Being proactive about your job search

Recruiting good people is difficult. It's not much better than chance. Indeed the correlation between successful interview and job performance is 0.3. Those of you who understand coefficients of correlation will admit at least it's positive but we have a long way to go to ensure that every hire is going to a successful employee.

 

So here's the thing. Most people don't use the obvious route. I estimate that if you apply to a job advertisement there is a 10% chance of being successful provided you meet the specification. Most people who apply don't meet the specification and are therefore wasting their time.  I estimate an application via a jobs board has a 5% chance and a cold call or unsolicited email less than a 2% chance.

 

How about we look at this problem from the perspective of the recruiter. I have a role to fill. My first step would be to appoint someone who has already worked for me. Failing that why not ask someone I trust for a recommendation.

 

The proactive job search takes this principle of getting a recommendation and approaching the point of purchase (the person with the power to hire you), using a recommendation from a mutual contact.  Imagine a spreadsheet. On the left hand side are target organisations. Those with the propensity to hire people with your skill set and from your perspective, those organisations who have the culture and characteristics you know you do well in. Secondly, using LinkedIn and Google, you identify the point of purchase. Lastly, you try to find out as much as you can about them, where they have worked previously, their interests, etc. Turning to the right hand side of your spreadsheet, you list your network. Remember - your network has 4 sources. These are people you have worked with, former clients, suppliers and professional peers. You will need a network of at least 250 people. The trick is to make a connection between someone who knows you and the point of purchase. It may be necessary to make several connections before reaching the end point of the point of purchase.

 

The key is to use recommendations in your network to build contacts in your target organisations. There will not always be opportunities. However, each introduction allows you to build a network. This approach works best when you approach networking from the perspective of adding value to those in your network.  If you have a healthy balance sheet of people who owe you a favour, introductions are easy to achieve. This approach to job seeking allows you to target organisations and get introductions via a mutual contact.  Clearly there is no guarantee you will get a job, but working on the premise that we like to hire people we can trust, or hire people whose recommendations we trust, it is a better approach than applying to advertisements.

 

Think about it.

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Your Next Job Is Not the One You Should be Worrying About

Successful career management lies in good career planning. You need to know where you want to be five or 10 years from now, and you need to know it today. Are you looking to move within your organisation, your sector or the profession? What changes do you expect over the next few years that will affect your role and organisation?

You are responsible for your career progress and success – if you know what you want then you can target the job and company.

The problem with recruiters is that they hire for the skills they want, they don’t want to take the chance that you will be able to develop those skills, to grow into the job. If you want to move on and up you have to build your skill base; you have to develop those aspirational competencies that will allow you to build your career. What skills, knowledge, qualifications and expertise does the very best candidate need?

However good a sales person you are, if you want to be sales manager your lack of management experience is going to hamper you. Think about the best sales managers you know, their skills and strengths, then do a critical self-assessment. How do you measure up? What do you need to do in terms of self-investment in order to grow, develop and achieve your career goals?

Look at the gaps between your current level of competence and your aspirational career goals – what do you have to be good at that you can’t currently lay claim to? This should drive your job search. Your next role should be one that helps you to reduce those gaps in your skills base. The secret is to use your network to help you find that role.

The best place to get experience is the place where you already work. Have a serious career conversation with your current employer. If they know what you are trying to achieve perhaps they can help you get there. They already know you and your work so they have an interest in helping you grow and improve. A company with good career management policies and procedures will invest in staff as a means of employee engagement and retention.

It has to be admitted though that your choices and aspirations may not dovetail with those of your current manager or organisation. So you may have to think about moving laterally or taking a secondment. Think outside the box.

To target other companies you will need to identify and target the point of purchase carefully. If they are to hire you even though you are not a 100% fit with their job specification you will need really good recommendations and endorsements from contacts they trust. If you come with an exceptional recommendation the hiring manager will take that second look at your CV.

Consider what you offer as a competitive advantage. What do other professionals in your field offer? Can you differentiate yourself by offering something extra, different or unique? Then cross-reference your competitive advantage with the ideal candidate for your ideal job. It is the fact that you are an appreciating asset that enhances your employability.

Make sure that you develop and are known for your exceptional capabilities so that if the chance arises a prospective employer will take a chance on you. To do that you need endorsements. Think seriously about who you know and the influence they wield - who has the potential to impact on your career? Build a strategy to strengthen your relationship with those people. Build your profile, ensure you are visible to those who matter, and ally yourself with people who can help you. It’s about being well connected and making sure your contribution is noticed.

Don’t let your career just happen and don’t wait to be noticed. Take a proactive, targeted approach to maximise your potential. You are responsible for your own future.

Looking the part

Dress Code: top ten tips

Dress appropriately for the organisation and it's culture. Accountants and lawyers like suits where as it's chinos for creative ad agencies. Check out the organisation, observe what people are wearing prior to showing up for an interview. Under no circumstance wear Bart Simpson socks.
They say cleanliness is next to godliness so be god like. No dirty nails, no greasy hair.
Wear something new, it will make you feel better and you'll perform better at the interview.
Clean your shoes before every interview, make sure they don't need repairing.
Does your dress reflect the brand you are trying present.  Are you trying to come over as  reliable, or enthusiastic, or creative. There must be alignment between your dress and the image you are trying convey.
Don't dress in a way that will distract the interviewer; no novelty ties, distracting jewellery, too short a skirt or low cut blouses.
Do wear Mcguffins. Accessories that will attract attention for the right reason and make you memorable. For example cuff links, lapel badges and jewellery.
Get yourself a suit (advice for men and women). At some point irrespective of the organisational culture you will need one. If in doubt about what to wear always dress up, never down.
Get some nice accessories (pen, watch, suitcase,satchel,handbag). They don't have to be expensive but avoid tacky. For example a reasonable priced biro is preferable to one chewed at the end!
All clothes must always be freshly ironed.  Crumple is never a good look for an interview.

Work Experience

The recent fuss in the press about the government’s scheme to get the unemployed into unpaid work experience has raised unnecessary concerns about internships and work experience placements. Run properly, work experience placements can offer young, inexperienced graduates and school leavers an invaluable opportunity to get a foothold in the jobs market, help them find out what careers they may pursue, and show their potential in the workplace, even if they haven’t done that well at school or university. The other side of the coin is that work experience placements and internships give prospective employers an opportunity to “test drive” candidates and find out if they have what it takes to succeed. A trial period, with no pay, says “welcome to the world of work” and it’s a competitive job market out there. Employers are looking for more than just academic qualifications, they want to see people with a broad range of skills and experiences so an internship is a brilliant way to bridge the gap between college and the first job. The CIPD in their 2010 learning and talent development survey reported that 76% of employers view internships as a useful way of trying out new staff, with 78% agreeing that they are of long term benefit to the interns themselves in terms of the skills, knowledge and workplace experience acquired. A further 69% said that internships could help develop talent for their industry sector. People Management magazine recently pointed out that “at their highly-publicised worst internships allow unscrupulous employers to get months of unpaid work from young people desperate to do whatever they can to stand out in a difficult jobs market.” It isn’t always about cheap labour. A lot of companies genuinely want to help and to offer opportunities to young and unemployed people. Also it’s a practical way to find talent. It’s very difficult to find candidates with the right skills and potential to to fit into a team. Harder yet to know whether people without experience will fit the bill so there’s more at stake in taking them on. Internships let employers take a leap of faith –if it doesn’t work out, the intern gets valuable experience and the company has only lost out in terms of training time. Two-thirds of the top 100 graduate recruiters provide industrial placements – six to 12 months long and a formal part of degree courses – and over half offer paid vacation internships lasting at least three weeks. It’s true that a lot of internships are filled on the basis of “who you know” – again, welcome to the world of work. Inevitably those who are good at networking are at an advantage and there’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of the networking skills of your parents and their friends, that’s what networking is all about. If you don’t have good connections, to help you out in this way, then you have to find some other way to make yourself stand out and to get your application noticed. So make sure you point out that you are a good fit with their diversity policy, for instance. Nearly a quarter of graduates are unemployed in the first year after leaving university says the Office for National Statistics. The majority of those graduates, 16.1% are still unemployed a year later, which shows the importance of internships that lead into meaningful work.There’s a big gap between college and work. Make sure you understand the rules of the game. Talk to other interns, talk to the hiring managers, get all the tips you can. As with all interviews preparation is key. Think long and hard about how you are going to convince them to hire you. What are you going to do to ensure you are memorable for all the right reasons? When you get a placement make sure you take time while you are there to be seen doing and saying the right things. Let people know that you are prepared to go the extra mile, ask lots of questions, particularly of your peers – how do things work, who does what? Use your time well. Youth unemployment is at an all time high so any opportunity to get some experience which will help you get a job should be welcome. Putting in the effort is so that at the end of the internship you are in with the best possible chance of being offered a permanent role. Be nice to HR person and the executive assistants in the department. Make sure you thank people for giving you a chance. Ask for feedback – this is to help you find the right direction but also to show you can take direction and follow instructions. Your placement is an opportunity to showcase your current skill set, gain practical, relevant experience and make useful contacts in your chosen industry. From my experience as both a career coach and as a HR professional who has extensive recruitment experience, further education does not prepare students well for the world of work. Most enter the job market will little or no coaching as to what is required to get a job or for that matter to plan a career. However, not all the fault can be laid at the door of the careers advisors. Business rarely ventures into the world of academia. City & Guilds recently looked at the gaps between education and employment and how we might close those gaps. Chris Jones, CEO and director general of City & Guilds says "We are calling for an all-party parliamentary group to bring together key stakeholders across education, business and the Government to tackle this problem - working together to get young people working. We believe more needs to be done to ensure young people get the advice and experience they deserve”. To some extent business gets the candidates it deserves. As always there are notable exceptions but the general consensus appears to be students need more help, and business requires better prepared candidates. We need to bridge this gap. UK plc is wasting a lot of talent. Not enough companies build good links with educational establishments so there is fault on both sides. Educationalists are used to working in an academic meritocracy, they don’t have much experience of the business world on the whole. A degree is a great base for career building, but when an intern gets real life experience in the workplace they learn fast and build confidence and communication skills that make a real difference. The placement definitely helped me build confidence in my abilities Work experience and internships are a valuable opportunity to develop knowledge, skills and experience in a real working environment. They can also give an insight into what a particular career has to offer.

How often should I change my job?

The job for life no longer exists. Modernisation of the world of work means many employees must now work harder to turn their dream career into reality. The old career paths have disappeared and you have to take responsibility for your career and progress.

Perhaps you feel you’ve reached a career ceiling but still have the drive and tenacity to rise further. You want to move on to fresh challenges and higher levels of creativity. Keeping your career afloat may feel like you’re navigating hazardous and murky waters, especially during times of company mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, “right sizing,” and “offshoring.” If you need to reinvent your career then you need to understand your job market.

Even if you’re happy where you are it’s smart to keep an eye on what’s out there. It fosters a healthy sense of possibility and adventure. It’s a good idea to peek your head over your laptop from time to time in case some interesting opportunity is in the offing. Chances are, you’ll change jobs at some point and when you get serious about finding a new role, then being familiar with the market will give you an advantage.

Moving jobs often used to be viewed with suspicion. However, this attitude is changing and the once negative image of job-hopping is now being seen as ambitious. In some industries, if you stayed at the same job for five years, you'd have some explaining to do.

This doesn't mean the job-hopper stigma has completely vanished. If you've got too many jobs on your CV, you may be pigeon-holed as unstable, disloyal, or unable to work as part of a team, especially if these jobs are typically for terms of six months or less. You need to be able to show commitment. A pattern of frequent moves will begin to affect your credibility in the recruitment market. You can make one but not three mistakes.

If your changing roles show a steady career progression, or a series of increasingly challenging assignments, then you should be able to turn it into an asset. If you left a job for a promotion, or a position with greater responsibilities, emphasise that aspect of the transition and how it has provided you with more experience and skills.

Recent graduates sometimes worry about leaving a job after only 10 or 12 months. Will they be thought flaky? Will they get another job? But sometimes things just don’t work out and employers understand that. If you're moving into a different sector, especially if it's early in your career, an employer will appreciate your honesty in explaining your position. Take the opportunity to emphasise that you're taking charge of your career and looking for new challenges. It's better to look elsewhere to develop your career if you feel your current job is not providing enough scope.

3 P's of successful interview technique

How to improve your interview technique

Becoming an exceptional candidate is something you can do. Most people don’t take the trouble. Most interviews don’t go that well; most people are bad at them. The truth is that many recruiters are not particularly good at interviewing either nor particularly effective. So, if you prepare properly, and are a good interviewee the odds are stacked in your favour.

To put in a good performance think about planning, practice and positive psychology. An interview is an audition. You need to project yourself as the sort of the person the interviewer wants to hire; as someone they want on the team.

Be Prepared

It’s not just a question of researching the organisation. You need to understand your interviewer and why he is hiring. One way or another he is seeking a resource as a solution to an identified problem. Just checking out their website and report and accounts is not enough.

Work on understanding the organisational need and how you can add value. Look at the challenges and opportunities they face and work out how to show that your experience and expertise are relevant. Explore their marketplace, competitors and the changes taking place in the industry sector concerned.

Use your network to find information about the interviewer and his preferences, the company and its culture. Use LinkedIn and ZoomInfo to gather all the intelligence you can.

Practice your answers

I don't necessarily mean being word perfect. I'm talking about what you say when anyone asks you what you do, why you left, what you have achieved and so on. Can you talk about yourself comfortably, with confidence, concisely with clarity? Practice so that you have the right words, so that you don't get flustered, so that you talk at the right pace and, crucially, know when to stop. Remember the need for consistency between words and body language.

In an interview situation you have to know your CV by heart. None of it pops into your head at the last minute; you know what you are going to say and what spin you are going to put on it. A good interviewee has learned his or her lines in advance and is focussing much more on delivery than on off the cuff replies.

What you really need to do, though, is to make the interview interactive! People trained in interview techniques are told to use the 70/30 rule. That is to say the interviewer aims to talk for about 30% of the time allotted and the candidate talks 70% of the time, in response.

The smart candidate actually wants a 50/50 dialogue. You should aim for a conversation, directed along the lines you prefer – whereby you can play to your strengths. The interviewer can only go with what you give them. This is best illustrated by using the “what was your biggest business mistake?” question. Do you really want to tell them your biggest mistake? Really? You decide!

Positive interaction is what you are aiming for in the interview situation. Make it easy for the interviewer by saying “Have I told you all you need to know on that subject? Can I give you more detail?” Build rapport, find some commonality. But remember it’s not a monologue, you are both actors in this interview and it is a dialogue, a conversation, not a solo performance.

Positive Psychology

Henry Ford famously said “If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right”. You’re motivated, you’ve done the prep and have the drive to succeed so visualise success.

Whether you call it confidence or self-esteem or self-belief, to shine at interview you need to show that you will make a good employee. Show that you are good at inter-acting and reading your situation, good at selling yourself and your ideas. Practicing your interview technique will make it so much easier to shine. There’s no need to be nervous is you believe you are a good candidate. If you believe you can do it, then you can do it. You know it because you have prepared, practiced and are ready to show what you can do.

Follow Through

After the interview send in a letter. Thank them for seeing you. Reiterate how interested you are in them and the role. Review the key points of the interview when you discussed challenges and opportunities and outline how you can help them meet these.

No guarantees but if you work at it you’ll become a better interviewee and give yourself an advantage in a tough economic climate.