Any job-hunter can develop a network of useful career contacts without a company director in the family. Networking is easy if you know how, and job-hunters who develop their own employment contacts need never be short of career advice and job offers. Here are five networking opportunities which everyone can take advantage of:
It’s reckoned that four-fifths of the job market is ‘closed’, meaning you can’t find out about available job openings unless you dig for them. So what do you do? Pick up the phone and dig. Cold calling, or uninvited job-hunting, is a proven method of finding employment. Find out for yourself by following these
Assessment days Preparing for the tests you’re likely to face. Personality tests What does the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator say about you? IQ tests Tips for communicating your intelligence. Psychometric tests Feedback from employers is crucial if you want to understand your score. Faking it There’s no point in trying to outwit psychometric tests. Group tests
If you had a machine in your living room that was capable of printing £50,000 or £1000,000 a year in used notes, you’d take pretty good care of it, wouldn’t you? If it needed repairing, you’d take it to a qualified, professional repairer. If you thought it could print even more money, you’d seek the
Nine-point plan Most job hunters instinctively begin their search by flooding employers with carefully crafted, but often ineffective, CVs. But since many openings go unadvertised, successful job seekers require more thoughtful approaches.
Be prepared Interviews can be scary experiences and the only way to quell your fears is to follow the advice of the girl guide movement and ‘be prepared’. The best place to start is by finding out as much about the company as possible. Ring the company’s marketing department and get them to send you
The basics When it comes to writing a covering letter, you can probably learn more from the personal columns than you can from the jobs pages. Get it wrong and at best you’ll condemn yourself to a miserable, unfulfilling 40-year relationship; at worst you’ll end up, alone and unwanted, on the job scrap heap.
Are you allowing the value of your CV to leak away? Take the following advice and you might be able to plug a few gaps.
It’s time to rewrite your CV. What may feel like the world’s most tedious task – puffing yourself up and bragging about your accomplishments on paper – doesn’t have to be so painful. Just remember one thing: your CV needs to stand out. Employers, especially those who have posted openings on large websites, may receive
You went as far as you could – all the way to final interview. You researched the organisation, showed your respect by arriving on time and in the right clothes, struck up a rapport with the interviewer, and felt you had given the best impression of yourself you could.
Enclosing a teabag with your application to encourage the recipient to make a cup of tea before they read it is one way to make sure they remember you. But will it ensure you pass that first big hurdle and get an interview? It may get you noticed but the content and presentation are more
Clueless and confused? You are confused or just plainly at a loss about what career to choose. You know you have certain strengths, but you can’t make sense of your likes and dislikes, and the pressure is piling on to choose something Deadline – breakdown your plan of action into thinking time, research and
Two Christmases ago Jeannine left her job in Melbourne to begin an adventure on the other side of the world. At 28 she realised there was more she wanted to do and struck out from her ‘comfort zone’ to discover Europe. Lying on a beach in Brisbane, she realised that ‘Brisbane wasn’t going to be
Getting a new job may be cause for rejoicing, says Adeline Iziren, award winning journalist, but be careful how you handle your resignation – and not just for your boss’s sake You’ve just been offered a great new job. Congratulations! Naturally you’re fired up about starting the new one, but make sure you leave the
Employability is now firmly on the workplace agenda, playing its part in the major shift in attitude towards employer-employee relationships. Here Tony Vickers, who has written extensively on career psychology, gives his perspective Neatly defined career paths and the golden age of a job for life are fast disappearing. Expecting to be employed on
Graduates’ attraction to dotcoms is as much to do with the freedom and scope that the new economy offers, as it is to do with making money quickly. So, how can the big companies make their corporate cultures more attractive to budding entrepreneurs? Tony Vickers, an expert in organizational behavior, assesses which cultures attract entrepreneurs
The year after your finals can often be an incredibly depressing experience for which nothing has prepared you. So what can you do to keep your chin up during those dark days? Emma John and Catherine Courtney lift the lid on post-finals blues Putting off the time-consuming chore of job hunting while you’re knuckling
The covering letter While your CV (resume) is a summary of your qualifications and achievements, your covering letter is essentially a sales pitch. The aim is to demonstrate why your skills and background are a perfect match for the advertised position. The letter should be concise, written in the same positive and vigorous
There are many ways of applying for that prized job, none perfect and most designed to make it easier for the employer. Here forum talks through how candidates can maximize their chances of success Anything that makes it easier for employers to find the perfect employee should be good news for the candidate, because each should
Richard Li, the Hong Kong tycoon, has had a spot of bother with investors recently. They are claming they invested with a man they believed to have a degree from ivy-league university Stanford. Mr Li has admitted having no such qualification, and now faces a potential suit over allegations of misrepresentation. It seems strange that
