Relevant Experience

Andrea asks: Will this sound lame/sad on my CV? I have applied for a job at Apple, and in the job advert they say how they want people to be enthusiastic about their products. Do you think it would sound stupid/ lame/sad if I put “I am a Mac enthusiast!” on my CV? Thank you!

In answer:
When ever you write anything in your Professional CV, you must choose relevant experience to the job being applied for, and then the company.

Secondly, anything you write in your CV must be able to be backed up and supported by evidence.

If you know you have the skills for a particular job, then before applying do some simple research on the company, for instance finding out:

• What type of company they are
• Where do they see themselves going in the next five years
• Who are the main people there, and what have they said to the press in the last 12months

With this simple research, by reading the advert, and your own skills/life experience, you should be able to specify why you believe working for them in that job makes so much sense.

Hence, in this case it would be better to specify why you are an Apple enthusiast, what you use it for, and how it is a better product, eg:

• I own a PowerBook and do all my computing on it, it is far easier to use than a DELL and more reliable than an MSWindows based machine
• I love my iPod’s design and I am on the third one now. As well as great and easy to use trendy design, I can easily get my favourite music via the Apple store, as it is a common platform used by many bands and labels

This will show that you are genuine, and not just saying it. Rule1 in CV Writing is to never ever lie in a Job Application, and there are no exceptions

Similarly, rather than saying “I am a friendly, outgoing person“, think of examples of when being friendly and outgoing brought benefits: did you make a sale, resolve a dispute, win an unhappy customer?

As well as making sure you have functional fit with your CV, check your social fit with that company by doing relevant research, and then bring them together with your employment record to show you have easily applicable relevant experience. Doing this will make the employer think you are a great fit for their organisation, and hence you are more likely to be interviewed and get the job you want.

Good Luck!

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Job Application Addresses

When you are writing a CV, or completing a Job Application, do you think about how you might enter your address?

Of course not! You just tap in the house number, street address, town and postcode. But you do have options, and they could affect both your security, as well as your ability to get the job you want!

Personal security

The first element to think about with regards your address, particularly with regards your CV, is personal security. In a study undertaken by the Metropolitan Police, it was found that 20% of job applicants left enough details in their CV and job application for their ID to be replicated

There is no need on a CV to include your full street address. As long as you have a contact point – which could be a mobile phone or eMail, and a location for where you currently reside – there is no need to include your full address. I always suggest that job applicants leave out at minimum their house number, as every recruiter or HR professional if they find your CV interesting will pick up the phone and talk to your as their action: so why include your house number?

Postal address

Sometimes, people don’t – for very good reasons – want to give away even their own home street address. It is not unusual to be moving at the same time as job hunting, or may be you are just cautious on personal security. You need to have an address point, so look at using mailboxes, provided by a reputable supplier, such as the Post Officeof DHL/Mailboxes etc

Employment and addresses

One of the most common reasons for job applicant rejection, is that often an employer will have a view on the suitability of an address of a job applicant. For instance, you happen to live on the other side of town, or in another town, and they decide its too difficult a commute/too far away. Best practise is to exclude the area (eg, Notting Hill) and postcode, and just include your street and the town or city (eg: Smith Street, London). Unless of course being on their doorstep suits your job application, in which case include the area!

eMail address

Most people these days have eMail address, and if you are a job seeker without one then you need to quickly rectify that. Hotmail, gMail and various other providers will happily give you a free eMail address.

However, if you already have an eMail address, perhaps you should think about changing it? Often, people register what can only be called a “cool with their mates” eMail address, which in a pub would seem very trendy or funny. However, much as though beer-hound-27 sounds very good in a pub, it is a reason for rejection in a job application. I have seen worse, and I have seen very sexually orientated eMail addresses from both men and women – honestly, your job application killed in the first three lines of your CV! So if you think your eMail address may be taken as a joke by a potential employer, get a new clean fresh one.

There is a secondary reason for getting a new eMail address. Apart from not using your present work email address, it also means that it is more difficult for recruiters and HR professionals to find your Social Media footprint. If your eMail address is over 12months of age, then an eMail address search will give a clue as to who you are and what you do. A fresh new free email address for your job application will avoid this problem.

If you are unsure about a format, and all variations on your first name/last name have been used, then add a number over another word. Don’t use your year of birth, but don’t use somethign either which is random.

Telephone contact

I always recommend that job seekers get a new pay as you go mobile phone. With the new mobile phone directory coming into operation in July 2009 in the UK, again issues of back search/.finding come into play. But the greatest reason is simply security – you are safer, and you know any call on that phone is job related and hence important

Full postal addresses

The only time in any job search you should include your full contact address – it need not be your home address – is on the employers Job Application form. As opposed to your CV, this is a legal document, and as it will be covered by the Data Protection Act, you know your details are safe and secure

Good Luck!

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Job Search

If you are a Job Seeker or a student of modern media, then by now you – or may not have – heard of Neville Keithley. Oh, you haven’t heard of him? You are probably not the only one, but his story has a series of lessons for the modern job seeker.

The job search of Neville Keithley:
Newspaper executive Mr Neville Keithley, 47, who lives in Hastings, was managing director at Glasgow-based publishers Archant Scotland which publishes local and regional papers such as The Extra, The Advertiser and The Gazette titles, until he was made redundant in June 2007 after it had been bought out by Johnston Press in January of the same year.

Having tried recruitment consultants, head hunting firms and offered to work for free; without the offer of a job, he came to national attention after taking out a quarter page advert in The Telegraph:

The resulting media mele, which resulted in the Telegraph itself running a piece under the headline “Gissa Job’ returns to haunt middle classes, resuled in the BBC featuring Neville Keithley in a short video piece, where he says:

• 1000′s of people read the Telegraph every day
• I could not have eMailed or mailshotted them
• I couldn’t get them to pay attention
• I don’t think its desperation, I think it’s innovation

Geoff Newman of Welsh head quartered Acorn Recruitment features as the expert commentator, and after a short piece to camera about the relevance of these publicity pieces to the majority of job seekers, he closes on:

Importantly, sell the value that they have to the businesses. If they don’t have any value to a company, they won’t get employed.

Neville Keithley’s advert finishes with the line: I hope my gamble has intrigued you, enough to want to contact me and find out more. The result of all this publicity: 6 enquiries, and one post-Easter interview.

I wish Mr Keithley good luck in his job search!

Modern Job Searching:
Up until the mass acceptance of the internet, job searching was about push-marketing by the candidate against either job adverts or on their professional network. The modern job search is about both push marketing, and pull marketing: more and more, employers and recruiters are going out and finding candidates with the right or desired skills.

The changed approach this needs from candidates is probably best summarised by Dan Schwabel‘s new book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, which is about having a consistent and findable personal brand, both on and offline.

Visibility of the modern job seeker – returning to Neville Keithley
Neville Keithley’s visibility online was poor. I undertook a Google Search on Neville Keithley, and apart from noticing that Mr Keithley has no listing at LinkedIn (the worlds biggest business networking site, with some 37million members), here are the additional highlights of what I found:

• Endorsement of Falconbury Business Seminars “Mini MBA” course
• Sponsorship of “Citizen of the Year” Award at the Rotary Club of Fraserburgh – 12/12/2006

The following are screen captures of the various exact match results I found for Mr Keithley:

Just in case you were wondering perhaps what a set of results could look like, here are my broad match results:


Note that my LinkedIn profile comes first in my results, followed closely by a series of other Social Networking results; while my infamous pink shirt image appears consistently in the photo search.

Summary:
In summary, I wish Mr Keithley the best of luck in his job search, and very much hope that he finds work soon.

But a modern job search needs – as in the old days – focus and persistence; plus visibility and ownership of both the push and pull cycles of personal branding.

As Andy Headworth of consultants Sirona said this morning on Twitter: Who are these guys going to for advice in finding a job ???

Good Luck!

Social Media

photo credit: mandiberg

Tony asks: I’ve just had an argument with one of my friends who works for the HR dept of her company for disqualifying a candidate, not because of his rich experience, great educational background or excellent references but rather the things she happened to dislike that were on his MySpace profile. Has it come to this, do we know how to make sure all of our google-able references are snooping HR person proof? And does a run-on-blog or dodgy photo speak louder than anything that you might have on your CV?

In answer:
If it is on your Social Media or in your Google CV, it’s fair game. If you put it in the public domain, its public domain information and hence searchable by Google. Which is probably the reason you put it there in the first place, so you could be found by your mates and people who share the same interests.

Working as a recruiter, I interviewed someone to train and an HGV driver 18months ago. One of the pre-requisites of the DVLA is a medical, which checks drug consumption – the medical costs us £150 all in to get undertaken. This chap applies, I Google his name, and up pops his MySpace page which tells me all about the wonders of different types of skunk cannabis and his experiences with them. He comes in for the interview (I was impressed with his CV), denies he takes drugs under our standard questionnaire on site (I made him retake it, saying we had lost it – we hence had a duplicate copy answer), and when confronted in interview with the evidence went “Opps, sorry – I withdraw my application, skunk is too good!”

On average we reject 15% of applicants after Googling their name for driver positions, because of their self-admitted casual drug taking; around 10% still fail the drugs taking part of the test after that. Of those rejected because of Google checks, we get around 10% of those (ie: 1.5%), calling in to find out why. In 2years I have only had one person take that feedback on board, and come back clean 3months later – he’s still with us.

When you know the HR team will be Googling your candidates themselves – between 30% and 70% do – why should we look amateurish not taking on board such information, and vetting out the people we know will not fit their requirements? That is our job as a recruitment company.

There is a fair debate to be had on what is reasonable to reject an applicant on, but as long as its not related to age, race, sex, or ability (ie – the legal requirements of fair selection); then a multitude of reasons could be valid. When 1/3 of applicants don’t include a Cover Letter and are resultantly rejected, many issues could be valid reasons for rejection.

I liked the piece this week in UKRecruiter which addressed this issue, the last point of which said: You can’t call a recruiter checking you out on the internet “sneaky”.  Them following you home and rifling through your bin is sneaky but taking the opportunity to find as much out about you – in the public domain – is fair game.

Good Luck!

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Video CV resignation

There is a lot of debate at present about both the Online Profile and the Video CV – are they more effective than a piece of paper? But one thing that should be remembered about all CV’s, is that evidence follows you everywhere in the new online world.

For instance, how about using the media of video to resign?

Birmingham Mail

Birmingham Mail journalist Adam Smith – aka Steve Zacharanda – decided he wanted to support the campaign of Barack Obama: but how would he persuade his editor that he could go to America? He decided to choose a swing-state, and as he couldn’t pronounce Ohio, decided to go to – Miami, Florida (wonder why a UK journalist would want to go to sunny Florida in the damp, cold UK autumn?).

After Obama won, Smith had to deliver the promised article to his editor, so dutifully logged in to the Birmingham Mail web system from Miami in the after-win party, to record his copy. However, he got caught on video somewhat worsefor drink by one of his Dutch colleagues…….

Videoed in a drunken stupor, Smith admits that he has had lots of fun with local ladies, and is now plagiarising the BBC for his filed copy: oh, and decides to hand in his notice while being interviewed.

This resultant video has been much viewed and resultantly reported and blogged about, in both the Birmingham Mail and many of the Fleet Street and US National Newspapers.

Google CV

A few thoughts, if you are considering posting social media to a publicly accessible place:

• The speed at which anything can be distributed today is amazing. For example, just see the Vodafone advert where the child watches Manchester Untied on a South East Asian Beach. But even quicker is the speed at which any potential employer can also find such stuff on the web. As I have suggested, why not checkout your own GoogleCV?
• I wonder if Adam Smith still has a job at the Birmingham Mail, and if so is he covering anything more now than the local council meetings while he works his notice?
• How will he write this down on his next CV: bring enough to collect 50,000 hits on YouTube, or daft enough to get drunk and resign on video?

And PS: Adam, if you are reading this – NO, I don’t want the job of how to write your next CV!!!

But still, as always – Good Luck!

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Write your own CV/resume?

Joe asks: I’m a marketing professional and a competent and creative writer, yet every attempt I have ever made at writing my own CV/resume has fallen flat. The CV/resumes I have written for clients seem to have resulted in some pretty decent job offers. Is it possible to be so close to your own experience, and so lacking in knowledge of what others might consider important that you may not be competent to write your own resume? A few points of clarification in terms of what really motivated me to ask the question in the first place:

• I have been out of the job market for about 12 years during which time I have been running a full service marketing/PR/advertising consultancy. I’ve gained tons of experience and kept very current, but I am a bit baffled about how to position myself
• Maybe it’s because I’m a Gemini, or perhaps it was just to stay sane but I’ve always tried to be competent in a lot of different areas; a generalist more than a specialist. Others could either view that as an advantage or a lack of focus
• I consider myself a competent and seasoned professional but I am getting a little long in the tooth. Is age bias something I will have to contend with or will most companies appreciate maturity and experience?
• I haven’t really needed a resume for a long time, but I do have one and have attempted to keep it updated. The thing is, my LinkedIn profile really does a much better job of communicating who I am and what I am all about

In answer:
Should you write your own CV/resume – it depends! The only true answer is that everyone owns their own CV/Resume.

CV Writing

The question is answered in combination by answering the following questions:

1. Can you write?
2. Can you market? (its a bit more about structure choice and emphasis in the case of CV/Resume writing)
3. Do you know what skills you have/don’t have/are required in the market which you don’t recognise you have?
4. Can you objectively put that all together in a two page document?
5. Can you then adjust that to a specific job advert?

In a quick audit, you clearly have skills 1 and 2, but I suspect you are too close to you to accomplish 3 which is highly detrimental in achieving the final winning result.

Before suggesting you might like to think later about starting a part-time job as a CV/Resume writer (you have the right skills base), you need a bit of external help in the form of a career coach over a CV/Resume writer. I’d say one hour of a chat with a professional over a phone would help you to resolve the skills and projection question for you to highly competently write your own CV/Resume.

You have been quite open in your question and clarification points Joe, and placing you will be fairly easy – that’s a great set of skills you have, that are highly desired in the market place. You just need someone at present to act as an objective and clarifying wall in that middle stage to help you achieve employment.

If I can help you any further, please just ask – and Good Luck!

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Online social networking

From the recruiters stand point, I have watched the debate on online social networks with some interest…..

Digital footprint

For the recruiter, its a godsend! As this article suggests, ANY employer who now doesn’t Google all applicants is missing out on essential information. I interviewed a guy a few months back, who on his CV and a few background checks seemed a 10 out of 10 applicant – however, his MySpace page suggested he enjoyed a regular joint and the odd bit of white powder: oh, and an active social life at the local swingers club.

I personally still believe that all should have the right to a private life, and what goes on behind closed doors/in the bedroom is your choice as a consenting adult. But if you plaster it all over the web, what would you do if you were the employer?

I pointed out to my interviewee that there was much information on him in the public domain, and much as though drugs were more acceptable and part of modern life, the employer I was searching for as a result of their customer contract required all employee’s and hence applicants to under take a drug test on application, and then after at the customers behest. This generally meant that applicants would need to be drug free for at least three months prior to the test, bar the odd joint trace element – could he make that standard? He understood the requirement, and withdrew his application.

I think employers blocking social networks is quite a childish and naive manner in which to address something which is quite essential to the lives of those under 30. I remember when internet access first became widely available to all employees in my former corporate employer, and they introduced a “key word” blocker which meant that (for instance) search strings associated with sex were blocked. My innovative group of engineers found that searching on related words they found in Roget’s Thesaurus allowed to still access such sites – not that they wanted to, they just wanted to prove it could be done.

Today, the number of young people coming into the market is reducing, due to a highly decreased birth rate. Hence, employers wanting new recruits need to take broader attitudes to attracting and retaining employees – cellphone bans in entire campuses, lunching at desks (because there’s no where else to go), and bans on social networking sites all add up to signs of an oppressive/control freak employer. Getting employees to recognise the problems of ringing cellphones to customers and their work mates, providing some form of rest area or access to online entertainment/education, advising on monitoring of networks and expecting employees to only use social networks and MSN messenger during break times – are all signs of an employer trusting employee’s to be adults and make sensible choices. Happy employees attract more happy productive employees, and put recruiters out of a job (Ha – if only! Its interesting to think I have a job because of a low birth rate, and people wanting career development…)

So, back to the debate – is social networking “As much part of life as texting, pop music and fast food” and something “We can no more prevent them than we can prevent gravity. So we might as well get used to using them effectively.”

Good Luck!

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