Jobseekers – Get yourself noticed

Jobseekers – Get yourself noticed

Posted by Amanda Ashworth on January 10, 2013 at 8:26am

Times are tough and if you are a job-seeker you need to get yourself noticed. Almost everywhere you look now there is a graduate with high hopes and quite unrealistic expectations of finding that ideal well paid job when they are fresh out of university in what is a tough economic climate. Although the current market place for jobs for graduates is tough, it is not impossible to succeed in securing that first role, below are some of my tips on how to stand out from the crowd.

·         Use your time at university and long summers wisely. Try and get work placements, most university have bureaus and can help advise you on local businesses that use work experience students. Think about what you are going to put on your CV, get involved in groups/clubs and try to volunteer for a charity.

·         If you are offered the chance you do a year in industry, jump at it. This will gain you experience and give you the upper hand of someone who has no experience. Sometimes this also leads to a job waiting for you when your degree is complete.

·         Try and work while at University, experience counts apply for roles that are going to help develop skills such as retail, customer service and office based roles.

·         Take full advantage of the career services in your university, they will help you do your CV and give you advice.

·         Graduate schemes are very competitive, be organised and apply early. Personalise your applications for each company remember that the person reading your application is going to be going through 100’s of applications. They won’t want to hear your life story but try and get your personality across in your personal profile and cover letter.

·         Networking is important attend any career fairs, exhibitions or industry events try and gain some contacts in the industry you want to go into.  Use social media, sign up to LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook many companies do advertise for entry roles on all of these.

·         Sign up for job boards and ONLY apply for relevant roles that match your skill set. Following up on applications, it shows your interest and creates a good impression.

·         Be prepared to work your way up or do an internship. Be realistic and be prepared to start at the bottom and be realistic of starting salaries. Once you are in a company no matter what role you are in give it 110% and go the extra mile because this will get you noticed.

·         Once you have a role, remember that you are a commodity and you should invest in yourself with continuous personal development. If offered training or the chance to attend courses do. You should always be developing your skills. 

Hilarious Recruiting Video: Some Recruiter That I used to Know

http://www.recruitingblogs.com/forum/topics/hilarious-recruiting-video-some-recruiter-that-i-used-to-know

5 Reasons Your Online Job Application Did Not Catch My Attention by Jorg Stegemann

5 Reasons Your Online Job Application Did Not Catch My Attention

By Jorg Stegemann

December 10, 2012 at 8:30am

Are you sending tons of resumes on job ads but do not even get an answer? Here may be why:

Recruiters both in HR departments or recruitment agencies/ search firms receive a large number of resumes every day and we have to decide within 5-10 seconds if we call up the candidate or not. The “Leitmotiv” of my job – professional recruitment - is to find similarities between the job and the applicant, the skills of the person in front of me and the job responsibilities.

Her are 5 tips for targeted applications that are more likely to bring you to the interview:

1. Only apply if you match 75% of the job ad: this ratio will give you a) confidence to succeed in the job and b) enough room to grow, learn and stay motivated for the next years. 75% is not only a good indicator for the recruiter - who will weed out those candidates who fall short - but it is also important for your personal risk management: you want to be sure the next step will be the right one and you will stay and evolve within the new organization, right?
2. Only apply if you cover 99% of the KO criteria: When it says “fluent Bushman language is a must criterion”, this means that you cannot do the job unless you are fluent in Bushman language. Though you might apply when you give yourself a “very good”, do not do so if you only have basic knowledge. Be prepared that everything you put on your resume will be double-checked - and in 80% of the cases I correct the language level stated. I had candidates that put “fluent” on their resume yet were not able to communicate at all in the stated language
3. Do not apply when you are clearly over or under qualified: If you read “7 years relevant experience”, you can be sure to get a negative response if you have 2 or 20 years of experience as we consider that the job is either under or over your competencies or not in line with the salary range for this level. Though we understand that you might be willing to go down on salary and responsibilities if you are highly qualified, you might create an internal disequilibrium. We might furthermore assume that stepping down in terms of responsibilities, title and salary as well as reporting to someone potentially less qualified than you is neither good for your morale nor for your career management and we would fear that you will not stay but continue looking for a “better” job. If you do not have the experience required and do not meet the 75% above, we might assume that you won’t make it…
4. Only apply when you are around: You should live in the area where the job is located or have a very good reason why you apply: I get resumes from Australia for jobs in France. Though the credentials may be flawless, these candidate can unfortunately not be priority A as they cannot be in my office e.g. Monday at 5pm for a first interview and meet my client on Thursday. Furthermore, moving to another city and leaving family and friends behind may sound easier than it in reality is and in my career and experience shows that in the end, we often hear “Well, I underestimated this. Sorry but I have to turn down the offer”. If this is true for different cities, it becomes even truer cross-border when a work permit is required. Unless you are a super-specialist, most employers will not be ready to engage themselves as they cannot be sure that you will really get the permit
5. Only apply if your gut feeling is right: Do not ask me why but I have candidates who tell me “yeah, I had a doubt and actually, I don’t like the industry”. Do not apply when you are not convinced of the job content, the industry or other parameters you cannot change. Choosing a new job is about the question where you want to spend 40-50 hours per week – ideally for the next years. A doubt at the beginning will most likely result in a refusal, from the candidate or the employer. This is like a hole in a boat when you leave the haven: do not think it will go well or there will be happy surprises – in 99 out of 100 cases this will not happen

Conclusion:

People tell me I am often too direct and I am sorry if this is what you think after reading this post. I do not mean to destroy hopes and perfectly understand that we currently live in a difficult economic context with many candidates desperately looking for a new job. I agree that you should do a maximum to increase chances to find a new job. Yet it is all about efficiency and the aim of my writing is to increase the positive returns on your efforts.

5 Questions Great Job Candidates Ask by Jeff Haden

5 Questions Great Job Candidates Ask

Many of the questions potential new hires ask are throwaways. But not these.

Be honest. Raise your hand if you feel the part of the job interview where you ask the candidate, "Do you have any questions for me?" is almost always a waste of time.

Thought so.

The problem is most candidates don't actually care about your answers; they just hope to make themselves look good by asking "smart" questions. To them, what they ask is more important than how you answer.

Great candidates ask questions they want answered because they're evaluating you, your company--and whether they really want to work for you.

Here are five questions great candidates ask:

What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 60 to 90 days?

Great candidates want to hit the ground running. They don't want to spend weeks or months "getting to know the organization."

They want to make a difference--right away.

What are the common attributes of your top performers?

Great candidates also want to be great long-term employees. Every organization is different, and so are the key qualities of top performers in those organizations.

Maybe your top performers work longer hours. Maybe creativity is more important than methodology. Maybe constantly landing new customers in new markets is more important than building long-term customer relationships. Maybe it's a willingness to spend the same amount of time educating an entry-level customer as helping an enthusiast who wants high-end equipment.

Great candidates want to know, because 1) they want to know if they fit, and 2) if they do fit, they want to be a top performer.

What are a few things that really drive results for the company?

Employees are investments, and every employee should generate a positive return on his or her salary. (Otherwise why are they on the payroll?)

In every job some activities make a bigger difference than others. You need your HR folks to fill job openings... but what you really want is for HR to find the right candidates because that results in higher retention rates, lower training costs, and better overall productivity.

You need your service techs to perform effective repairs... but what you really want is for those techs to identify ways to solve problems and provide other benefits--in short, to generate additional sales.

Great candidates want to know what truly makes a difference. They know helping the company succeed means they succeed as well.

What do employees do in their spare time?

Happy employees 1) like what they do and 2) like the people they work with.

Granted this is a tough question to answer. Unless the company is really small, all any interviewer can do is speak in generalities.

What's important is that the candidate wants to make sure they have a reasonable chance of fitting in--because great job candidates usually have options.

How do you plan to deal with...?

Every business faces a major challenge: technological changes, competitors entering the market, shifting economic trends... there's rarely a Warren Buffett moat protecting a small business.

So while a candidate may see your company as a stepping-stone, they still hope for growth and advancement... and if they do eventually leave, they want it to be on their terms and not because you were forced out of business.

Say I'm interviewing for a position at your bike shop. Another shop is opening less than a mile away: How do you plan to deal with the new competitor? Or you run a poultry farm (a huge industry in my area): What will you do to deal with rising feed costs?

A great candidate doesn't just want to know what you think; they want to know what you plan to do--and how they will fit into those plans.

Source: Jeff Haden, www.inc.com

10 Predictions for 2012 by Dr. John Sullivan

10 Predictions for 2012: The Top Trends in Talent Management and Recruiting

by

Dr. John Sullivan

Dec 5, 2011, 5:03 am ET

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It’s always better to be prepared than surprised.

By definition, being strategic requires that you look forward — identifying trends, opportunities, and threats. With the December lull looming, now is a great time to plan for the future. I’ve listed the “top 10 talent management trends” I foresee that require your attention.
But you should certainly do your own thinking. I recommend that you start by examining this past year…

2011 Was The Year of Social Media

2011 was a tough year for many in talent management, but despite compressed budgets, organizations continued to hire and develop talent. One factor that seemed to invade nearly every high-level functional discussion was social media. It’s clear that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter will play a dominate role in recruiting and development best practices in years to come.
Not surprisingly, 2011 saw no fewer than 40 new vendors emerge to help organizations use social media to attract referrals. We also started to see early stage tools to use social media in talent assessment (pre/post hire) as well as applicant/candidate/employee experience management. New tools brought much enhanced visibility into talent issues, but most talent-management metrics continue not to resonate with key leaders outside of the HR function.

2012 Will Be “The Year of the Mobile Platform”

By the end of next year, even the skeptics will have to admit that the mobile platform will have become the dominant communications and interaction platform by early-adopting best-practice organizations. The capabilities afforded users of smartphones and tablet devices grows immensely day by day. Long before unified inboxes existed for the desktop, smart device users could see all incoming e-mail, social messaging, text messaging, and voice and video messaging in a single place.
Tablets will become the virtual classroom, and an emerging class of tools will let employees manage almost every aspect of their professional life digitally. During the next year, talent management leaders need to invest heavily supporting execution of talent management initiatives across mobile.

The Additional Top Nine!

Intense hiring competition will return in selected areas — global economic issues will persist for years to come, but the global war for talent will continue spiking in key regions an industries. While growth has slowed somewhat in China, Australia and Southeast Asia — including India — continue to see dramatic demand for skilled talent. In the U.S. and Europe, demand is still largely limited to certain industries where skills shortages have been an issue for years.
In high tech inclusive of medical technologies, 2012 will see a significant escalation in the war for top talent. As innovators and game changers step out of established tech firms like Facebook, Apple, Google, Twitter, and Zynga, a whole new breed to tech startups will be born each vying for the best of the best. While recruiting will move forward at a breathtaking pace, so too will “rapid” leadership development.
Retention issues will increase dramatically — almost every survey shows that despite high engagement scores, more than a majority of employees are willing to quit their current job as soon as a better opportunity comes along. I am predicting that turnover rates in high-demand occupations will increase by 25% during the next year and because most corporate retention programs have been so severely degraded, retention could turn out to be the highest-economic-impact area in all of talent management.
Rather than the traditional “one-size-fits-all” retention strategy, a targeted personalized approach will be required if you expect to have a reasonable chance to retain your top talent.
Social media increases its impact by becoming more data-driven — most firms jumped on the social media bandwagon, but unfortunately the trial-and-error approach used by most has produced only mediocre results. Adapting social media tools from the business coupled with strong analytics will allow a more focused approach that harnesses and directs the effort of all employees on social media. Talent leaders will increasingly see the value of a combination of internal and external social media approaches for managing and developing talent.
Remote work changes everything in talent management — the continued growth of technology, social media, and easy communications now makes it possible for most knowledge work and team activities to occur remotely. Allowing top talent to work “wherever they want to work” improves retention and makes recruiting dramatically easier.
Unfortunately, even though it is now possible for as much as 50% of a firm’s jobs to be done remotely, manager and HR resistance has limited the trend. Fortunately, managers and talent management leaders have begun to realize that teamwork, learning, development, recruiting, and best-practice sharing can now successfully be accomplished using remote methods. Firms like IBM and Cisco have led the way in reducing and eliminating barriers to remote work.
The need for speed shifts the balance between development and recruiting — historically, best practice within corporations has been to build and develop primarily from within. However, as the speed of change in business continues to increase and the number of firms that copy the “Apple model” (where firm is continually crossing industry boundaries) increases, talent managers will need to rethink the “develop internally first” approach.
In many cases, recruiting becomes a more viable option because there simply isn’t time for current employees to develop completely new skills. As a result, the trend will be to continually shift the balance toward recruiting for immediate needs and the use of contingent labor for short-duration opportunities and problems.
Employee referrals are coupled with social media — the employee referral program in many organizations is operated in isolation as are the organizations’ social media efforts, but talent managers are beginning to realize that the real strength of social media is relationship-building by your employees.
With proper coordination, employee relationships can easily be turned into employee referrals. This realization will lead to a shift away from recruiters and toward relying on employees to build social media contacts and relationships. The net result will be that as many as 60% of all hires will come from the combined efforts. The strength of these relationships will lead to better assessment and the highest-quality hires from employee referrals.
Employer branding returns — Employer branding and building talent communities are the only long-term strategies in recruiting. True branding is rarely practiced (hint: it’s not recruitment marketing) especially in the cash-strapped function of today, but years of layoffs, cuts in compensation, and generally bad press for business in general may force firms to invest in true branding. The increased use of social media and frequent visits to employee criticism sites (like Glassdoor.com), make not managing employer brand perception a risky proposition. While corporations will never control their employer brand, they can monitor and influence in a direction that isn’t catastrophic to recruiting and retention.
The candidate experience is finally getting the attention it deserves — Organizations have never treated candidates as well as they did their customers, but the high jobless rate has allowed corporations to essentially abuse some applicants. As competition for talent increases and as more applicants visit employer criticism sites like Glassdoor.com, talent leaders will be forced to modify their approach.
At the very least, firms will more closely monitor candidate experience metrics as they realize that treating applicants poorly can not only drive away other high-quality applicants but it can also lose them sales and customers.
Forward-looking metrics begin to dominate — Almost all current talent management and recruiting metrics are backward looking, in that they tell you what happened in the past. Other business functions like supply chain, production, and finance have long championed the use of “forward-looking” or predictive metrics and the time is finally coming when talent management leaders will shift their metrics emphasis. Forward-looking metrics can not only improve decision-making but they can also help to prevent or mitigate future talent problems.

Other Things to Keep Your Eye On…

In addition to the major trends highlighted above, there are 12 additional “hot” topics to keep your eye on:

• Risk identification — almost every other business function has already adopted a risk management strategy. So the time is coming when talent management will be forced to adopt a similar strategy and set of metrics. This program will not only cover HR legal issues but also the economic “risk” associated with weak hiring, the absence of developed leaders, and the cost of turnover of key talent.
• Prioritization — continued budget and resource pressure will force talent management leaders to prioritize their services, business units, key jobs, and high-value managers/employees.
• Integration — there will be increasing pressure for talent management functions to more closely integrate and work seamlessly.
• Expedited leadership development — as more baby-boom leaders and managers actually begin to retire, there will be increased pressure for expedited leadership development — specifically solutions that develop talent remotely using social media tools and within months rather than years.
• Competitive analysis — the increasingly competitive business world has forced almost every function to be more externally focused. Although HR has a long history of being internally focused and not being “highly competitive,” there is increasing pressure to become more business-like and to adopt an “us-versus-them” perspective. That means conducting competitive analysis and making sure that every key talent management function produces superior results to those at competitors.
• Contingent workers — as continuous business volatility becomes the “new normal,” the increased use and the improved management of contingent workers will become essential for agility and flexibility.
• Unionization — there is a reasonable chance that actions by the NLRB will increase union power and make it easier for unions to gain acceptance at private employers.
• Recruiting at industry events — as industry events return to popularity, recruiting at them will again become an effective tool for recruiting top and diverse talent.
• Location software — talent managers will begin to realize that software that allows you to check-in and see who is within close geographic proximity has great value and many still unidentified uses.
• Hire before they do — most firms will restrict their hiring until the turnaround actually begins. However, your firm must have a talent pool or pipeline developed, so that you can hire immediately and capture the top talent right before your competitors realize the downturn is over.
• Assessment continues to improve — vendors, software, and tools continue to improve in this area that will become increasingly important.
• Increase your revenue impact — increased economic pressures will continue the trend of forcing all functions (including talent management) to convert their functional results into business impacts in dollars. Talent management will face increasing pressure to directly demonstrate how their hiring, retention, development, etc. is focused, so that it directly increases and maximizes corporate revenues.

Final Thoughts

A recent survey of CEOs rates talent management as the No. 1 area where CEOs expect dramatic change during the next year. Given this increased attention, it’s even more critical that talent management and recruiting leaders set aside time to conduct a SWOT assessment (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to identify where they are and where they need to be.
The “new” talent management leader must be more strategic, more proactive, and more business-like, and that means getting your entire staff to begin thinking about and planning for the game-changing events, trends, and opportunities that will occur during the next year. It’s time to realize the “but-we-are-overwhelmed-and-too-busy” excuse for not forecasting and planning is wearing thin.

How to Make Yourself Standout in an Interview by Ronald Mitchell

How to Make Yourself Standout in an Interview

By: Ronald Mitchell Super Mentor (24286 points) Updated: 10/13/2009 Rating: Tags: interview, Interview Questions, research, standout, differentiate

Believe it or not, it is not your outstanding professional track record or your exceptional academic pedigree that make you standout in an interview.  Those are the things that get you the interview.  Once you walk in the room and sit down in front of the interviewer, it is a whole new ball game.  If you want to Standout in Your Interview, you need to focus on the following steps to differentiate yourself from your peers. Deep Knowledge of the Company, Industry, Job As George Orwell said in the classic novel, 1984, “Knowledge is Power”.  The more you know about the company, industry & job, the more impressive your interview will be.  This does not mean that you need to throw out facts about how many employees the company has in Bulgaria.  However, the fact that you know that the company has significant operations in Bulgaria will enable you to be more confident and insightful in your responses to the interviewer’s questions.  The fact that you know that the top 5 companies in the industry control 60% of the market allows you to better understand the pricing pressures in the market.  In a nutshell, the more you know, the better you will perform. What you need to know about the JOB > What you need to know about the COMPANY > What you need to know about the INDUSTRY > Ability to have a conversation about industry trends The best interviews I have conducted, felt more like conversations than interrogations.  In several, I left the interview knowing more than when it began.  These are interviews and candidates that distinguish themselves.  When the interviewer can hold a substantive conversation about an industry related topic for 15-20 minutes with a person, they will remember that person.  If the candidate can actually tell them something they didn’t know, even better.  In some cases, this  conversational tone is driven by the interviewer.  In others, you as the interviewee might have to take the conversation in that direction.  Before you go into the interview, you should outline three significant current trends or events in the industry.  Research those with a particular emphasis on differing perspectives of industry leaders. Prepare an industry research summary > Control the Interview I can remember an interview I had with Sammy, a young college sophomore that I interviewed for a summer internship position on Wall Street five years ago.  I left that interview feeling as though I was the one who had just been interviewed.  He completely controlled the conversation.  Now this tactic can backfire.  It is more art than science.  You don’t want to force the issue by bombarding your interviewer with innumerable questions.  However, a very natural, inquisitive tone where you are asking a series of questions that you are GENUINELY interested in and that follow a logical sequence, will get you there.  Controlling the interview does not mean that you solely ask questions.  It also means that you communicate the skills and experiences you know highlight you as the best candidate.  You must make sure that your story gets told.  I typically suggest that you write down your 5 most compelling qualities and make sure that you reference all of them throughout the interview.  Even if this means that at the end of the interview you must list the three most compelling reasons why you should be hired. Ask Good & Insightful Questions There is always an incredible emphasis placed on what questions  are asked during an interview.  What most people fail to understand is that “questions” don’t matter.  “Good questions” matter.  In fact, asking bad questions may be more injurious to your cause than not asking any questions at all.  It further exposes your lack of knowledge.  Good questions inform the interviewer of both your knowledge and interest.  If you cannot come up with a single good question, that tells the interviewer that you frankly are not that interested in the opportunity.  If your question is not very insightful, it also communicates that you have not done your research on the opportunity. Good Questions to Ask in the Interview > Comfort / Ease of Conversation As a former athlete, I can understand being a little nervous before an interview.  I was always nervous before games.  However, once the game started, I became extremely comfortable.  That is because the only thing you can do is play your game.   The same is true of your interview.  There is no need to be very nervous because, even more so than an athletic contest, the interview is all about you.  It is about your story, knowledge and interest.  Why be nervous?  You should know your story – it is “your” story after all.  No one is expecting you to communicate why they should hire someone else.  The knowledge part is simple as well.  If you have prepared, you know what you know and know what you don’t know.  If you are asked something you don’t know, you should be able to recover by talking about something you know well later in the interview.  And, finally, your interest is either real or not.  If you are interested, then you should have put in the work to be prepared.  If you are not interested, then who cares how the interview goes.  The best interviewees are fairly relaxed when the interview starts.  The interviewer should be able to feel that