The good news is you’ve got a job offer. The bad news is you’re not sure if you should accept. There are interviews you are still waiting to hear back from. There are still more interviews at which you fancy your chances. What should you do? Take the bird in the hand? Wait to see
If, as is claimed, only 30% of the total number of job vacancies are advertised, your best bet could be to job-hunt more creatively. Many job-hunters resort to sending off speculative letters to relevant companies. And many employers would rather turn to their pile of speculative letters than spend thousands of pounds on advertising. The
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
Preparation is the key to success at careers fairs as many employers interview on the spot. · Make sure your CV is ‘hard copy ready’. Many CVs are created for email use and don’t always transfer well to paper. Also, ensure your CV is appropriate for general distribution and not job specific.
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
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.
Nick is a teacher at an English language school in Tokyo. Nick is also deceiving his employers. On his arrival in Japan eight years ago he obtained what he expected to be a temporary job teaching English by claiming he had a degree from Oxford University. He backed up the claim with a false degree
In today’s multimedia age, choosing the perfect format for your CV is no longer as simple as deciding between Helvetica or Palatino, double or single space type, or remembering to buy a stamp for the envelope.
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
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
The arts and media are notoriously difficult to break into – no wonder as they offer some of the most glamorous and exciting jobs around. To get ahead you’ll need talent, contacts, determination and the ability to work for nothing Could you cut it as a creative? Find out with our quiz
Lady Howe’s career has been something of a contradiction. A politician’s wife who left her job to play a supporting role, she is a vehement campaigner for women in the workplace. A Tory advocate of the Open University, she took her own degree at the famously left-of-centre London School of Economics. Over 20 years into
Award-winning writer Adeline Iziren teaches you how to woo a potential employer over the phoneSo you’ve identified the job you want and your potential employer? Great. No doubt you’ll be trawling through the web to find out as much as you can about the company. That’s great too. But to get the edge over
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
Have you ever wished your CV (resume) showed employers the ‘real’ you? In the current recruitment climate, getting the right message across on a CV is serious business. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just tell it as it is? Well, believe it or not, that wish is fast becoming fact. Videotaped CVs are giving job
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
