year. You hence probably go shopping for carpets once every 18months when the sales are on, or shortly after moving house. One of the markets that has been suffering in the recession is that of construction, and particular all those shed-style DIY chains that we all used to so love. But a down turn in the construction industry results in fewer people moving house, and hence fewer people needing new carpets, curtains and furniture to fit their new house, and hence a knock-on effect down the line. While construction is down between 35% and 50%, DIY chains sales are still presently down 25% – including paint sales.

How do you job seek?

So, why do I bring this up? As a recruiter, I find it amazing that job seekers don’t understand the clear and obvious lessons of the job search market. They start with “I need a new CV” (much like the need to replace that old worn-out carpet….) and then find that their job search is a series of rejection based learning experiences on what they did wrong. Like many in the employment market place, I try to educate these job seekers – its why I got into the Professional CV Writing business – but they still don’t seem to want to listen.

Most job seekers end up coming to me after a series of job application rejections, wondering why they are not presently employed? They can’t understand why good employers reject them as a non-suitable employee? I know why, its because there is something wrong in either their:

• Motivation – they can’t answer the questions of why they want that job, and why it is right in their career progression
• Target market – they haven’t tested their skills in their market
• Communication – the way in which their CV is written
• Approach – the way in which they find and apply for jobs

Job seek changes

So trying to understand this, I looked at how often people do things. One thing I am convinced about, is that in this recession much like draining the proverbial lake and ending up waist deep in a pond full of alligators, is that some skills have been lost in the economic boom years. One of these is job seeking.

In the boom years, you didn’t have to job seek, or if you did apply to a job advert you didn’t have to try hard to get employed. Skills were short, employers were expanding, so the result was either you were head hunted or tapped up by a mate at the new company, or didn’t spend long skimming the newspaper job adverts. We return to that situation as the economy picks up, and our reducing national birth rates squeeze our economies: I estimate three+ to five years.

Presently, things are a little bit tougher. Competition is in the 100′s, jobs are fewer, skills are abundant, all of which is reflected in pay rates going downwards. Job seeking just got a whole lot more rejection based and long term: 27weeks on average. Good professionals have lost the skills to job seek, and in relearning them get rejected: simple.

But how do you tell a good professional job seeker that they have lost the skills to job seek? Most consider, much like riding a bike, job seeking is easy – the last time they did it, it was. My answer is to question them on when they last bought carpets. They can remember this more easily then when they last undertook a job search, because they buy carpet more often.

Hence, in the present tough job search market, rejection is not because you are a bad potential employee, or that the employers don’t want your skills. It is often just that you have not had to do it recently in such a tough job market.

So now you know why the answer is: I bet you buy carpet more often that you job seek!

Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, please call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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Recruiter Run Around

You’re a job seeker, and you know this situation all to often: recruiter run around! You see a great job, its advertised via a recruiter, you apply and then suddenly – nothing.

So you follow up, and get told that yes you are still in the job application pipeline, they are still looking, and no the employer has not rejected your job application. So you think all is OK.

Yet every week you call up you get the same story, if they speak to you at all. Other job applications seem to be progressing quickly, but this ideal job seems to be stuck in the mud.

What is going on? Welcome to the Recruiter Run Around!

Run around by a Recruiter

This problem is not mainly you, but it is a reflection of two core issues:

• The relationship that the recruiter has with that employer
• The distance that a third party is adding to the communications channel between you and the Hiring Manager

Although I am a recruiter, I will always tell a job seeker if they have the option to go direct to the employer. The closer you get to the Hiring Manager, the more you remove competition and get closer to employment.

Now in this concept there is a relevant argument that HR are as bad in giving job applicants the run around as a Recruiter would be. But HR people have the company brand and reputation standing over the top of them: it doesn’t stop HR run around, but it does limit it and the number of practitioners.

Secondly, and here’s the first impingement on a recruiters relationship with the employer, the HR people could have briefed multiple recruiters to fulfil the same brief. As the Recruiter is now in a competitive situation, you get the “run around” because they are trying to manage their relationship with that employer in competition with other recruiters. You and your Professional CV hence become bargaining chips in what is a roulette wheel of employment and future recruiting briefs.

But the key issue here is the distance that all of this adds to your relationship to the Hiring Manager. The further you are away, the less well informed you are of what precise environment exists within that team and what that Hiring Manager wants. Also add in that the recruiter brings in their own hiring agenda: if I send you in front of my customer, you not only have to match that brief but also assure my future income. Would your risk your future income on anything but the best and those most within the assigned brief?

Running around the recruiter?

So if this problem exists, what should you do?

Firstly, accept the situation if you apply for a job advertised by a recruiter. The communication channels will be longer, and there will be delay. But that also means that before applying for a job advertised with a recruiter, you should check out their relationship first.

Secondly, do not let a recruiter advertised post affect your entire job search. The fact that that one is delayed means you need to make effort elsewhere. If necessary, and certainly after a reasonable time scale – maximum of 4weeks – ask the recruiter to withdraw your job application on the grounds of non-progression against defined time scale.

Thirdly, focus on employer advertised positions and networking your way into ideal employers. These may seem to take longer to progress, but with less competition and direct communication, will actually move to a job offer as quickly.

There is a fourth rule, and that occurs when you later find out the name of the employer, and find that the job is still open. What should you do? Read on…

Around the Recruiter?

Brian, an employed job seeker, asks: Is it fair to do an “end run around” a recruiter, and go directly to the hiring manager, even though the recruiter has your complete Professional CV and suggest that the opportunity is till progressing? There is a position that holds a high degree of interest to me posted on a recruiter’s website, who has has my Professional CV and has had it for this position months. Yet when I’ve inquired about the job of interest, I can’t get an email answered nor a phone call returned. I have the name of the hiring manager at the company along with his contact information. I’ve always told associates that they should ultimately look out for themselves because no one else will, and that feels like the case here. Should I follow my own advice?

In answer:
Writing as a recruiter, yes its fair, and its probably fair for three reasons.

Do you have records of your correspondence? In which case you can show that you “applied and tried but failed” to get there through the recruiter.

If you know the hiring manager, and that the job is still open, then you can and should always go direct. Who knows, the job the recruiter is recruiting for may not be the job that you now see?

The recruiter may, even if you go direct, get paid anyway! Yes, I know that may seem daft, but it will depend on their contract. Some recruiter contracts ask for payment even if the employer goes direct themselves, or if the recruiter has shown them a CV which they rejected, so they may not be that upset at you getting the job.

You are doing this ethically and professionally, the recruiter has failed to respond, and your choices now involve going direct. Just pick up the phone, arrange a coffee with the hiring manager, and get employed.

Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, please call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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Who is the “right” job applicant?

In many job seeking forums and groups which discuss employment, you can often find job seekers who are disappointed by an employment system which they conclude coldly rejects them, when they know they were the “right” job applicant for that job:

• They don’t know why they were rejected
• They can’t get feedback to improve their next job application
• They considered that they were absolutely right for that job, they are disappointed

Multiply that by 200+ job applications and 3months+, and you can understand why their logic moves from “what am I doing wrong” to “this system doesn’t work and needs changing.”

The problem I find with most job applicants, is that they don’t understand how the recruitment process works, or what employers seek. It therefore is easier to blame the recruitment system over looking at themselves and the need to change their job application approach. Simply, if you know that your skills, qualifications and experiences are required and being recruited for in the current market place, then if you are getting less than 1 telephone interview per 10 job applications, there is something wrong in the way in which you are selecting jobs to apply for, and your method of application. If you are in that situation, then get some help or advice today.

But this article is about the method employers use to hire the right job applicant, something which most employers would conclude they successfully do at present: so why do job seekers see it in such a different way?

Job Application

Employment starts with a business need, which translates into a demand for resources which includes people. After signing off of a business case, the people need is translated into a job description, which defines the skills, qualifications and experiences needed by the ideal job applicant to fulfil this new vacancy. After checking internally that there are no suitable candidates – most large corporations have a legislated or union agreed internal job advertising process – they then need to go and recruit externally.

Each employer has a different process for external hiring, but consider this:

• 20% of UK employment is with the UK Government: centrally, locally or in providing services like teaching
• 12% of UK employment is defined by NGO’s and the charity sector, plus voluntary work
• The residual is commercial, of which 50% by the 1000 largest companies, and the rest by the other 50,000+ organisations

Unlike most of the European Union, the UK has not gone down the EuroCV standardised format, or legislated for standard job application processes. When you consider that the UK Government doesn’t even have its own standard recruitment process, it would be impossible to legislate for UKplc to undertake this. However, rightfully the UK government gained full employer support for blanket legislation to ensure that employers must vet job applicants equally on issues including race, age, religion and ability.

Right job applicant?

Still though, the solution most rejected and long term job seekers want is a standard UK job application process. But the problem it brings about is coping with the breadth and depth of the types of employment. Most plc’s use a standard job application form, which they ask everything from Saturday girl’s to the CEO to fill out: a “camel solution to a horse specification” as one recent Executive CV client commented, when asked to provide his O Levels certificates as well as his Oxbridge degree and Harvard MBA! Imagine trying to come up with something which covered nursery workers and dustmen, to Surgeons and nuclear researchers – possible, but bureaucratic, and a nightmare to amend. Some companies try universal psyche tests, but the problem again comes down to different theories and applications suiting different types of people, and hence employees.

It is why universally common employment procedures are blocked at policy level by the CBI, IoD and Confederation of Employers, but not because of the pile of paperwork that it would create. The one thing that the UK has over most of the rest of Europe is flexibility in its hiring and dismissal procedures, making the UK workforce far more fluid in its dynamics. This gives UK employers a price advantage over others in Europe, something which with their equally high cost base in most other areas they would be loathed to lose. Some much as though a common employment procedure sounds right from a job seekers position, its won’t work at the employers level due to issues of compromised flexibility.

Always the right job applicant

But there is an over riding issues which would mean that common job application legislation would fail, and its this simple lesson that a very experienced and well paid North American based head hunter taught me.

Up until the job interview, recruitment is a process; and then its about chemistry and more like a dating game!

I have also seen “ideal candidate” psyche tests (which are all sold on it making a better long term hiring decision over the hiring manager or HR professional), which suggest that A should be the better candidate over B. But I have never yet seen A get hired over B, let alone last more than three months, if they don’t get on with the hiring manager.

Become the right job applicant

One of the major things our Professional CV Writing service counsels in, is getting to the hiring manager as early as possible in the job application process. Much as though you can research generic company culture, there are three cultures in any work environment: company, department and finally team set by that manager. Hence knowing if you get on with the hiring manager means you know whether you will get hired or not: if yes, you almost don’t need a CV to get a job interview; if no, then why apply at all? Going direct to the hiring manager will always clarify and improve your chances of employment.

I can’t legislate for human chemistry, its a human thing, which is what recruitment and employment is about at the end of the day. We have probably gone as far as possible at present in regulating and standardising the recruitment process right now, and the next step would simply reduce UK productivity at a time when it needs increasing. When legislating it further would simply try to standardise what is a human process, and when there are better ways of getting employed quicker anyway by targeting the hiring manager, what’s the point?

So, who is the “right” job applicant? In every case, the one the hiring manager hires, it really is that simple. Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, please call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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Best CV template? It does not exist

All Job Seekers seem to think that there is one Best CV Template, the killer layout of words and style that guarantees you the wealth and dream job title that you rightfully deserve, instantly.

I’m here to tell you now, that it does not exist. Worst than that, it never will – it is a fantasy, but not quite in the leagues of the Unicorn, but as dead in reality as the Dodo.

Best CV Template test

Why doesn’t the Best CV Template exist? Well, here are two simple tests you can try for yourself, to prove the reality:

• Take a version of your CV, and ask three friends to critic it. Having made the changes, take it back and ask them again. Each time you will find that there are still changes they suggest
• Take three versions of your CV, and ask three friends to choose the best one. I bet, that not one version wins this contest

Best CV Template?

Why does the worlds Best CV Template not exist? A CV is in part defined by layout, which is a style preference. People have different style choices, its why Dulux now offer an infinite number of colours in which to paint your walls at home. Style changes with age and mood: what was good yesterday is not so on trend today. But, and here’s the criticality, none of the people you ask to review your CV are looking at it from the employers viewpoint. They look on it in balance as much of a style and hence CV Layout exercise, as much as one of effective communication.

In the last few weeks, I have had a number of opportunities to review professionally written CV’s by both UK companies and those from overseas. The good news is that a majority of these were good to great, but too large a majority were not effective. Sadly, some weren’t even very good, and yet the clients had paid good and real money for these services.

Most Effective CV

Why weren’t they good? Because they were not effective from an employers critic. What is the most effective CV? Well that’s best achieved by following a check list:

1. Employment starts with a business need, which translates into the need to employ someone, which leads to a Job Description. The Job Description leads to a signed off business case, with the conclusion by HR that the skills are presently not available internally, so hence the writing of a Job Advert, and its publication. This all takes about 100hours and costs £3500, so do you think just clicking “apply” on a jobs board will get you employed? You need to customise your CV for every job application
2. Read the job advert three times: most job seekers just read title and salary. Note down the skills, qualifications and experiences needed to fulfil that job. Now take a copy of the job advert, and find the same SQE words in your CV. Can’t find them, then don’t apply!
3. If you can find them, do they appear in the top half of the first page of your CV? If they don’t, can you adjust your CV so that they are? If you have that SQE, then yes you probably can: personal statement, keywords, job write-ups. This is an even more critical test for technical jobs such as those in the medical profession, as the employer will not read your CV any further than the first half page UNLESS you have proven that you have the required qualifications and professional certifications
4. Most HR professionals consider that SQE deployed in the last 3/5 years are relevant, and beyond that interesting but supportive employment history. On the first page of your CV, what is the time line? Ideally, it should cover at maximum the last eight years of your employment, so edit it to suit
5. Jobs and skills you did more than 10years ago, unless they resulted in notable achievements such as multi-award winning global media coverage, patents, or ground breaking scientific advances, are best address through a summary of your early career
6. You need an education section in all CV’s. Nominally list everything from your highest qualification back to what you came out of school with. Add in those bespoke training courses which are relevant (ie: relevant to this job and this time, no need to add old/out dated technology or processes/procedures); and make sure you add your professional society memberships. For technical jobs such as the medical profession, engineering, etc where the fact you are qualified is central to the decision to employ, read Note3 again!
7. No need to include hobbies and interests unless they add to your employability, eg: job asks for managerial skills, you don’t have any in work but captain a sports team or run a volunteer group, therefore add a hobbies and interests section
8. There is a lot of debate in the employment industry about personal statements, but the critical elements are: they engage and focus the reader; they must be focused around how your SQE is relevant to that job; power words over use is never impressive!
9. Did you include your name and contact details, both an eMail and telephone? Are these at the foot of every page?
10. Unless you are an artist, black ink on white paper is most readable. Nothing below fontsize 11, and unless you are an actor, no photographs!

The key mistake as a recruiter I always see job seekers making is not showing and ideally proving that they have the required combination of skills, qualifications and experiences listed in the job advert.

Most job seekers assume that like everyone else in employment that I have the time to read their full job application and wholly conclude that yes they have those skills. Unfortunately, even if I did, part of the inbuilt test of a job application is testing the job applicants ability to communicate.

So there it is. There is no Best CV Template, its a style issue and that’s wholly secondary to the words. But there is test of CV effectiveness which every job seeker should be applying to every job application they make, to ensure that they get employed quicker.

Good Luck!

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If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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Job Reference: Finance Jobs

Job References should be the easiest thing possible to complete. Yet time and time again, I see Job Seekers making the same mistakes repeatedly, particularly when it comes to Finance Jobs when Job Applicants KNOW that Job References will be strict, thorough and if found wrong will result in you not getting that job.

So why do job seekers do this? For two primary reasons:

• Because they want that job, and will do anything – including lying – to get it
• Because they don’t think through the whole job application process

But an HR team at an employer or a recruiter doesn’t really care about your excuse, they will simply dismiss your job application.

So how do you avoid such a situation? Firstly don’t lie, and secondly use the easy LinkedIn Job Reference method to have them lined up before you apply. Simple!

Or you could in example keep doing it the old way…

Job Reference checks

James, a job seeker, asks: How strict is the check on CV or employment reference? I have been offered a job, and now this company is going to check on my employment record. However, on my CV, I had written 3 month longer than actual time of length I stayed in the company I worked about 4years ago (I only stayed 3 month there as a Temp.). New company I will be working is in finance and they will check past 6 years record. (I won’t be handling any money matters.) I wonder if they find out I was working 3 month shorter than what I’ve written on my CV, do they do anything?

In answer:
If you knew this before/when applying, why did you extend the period of employment?

Finance companies have a reputation for long background checks, and being stringent on accuracy. They can be, they get lots of job applicants, so can pick and choose.

You need to come up with an explanation as to why you made this mistake, or change the time line dates on your job application immediately. They want trust in their employees, and you have just broken it at the first point of testing. I’d say your chances of employment have just gone down by at least half.

Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, please call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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More than one qualification?

In Professional CV Writing, this is a problem faced more regularly now that Professionals change careers more regularly then ever. The answer to solving this problem as always is relevancy.

There is noting negative about including a less relevant qualification as long as it does not detract from your application.

More than one Degree?

James, a job seeker, asks: I have two Bachelors Degrees, one of them has nothing to do with my current profession, IT. Should I list the other degree on the CV or simply leave it off?
In answer:
As always in the world of CV Writing, job seeking and employment – it depends!

If it was totally at odds with your choice of employment, eg: you want to work in environmentalism, have a degree in that and also one in advanced nuclear science; then I might see an excuse for leaving it out.

But your other degree is in journalism, and frankly there are too few literate IT people in this world. Secondly, what exactly could it remove from your application by adding it? Thirdly, it also shows that you can successfully transition, and have an ability to apply yourself across multiple disciplines.

Leave it in – Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, please call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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Worlds simplest and most successful Job Application strategy

(even a 5 year old could apply this, yet most 50 year old’s seem to fail in doing so – why?)

Today I hope to enlighten you on the Worlds simplest and most successful Job Application strategy. Here it is:

1. Know who you are, and what you offer in terms of Skills, Qualifications and Experiences (SQE)…..
2. Know ideally what you would like to do next. Note down how much you need to make to live. Write it all down – no need to create a CV yet!
3. Test whether any employer wants those skills, qualifications and experiences? If not, go back to step2
4. If yes, would applying in one area over another pay you more? Is this more than the amount in step2? If not, go back to step2
5. Communicate your suitability for such a job in a draft CV – you will need to adjust this for each job application
6. Find some jobs to apply for: quickest but least successful way is via jobs boards (can be almost immediate, 12% success); most successful is networking (average is 4weeks, 35% chances of success)
7. Everything you need to get to the job interview is written in the job advert! But to be a more successful job applicant research the company
8. Adjust your whole job application so that when the employer asks in the job advert for SQE combination A thru E, your Cover Letter and CV confirms that you have those SQE in that order. Honest, don’t worry about whether you came first or second in highland dancing in school, unless its one of those SQE most employers don’t care
9. In the job interview, show direct application of your skills in actually doing that job. Past experience counts for assurance of delivery, but employers employ on direct application of your SQE to their job
10. Bask in the glory of being a successful job seeker. Just don’t go and buy the celebratory Porsche or the Jimmy Choo’s just yet!

So if a 5year old could successfully apply this, why can’t the average job seeker at present? They clearly can’t, because the average job seeker presently spends on average 27weeks job seeking, which costs them on average £250 per week. So the average job search presently costs £6,750 on top of paying for the mortgage, gas, electric, food, etc.

Why your Job Application was rejected?

Here’s the worlds simplest diagnosis of why most job seekers presently take 27weeks in their job search: they start with step 6! They then don’t do anything more within step7 than read the job title and the pay level, before updating an old CV and jumping all of step8. The resultant rejection leaves them wondering why they didn’t get to step9? They were right for the job, the title was equivalent or better than their present job, as was the pay, and yet – they got rejected! Why?

The thing a 5year old does better than a 50 year old is learn. Most often because they listen, but always because they read. True, they lack the ability to apply or the experience to read subtleties within the human environment, but they read very well. Too well actually, as they can’t make out the distinction between make-believe and real: it takes an 8 year old’s brain and experience to do that.

Job Application lesson

Most 5 year old’s haven’t taken an exam, but if they did they would do very well. A job application is simply an exam: question posed, answer given, marks of out ten awarded – or in this case, job offers made or rejection letters sent.

The key skill of a job seeker once they reach the job interview, is to show directly how immediate application of their SQE fulfils the job requirements in doing that job (today). It’s like a simple cover letter:

you the employer wants = I claim to have in job application;

show I have in job interview

By missing steps1 thru 5, when a recruiter or employer asks the job seeker “why do you want this job,” they can’t provide an answer with any more conviction that that of someone going through the job application motions. These job seekers don’t think how they could apply their skills to that job, and hence there is sufficient doubt in the employers mind that they could do the job, they are therefore considered under skilled, and resultantly rejected.

Successful job seekers know who they are, what they offer, and why that job is right for them. As their job application story remains consistent and growing through their job application, they can show how they would do the job directly by applying their existing SQE in the job interview. It really is that simple.

Good Luck!

===================================================================

If you have any questions, please call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV Review with our CV Help service

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