Gemma Worrall's now infamous tweet

Gemma shared a woeful lack of political, geographic and spelling knowledge by misspelling Barack Obama’s name as ‘barraco barner’ and mistakenly thinking he’s was the British president (let’s not even go there) in reference to him getting involved in the Russia/Ukraine affair.

Though Gemma’s story is extreme it does highlight how people don’t realise the potential size and breadth of their audience, the effect of their words and the potential fall out on themselves should the reception be negative. I feel for poor Gemma and her comments about some of the responses she has received as a result are a sad testament of our times.

Tips for Maintaing a Healthy Social Media Profile

Here’s a few things to keep in mind before you commit your thoughts to your favourite social media.

• Remember, social media is not the same as having a chat with a friend in the pub, round the dinner table or over a cuppa of your favourite beverage.
• By putting something in writing you are creating a record that can be referred to and shared and re-shared beyond your scope of control and influence, rather than a throw away comment to a limited audience that may be forgiven and forgotten.
• If your writing is public, such as tweets on Twitter, your blog/website entries and public posts of Facebook/Google+ then it is published in a legal sense. This means you are then opening yourself to defamation and libel laws should your words be construed as unlawful.
• Remember that when you write something people can’t perceive your facial expressions and body language, they have no cues from your tone of voice, so it is that much easier to misconstrue the meaning of your words.
• Make sure you read over your words before you click send/publish, think about the way people will potentially take it. Replace any ambiguity with clear meaning where possible.
• If you think what you are intending to write is controversial then weigh up whether your desire to express your opinion outweighs your ability to deal with any fall out. If not then don’t write it, save it for a private chat with a trusted individual/group.
• We all have bad days at work and we’ve probably all had a bad boss, work situation that we need to vent about, but there’s a time and a place for it and putting it in writing is rarely the answer. Never write anything openly hostile or negative about your employer or a company you wish to work for in the future on social media. Chances are if it’s a public post there are people employed to monitor all comments about the company and it could get back to your boss/recruiter. If it’s private, well exactly who is on your friend list, in your circles, perhaps you have a work colleague there that you didn’t remember or perhaps you added your boss?
• Be honest about yourself – if you have conflicting messaging, views, opinions and data about yourself on different social media (e.g. between LinkedIn and Facebook) chances are that recruiters and employers may pick up on it and start to question your honesty and integrity.
• You are entitled to a private life, but online you have to take steps to ensure that you manage and protect it. Social media like Facebook and Google+ will automatically default you to the most public and open settings and each time they bring in new tools and features you’ll automatically be opted in.  If you want to keep a private side to your online life then make sure you regularly check your privacy settings and use tools such as the ‘view as feature’ in Facebook to see how different types of people view your profile.
• Having no public Facebook presence can raise concerns with recruiters. It shouldn’t have an effect, but it sometimes does. In some places (notably the US) recruiters are illegally asking candidates for employment to give over their personal Facebook information for recruiters to ‘peek’ at your world.  My advice is to never give this kind of access and be sure to state that what they are requesting is against the law. However, it is possible to avoid getting into this situation in the first place by putting the occasional public post up that is non-confrontational and says something about what you’re interested in and do with your time. You can see my public Facebook profile as an example of this.
• Regularly google yourself and any aliases you use. You’d be surprised by how much information can come up and how a post you might have put on the internet back when it wasn’t all that popular (if you’re as old and geeky as me) can come back to bite you in the bottom! I make a point of googling myself about once every other month and always google myself before I start looking for work.
• When you’re looking for work it’s a good idea to become a bit more publicly active on your social networks, most notably LinkedIn to increase your chances of getting noticed by recruiters in your field of expertise. I find writing about my expertise and field of work helps enormously. I contribute to groups and try to blog on my website more often.
• Don’t be afraid to sell yourself, but not too much – when I’m looking for a new contract I update all my social networks to show that I’m looking for work. However, be mindful that on your more ‘social’ social networks like Facebook your friends might not want you to keep going on about needing a job. With LinkedIn, it’s the opposite, take time to refresh your status and profile, post frequently – but only on relevant topics, be active in groups and state that you’re job seeking where appropriate. Take the time to recommend colleagues on LinkedIn that you would like a recommendation from and then request a recommendation in return. It’s a lot harder to turn down someone’s request when they’ve already done something for you.

So, in conclusion use your social media to raise your public profile in a positive way that helps attract recruiters. When using social media for personal use take a moment to think before you publish your undiluted thoughts and feelings in a public forum. Most people don’t say everything they think and feel in crowded public places, perhaps it’s time to adopt this thinking for online as well as offline interactions?

Happy posting!

Wealie x

LinkedIn is an excellent tool and social network and as I’ve previously mentioned in other blog posts I highly recommend that everyone should maintain a LinkedIn profile if job seeking and it is also a highly useful resource for learning and sharing whilst employed as well.

Disturbing Practice by Pay Day Loan Employees on LinkedIn

Of late I’ve come across a disturbing development on LinkedIn; first I’d like to recognise that this isn’t a practise perpetrated by LinkedIn, but by enterprising pay day loan company employees! Basically these loan companies are creating LinkedIn profiles which have a normal person’s name and a photo, but the majority of the profile is advertising for the loan company and a link through to their website.  These profiles then send out spam connection requests to actual LinkedIn users like myself and are also liking your LinkedIn activity posts to garner good will and perhaps attract people to view/connect with their profiles.

Unfortunately I made the mistake of accepting one of the connection requests on the iPhone app as the name sounded familiar to me.  The iPhone app doesn’t show as much information as the full LinkedIn site and in the past I’ve often accepted a connection without really checking his or her profile.  A few days later I realised my mistake when I received more spam connection requests from profiles with similarly named loan companies as their current employer and I started receiving likes on my activity updates from these and other pay day loan style profiles. I promptly went onto the full LinkedIn website and found out how to remove a connection and flag a profile as spam to rectify the situation and hopefully stem the tide of further spurious spam connection invitations – I’m still getting a few.

This is a completely unprofessional practise on the part of the pay day loan companies and the profile owners.  I am supportive of businesses marketing their services to potential customers in legitimate advertising and forums, however, there are limits and rules governing how and when they do so.  LinkedIn does not condone the use of your individual profile for blatant advertising and we as the LinkedIn community have a duty of care to report this abuse of the system when we see it happening.

What angers me more though is that this practise is being perpetrated by an industry that I have absolutely nothing good to say about as it takes advantage of ill-informed and desperate people and muddies the good name and reputation of financial services as a whole, where there are reputable companies and institutions who provide valid and vital services to our community.

All I can say is that it was a really bad tactic for these companies to target me; all they’ve done is draw my attention to their further unprofessional practise and spurred me on to add my voice to the growing cacophony of the call to regulate and stamp out this reprehensible business practise of what amounts to legalised loan sharking.

My Advice

1. Don’t accept any LinkedIn invitations without first checking out the connection’s profile to be sure that they are who they say they are, even if you recognise the name and profile picture.
2. If the invitation is spam wait until you can view the full LinkedIn website and report the invitation as spam.  The option to do this is only available on the full LinkedIn website and is shown as a third option after accept and ignore.  This will inform LinkedIn so that they can deal with the situation and hopefully deter the individual behind the profile from doing it again.
3. If you see a spam profile visit the full LinkedIn website and view the profile and then use the flag a profile as inappropriate option.  Again this will inform LinkedIn so that they can deal with the individual responsible for the profile and deter future unprofessional practise by the individual.
4. If you do inadvertently accept a spam invitation visit the full LinkedIn website and remove the connection in your contacts page and flag a profile as inappropriate.
5. Don’t, whatever your circumstances or problem take out a pay day loan, it really isn’t worth the terrible consequences that you’ll face if you default on paying back the loan and the extortionate interest rates you will incur.  It might not seem like it, but you do have options.
6. There’s always a better option than dealing with these pay day loan companies and I’ve listed some sites and organisations below that have your best interests at heart and can offer practical advice and support in getting you back on track with your finances.
7. If you know of anyone considering taking out a Pay Day Loan encourage them to learn as much as they can before doing anything and point them in the direction of alternatives that might be better for their long term financial health!

About Pay Day Loans

For those of you unfamiliar with pay day loans they are short term loans due to be paid back between a week and a month that are given on the back of proof of your wages/employment for usually small amounts, anything up to £1000 and don’t require a standard credit check that high street lenders use.

On first look they seem like a great idea; a short loan of a week or so to tide you over until pay day, but delve a little deeper and you realise that they charge extortionate interest rates of APRs in the thousands, compared with the average credit card which has an APR of between 17 and 40% and the average high street loan of around 9%.  These loans are targeted at people who are ill informed and desperate, taking advantage of individuals who are unable to obtain regular credit and most in need of professional financial guidance!  What’s worse is that often these companies are not following the standards of the Irresponsible Lending Guidance (ILG) required of all companies licensed to provide consumer credit under the Consumer Credit Act (CCA).

Lots of people who take out these loans are already in financial trouble and fall into a debt spiral as they can’t afford to pay back an initial loan and have to keep taking out further loans to pay back the balance and continually increasing their overall debt.  People can end up being unable to cover to the interest let alone the original sum.  Stories of people borrowing an initial £100 and owing up to £20,000 are sadly not uncommon, with many people taking out multiple loans from different pay day lenders and ‘rolling up’ their loans four or more times with individual lenders. Rolling up is the practise of taking out an additional loan with the provider to cover the original debt and the interest accrued.

These companies may have a professional veneer of snappy TV advertising and slick websites and sometimes shop fronts, but please do not be fooled.  We’ve all heard of loan sharks and how they are best to be avoided, well Cambridge English Dictionary’s definition of a loan shark is “a person who charges very large amounts of money for lending money to someone else” and that’s exactly what these pay day loan companies do.  The aggressive debt collection activities of these companies is also not dissimilar to the bullying tactics of the traditional loan shark as evidenced by the horror stories reported in the press and on the internet.

Before Taking out a Pay Day Loan

If you are interested in learning more about pay day loans or are considering taking one out I suggest reading this very useful article from money.co.uk: Warning: Payday Loans Can Seriously Damage your Wealth and checking out The Guardian Payday Loans section on their website.

The industry of pay day loans is under review by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and has further referred the pay day lending market to the Competition Commission citing “…concerns the OFT has about deep-rooted problems with the way competition works”.  The OFT’s Payday Lending Compliance Review Report had some shocking key findings including: “38 of the 50 lenders we inspected failed to comply with at least one of the complaint handling rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service”.  You can find out more at the OFT’s Payday lending compliance review pages on their website.

If you are struggling with your finances there is lots of information on the internet at sites such as money.co.uk, Money Super Market, MoneySavingExpert.com and The Money Advice Service.

The following organisations offer free and independent services to help you to get your finances back on track: Citizens Advice Bureau, National Debtline, GOV.UK, Step Change and Debt Advice Foundation.

You can also read about other peoples’ sad pay day loan horror stories here:

Bude & Beyond: Payday Loans – It’s A Horror Story!

Money Saving Expert: My Payday loan horror

Mirror: Suicide dad hounded for cash as he lies in hospital

The Consumer Action Group: Pay Day Loans Forum

Mail Online: Father dies…after being hounded by payday loan companies….

Mail Online: Rugby league player…hanged himself after getting into huge debt with payday loan companies.

The Sun: Payday loan debts killed our son, 18

To give myself that extra edge in my job seeking I decided to create an infographic CV and it went down really well with recruiters and the employer I ended up working with really rated it. For those of you not familiar with the term Infographics, they are graphic design tools for showing facts, figures and information in a much more visually pleasing and easy to digest format that is proving to be very popular, esepcially on the internet. If you haven’t seen any go to google or pinterest right now and type in infographics and you’ll see that they can be about almost anything, as long as there is some data and a story that the data can tell the viewer.

I must mention that I’m lucky enough to live with an exceptional graphic designer, Ben Chapman, who has helped me to pull together the infographic CV below.  If you are interested in having your own infographic CV you can email Ben at: info@benchapmandesign.co.uk to discuss your requirements. My infographic CV gives extra insight into my background, experience and skills that my traditional CV format does not and gives an at a glance guide to the type of person I am and the work roles I’m suitable for.

Ruth Weal Infographic CV

The great thing about infographics is how they can take a lot of seemingly boring data like the number of years experience I have in different sectors and visually show them in a way that is more meaningful than a paragraph of words or bullet points.  The fact that I have more years experience in Finance and IT than other sectors comes out if you read the whole of my traditional CV, but with the infographic CV you can see it explicitly with just one glance.

I think of it as an additional marketing tool, not a replacement for my CV. I still upload my word doc version to the recruitment sites. Where I use my infographic CV is on all social media such as flickr and Facebook and it’s on my Linkedin profile and my website blog. I send it out in speculative emails to companies and recruiters. I also take it along to interviews. Wherever a recruitment website has the option to upload picture files I put my infographic cv there too.

I have to warn you though, this took a lot of hard work and collaborative effort from the designer and myself.  Like any document or report an infographic is only as good as the data that you feed into it.  Here are the main things I learned from going through this process:

• The important thing is to work out what you want your infographic CV to display, what’s the story you want it to tell? Knowing you want one and knowing what you want to put in it and what you want it to say about you are very different things!
• I did a lot of research before preparing the data for mine; I looked at good and bad examples on the net, thought about why I felt they were good or bad and how I could follow the best practice and avoid the bad.
• I thought for a long time about the type of information that my traditional CV struggled to get across succinctly or explicitly and the type of additional information that I felt that recruiters would find interesting and useful to know about me.  After all, if it isn’t going to enhance my CV and recruitment prospects then it wasn’t going to be worth the effort.
• I ended up with loads of potential ideas for the content and then used a logical thought process to prioritise the information to select the items that made the cut.  One of the biggest examples of bad practice was where people tried to cram too much into their infographics and where they didn’t tell a story.
• Finally I worked closely with the designer to make sure that the end result still ‘felt’ like me.  For instance the swirls are very much a part of my Wealie Enterprises and Wealie Arts branding and something that speaks of my creativity and the about me words are my own vision of my personality.  Just like a traditional CV it is important that you feel this is something that is a true representation of who you are.

In conclusion I enjoyed the process of creating the inforgraphic CV it also helped me in my thinking to make some enhancements and changes to my standard CV as well. I must stress though that I don’t advocate replacing your traditional CV with an infographic. It’s better to think of it as an additional marketing tool, not a replacement for your CV.

When job seeking I still upload my word document version to the recruitment sites and always send the word document out to recruiters and companies, but now I also attach my infographic CV as well.

Where I really make my infographic CV work for me is on all social media such as flickr and Facebook and it’s on my Linkedin profile and my website blog. I also take it along to interviews and wherever a recruitment website has the option to upload picture files I put my infographic CVthere too.

I hope you found my tips above useful and that it has perhaps inspired you to start thinking about creating your own infographic CV. Here’s some useful links to get you started:

Visualize Me
re.vu
Kinzaa

Good luck to everyone else who is back on the job market, if you need some help and advice on job hunting I have written a series of articles about job seeking which you might find useful:

Hints and Tips for Job Seeking
Networking and Your Online Professional Presence
Using Recruitment Websites
Hints and Tips For Successful Interviews
Job Hunting and Standing Out from the Crowd
Hints & Tips for CV Writing

• Do prepare in advance of a presentation (never just wing it, it will show…..badly).
• Don’t just dump all your ideas down onto PowerPoint as a stream of consciousness!
• Do plan your presentation out on paper before you start creating it in PowerPoint – outline your story and the key slides, their objectives and key messages that you want to cover.
• Don’t assume that your audience has the same level of knowledge around the details as you do. This is doubly important when creating cascade presentations and it is key that you provide sufficient detail in speaker notes for the lowest level of knowledge.
• Do use work that other people have already completed, but be wary of using other people’s slides directly without amending them, is the info still up to date and is the slide still effective (e.g. it may have been seen too many times before or could be too technical for the audience).
  
  Make sure that when you use other people’s slide/info that you adapt them to the look & feel and tone of voice of your presentation.
• Don’t just create your presentation based on what you want to say and/or what you think your audience wants to know.
  
  The best presentations are created based on having asked the audience what they want to know about before you create your presentation. It’s a little bit of extra work, but the benefits far outweigh the extra work.
• Do send your presentation round to peers/interested parties for comment/feedback where appropriate before you present. They may be able to pick up on errors/missing info or add additional info/insight to your presentation. The best presentations are rarely created by one individual.
  
  However, be mindful of sending out your presentation to too many people; don’t lose sight of what you are communicating!
• Don’t create your presentation and then assume it will never change if you need to present it again. After every presentation you do, think about the questions that came up.
  
  If this is a presentation that has a long shelf life you might want to address the recurring questions in your presentation to avoid them coming up again.
  
  With every presentation your delivery should become much slicker and easier if you adopt this process.

Consistency of Style & Tone

• Do use a consistent look and feel throughout the presentation. When working on corporate presentations ensure that you adhere to the presentation and branding guidelines.
  
  Is your presentation using the corporate stationery/template, but even more important is it using the correct tone of voice? Large corporations often have Tone of Voice Guidelines, which are either part of the Brand/Presentation Guidelines, or part of a guideline suite.
• Don’t mix up different styles through your presentation (e.g. if you start out using Title case in your headings keep this going throughout).

Visual Accessibility

• Do break up your presentation with relevant images and/or graphics. Not everyone needs them, but many people are more visually stimulated and therefore need to see imagery or graphical representations to understand as well as just the words on the screen.
  
  When choosing imagery, try to use images that have some connection to the slide objective/key messages.
• Don’t use difficult to read or uncommon fonts that might not be saved on other people’s computers. So for instance the font Comic Sans or the Calligraphy style fonts.
  
  When working with corporate presentations there will invariably be brand guidelines on the fonts that have been approved for presentations.
• Do use a font size of 14 pt or larger – smaller fonts may mean that people will not be able to read it. Rule of thumb – If it can’t be read then it shouldn’t be on your slide!
• Don’t use garish background and font colours, remember it might be easy to see when you are less than 50 cm’s from your screen, but how will it look projected from about 6 metres away?
  
  Also, just because you like the mix of Fuchsia and Lemon doesn’t mean other people will! Stick to neutral colours & tones, blues, blacks, greens & whites if you are not working with a branded template.
• Do be mindful of people with colour blindness; avoid teaming the colours of red and green together!
• Don’t create long bullets with several sentences; try to keep your bullets to single sentences, two maximum.
• Do use bullets instead of paragraphs. People find it very hard to read off of the screen and paragraphs can make people instinctively switch off and disengage with a presentation as they appear to be hard work to read. Again – Keep it simple!
• Don’t use more than 6 bullets per slide (blank slide); if you have headers and footers on corporate stationery/template this may need to be lessened.
• Do put a clear line break between bullets, this helps to make them easier to read and makes them look neater on the screen. Remember that “presentation” i.e. the way it looks is as important as the content when communicating.
• Don’t use more than 12 words per bullet point on your slides and where possible avoid this on your speaker notes – keep it clean and simple!
  
  On speaker notes when you have more than one sentence or message per bullet break it up with clear line breaks, e.g. as per this document.
• Do keep your bullets to a single line where possible, this keeps your slides looking clean and tidy visually.

Slide Layout & Content

• Don’t try to cram too much detail/information into one slide. This is not just the number of words (though that is a big part of it), but also the number of key messages you are trying to cover.
  
  One slide should really have no more than 3 key messages unless it is an early positioning slide where you are outlining a number of messages at a high level that you then go into more detail later in the presentation.
• Do keep your slides to a minimum, maximum 15 slides for a 30 min presentation, NB this does not include Q&A time! This assumes a 2 minutes per slide presenting ratio (which most struggle to maintain).
  
  A trap that a lot of people fall into is to try and combine slides together to make a presentation appear shorter. In truth it just makes it more complicated to present, look untidy and also ruin the pace of a presentation as you can spend far too long on a single slide instead of moving on.
• Don’t put in meaningless slides, e.g. additional slide titles, agendas on a short presentations, etc.
• Do have some fun with your presentations. The presentations that work best and are the most memorable are often the ones where you have a bit of fun and engage with your audience.
  
  This goes for the content and the way in which you present it. Remember people buy people, if you don’t seem to be enthusiastic about your content why should they?
• Don’t use acronyms unless you have previously prefaced them with the actual title/phrase and all acronyms should be written out in speaker notes, especially for cascade presentations. However, as a good communicator you should try to avoid them where possible.
• Do use handouts – especially for complicated diagrams or detailed information. Depending upon the style of your presentation you can choose to give these out before, during or after your presentation.
  
  If it is a cascade presentation then you should indicate in the speaker notes that there are handouts and when these should be delivered to the audience.
• Don’t put word for word exactly what you are going to say on your slide. This immediately makes people switch off and they may cease to see either the slide or hear what you are saying.
  
  This is a common mistake that people make when presenting and is especially true in cascade presentations where the presenter doesn’t know the content and doesn’t have good speaker notes to refer to.
• Don’t overuse sound and animation – 9 times out of 10 the animation that is used is unnecessary and irritating to the audience and in a cascade presentation can cause confusion and embarrassment for the presenter.
  
  Think – do I really need to animate this slide; does the sound effect actually add anything? Animation is most useful when you are building concepts, or wish to introduce information in a trickle effect.
  
  When you do use it please ensure that you make sure that you have detailed animation notes in the speaker notes.

Timing & Delivery

• Do create detailed speaker notes using bullet format rather than paragraph to make them easier to absorb for people presenting your presentation.
  
  You should provide the following on each of your slides:
  
  *Slide Objective - What is it that you are trying to achieve/get across
  *Key Messages – What are the key messages that you need to ensure you get across within this slide (This may be the same as the slide objective)
  Supporting Messages/Information – Additional information/messages that may be useful when explaining the slide/discussing themes and details of where to find supporting documentation/handouts
  Animation Notes – Explanation of any animation used and how it builds
  Activity – Details of any activities that are to take place at this point in the presentation.

  Your first slide should also contain the following information in the speaker notes:

  *Presenter Notes – A bit of info about presentation, what/who it was created for, whether it is for cascade, who the author is and when it was created.
  *Presentation Purpose – What is the overriding aim of the whole presentation
  Presentation Key Messages (May be the same as your presentation purpose)
  How to use the Presentation – Necessary if you intend for this presentation to be used by other people and therefore should as a rule always be put in just in case

• Don’t over script your presentation – especially if it is likely to be used by other people. Keep it simple, use bullets in your speaker notes and break it down using the framework above.
  
  Remember, not everyone talks the way you do and their logic might lead them to relay information in a different order to you.
  
  By using bullets you allow a presenter the opportunity to pick out key information easier and therefore present it more naturally.
• Do allow your audience to react naturally (e.g. in a presentation if a question is asked answer it then and there where possible, if you make people wait until the end a question can be lost or people are wanting to leave and therefore reluctant to ask questions that may delay their escape).
• Don’t create a presentation which doesn’t allow time for questions or queries, remember communication is two way, you won’t have had a good presentation if no one chipped in nothing at all!
• Do rehearse your presentation before it is presented, even if you are not the one who will be presenting it.
  
  You need to rehearse it to fully understand the timing and to understand if the flow is working as you planned.
  
  Try to get an independent person (a long suffering loved one) to listen to you and give you some feedback on how the presentation went.

(*minimum requirement)

You can also download my CV Template here.

Good luck and happy hunting.  Wealie x

1. You only need to include the last 10 years of your work history except under the following circumstances:
   1. You have had a long career break for most of the 10 year period – in which case ensure you show at least
      5 – 8 years of career history prior to/after the career break.
   2. You are applying for roles that require a greater level of experience – be sure to check this is the case before you attach your CV.
2. Ensure you always have your name, address, daytime telephone number and email address clearly visible on the first page of your CV.
3. You should not include details of your personal references on your CV, these should only be provided if you are successful at interview.
4. You can tailor your CV for specific roles, career paths, industries or business sectors. E.g. you may have one CV that is tailored for marketing roles in Financial Services and another that is tailored for office management in a customer service sector.  You will have the skills and experience in both job types, but by drawing out the relevant information on a tailored CV you will make it stand out more amongst the crowd.
   
5. When tailoring your CV to meet the needs of specific role/company be sure to look at the language used in any job description, marketing materials, website of the company and mirror where possible this language in your CV.
6. Keep your CV to a maximum of two pages and makes good use of signage and white space.
7. Use short, sharp bullets and ensure that when tailoring CVs for specific roles you put the most relevant bullets at the top of each of the sections.
8. If you are running out of space cut down the number of bullets on your older roles and if necessary remove your “Additional Information, Hobbies & Interests” section.  If you are tailoring a CV, you can save space by removing any bullet points, training undertaken and qualifications achieved that are not relevant for the role you are tailoring the CV for.
9. Get someone who knows you well to review your CV before you send it out.  They will be able to help ensure that you haven’t left off any important info about your skills and experience.
10. Once you’ve completed your CV, leave it for a day or two and then come back and proof read it. If possible get someone with good attention to detail/spelling & grammar skills to proof read it for you before you publish it on any recruitment websites or send the CV to recruiters/employers.
11. Always name and Date your CV, I would suggest the following naming convention for a general CV <Your Full Name> – <MMM YYYY> and for tailored CVs <Your Full Name> – <MMM YYYY> – <Tailoring Specifics – e.g. name of role, or industry/sector type>.  This will help you to manage your CVs and ensure you don’t get caught short and not know what CV you sent where!

1. Always keep an archive of old versions of your CV on your computer/personal disk space. This will ensure you know exactly which CV you sent where and when. It can also help you reduce work when tailoring if you can find a tailored version that can be tweaked, rather than starting from scratch.

Infographic CVs
Hints and Tips for Job Seeking
Networking and Your Online Professional Presence
Using Recruitment Websites
Hints and Tips For Successful Interviews
Job Hunting and Standing Out from the Crowd

Here are a few tips on how to differentiate yourself during your job hunting and shine out like a bright beacon amongst the crowd!

Presentation

First impressions really do count and how you present yourself in all your means of communicating with recruiters and potential employers is vitally important to giving you the edge over the competition.  There are four key ways that you are likely to present yourself to recruiters and potential employers:

• Your CV
• Your Covering/Speculative Letter/Email
• Your Application Form
• Your Physical Appearance at Interview

The first three points are obviously written communications and there are some basic things you can do to ensure that they stand out:

1. Be clear and concise: don’t waffle with long meandering sentences. Use short, bulleted sentences, with clear meanings and relevant subject matter.
2. Be accurate: ensure that you do a spelling and grammar check on your written communications.  You can use in-built spelling and grammar checkers, but be mindful that these are not always correct.  Make sure to proof read your work before you send it out and if possible get someone else to read it through for you.
3. Make it accessible: the way you layout and display your communications will make a great deal of difference.  Clear, well laid out CVs, with good use of headings and white space will help your CV to be easier to read and stand out from the pile on a recruiter’s desk.
4. Keep it simple: don’t use fancy fonts and garish colours, which are difficult to read.  Keep in mind that many computers also won’t have as standard many fonts and so electronic communications may not look as you intend them to when viewed on another computer that doesn’t have the font file.  Stick with font types such as Arial or Verdana.  If you do want to use colour keep it simple and use muted rather than bright tones.  A good use of colour is to have your headings in a different colour from your body text.

When it comes to your physical appearance at an interview it’s important to dress appropriately for the industry and job level that you are applying for.  Your clothing will send a message to your interviewer about how you see and represent yourself professionally.  So, for ladies make sure skirts aren’t too short and tops aren’t too low.  I’d also go easy on the perfume and make up.  Remember, it’s not a night out; this is your professional image that you want to project.

In terms of office/corporate work you can’t go wrong with the obligatory black or grey suit with a white shirt/blouse, which is clean and ironed.  If you feel confident in different colours or types of clothing then that’s great, but remember whatever you wear you need to be able to “own it” to look and feel confident and comfortable (as much as is possible during an interview).

Personal grooming is also important, make sure you’ve bathed recently, wear a reliable deodorant (nothing like interview anxiety to cause you to sweat!), make sure your hair is tidy (ladies with long hair, wearing your hair up/tied back is a good idea to present a professional/tidy appearance), finger nails clean and trimmed and brush your teeth before you leave the house.

Tailoring

This is probably the most important subject to focus on if you want to stand out from the crowd.  Tailoring your CV and associated communications is time consuming, but if you’re serious about getting the job of your dreams and/or getting a job as quickly as possible then it is a really important element of job hunting.

Tailoring isn’t as difficult as it might at first seem, the job description/outline you receive is your greatest tool and weapon.  It gives you all the information you need to ensure that your CV, covering letter/email and application address the key skills and experience that the recruiter is looking for.  Here are some basic tips:

• Make sure your CV clearly addresses the top 3 or 4 bullets of the skills and experience requirements – NB if it’s a long list of requirements this will need to be a higher number of bullets
• Populate a list of your “Key Achievements” at the top of your CV with examples of achievements that address the skills and experience requirements of the role
• Ensure that the most relevant skills and experience bullets for each of your previous roles are at the top of your bullet lists
• If you have trouble fitting your CV onto two pages I would suggest removing skills and experience bullets that are not relevant to the role from your previous roles
• Draw attention to your strongest relevant skills and experience in a covering letter and if appropriate express interest in learning more about requirements for which you are not as strong
• Where you have a name for the recruiter address your letters directly to the individual

Be Proactive

Job seeking is definitely a lot easier these days with online recruitment websites and automated application systems.  However, there is a drawback to this revolution – rather than perhaps 100 people submitting CVs/applying for a role now potentially anyone from anywhere in the country or world could be applying for the same role you are!  As a result just doing the minimum won’t guarantee that you get very far.

Don’t assume that after you hit “send” or “submit” that the ball is now in the employer’s court.  Most of the online recruitment websites have the name of the contact, an email address and if you’re lucky their telephone number on the job description/role profile.  I recommend that when you submit an online application you follow it up with an email as an absolute minimum and would strongly suggest a call the following day if you have the details.  By calling and personally speaking to a recruiter you are guaranteeing that they will look at your application!

More and more employers are choosing to use recruitment agencies to source talent and vet CVs for their vacancies.  I would suggest that as well as signing up to recruitment websites you sign up with at least 5 reputable recruitment agencies that recruit at your skill/experience level and in your sector/background.  When dealing with recruitment agencies always keep emails from the agents and keep their contact details in your address book, phone and computer for future reference.

If there aren’t any roles around at the time that you are job seeking it’s always a good idea to give recruitment agency contacts a call so they are aware that you are currently looking and what you are looking for.  This achieves two things, firstly it establishes the sort of role you are looking for and avoids calls about roles that are not relevant and secondly and most importantly it puts you at the forefront of their mind should the right role land on their desk.

Prove It

It’s always a good idea to have examples of your work that you can direct potential employers/recruiters to or bring along to show an interviewer.  Graphic artists and Web designers always have a portfolio of their work, but why should it just be the preserve of the creative industry?

As a communicator and marketing consultant I direct recruiters/potential employers to view my website and blog and my various social media profiles and ensure that I have good recommendations on LinkedIn. At interviews I always bring examples of my templates, internal promotions, publications I have written for and tools and training that I have created.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be people based in offices though that can show examples of their work, a builder could easily take pictures of the projects/buildings they’ve been working on and upload them to a photo sharing site like flickr, or a personal blog.  Letters of endorsement from clients could be transcribed onto a blog.  A printed portfolio of the pictures of work and example letters of endorsement could be taken to an interview.

Having examples can help you to demonstrate your skills in action and help recruiters/potential employers make the decision whether to interview you and for interviewer’s it can give them an understanding of the breadth and depth of your experience.  Examples are excellent talking points and also opportunities to give you a moment to collect your thoughts while the interviewer is looking through them.

If you’re feeling very dedicated you could also create some bespoke materials for the company at which you are applying/interviewing that you’ve based on the research you completed.  This is a very useful thing to do if you are perhaps coming in to work on a specific area/topic such as a project.

Conclusion

Standing out from the crowd does require extra effort, otherwise everyone would be doing it.  However, if you are serious about getting a good job and the right package and benefits for you then you need to be serious about how you job hunt and that requires putting in the extra time and effort; but believe me it is well worth it!

Happy hunting!

Wealie x

Infographic CVs
Hints and Tips for Job Seeking
Networking and Your Online Professional Presence
Using Recruitment Websites
Hints and Tips For Successful Interviews
Hints & Tips for CV Writing

Well last week I updated the CV, sent it out to all my agency contacts, updated the recruitment websites, (see my article Using Recruitment Websites for details of all the agency and recruitment websites I recommend) applied online for some roles and updated my LinkedIn status to say I’m hunting for a new contract.  I’ve also tweeted and updated my MySpace and Facebook status to let my friends and contacts know I’m looking for a job (see my article Networking and Your Online Professional Presence for more information about using social media when job hunting).  If you want some general hints and tips about job hunting then you can also read my article aptly titled Hints and Tips for Job Seeking.

I was lucky enough that one of the agency contacts paid dividends and I have an interview set for Monday and as I have generally received very good feedback from interviewers on my interview technique, I thought it would be apt to write an article giving my hints and tips for being successful in an interview.

Happy hunting!

Wealie x

Ten Tips for Successful Interviewing

1. Do Your Research
   With the internet full of information there really is no excuse not to have done your research.  As a minimum you should check out the “About Us” page of the company you are interviewing with.  If you know the name of your interviewer you can do a google search on their name which could give you some useful information.

   If you’re going to be working on a specific topic/industry then it’s worth doing a google search on key terms and phrases or go to the industry specific pages (e.g. Delloites and the FSA for financial services) to find out more about a specific subject or just to be up to date with the latest goings on.

2. Be Prepared
   It sounds simple and it’s obviously common sense, but often it’s the simple things that we forget.  Make sure you know who to ask for at your interview, that you have their name, telephone number/email address, your interview time, the address where the interview is taking place and your travel details printed off and handy in case you need them while in transit.

   Make a list of any items that you need to take with you, including all of the above, tickets for travel, house/car keys, tissues, pad and pen, portfolio, etc. and anything you’ve been asked by the interviewer to bring along (e.g. photo id, work permit, certificates, etc) and then check it off before you leave the house.

3. Dress the Part
   It sounds cliché, but first impressions do count and it’s important that visually you fit in with or exceed the expectations of your interviewer.  However, that’s not to say that if you are a builder you should turn up suited and booted – you might just get looked at strangely!  It’s important to dress appropriately for the industry and job level that you are applying for.  Your clothing will send a message to your interviewer about how you see and represent yourself professionally.  So, for ladies make sure skirts aren’t too short and tops aren’t too low.  I’d also go easy on the perfume and make up.  Remember, it’s not a night out, this is your professional image that you want to project.

   In terms of office/corporate work you can’t go wrong with the obligatory black or grey suit with a white shirt/blouse, which is clean and ironed.  If you feel confident in different colours or types of clothing then that’s great, but remember whatever you wear you need to be able to “own it” to look and feel confident and comfortable (as much as is possible during an interview).

   Personal grooming is also important, make sure you’ve bathed recently, wear a reliable deodorant (nothing like interview anxiety to cause you to sweat!), make sure your hair is tidy (ladies with long hair, wearing your hair up/tied back is a good idea to present a professional/tidy appearance), finger nails clean and trimmed and brush your teeth before you leave for the house.

4. Leave in Good Time
   Typically your interview might be anything from 1 to 2 hrs, but the time to prepare and get to your interview will probably take just as long, if not longer.  Give yourself at least an hour to tidy up your appearance, get dressed and prepare all the items you need to take.  Personally I always decide what I’m going to wear and prepare all my items to take the evening before, which takes a bit of the time pressure off.

   Always aim to be at your place of interview at least a half hour before your interview starts, you’ll need to take this into consideration when thinking about travel arrangements.  Once you arrive you can always find somewhere to get a coffee or wait in the car for 15 minutes to compose yourself before going into the building.  It makes a good impression to arrive at reception about 15 minutes before you interview is due to start.

   Give yourself plenty of time for any travelling you need to do.  Also if you’re anything like me you might build in what I call “Lack of any sense of direction time”, which usually is taken up with aimlessly driving/walking about trying to find the location and stopping anyone I can to ask for directions, even when I have a map and written directions I’ve failed to follow adequately!

   If for any reason you are going to be late for your interview (it’s happened to me before and I’m pleased to say I still got the job!) then it’s important to let the interviewer know as soon as possible and an estimated time of arrival.  Interviewers often see a number of people on the same day, so calling early on any delay you have will help them to make a decision as to whether it would be better to reschedule your interview or fit you in later.

5. Bring Examples of Your Work
   It’s always a good idea to come along prepared with examples of your work to show an interviewer.  Graphic artists and Web designers always have a portfolio of their work, but why should it just be the preserve of the creative industry?

   As a communicator and marketing consultant at interviews I always bring examples of my templates, internal promotions, publications I have written for and tools and training that I have created.

   Having examples can help you to demonstrate your skills in action and help to inform the interviewer’s understanding of the breadth and depth of your experience.  They are excellent talking points and also opportunities to give you a moment to collect your thoughts while the interviewer is looking through them.

   If you’re feeling very dedicated you could also create some bespoke materials for the company at which you are interviewing that you’ve based on the research you completed.  This is a very useful thing to do if you are perhaps coming in to work on a specific area/topic such as a project.

6. Body Language & the Handshake
   An awful lot of research has gone into the importance of body language and in particular the handshake within business.  Whilst you don’t need to be an expert in body language, it’s useful to be aware of what your own body language is saying about you and what your interviewer’s is saying about what they think of you.  Here are a few quick tips to help you out.

   Keep your body language open, don’t cross your arms over your chest or clasp your hands tightly, these are signs of nervousness, defensiveness and fear.  The aim is to appear confident without being arrogant.  Sit in a relaxed, but upright position, keep your head up, lightly clasp your hands or take notes.  Lean in towards your interviewer when they are speaking, this signals you are interested in what they are saying.

   Maintain regular eye contact with your interviewer (if more than one interviewer direct your contact primarily to the person who has asked you a question, but occasionally glance at the other interviewers).  Be careful not to let your eye contact become a creepy stare; look away for a moment, this will also give you time to gather your thoughts.  Try not to fidget, sit calmly in your seat and keep your hands still.  Taking notes is an excellent way to focus the mind and give twitchy hands something to do!   Smile – even if you’re not feeling it, smiling makes you seem friendly, accessible and easy to talk to.  The very act of smiling also helps to relax you and engender a good mood, which will help you feel more confident in your interview.

   All the above hints and tips about body language equally apply to your interviewer, check to see whether they are maintaining eye contact and leaning in, this will tell you how interested/distracted they are.  Are they smiling, this helps to let you know if you are building rapport.  Do they mimic your own body language, this is a clear sign that you have built rapport and got them interested in what you are saying.  Does the interviewer’s body language fit with their words, if not perhaps this is a sign that they are just going through the motions.  The people that have a good idea of how they got on in their interviews are those that pay attention to their interviewers, both what they are saying and their body language.

   When it comes to the handshake there are many theories, personally my preference is for a short, firm and gentle handshake, with just the one “pump” (i.e. up and down motion), you really can’t go wrong with this.  It says, I’m pleased to meet you, I respect you, but I’m not afraid of you and that I’m a confident individual with nothing to prove and as a handshake it’s totally inoffensive.  If you suffer from sweaty palms in stress situations like interviews I suggest packing a set of travel tissues in your bag and having one in your suit pocket that you can quickly dry your hand on before you shake.  There’s nothing worse in my mind than either of these two handshakes – a limp and wet handshake and the long bone crushing, dominance challenge.  The first suggests the owner is afraid of me very nervous, lacking in confidence and perhaps a bit weak of character and the latter suggests that the owner has something to prove, could be overbearing, controlling and could possibly be over compensating.

7. Be Yourself
   Another cliché?  Possibly, but it’s a good one, after all it’s you that the interviewer is looking to find out about and it’s your personality that will have to work in the environment should you be successful and get the job.  There’s a difference between acting professionally and trying to project an image of yourself that is very different from whom you actually are.

   If you present yourself as something other than what you are then you are not doing yourself or the interviewer any favours.  It’s likely that the interviewer will see you as coming across phony and you (unless you’re a consummate liar or actor) will find it difficult to stay in character, putting additional pressure on yourself in an already potentially stressful situation.  Many of the competency based question styles that are regularly used in interviews now could also trip you up as they are designed to get at the root of the real you and how you deal with real situations.

   If you feel you have to act completely differently for an interview you have to wonder if perhaps it is not the right job for you?  The best advice I can give is to maintain a professional attitude, whilst being comfortable enough to relax and share your personality with your interviewer.  It’s the only way to build rapport with your interviewer, which will greatly increase your chances of being selected for the role.

8. Talk About What You Know
   In a way, this is very similar advice to “Be Yourself”.  It’s never a good idea to start talking about things you have little or no knowledge of, you never know when you might get tripped up.  If you’ve done your research then you can help to reduce this risk, but it’s best to be honest about your level of knowledge.  There’s nothing wrong in admitting that you don’t know everything!  In fact an interviewer would probably respect you for it.

   If a question is asked that you don’t know the answer to, tell them you can’t answer it.  If relevant you can always qualify your answer by saying that it’s something you’d be willing to learn more about once you got the job.

   Try to focus your interviewer onto the topics where you can demonstrate your skills and experience to best advantage.  However, it’s important not to over use one skill or example experience during an interview.  Talk about a wide variety of work experiences and skills that will be of benefit to the role.  When people talk from a position of knowledge and experience they naturally become more confident, which will also help you through the interview.

   Finally don’t babble or waffle, try to keep your answers clear and succinct.  Remember you’ve got between 1 and 2 hours to convince this person that you are the right person for the job, so don’t waste that time endlessly repeating yourself and waffling.  Take time to compose yourself before you begin answering a question – really there’s nothing wrong with a bit of silence and your ability to step back and assess your thoughts before you speak is a skill that will definitely be appreciated by your interviewer.

9. Remember You’re Interviewing Them too!
   It amazes me how often people forget that an interview is two-way.  The interview is as much an opportunity for you to assess whether the role, company, location, pay and benefits is right for you as it is for the interviewer to assess your suitability.

   Make sure you ask all the questions that are important to you, will the role provide you with the right level of challenge and how much overtime you need to put in?  Check to see whether the benefits (working from home, holiday, car allowance, flexi time, childcare, health care, maternity leave, etc) and pay meet your personal requirements.  Is the culture and ethics of the company compatible with your own?  What opportunities for advancement are there?  How stable is the company and what level of job security will you be provided?  What are the pension provisions?  It’s important to get as thorough an understanding as possible through your research and the interview before you decide whether to accept the role.

   A lot of people think that they can’t turn down a job offer, or feel intensely guilty if they do.  It’s too easy to be swayed by persuasive recruitment agents and HR representatives, but if you didn’t feel it was right for you during the application and interview then my advice would be not to take the job.

   If you’ve been offered a role, this is also a bargaining position, perhaps the only thing about the job that made you feel you don’t want to take it could be changed.  If you’re in this kind of a situation it’s worth starting a dialogue with the recruitment agent/employer to see if there is any opportunity to make the deal fit both yours and their needs.  It’s important to remember that the employer needs an employee and you are their chosen candidate so you don’t have to take a job that’s offered to you and it is acceptable to discuss a change to the terms to meet your personal needs.  Worst case scenario the employer says no and then you have to decide whether to take the role or look for something more suitable.

   In times like these it’s easy to get panicky and just take any job we’re offered on the pay and terms the recruitment agent/employer has given, because the media would have us believe that we’re lucky to have any job, let alone the one we want.  However, if you speak to recruiters and employers they often paint a gloomy picture of not being able to find the right candidates for roles, especially in specialist and niche areas.  There are plenty of jobs out there and temping or freelance work is something you can do to supplement your income whilst you are looking for a role that’s right for you.  There’s nothing worse than getting trapped in a job that you don’t enjoy and often the warning signs are there in your application and interview process.  You could find yourself looking for a new job fairly quickly which could have been avoided if you had not accepted the job in the first place.  So my advice is to listen to your instincts and make informed decisions.

10. Treat it as an Experience, Don’t Take it “too” Seriously
    In the end the thing to remember is that it is just an interview and it might not be your last, even if you do get the job.  In the scheme of things whether you get on well with the interviewer or not, whether you thought it went well or awful and whether you were the successful candidate really doesn’t matter.  Life will go on regardless of the outcome of this moment in your life and it is important to keep your perspective, remain positive and just not take yourself “too” seriously.

    The right role is out there for you and just like you’ve got to kiss a few frogs to find your prince/princess you may well have to go through a fair few interviews until the right job finds you.   It’s best to enter an interview thinking about the experience it will give you rather than pinning your hopes on the outcome.  Each interview will give you new experiences and help you to hone your ability to project your skills and experience in an engaging way to interviewers.  By looking at the guaranteed pay-out of an interview (i.e. experience and knowledge) it is much easier to remain positive and upbeat about your time spent job seeking, which in times like these can be a bit longer than we’d like.

    To leave you on a less serious note here are three funny comics on interviewing and handshakes by The Oatmeal, they’re well worth a look.

    The 6 Crappiest Interview Questions
    The 10 Types of Crappy Interviewees
    The 9 Types of Crappy Handshakes

Hints and Tips for Job Seeking
Networking and Your Online Professional Presence
Using Recruitment Websites
Job Hunting and Standing Out from the Crowd
Hints & Tips for CV Writing
Infographic CVs

Body Language in an Interview by Fastlaners on the blog Chronicles of the lost graduate.

As my background is in communications and working as a self-employed contractor in the South West of England I have also included specialist sections on Communications, Marketing and PR and on contracting and details of agencies in the South West of England.

Happy Hunting!

Wealie
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Why use Recruitment Websites?

I sometimes look back on the days when I first started looking for work and wonder how I managed to get it all done, have a semblance of a social life and not get disheartened by the rejection letters or worse the “no response”.  Using online recruitment websites helps to reduce/make easier the physical labour, communication and repetitive tasks.  However, the core principles behind getting yourself noticed and ultimately employed remain the same – see my Hints and Tips for Job Seeking article for more on these principles.

Apart from the labour saving benefits of using recruitment websites it is also worth noting that these days they are not so much a choice as fast becoming a necessity.  The labour saving benefits of using them are not confined to the job seeker, but also to recruitment agencies and employers looking for candidates.  It is so much easier for them to search the internet for likely candidates and to find out more about them through their online presence.  To find out more about maintaining an online professional presence see the second article in my job seeking series Networking and Your Online Professional Presence.

How to use Recruitment Websites

It really is simple to use recruitment websites, the main work is in the initial setting up of your user profile.  Once you’ve set up your profile, uploaded the relevant documents (CVs/Covering Letters) and created a saved job search or two you’re ready to go.  Next time you visit the website you simply log in, click on your saved search, or look at the role categories and browse the job summaries.  If you are interested in a role you can open the full role profile and then if you want to make an application you click on the button to apply and fill in any additional information requested and attach the relevant CV and Covering letter.

So what do you need to register a user profile?  Although each of the recruitment websites has their own systems for registering and they all have the common elements that you need to complete.

Hint – When you’ve created your first profile, copy all the free text and save it on your computer.  This will allow you to reuse the information again on other recruitment websites and also ensure consistency between your profiles.

Here are most of the common elements that recruitment websites will likely request (you may not be required to fill out all the information, but I strongly recommend that you be as thorough as possible – this will help with making your profile more attractive to recruiters and also help to  pre-populate any applications you wish to make):

1. Contact information
2. A short summary about yourself
3. Your qualifications and education
4. Your work history (with a brief summary of each role & your responsibilities)
5. Your skills (an opportunity to select your key skills and level of ability)
6. Vocational qualifications and training
7. Professional memberships
8. A short summary of the next position you are seeking
9. Role preferences (i.e. part-time or full-time, temporary, contract or permanent)
10. Your commutable distance (i.e. how far from home your willing to travel to work each day)
11. Your current salary/salary expectations
12. The ability to upload a copy of your CV/create a CV on the system (you may also be able to create multiple CVs designed for different role/profession types)
13. The ability to upload a copy of a covering letter/create a covering letter on the system (you may also be able to create multiple covering letters designed for different role/profession types)
14. Set up a detailed saved job search (ensuring you don’t have to input all your parameters every time you want to do the same type of search and also allowing you to have it emailed to you on a regular basis)

It takes a bit of time to set up all your profiles, uploading your CV and creating cover letters, but once you’ve put in the initial work, it can be relatively easy to keep them up to date as long as you keep on top of them and are aware of what is on each of them.  Take your time setting up your profile, don’t rush, fill everything in as honestly, clearly and succinctly as possible and keep a record of all your free text entries on your computer.

Once you’ve got a job you don’t need to delete your profile either, simply select that you don’t want it to be visible in searches at the moment, this will remove it from the public search.  This way next time you’re looking for work you can just update all the information and documents and then select to make it visible again.  This is an especially useful function when you do a lot of short-term temporary/contract work.

It’s worth bearing in mind the following points when using recruitment websites:

1. Only sign up for recruitment websites that have roles available in your desired profession and at the skill/experience level you are seeking a position for.
2. Ensure that you only sign up with as many recruitment websites as you can personally keep up to date.
3. Ensure you bookmark all your recruitment websites and your profiles on them.
4. Keep a record on your computer of all CVs and Cover Letter templates that you upload to your recruitment website profiles.
5. Whilst job searching regularly update your CV (min once every 2 months) on each of the recruitment websites. (This ensures you always stay near the top of the search lists as they always show most recent CVs first)
6. Be careful to check regularly that your profiles on different recruitment websites don’t contradict each other.
7. Create specialised CVs and covering letters for specific roles wherever possible.
8. Always follow up an online application with an email and/or telephone call to the recruiter.

Generic Recruitment Websites

These are the generic recruitment websites, which tend to recruit for entry level up to middle management and a few senior manager roles.  They have roles from a wide variety of professions and sectors, from IT to drivers, Pharmaceuticals to catering.  They usually have a bias to permanent full time roles on their lists, but they do have part time, temporary and contract as well.

Jobsite is my first port of call in the generic recruitment websites as it does have a large number of specialist and senior contract roles that are often not on the other generic sites.

Specialist Marketing, PR & Communications Agency Websites

These are links to the recruitment websites of specialist recruitment agencies.  Many of these websites give you the ability to register and create a profile in the same way as the generic recruitment websites.

These specific recruitment agencies I find best for looking for contract/interim or permanent internal communications/change communications/employee engagement and marketing roles and/or within financial services.

Artis HR –  Specialising in Employee Engagement, HR and Internal and Change Communications roles primarily within the South West of England
Sanderson - Based in Bristol and focusing on IT, Govt/Defence, HR, Finance, Business Change & Transformation roles based in the South West
VMA Selection – Specialist Communications and PR agency
Badenoch & Clark – Specialist Communications, Marketing and PR agency
Ball and Hoolahan – Specialist Marketing agency
Michael Page International – Marketing and Communications agency
Chapple – Specialist Change and Communications agency
Hudson – Wide field of roles, but with many in the Financial Services sector
Xchange Team – Marketing, Media and Communications agency
Aston Carter – Specialist Consultancy, Finance and IT
JFL Search & Selection – Specialist Internal Communications, PR and Marketing Communications agency
Consult Executive – HR agency recruiting specialists in Organisational Development, Talent Management, Diversity and Change Management and experts in Learning and Development, Reward, Employee Relations and Communication.
Hays Marketing – Marketing arm of the Hays recruitment agency

Melcrum Internal Communications Jobs

Melcrum – Internal Communications Jobs is the recruitment website element of Melcrum, which is a privately held research and training business who provide support to senior-level communicators.  They create a number of recognised training programmes that help communicators to achieve recognition and qualifications within the profession.

The Internal Communications Job website brings together the cream of the mid to senior level internal communications roles from the most respected specialist agencies and across the globe into the one location.  If you are an internal communicator looking for your next role then signing up with the Melcrum – Internal Communications Jobs website is a must.

The website also has PR/marketing agency links and has a wealth of quality roles regularly uploaded and links to some of the best recruitment agencies specialising in communications, HR, Marketing and PR.  I personally found many of the specialist agencies mentioned in the previous section through browsing the Melcrum website.

Other articles in the job seeking series:

Hints and Tips For Job Seeking
Networking and Your Online Professional Presence
Hints and Tips For Successful Interviews
Job Hunting and Standing Out from the Crowd
Hints & Tips for CV Writing
Infographic CVs

Happy hunting!

Wealie
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LinkedIn  - Building Connections

The professional networking site you really need to focus on building a profile with is LinkedIn.  Basically LinkedIn works like a cross between Facebook, Twitter and Facebook groups, but for professional and business relationships.

It’s a fantastic resource for maintaining existing business relationships, reacquainting with old ones and building new relationships whether they be with potential employers, recruitment consultants, employees, suppliers, business partners or clients.

There are a wealth of tools included on the site and the degree to which LinkedIn will be of use to you will very much tie in with how much you utilise these tools.  The site allows you to do the following:

• Set up connections with people that you have had a professional relationship with in some capacity in the past or present
• Communicate with your network through internal email style messages, discussion groups and status updates
• Provide and receive professional endorsements of  your contacts through the writing of personal recommendations
• Meet new people by requesting introductions through your contacts or by joining discussion groups and requesting contacts
• Update your status in a similar fashion to Facebook and you can link your status updates to show your Twitter Feed as well
• Set up discussion groups to build niche networks and/or to discuss topics of interest to your profession or business sector
• Provide links to all your other online profiles

It’s a great place to connect with your work colleagues old and new, build a reputation through your recommendations, get introduced to potential colleagues through your network contacts and find out about what is happening within your industry through discussion groups.  Discussion groups are also a great way of making new contacts and finding out about vacancies before they are advertised on the job sites.  I have a number of recruitment agents as contacts on LinkedIn, so they can always see when I’ve completed a contract and looking for new work when I update my status.

I personally think that LinkedIn is on its way to becoming as essential as your CV in terms of job hunting.  I would advise everyone to take the time to invest in setting up their profile as soon as possible.

Google Profile – Advertising Your Presence to the World

It’s also a good idea to set yourself up with a Google Profile.  The best way I can describe it is like having an online advert for you as an individual person.  If used correctly it can pull together the links to all your online profiles in one handy place.

You can add a short biography of yourself, plus information about where you’ve lived, where you currently work and have worked in the past and where you went to school.  You can also add photos by linking to an online photo sharing service such as Flickr or Picasa which then displays the photos you have or a selection of them that you choose.

You have the option to put in personal contact information, but I would advise being circumspect about the information you share here.  You can restrict access to the information to your contacts,  but that would mean you could only add contacts that you were willing to share that information with, which could be quite restricting for you.  To be honest this is an area of the Google Profile I would advise not using unless you are putting in business contact information and even then it could open you up to receiving spam emails, junk mail and unsolicited sales telephone calls!

Finally the other option you can add to your Google Profile is connecting a Google Buzz account to display your status updates.  Google Buzz is very similar to Twitter, but with a bit more functionality, but considerably less take up than Twitter at the moment.  Whether Google Buzz will become more popular is debatable and having more than one status messaging service can be harder to keep up to date.  However, if you use a service like Tweetdeck which allows you to update multiple status messaging functions from the one programme, the issues over maintaining content on each of these is greatly reduced.  Tweetdeck is a multiple platform programme which you can use on your Desktop, iPhone, Android Phone, iPad and within the web browser Google Chrome.  Tweetdeck allows you to update the following status updates: Facebook, *Facebook pages, *Facebook groups, *Foursquare, **LinkedIn, Twitter and *Google Buzz.

*Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Foursquare and Google Buzz cannot be updated on the iPhone, iPad and Android Phone Tweetdeck Applications.
**LinkedIn can only be updated through the desktop version of Tweetdeck.

Twitter & Google Buzz – Tell the World What You’re Doing

Twitter

Twitter is a social networking/micro blogging site.  Essentially what that means is that it allows you to write and read messages known as tweets, which are a maximum of 140 characters long.  Think of it as an online text messaging service, but one that publishes your messages to the whole world!  It is one of the most popular social networking services and has been growing rapidly since it first went online in 2006.

What you can do on Twitter:

• Follow the tweets of people that are friends or share your interests
• Create lists of people tweeting, such as people who all tweet about a specific topic, e.g. communication, or from a specific location, e.g. San Francisco, or to group all your friends who tweet into one list
• View only the tweets from the people on the specific list – As the number of people you are following rises then you will find lists very useful to ensure that the most important tweets you want to read do not get lost
• Send direct messages directly to specific people (these will be private messages,  visible only to the person you send them to)
• Gain a following of people who are reading your tweets
• View the trending topics (what people are tweeting most about) and add your own tweet about a trending topic

So how will using Twitter help with your job search?  Firstly it’s a great place to announce that you are looking for work and letting those people who follow your Twitter stream know that you’re available for work.  Secondly a number of recruitment agencies have started using Twitter and it is a good way to see when they are looking for people to fill roles without having to call them.  Equally if they are following you then when you tweet that you are currently looking for a role they will see it.  Thirdly you can view trending topics and/or search Twitter’s tweets for keywords and terms such as “Jobs” or “Job Seeking”.

In addition to the benefits of looking for work, Twitter is also another resource you can use to promote the work and resources that you make available online.  A photographer can have a link to his or her Flickr account to send a tweet every time they upload a new photograph.  You can do the same thing with videos on YouTube, for example if you were an aerobics teacher, you could upload a video demonstrating your teaching abilities.

Google Buzz

As I mentioned above Google Buzz is another social networking/micro blogging service and is very similar to Twitter, but with not as high a take up of users online at present.  However, where Google Buzz has an edge over Twitter is in the additional functionality of the service.

What you can do with Google Buzz in addition to what can be done with Twitter:

• Because Buzz is part of the Google family it has excellent options for integrating with the other Google services such as Google Profile, GMail, Google Reader, Picasa and YouTube, that you can easily set up when you apply for an account
• You can allow your buzzes (messages) to appear on your Google Profile
• It also allows you to link in seamlessly with other non-Google services such as Flickr, Facebook and Twitter
• It allows you to see thumbnails of pictures and links to the larger picture within an individual buzz

Google Buzz has the same advantages to job seekers as Twitter does, so I won’t repeat the benefits here.

As with all the online social networking applications, the degree to which Twitter & Google Buzz will work for you, depends on the time you are willing to put in.  I won’t lie, maintaining a useful and regular online presence takes time and effort, but the dividends you receive are well worth the hard work and time spent.

Your Facebook Profile, Pages & Groups – Leverage the Power of Friends

Although Facebook is primarily a social tool designed for fun a lot of businesses and individuals are using it in a professional capacity.  Whether you choose to use your personal profile, a Facebook Page or Group very much depends upon what you are looking to achieve with them.

For most job seekers using your profile will be sufficient, but if you want to demonstrate your skills and experience, or sell a product or service of your own then a Facebook Page or Group might be the way to go.  I’ll talk a little about each and what you can do with them in terms of job seeking and raising your profile.

Your Individual Facebook Profile

Although your individual profile is likely to be primarily social, you can use it for professional purposes in the following ways.

• Share details about your job seeking through your status updates
• Message your friends on Facebook asking them if they know of any work going at their place of employment, or anyone in their network looking for people
• Join Facebook groups that are relevant to your profession, skills and experience or recruitment agencies and become an active member of discussions, chat with other group members and contribute to discussions
• “Like” Facebook pages of  recruitment agencies, employers you would like to work with, business partners, suppliers, etc, so you can keep up to date with what they are doing and make them aware of your profile

A Facebook Page

You may want to create a Facebook page, which keeps your professional work separate from your personal Facebook information, or to specifically draw attention to it.  People can “Like” your page so that any status updates and activity that happens on your page is shown on their news feed.

A page has all the functionality of your profile, (chat, status updates, photos, videos, discussions and events, message people who have “liked” your page, etc) and you are not limited to the number of people who can like your page, whereas you can only have a maximum of 5000 friends on Facebook.

Probably the most useful features are the analytics of the number and frequency of visitors to your page and linking into Facebook’s advertising system to advertise your page.  This is a particularly good tool if you are offering a product or service to people.

I personally have two pages, one that focuses on my artistic outputs and another that I share with a friend as part of our Dance Dynamic business for dancers to find out about what’s going on with classes and events and ask us questions.

My personal page is updated primarily automatically through linking it to my various other social networking sites and through TweetDeck.  My primary social networking outlets are my Website/Blog, Facebook and Twitter along with my specialist sites Flickr and YouTube.  By setting up automatic updating on my Facebook page it remains current without me having to physically go in and add content.

A Facebook Group

Groups are a better tool to use if you are looking to bring a group of people together to discuss specific topics such as a single business or a certain profession.  By setting up a group like this you are taking on a certain degree of responsibility for ensuring that in the early stages there is content to keep people coming back.  Successful groups have a lively group of members that regularly contribute to it and have all the same functionality as pages, but also group chat and the ability to message all group members and invite them all to events.

It’s worth noting that you can add other people as administrators on both pages and groups to help spread the responsibility of keeping them up to date. However, if you want to keep full control of what is posted then a self managed page is probably the best way to go.

Slideshare & Brainshark – Demonstrate Your Skills

I’ve talked a little bit about how you can offer something back to the world through your online presence, such as participating in the Facebook and LinkedIn professional groups, or providing links to good resources through your buzzes or tweets.

If you work in the corporate world and/or have a corporate profession or simply want to share your skills, experience and knowledge then you might also find the following services useful.

Slideshare

Slideshare is an online resource for sharing presentations and documents with the web.  Basically you can upload an unlimited number of presentations and documents (plus a maximum of 3 videos) that can be viewed in a slideshow format and if you allow it, downloaded by users.  Users can favourite the content and they can also use the usual social media ability to share it via a number of different services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz and various Blogging providers.  Viewers can also embed the content in a web page or blog post.

I use it to share a selection of my communications tools, training and templates that I have developed along with advice about communications.

In terms of supporting my job seeking this gives potential employers a place to view the output of my work before they even decide to get me in for interview.  In terms of generating business for my consultancy work potential clients can see the calibre of my work and get an idea of exactly what I do and how I can help.

An added benefit to Slideshare is that you can also link the account to your LinkedIn profile so that your latest update will be displayed on your LinkedIn Profile page.

The basic service is entirely free, easy to sign up and use.  There is a sliding scale of  monthly subscription pro plans that offer an ad free service, additional space for video content, lead generation, private uploads, analytics, buzz tracking and LinkedIn extras, but I personally haven’t felt the need to upgrade to this.  The pro plans start at $19 US Dollars a month for the Silver package, $49 for the Gold and $249 for the Platinum.

A word of warning though, if you are looking to sell your work to clients you might want to think about how much information you are prepared to give away for free here!

My Brainshark

My Brainshark is an individual free version of the web based communication tool Brainshark, which is becoming extremely popular with large corporates as a means of marketing and communicating internally and externally.

Essentially My Brainshark allows you to upload presentations, documents and videos to it in a similar fashion to Slideshare, which it then converts into web based audio/visual movies.

It has all the functionality of the free Slideshare plus the following:

• Add audio to your presentations and documents by phone, microphone or MP3, which follows the animation of your slides
• Provide working links to web pages and/or documents
• Add in user response questions such as interactive surveys or user polls
• Track your viewing results

As my content on My Brainshark is primarily of a training nature I was invited to become a learning provider (there is no additional cost to this and you can apply and will then be assessed as to whether your content is suitable), which allows you to charge users for your training and materials and to categorise them as learning content.  This is a great added free benefit that raises its usefulness above Slideshare.

As with Slideshare there are some paid subscription pro versions the My Brainshark Pro at $9.99 or the My Brainshark Pro Trainer at $19.99 a month, which provide additional services of adding private content, adding passwords to your presentations for added security and improved reporting tools.  The Pro Trainer also gives you the ability to provide testing and scoring, issue certificates of completion and integration with Learning Management Systems (LMS) and to copy and merge slides and audio from other presentations you have uploaded.

If I had to choose between Slideshare and My Brainshark I would have to say My Brainshark.  The free version has much more functionality and the pro prices are much more reasonable.  That said I would recommend keeping one or two relevant items on a free Slideshare account to connect it with LinkedIn.

Fickr/Picasa & YouTube – Display Your Talent

If your profession is an artistic one, or you want to raise the profile of your artistic endeavours then you might want to use a social media service to display your talent to the world.

Flickr, Picasa and YouTube are by no means the only sites that offer these types services, but they are ones that I am most familiar with so here’s a brief outline of what you can do on them.

Flickr

Flickr is part of the Yahoo group of web services and is by far the best free photo sharing service available on the internet.  It’s the only site of its kind where you retain 100% copyright of the content you upload to it.  You can upload photography, art and illustrations, graphic art and videos.  The video content is quite restrictive and I would recommend that you use YouTube as your primary site for showcasing your videos.  However, if you rarely upload videos and they are more often slideshows of photography or art then flickr will be sufficient for your needs.

Flickr allows you to organise your photos into sets and collections (collections are only available through the flickr pro account) and add them to groups and galleries.  A large community of photographers and those interested in photography or just your friends can view, comment on, share, add to galleries, invite to groups and favourite your content.

You can add people as contacts with varying degrees of access to your content and you can set privacy for individual pictures to make them private, friends and family only, friends only, family only or for contacts only.  This gives you a great deal of control over how and where people view your content.

You can upload, view, comment, favourite, share via the usual social networking services, blog your uploads, tweet them and embed pictures into web pages and blogs.  You can add tags for searching and add geo tag locations.

There are a number of affiliated services such as the creation of large scale canvas prints, photo book creation, normal snapshot prints, T-Shirts, Stickers, Mug printing, etc.  An offline flickr uploader makes uploading content to the site very easy and there are also iPhone, iPad and Android Phone applications to view, add and update your flickr content.

You can view, join or create flickr groups, which is a great way to meet new people and share your photos with a wider audience.  There’s a wide variety of people on flickr, from people just sharing their snapshots to amateur and professional photographers.  The community is a wonderful place to learn and share, provide feedback and encouragement.

The free version of flickr does limit the number of items you can upload to 200 and limits the number of sets you can create and the number of groups you can submit an item to, plus you have the ads on the site.  The pro account cost $24.95 US Dollars a year or $47.99 for two years.  What you get is an unlimited number of uploads, sets, collections and allows you to submit a single item in up to 60 groups.  It gives you access to your original files, statistics on the viewing of your items and photostream as a whole, high definition playback for any HD videos you upload and Ad free browsing. Also, they usually throw in a little carrot of a gift, which at the moment is a free photo book. If you have a pro account that lapses, don’t worry all your content remains on flickr’s servers and is accessible again when you renew.

Personally going pro on Flickr is so cheap that if you are serious about exhibiting your photography and art you really can’t say no.

Picasa

Picasa is essentially Google’s version of Flickr.  All the same services are available, but arguably Flickr is the photo sharing of choice for two main reasons, firstly the size and professionalism of the community and secondly the retention of 100% copyright of your content.

Where Picasa has an edge on Flickr is that it also has a desktop programme that allows you to store all of your content offline.

YouTube

YouTube does for video sharing what Flickr does for photo sharing.

You can upload, view, share, favourite and comment on videos.  There is the option to embed the code for your videos in blogs and to share it via a plethora of social media services.

Even if you don’t add video content, having a YouTube account is a good idea so that you can see all your favourite videos without having to search for them again.

YouTube like flickr also has iPhone, iPad and Android phone applications to make sharing on the move easier.

If you have a personal blog or website, another benefit to using these services is that you can link to the content without having to host it on your site, thereby reducing the amount of hosting space and bandwidth (the amount of data transfer generated from your site).

ArtFire & iStockphoto – Sell Your Wares

Whilst YouTube, flickr and Picasa are great sites for showcasing what you can do, you cannot make money directly from these sites.

If you want to make some money from your art then you need to be looking at sites like ArtFire and iStockphoto.  Again ArtFire and iStockphoto are by no means the only sites you can use, however they are the ones I’m most familiar with.

ArtFire

ArtFire is a community marketplace set up for users to buy and sell their handmade arts and crafts, without the need for their own website and e-commerce functionality.

If you’re just beginning or don’t create a lot of items, but would like to sell what you have then ArtFire is a great place to start.  If you’re a well established artist then ArtFire brings the added benefit of a greater number of visitors and potential buyers for your items.

ArtFire pulls together a diverse community of artists and is a great place to share ideas, get inspiration and advice from other users.

iStockphoto

iStockphoto does for photography what ArtFire does for arts and crafts.  You can buy and sell stock photography, vector illustrations, video footage, audio clips and tracks, and Flash media.  Simply set up a free account, buy some credits and download the content you need.

There are subscription services as well as the pay as you go options to purchase stock.  The subscription services are best for those people who are purchasing a lot of stock on a regular basis.

If you want to sell your work through the service you have to go through an additional sign up feature and complete a little quiz, it’s all free though.  In terms of getting paid for your stock, you receive a base royalty rate of 15% per download and you can sign up to an Exclusive programme where you receive between 22-45% royalties per download, but it is much more restrictive in terms of how you can use your stock elsewhere.

Conclusions

When using any of these online social networking applications, the degree to which they will work for you, depends on the time you are willing to put in.  I won’t lie, maintaining a useful and regular online presence takes time and effort, but the dividends you receive are well worth the hard work and time spent.

Other articles in the job seeking series:

Hints and Tips for Job Seeking
Using Recruitment Websites
Hints and Tips For Successful Interviews
Job Hunting and Standing Out from the Crowd
Hints & Tips for CV Writing
Infographic CVs

The nature of contracting means that I’ve always got an eye on the job market and numerous feelers out with relevant recruitment agencies, network groups and online recruitment site profiles.  At least once every 18 months I’m back in the job seeking cycle looking for my next contract.  Not to blow my own trumpet (but here goes) I have been pretty successful in my job seeking and managed to stay positive and focused in my job searching even during lean times.

Gradually I’ve found myself giving advice to a number of people with greater frequency (especially when people then send other people my way) and I seem to be saying, writing up or copying and pasting a lot of the same information and advice.  It got me thinking that perhaps this was something that a lot of people would find useful, so I’m writing a series of articles with advice, hints and tips and resources for job seekers. In this first article I’ve talked about the changing face of the job market and given some broad hints and tips about job seeking.

Please feel free to pass this information on to your own family, friends and colleagues, I hope the information will be useful to you.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

Wealie
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The Changing Face of the Job Market

Gone are the days when you needed to print numerous copies of your CV and covering letters, then spend hours walking the streets to put your CV in front of recruitment agencies and potential employers.  Then there were the hours spent ringing round companies, colleagues and people in your network to see what opportunities they may be aware of and to ask them if you could send them a copy of your CV.  Not to mention all the hours spent filling in the same information on repetitive application forms until you got cramp in your hand and licking stamp after stamp until your lips cracked and then more walking to the post box leaving you dead on your feet!

I sometimes look back on those days when I first started looking for work and wonder how I managed to get it all done, have some semblance of a social life and not get disheartened by the rejection letters or worse the “no response”.  However, though much of the physical labour, communication and repetitive tasks have been cut down or made easier, the core principles behind getting yourself noticed and ultimately employed remain the same and I’ve tried to cover the main ones in my hints and tips below.

Some General Hints and Tips for Job Seeking

1. Stand out from the crowd – There are a lot of people out there competing with you for jobs, so you need to stand out from the crowd to be noticed, wherever possible find innovative ways to communicate your skills and experience to potential employers. Think about what it is that you can bring to potential employers in terms of skills, experience and enthusiasm that will add benefit and deliver results for their business and then make sure that all your written materials and the way in which you speak at interview sell these aspects to them.
2. Presentation is everything - Whether it’s your LinkedIn profile, your CV, your job seeking website profile, your covering letter, or the suit you wear to the interview – How you present yourself is vital and first impressions still count.
   So, make sure your written work (e.g. Job website profiles, CV, Covering Letters) is nicely presentable and easy to view, reads well, is relevant, clear, concise and to the point (remember, less is definitely more) and don’t forget to check it is has correct spelling and grammar.

   Make sure your physical appearance is clean, smart and presentable at interviews, wear appropriate clothing, make up and accessories (where applicable).  Remember, it’s not just your physical appearance that is part of the impression you make, hold your head high, hold good posture, shoulders back, no slouching and speak clearly with confidence and enthusiasm.  You can convince them you want the job with your whole being – body, mind and speech!

3. Remain confident, positive and enthusiastic – People buy people and they react much better to a smile than a frown.  A less experienced/skilled person who appears confident, positive and enthusiastic, speaks clearly and concisely will do much better in an interview than someone who mumbles semi-incoherently, doubts their own worth, has a negative attitude and low levels of enthusiasm and energy.

   Now I know this one is easier said than done, people often start out positive, but we’re only human and when it seems like you are continually being rejected or looked over it is hard not to get a hit to your self esteem and if you’ve had the misfortune to be made redundant against you wishes this can start you out on the back foot, which is difficult to bring yourself back from.  For a lot of people (myself included) having a job plays a vital role in bolstering our self confidence, sense of self worth and can be directly linked to our self esteem.  It’s important to acknowledge this about ourselves, but look to find other sources of inspiration in our lives for these elements of our personalities.

   If you find your positivity and enthusiasm is falling look for other things in your life to bolster this, perhaps take up a new hobby, or do some volunteer work, do something that makes you feel happy and good about yourself.  Above all remember, that the rejection and lack of response is not meant to be personal, even though it sometimes feels that way.In unsettled times like these, the difficulties and challenges of finding a job are greatly enhanced as you are likely to be up against increased numbers of competition and the employers are much more choosy about the skills and experience they require.  All of which means you may get more rejections and no responses than you would like and finding a role may take longer than you anticipated.

4. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket - We all have our individual preferences of where, for who and for how much we would like work, but by being too picky you can extend your job seeking period a lot longer.

   Apply for as many suitable vacancies as you can, across as wide a commute area as possible, remember you don’t have to take a job that you’re offered, but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to choose between a few different offers rather than nervously waiting for a response from just one!

   Sign up with as many relevant agencies as you can, local, large general and specialised agencies.  For instance, Reed is an established general recruitment agency with branches across the country, recruiting across a wide range of roles from unskilled to professions in diverse business sectors and levels of seniority across a broad book of business clients of all sizes.  In contrast to Reed some of the small independent recruitment agencies recruit to place people in a local area of around 30 – 50 miles, focusing on more junior office and unskilled roles, in maybe one or two business sectors, with a small book of small to medium sized business clients.

5. Use a variety of relevant tools – There are many job seeking resources out there, so make the most of as many of them as you can reasonably manage, social networking sites, online recruitment agencies, LinkedIn, your personal website/blog, professional bodies, your facebook page, the Job Centre, face to face networking events, newspaper job listings, speculative enquiries, etc.
   You also need to ensure that you’re using relevant tools, for instance if you are a senior specialist manager (say an engineer) signing up with a recruitment agency that specialises in junior to mid manager office roles will not be a productive use of your times and highly unlikely to yield results!
   Make sure you thoroughly understand how the resources you are using will benefit you before you invest your time in them, after all your time is precious and you need to focus your energy on the tools that will bring you results.
6. Keep it relevant and current – There’s nothing worse than when you visit someone’s online job profile or website and find that it is months, if not years out of date, or view a CV that is focused entirely on the skills and experience of a role that the individual hasn’t been doing for a long time.  This sends a clear message that you’re not really all that interested in looking for a job right now, even if that is not the case.

   As your online profiles and information are the ones that are the easiest to lose track of I suggest keeping a record of all the different resources and tools that you use, with the date when you last updated them. Bookmark all the websites, save a copy of the CV with the date in the name.

   As a rule, before I begin job seeking in earnest I always update my CV and online profiles with my latest information.  This is doubly important on the online recruitment sites as the longer your CV has been on the site the further down the listings it will come on searches by potential employers.  I would recommend reviewing and where applicable refreshing your CV once every 3 months as a minimum while you are job seeking.

7. Making a little extra effort increases your chance of results - Undoubtedly with online searches, computer filled application forms that can be self populated and the acceptance of computer generated covering letters the process of searching and applying for jobs is much easier than it used to be. However, because of this much easier system, more people are using it and instead of 100s of applications a job might get 1000s!

   Just doing the minimum won’t get you far, take a moment to tailor a CV for a role, or tweak the content of a self generated application form to show how you meet the expectations of the role, this could be what makes you stand out from the crowd.

   Don’t assume that after you hit “send” or “submit” that the ball is now in the employer’s court.  Most of the online recruitment websites have the name of the contact, an email address and if you’re lucky they’re telephone number.  I recommend that when you submit an online application you follow it up with an email as a minimum and a call the following day if you have the details.  By calling and personally speaking to a recruiter you are guaranteeing that they will look at your application!

8. Be mindful of how  your personal online presence compares against your professional presence – This is an area that it is important to consider at all times and you may have heard of a number of people facing disciplinary action or getting dismissed for the way they have conducted themselves online or the way they have spoken about their employers.With more and more people taking part in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube it is important to consider how much of your personal information is public (i.e. anyone on the internet can view it) and how it matches up against the professional profile you are wishing to present.

   It’s also worth considering whether you really want to add work colleagues and employers as contacts on your social media.  Are you happy that the things you say on your Facebook status update are right for your manager to see.  How would you feel if a work colleague repeated something you put on MySpace to your manager?  If you do add work colleagues and managers to your contacts and friends lists it might be worth considering filtering the types of information that they see from you.

   Take some time to review all your personal online profiles to ensure you are happy that they don’t contradict your professional profiles, or depict you in a negative light to employers.  On highly public sites like Twitter I would suggest being circumspect in the type of information, views and opinions that you share as by tweeting you are in fact “publishing” your thoughts to the world at large.

   On sites like MySpace and Facebook review your privacy settings and set them to the levels you feel are appropriate for you.  On content sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube, take a look at your content, is there anything that you wouldn’t want a potential employer to see, perhaps you should change the privacy settings on these items.

9. Build relationships – Fundamentally getting a job for all the technology available to us today is still about one person connecting with another.  The biggest hurdle you face is getting noticed, getting the opportunity to talk one to one with a potential employer. It’s important to establish good relationships with recruitment consultants, people in your network such as work colleagues old and new or business partners and suppliers.
   These are the people that have the potential to help or hinder your contact with potential employers.  Remember, you never know where your next lead for a job will come from and having a personal recommendation from someone is the best way to get an interview, so be sure to cultivate good relationships with as many people as possible.

   Once you’ve got the interview then it’s up to you to build rapport and understanding between you and your interviewer(s).  You have a short space of time to make an impression, so make it count and remember, you’re interviewing them as much as they are you.  Its important for you to consider whether this is someone you could work with, whether the company and it’s ethos is a good fit with your personal code of ethics.  Ask questions about what you want to know, not just the pay and benefits, but also things like the opportunities for career progression, the strength of the company and its strategic vision going forward.

Other articles in the job seeking series:

Networking and Your Online Professional Presence
Using Recruitment Websites
Hints and Tips For Successful Interviews
Job Hunting and Standing Out from the Crowd
Hints & Tips for CV Writing
Infographic CVs