Tuesday 11 February 2014

Westhill Consulting & Employment How to Give Yourself the Best Possible Chance of Landing A Job?

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 3 years, you’ll know that job hunting is tough. In fact, in general the world of employment is rocky and is something that has affected people massively over the past couple of years. With people being made redundant, companies cutting back on new intake and less opportunities being made available, people are stuck.  This has resulted in massive numbers of people applying for vacancies when they do become available – which means that the recruitment process is tougher than ever! Does this mean you need to be stuck in a job you hate or living a life on benefits? Not at all. It means you need to be inventive, organized and well informed on the ways of recruitment, to give yourself the best possible chance of being given any job that you apply for.

Keep At It 
It can be disheartening when you’re looking for a job and nothing seems to come up of. The first thing to remember is that climbing a career ladder is tough and you’ll be up against some stiff competition. Companies can only see a limited number of people during their recruitment process so are often very picky when it comes to who gets to the interview stage. You need to bear this in mind and don’t give up when it seems like you’re just not getting anywhere at all.

Instead make sure that you look in different places for job adverts and keep applying for any that peak your interest. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket and apply for one job at a time – get your application out there to as many companies as possible in order to give yourself the best possible chance of being successful.

Think Outside The Box

Sometimes you need to take the initiative and contact a company, even if they aren’t advertising jobs. It’s not recommended that you simply spam every company in your local area with letters, but if there is a company that you would love to work for – why not let them know? Companies generally like people that are passionate about a brand or product, so if they can see this passion in you then you never know they might give you a chance.

Sometimes the initial offer will be a work experience opportunity, but you should grab this with both hands if you can because you never know what this will lead to.

Brush Up Your CV

Before you start applying for jobs you need to make sure that your CV is on-point. Don’t just assume that because it was good enough a few years ago that it is good enough now, because trends change. It is a good idea to contact a local recruitment agency and ask them what they look for in a decent CV. You’ll also find loads of information on this online. It might not be necessary to start your CV from scratch, but you’ll probably need to make a few tweaks to the layout to make it perfect.

It goes without saying that your CV should have no spelling errors and be grammatically correct. Generally speaking your CV should be 2 pages long, with your work history and experience at the top of this. Remember that recruiters usually have lots of CV’s to read through; you don’t want to give them any excuse not to read yours.

Think about the layout of it – you want it to look crisp and easy to read. They will usually skim read a bunch of CV’s to see how they match and then spend longer reading the ones that they liked and thought suitable. A messy layout could mean that they dismiss you and your CV at the first stage and of course this is something that you want to avoid.

Interview Techniques

If you get through to the interview stage then firstly give yourself a massive pat on the back. We have seen how tough the world of recruitment is, so to get to this stage should be seen as a massive positive.

There are loads of places you can get interview hints and tips, so there is no need to go into one unprepared. One of the best pieces of advice that can be given to you about interviews is to make sure that you are organized and prepared. Don’t assume you can just read up on the company the night before – this will just leave you feeling stressed and anxious, which is not the best approach for a job interview.

Read up about the company before you go and write down a couple of questions that you would like to ask them. This could be to do with the company, its growth, its plans or even specific to the job role you are applying for. It is important that you show an interest, so asking questions is essential.

You also need to think about what they are likely to ask you – prepare answers for questions about your strengths, weaknesses and experience. You’ll usually be allowed to take interview notes in with you so have buzz words written down to remind you of your answers. Interviewers will generally allow for nerves but you still need to come across as confident as you can.

Remember, as well as assessing your suitability for the job role they’re also looking at how you are going to fit in with a team. They want someone that is out-going, friendly and confident so that they don’t have to worry about how you are going to fit in with the people you are working with. Even if you’re shaking on the inside, try and project positivity and confidence as much as possible.

Sealing The Deal

End the interview on a high note so that you feel positive. Ask them when you’re likely to hear from them and encourage them to contact you should they have any more questions that they want to ask you.

Remember, just because you have had a good interview that doesn’t mean you should give up looking. If you miss a couple of day’s job hunting, you could miss out on your dream job. Instead, keep at it and carry on applying for jobs until you land your dream job role!

This Simple Strategy Will Make You the Top Candidate for Any Job

If you read most articles about the world of job seeking, hiring and employment these days, it all sounds so easy. Countless online-business publications snare readers with headlines like “5 things you shouldn’t eat before a job interview” or “How to tell if applicants are lying about their last job” (or even the headline to this article). These litanies of tips and tricks play right into the notion that effort isn’t really required. That somehow just by studying the game, you can avoid the traps and master the tricks. That you can find the job or employee of your dreams and do it with little true investment.

Most job searchers believe that a few key adjustments to a one-page resume, submitted to the best job board and optimized to catch eyes is all it takes. Hit send and hope for the best. Employers too buy into the promise of shortcuts and immediate results. As if it’s quick and simple to find the next man up when someone goes down. As if the employment landscape is a plug-and-play world of new faces claimed on an as-needed basis.

It’s maddening, short-sighted and ironically, it could be a cause of the job crisis in this country. While there are some 10.2 million unemployed in the US, there are also some 4 million open jobs in our country. What we have is a lack of thoughtful pursuit of both quality employees and desirable career opportunities. Because in the torrent of tips and tricks, job seekers rarely get substantive advice on how to connect, engage and relate to an industry or career, let alone build the kind of personal brand that brings employers knocking.

Closing the employment gap requires a radical reimagining of how to navigate the job market. Many employers are less interested in the employment history you’ve polished up on your resume and more eager to see what you can do for them today. Job seekers must work hard to prove that they can offer true value for their industry, their community and their future employer by developing content that’s informative, enlightening, even entertaining. By doing so, they show firsthand the talents and abilities they could bring to the job rather than simply telling employers about them through a resume. The path forward will be paved by the kind of disruptive change that we’ve seen in the entertainment industry over the past few years, as movies and broadcast TV have been threatened by upstart Netflix.

Once the mail-order version of Blockbuster (without the late fees or the annoying burden of returning a DVD the day after viewing), Netflix today represents 31.6 percent of downstream U.S. Internet traffic. And it’s solidifying viewer loyalty by doing the difficult task of creating its own content. Free from the expectations of the industry, Netflix is producing its own Emmy-award winning program, House of Cards, and the highly popularOrange is the New Black. And they are serving it up in an all-you-can-eat, binge-watching fashion that audiences love to coagulate around during a rainy Saturday or a day off from work.

Netflix’s efforts will forever be linked to the moment in time when viewers shifted their habits toward streaming video content and away from traditional outlets. But more importantly, the company’s knockout TV shows add a new, enticing dimension to its brand while proving to viewers that it’s as creative and artful as the best in the business. It committed time and energy to the work of developing great stories. This is the kind of effort that draws viewers in droves, and one Netflix’s competitors are now scrambling to duplicate.

The job market is primed for a similar disruption, and to some extent, it’s already begun. Candidates are advancing their career opportunities by doing the hard work of creating standout content and singular brands that truly capture attention, loyalty and opportunity. And that’s the secret to getting that dream job: Be like Netflix and create content tailored to your audience to prove you’re the ideal candidate. That’s exactly what comedian Jack Moore did. Aspiring to be a sitcom and screenplay writer, he demonstrated his talent through the popular Modern Seinfeld Twitter feed, which offers storylines for what George, Jerry, Elaine and Kramer would be up to in today’s world. His months of artful execution have led him to his dream job as a screenwriter.

He shattered the confines of the old resume-centric world of job searching by taking the focus off of himself -- the heart of any resume -- and homing in on his audience. Instead of talking about his skills, he used them. He buckled down and proved he could do the job without being asked and made sure potential future employers would take notice. His efforts parallel those of Netflix, which continues to produce its creative best to box out traditional channels and win wider audiences.

The kind of disruption and success Netflix has achieved -- and the kind the job market sorely needs -- isn’t easy and can’t be neatly summarized in a tip or trick. Because it’s no trick. It’s the sum total of thought, effort and dedication. It’s a new ideology guiding the way job seekers think about their careers and transforming the way employers search for talent.