How Much Job Search Advice should Recruitment Agencies give?

Its an age old question for recruitment agencies, but How Much Job Search Advice should Recruitment Agencies give job seekers?

It’s an even more pertinent question in these times of high unemployment, when simply job applicants out number the number of available jobs.

But already we are seeing a return to the “War for Talent”, where in some sectors skills are short and employers are willing to hire competent candidates.

The Recruiters dilemma

What most job seekers do not realise, is that recruiters are in a constant dilema:

• Time is money: Most contract recruiters don’t get paid a basic, and if they do its pretty low, so most don’t earn unless they make placements
• People are our product: no new fresh job seekers coming in through the door, then you are wholly reliant on the jobs boards. That doesn’t make you look much different than your competitors. So it is in our interests to both develop people relationships, and coach job seekers into jobs

But, if offered two candidates, one of whom could do the whole job application now and the other would require one hour of coaching and a CV rewrite, which one do you think that the “time hungry/paid by results” recruiter would take?

Recruiters Eat Red Meat

Simply, be they a recruiter, headhuter or HR Professional, if you have one job to fulfil, you only need one great job applicant.

Experience says that you need to place more people into the job application process than one, as experience shows that human chemistry means that although you may think candidateA is better, the Hiring Manager may prefer candidiateB.

It is why when we are advising job seekers, one of the things that we tell them is that recruiters eat red meat. Before letting that recruiter have your Professional CV – the basic currency of the employment world – check where they are in the hiring cycle, and hence how much of a need they have for your CV?

• Early in the cycle, a new placement with a first time client, your are speaking to the resourcer/assistant, and remote form the hiring manager; are all signs of NO, withold your CV and don’t let it die on their candidate database
• Late in the hiring cycle, an existing employer client, you are speaking to the recruiter handling that hiring manager (and who is giving you tips on how to adjust your CV); are all signs of YES, they are going to put your forward for that job

“Recruiters used to call me”

One of the things that we constantly hear from job seekers across both sides of our business, is that: “Recruiters used to call me.”

Pre-2008 and the world wide recession, there was a shortage of skilled employees in many markets. Employers were desperate, wages rose regularly, and skills were in demand. To fulfil these roles, recruiters needed a contact address book or database full of skilled people, who they would stay in touch with. Commercially, this was worth their time:
Demand for skills were high
Contract recruitment rates paid well
You could make a lot by making a few placements
Your base product was skilled candidates
In the current economy, the situation has reversed. Recruiters have more than enough skilled, wanting employment job seekers who can commuicate why they want that job. They simply don’t need to pick up the phone and keep in contact.

Remember, recruiters eat red meat. If they are calling you, then they want your skills.

Best approaches for Recruitment Agencies to job seekers

My personal view on best recruitment agency approaches to job seekers, is much as though it should be part of the task of each individual to keep in contact with key potential job seekers, it is the business owner or directors job to define the strategy and tactics for handling all job seeker approaches to their agency.

Most of the best advice to contract recruitment agencies these days is inline with what the best and the biggest employers do: have an “About Us” page and a specific “How to apply for a Job” section. Within this, you can provide job search advice, CV Writing guides, and generally both coach and set expectations for new job seekers as to what to expect, and how you can help them.

In our case, by setting up a Professional CV Writing Service, we went one step further: why?

CV Writing v Job Serach Advice

Firstly, what fascinated me about the market of employment, and specifically recruitment, was how badly we treated job seekers. That has been changing in the past few years, with more and more agecies now becoming members of the UK professional body, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

Secondly, as an ex-operational manager I recognised the job seekers dilema. Simply, most are not used to job seeking! They needed help.

But we couldn’t cope with all of them, and we couldn’t help all of them. Like every other recruiter, we are facing the recruiters dilemma. So for those that were outside our core markets (IT, Telecom, Project Management), we can offer them help. For those sat inside our core market, we had an instant in-house resource to make our candidiates look better (on paper), than our competitors.

As a side benefit, we get some great market insight. Firstly into what job seekers actually feel about job seeking (honest, its very different to what they tell us when applying for a job!). Secondly, into what the general employment market is looking like.

Recruiters are not Job Centre+

In closing this article, I’d like to be positive, and extend our agencies attitude to job seekers over the whole empoyment market. But simply, for commercial reasons and changes in market supply and demand, that will never fully happen.

Any job seeking advice from a contract recuitment agency will always have to be commercially driven, and hence taken from a marketing stance that in the end delivers key skilled candidates into that agency.

Simply, contract recruitment agencies will never and can never take the position of Job Centre+, much as though many current job seekers who undertook a job search pre the recession may have thought that they were.

But that is no excuse ot to give what is both our end product and most precious resource the cold shoulder. We should as an industry help our key partners in earning our income, and that our customers want to buy.

Good Luck!

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Job Search is a process of

Learning by Rejection

I have been wanting to write this post for a while, but after an experience in the past few weeks, don’t think that I can put off not publishing much longer.

Why do Good Job Seekers get Rejected?

I started on this path by trying to answer the question Why do good job seekers get rejected? The main part of that answer is in communication:

• They don’t know what they want to do
• They hence can’t can’t communicate why they are right for that job, and hence won’t be able to create rapport with the Hiring Manager
• These are the one third of job applicants who have the right skills for that job, but can not communicate them to the employer

Job Search and depression

But another factor soon raised its ugly head, and I had an Aha moment. From an academic study into job seekers, came the statistics that:

• After 3months/90days, between 10% and 15% of job seekers are clinically depressed
• After 6months, that figure has risen to a third
• Yet, the average job seeker in the UK at present takes 8months to secure employment

Conclusion number1: we are not dealing with an unemployment problem in trying to solve the current economy, we are dealing with a long term health problem

In example, take Spain. 50% of the under 25′s there are unemployed. That means that between 15% and 20% of Spain’s under 25′s are clinically depressed. I wonder what the cost of that is, compared to say creating a national works scheme that would get them working? No wonder why they are marching and protesting.

Job Search is a process of learning by rejection

So the question this study posses for me, was why do so many job seekers become depressed? My answer was quite simple:

Job Search is a process of learning by rejection

If you think about, its quite logical. Firstly, you go from being part of a busy social situation in an office, to being alone and at home. To get one job offer, on average you will need to:

• Undertake 3 job interview, for one job offer
• Hence undertake 15 telephone interviews (ratio of about 5:1)
• Hence undertake 300 job applications (ratio of 20:1. The average in the UK at present is over 250)

So, to get one job offer, you need to make 300 job applications. Or, put another way, to get employed you need to accept being rejected 299 times. Throughout this process, you are improving your job search technique by learning from rejection, and hence:

Job Search is a process of learning by rejection

I bet you buy carpet more often than you job seek

One of my initial answers to job seekers as to why they were unsuccessful, was that job search is a learnt and applied skill. Like any skill, if you don’t use it often enough, then you will forget it. Most are given job search and job application skills at the end of their period of academic study, such as at school, college or university. But after that, it is a skill that most don’t use regularly, and is hence lost. Add in that in the past 10 years, while 90% of job applications were processed via paper in 2000, by 2010 90% were processed online, job search thanks to the internet has been a fast changing market. Hence my explanation to job seekers has always been:

I bet you buy carpet more often than you job seek

Job Search Gender differences

Over the past few weeks, we had a tricky job search client. Having been passed her as a problem client by the office, I couldn’t understand why someone who seemed to have had such a brilliant academic record and outstanding career at the very highest of levels needed job search help?

I eventually turned to a friend, had a very enlightening and supportive call, and returned to helping this lady with a renewed insight. We targeted the job that she wanted, and in less than 24hrs got her the offer of a job interview, when the other 300 job applicants will need to wait until next Friday.

The insight I gained was from an article on Forbes.com, which through a study highlighted depression reason differences between men and women. The highlight conclusions of the study were:

1. Women, but not men, get depressed when they feel unappreciated at work, or believe they are not appropriately rewarded for their efforts
2. High levels of job strain depress men, but not women. Women are used to job strain because their “job” is never just their “job”
3. Men get down when family gets in the way of work, while women get down when work gets in the way of family

I found the article fascinating, and if you read it the author links to a number of others studies which support the main academic studies conclusions.

To me, looking it at the issues from a job search problem, there cam two further conclusions. Clearly there are gender differences between men and women and how they address job search, but it suddenly made a lot of sense:

• Men: job search for a men is strain within the job. They hence get more depressed initially within their own job search than women. To compensate, they apply for more jobs as the strain increases – click to apply syndrome – and hence get more rejection, which consequently makes them more stressed, and hence probably depressed
• Women: job search stress for women is most felt in the individual job application rejections. The fact that she can spend more time with her family is the upside, to the downside of not being able to provide the same amount for them. Hence women should tend to cope better with long term job search strain, but apply for fewer jobs due to the stress of continual rejection

Job Search Success?

What is job search success? Simply its employment. But from reading academic studies and personal experiences helping job seekers, it is also employment in the quickest possible time scale. Anything less and you and your family could be having to cope with a long term health problem.

I didn’t come into Professional CV Writing to make a fortune (I make far more as a recruiter), and I still say to this day that I will never be the Worlds Best CV Writer. All of the professional CV and Resume writing bodies have annual competitions to decide who are the best CV/resume writers, but to me these competitions are almost pointless. A CV/resume is a 2page factually based sales document, the outcome from which should be that the hiring manager is motivated to pick up the phone to call you to give you a Telephone Interview: no more, and certainly no less. Hence to me personally, the worlds best CV does that the most times, and trying to judge CV/resumes on layout, looks and presentation is secondary to the “Get the Hiring Manager to take action” primary mantra.

How do you avoid depression in your job search, or at least minimise its likelihood? Firstly, know why you are job searching: do some things weekly with your friends and family, and keep doing them. Secondly, if you are not making progress after 30days by having been offered at least one job interview, then seek some help. Our Professional CV Writing Service at £147 is equivalent to a days wages for the average employed worker in the UK, and guarantees you a job interview in 30days or less, or your money back.

The key time scale in job search success is that first 90days, and after that your success goes downwards and it takes far more effort to get employed.

Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, call us on 0844 884 2825

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10 Tips for getting your CV read:

Every Time!

As a recruiter and Professional CV Writer, I am often asked by job seekers, how do I make sure that my Professional CV gets read, ideally every time?

Here are 10 simple tips that you can apply today, to ensure that your CV is read every time:

1. Read the Job Advert:you thought this was a post about adjusting your CV? Tip1, read the job advert and ONLY apply for jobs that you are fully qualified for. On average, the typical job advert has had around 100hours of work behind it and so far cost £5,000 in recruitment costs. So if you just Click to Apply at everything that looks interesting, why should I read your CV? There are more than enough fully qualified job applicants around right now for most positions, so if you haven’t got the required 5/8 competencies (Skills, Qualifications, Experiences) that are required, then simply: don’t apply!
2. Adjust your CV for that job and the online world: OK, so you have read the advert, and know that you have the required competencies. Can you find them in the top half of the first page of your CV? Probably not, so adjust it so that you confirm the relevance of your job application. You can have an ugly layout and awful spelling, but you have to show and confirm relevancy
3. Contact details:place your contact details – phone number and eMail address – at both the top and bottom of the CV. You have probably operated a strange photocopier, and it has either not copied the top or the bottom of the page. That happens with computers, Applicant Tracking Systems, scanners, etc. You can be the best candidate in the world, but no contact details will mean no Telephone Interview
4. Consistent time line: if your experience is relevant to that job, then one of the first negatives that most recruiters and all HR Professionals will look for is an inconsistent and non-continuous time line. Simply: you were born, you have lived until now, what did you do? Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to show equal balance for each job (they may not each be relevant to that job application), but you do need a consistent time line with no gaps. Reverse chronology is the normal approach in Professional CV Writing
5. Layout: The simple facts of the employment world, are that 50% of jobs are in the top 20% of corporates, and the other 50% are in the rest of the potential employers. The big corporates and most of the job boards use some form of scanning system or Applicant Tracking System. Therefore, if your CV doesn’t scan well, it will get rejected. Not because it is not relevant, or you have not got the right skills, but because it didn’t scan well! So choose a clear layout, choose fonts that scan well (Times New Roman and Arial are ideal), and then keep the text ideally above 11point
6. Spelling and Grammar: in these days of computers and associated tools, there are few excuses for poor spelling. Many programmes also offer grammar hints. Now, you may be thinking, “this is the point that I thought would come first, why is it down here at No6?” Simply, relevancy of application is the first, second and possibly third question/required confirmation in every recruiters and HR managers mind. If you have relevancy then you will pass the first hurdle. But then many fail on the second of readability and presentation. The first four points focus on relevancy, the next two on readability
7. Application in Employment: OK, we are over the two major steps – relevancy, readability – now it’s the soft issues. So having confirmed that your job application is relevant, the next thing that a recruiter/HR professional will look at is application of those skills in a similar position, gaining the required business results. This is where the STAR format of writing your CV will help, particularly focusing in the right areas.
8. Culture and Scale: this is the second of the soft issues, in terms of comparing your last few employers to the new organisation: are they similar in scale and culture? Now, if they are not this will not exclude you BUT it will add a question to the Telephone Interview.
9. Cover Letter, or not?:there are lots of theories these days that you don’t need to add a Cover Letter. Yet most job portals and applicant tracking systems require some form of free-form text to say why your job application is relevant, and why you are right for that job. Or the job application system asks you to eMail in your CV, so are you just sending an effectively “blank” eMail? The modern Cover Letter may not look like a classical Cover Letter, but you still need one! The simplest Cover Letter form is a two column chart: You need; I offer. It simply ticks the boxes and confirms relevancy
10. On Time:was your job application placed in plenty of time, or was it received after the defined time scale and look rushed? The first person to review your job application will be a resourcer, who is an HR focused administrator. Simply, the later your job application hits their desk after the defined time scale, the better an ideal candidate you need to be to be considered relevant.

OK, I hope that these tips have helped you!

If you find that you are not getting many Telephone Interviews (less than 1 in 5 job applications), then the problem probably comes down to your CV. Make sure that you make use of our Free CV Review service, to get the job that you want.

Good Luck!

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If you have any questions, call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV review

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Aldi Jobs

We haven’t done of these for a while, but I was in a library earlier this week using a computer (the temp office printer/photocopier was broken), and saw a young man beside me apply for a Job at Aldi. So, here we go.

History of Aldi

ALDI Einkauf GmbH & Co. oHG was established in 1913, when the mother of Karl and Theo Albrecht opened a small store in a suburb of Essen, Germany. After World War 2, the brothers expanded the business to 13 stores by 1950. They kept stores small, and removed goods that either did not sell or may deteriorate: so no fresh produce. They then started rebating the 3% coupon at the checkout, something which even the Co-ops didn’t do.

The brothers split the business in 1960, over a dispute over the sale of cigarettes at the till. Today the relatives of Theo Albrecht own Aldi Nord (he died in 2010), while Karl Albrecht owns Aldi Süd, the arm which operates in the United Kingdom.

“We buy the best for less, so you can too”

Aldi’s common strap line is “Spend a little Live a lot”, but they also use the less common “We buy the best for less, so you can too”. This for me sums how Aldi sees itself tied to its customers.

Aldi stores are not stark, but simple. They are also built to a common design. The stores are well stocked but with few lines, which are mainly own-label and procured from a few select suppliers. Aldi hence leverage large discounts, which are passed onto their customers. They also don’t spend a lot on in store marketing. Before the Wales-wide plastic bag ban, Aldi was one of the few shops to charge for plastic bags – one of their ways of saving on your shopping bill.

Aldi currently have around a 3% share of the UK grocery market spend, and have an installed base of 400 stores in the UK. Interestingly, one of the questions that Aldi ask many of their prospective employees, is have you visited an Aldi store? In the lower grades, they greatly encourage you to do so before applying.

Jobs at Aldi

Aldi have a specialist UK Recruitment portal, which can be found at AldiRecruitment.co.uk. It simple, plain, easy to read and well laid out. It offers four types of opportunity:

• Graduate
• Store: which is divided into retail and distribution
• Placement
• Apprenticeship

However, like many good jobs portals there is also an About Us section, which links to the main Aldi UK website. The only thing I can hence see wrong with the front page, is that its copyright 2010! As you delve into the website, a few things become clear:

• The website genuinely reflects the company. Its bright, simple and easy to engage at both the design and written level
• The stance is quite open. You can go to most sections of the website, look at a particular type of job, and they will tell you all about it, the package that that job will provide, and most often a case study of a typical worker in that position
• All the jobs I could find require you to confirm that you have a UK driving license, that you own a car, and specifically ask that you are eligible to work in the UK

The only thing that the website doesn’t reflect is that Aldi expect you to work hard! Although the words say this, the website itself, mainly through its design, is easy to navigate.

Aldi Jobs: apply online

Unlike in a normal jobs portal review, I decided with this one that I would register.

After asking for your name, address, contact details and National Insurance number on page1, on page2 you enter your qualifications, and then on page3 your work history. I’ll be honest, and say that I only filled in basic details, but the system is easy to operate (but the text is a little small!).

On page4 is when we get into the real job application. There are four questions here – and I won’t give away the secret, because that’s the whole point of these types of job application question. However, I will say that if you understand the job of retail, then these are four great questions. You have 100 words in which to answer each, and you can save your answers and come back later if you want to do some research.

In summary: Aldi Jobs

I like Aldi’s jobs portal. Its easy to access, easy to read, and gives great information by showing typical job applicants what they might expect of a job at Aldi. Once you get into job application, then there are lots of questions, but nothing too onerous if you want to work in retail. The only down side: the small size of the text while applying!

A great jobs portal, which I score 5/5, and much as I am sure you will work hard, they certainly seem like a great company to work for.

Good Luck with your Aldi Jobs application!

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If you have any questions, call us on 0844 884 2825

If you need an interview winning solution, sign-up for our Professional CV service

If you want to check the suitability of your existing CV, then get a FREE CV review

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Employment Klout?

So, you want to get a job, and according to some new age hack writing from an Apple iPad in Silicon Valley, a number calculated by a three-year-old start-up corporation will affect your employability? Have you just lost a job according to your Klout score?

The latest journalist to take a turn at this is Seth Stevenson from Wired magazine, in an article entitled: What Your Klout Score Really Means. In it, with regards employment, Stevenson writes:

Last spring Sam Fiorella was recruited for a VP position at a large Toronto marketing agency. With 15 years of experience consulting for major brands like AOL, Ford, and Kraft, Fiorella felt confident in his qualifications. But midway through the interview, he was caught off guard when his interviewer asked him for his Klout score. Fiorella hesitated awkwardly before confessing that he had no idea what a Klout score was.

The interviewer pulled up the web page for Klout.com – a service that purports to measure users’ online influence on a scale from 1 to 100 – and angled the monitor so that Fiorella could see the humbling result for himself: His score was 34. “He cut the interview short pretty soon after that,” Fiorella says. Later he learned that he’d been eliminated as a candidate specifically because his Klout score was too low. “They hired a guy whose score was 67.”

Partly intrigued, partly scared, Fiorella spent the next six months working feverishly to boost his Klout score, eventually hitting 72. As his score rose, so did the number of job offers and speaking invitations he received. “Fifteen years of accomplishments weren’t as important as that score,” he says.

So, should we all get worried, and start increasing our Klout score? Hang on a minute, and lets disect this from an employment perspective.

The Employment Process

I have written before about the employment process, and about how employment doesn’t start with the job seeker, but with the employer:

1. The organisation/business wishes to change
2. That creates a business case, which includes the provision of a certain number of assets
3. Those assest include a certain number of people and associated skills, which is written down in a Job Decription
4. The HR department scout the existing workforce – particularly if people are to be ade redundant as a result of this change – and note who has the skills, or who could be trained in what timescale to the required standard
5. The resultant gaps leaving hiring requirements, which the company can fulfill themselves or sub-contract to a head hunetr or recruiter

At this point, the candidate sourcing process starts. From the 5 Steps to Employment process, we know that in step3 there are 5 ways to get employed:

1. Promotion
2. Head Hunting
3. Networking
4. Recruitment
5. Job Adverts

From the Job Decscription, the recruiter takes the 5/8 competencies – skills, qualifications, experiences – required to fulfill the job, and starts a search. That will in part be through their existing candidate database, and in part based on a boolean search through LinkedIn.

Where would a Klout score come into candidate sourcing?

Primary competencies verus supplementary selection criteria

As a recruiter, I haven’t yet see any employer client put a Klout score on their primary search criteria.

The primary search criteria are the main 5/8 competencies, ie: Technical Fit. If you don’t have those, the you are not a suitable job applicant. These would include those listed in the 5/8 competencies, which would create a career track that may include:

• Similar business results
• Similar company experience
• Professional certification
• Education

Only now, knowing that a potential job applicant has the required 5/8 competencies to fulfill the primary search criteria, would secondary issues like Klout come int candidate selection.

What does Kout do?

In theory, your Klout score reflects your online activity, and who many people listen/follow what you say/do, and how many repeat it. So, its like it measuring how many pebbles that you drop into a river from a bridge, and how far the resultant ripples travel.

Online influence is very much a reflection of GenY people, ie: those in the present sub25 age group. Secondly, an ability to leverage online would be key potentially in product launch, marketing and sales positions focused on that target audience, ie: GenY. Therefore to my recruiter thinking, a Klout score could be a supplementary measure for selecting product launch, marketing and sales people associated with a GenY targetted product. (NOTE: Sam Fiorella was applying for a position in a Marketing Agency)

But is Klout a serious number in the first place?

Credibility of Klout

Klout has credibility because people accept its rating system, the base of which is an algorithm. But, and here’s a kicker, how oes that algorithm balance one set of criteria versus another?

For instance, I have a current Klout score of 30. Opps! However, a friend introduced me to Connected recently, on which I discovered that:

• Facebook: low at 296 compared to average user with 592. I am cautious of the Big Blue Friendly Monster after removing 20% of of job applicants to our former HGV training programme due to their self-admitted drugs taking
• LinkedIn: high at 4,028 compared to the average of 643. Wonder where we find most of our candidates?
• Twitter: high at 1,846 compared to the average of 1,170

Yet, I only get a score of 30? In part I foud that was due to the fact that Facebook only authorises access for Klout on a periodic basis, and if you don’t renew it the authorisation ends, and so down goes your Klout score.

Secondly, if you do a search on your favourite Search Engine, you will soon find lots of articles about How to game Klout, and How to increase your Klout Score. Even Klout product director Chris Makarsky suggested that Seth Stevenson could increase his Klout score of 31 by:

1. Improve the “cadence” of tweets, ie tweet more. Every 30mins seems to be the required cadence level
2. Concentrate on one topic
3. Develop relationships with high-Klout score people who might respond to your tweets, propagate them, and extend your influence to whole new population groups
4. Keep things upbeat. “We find that positive sentiment drives more action than negative”

So, if that’s the way to game Klout, is the answer that really the focus of the under lying algorithm is biased towards Twitter, over other forms of social media? No wonder with but a measely 4000+ LinkedIn connections and only 1,800 people listening to my one or two tweets per day, I have such a lousy Klout score!

Klout is not employment

The simple summary then, is that Klout is not employment. Even if you were applying for a product launch, marketing or sales position in a service that targetted GenY, Klout would only be a secondary criteria point of assessment.

I’ll just add, from a European perspective, if a candidate asked me why they were rejected, and I stated it was mainly because of their low Klout score, I think a lawyer would tan my arse from here to eternity! Professionally as a recruiter, I conclude that they would be absolutely right to do so.

In the cold light of the real employent world, Klout simply is not credible. I’ll leave the last word to Seth’s own conclusion in his article, and then answer a question:

Over time, I found my eyes drifting to tweets from folks with the lowest Klout scores. They talked about things nobody else was talking about. Sitcoms in Haiti. Quirky museum exhibits. Strange movie-theater lobby cards from the 1970s. The un-Kloutiest’s thoughts, jokes, and bubbles of honest emotion felt rawer, more authentic, and blissfully oblivious to the herd. Like unloved TV shows, these people had low Nielsen ratings—no brand would ever bother to advertise on their channels. And yet, these were the people I paid the most attention to. They were unique and genuine. That may not matter to marketers, and it may not win them much Klout. But it makes them a lot more interesting.

Now, that interesting stuff: that’s employability!

Employment and Klout

Carl, a sales director, asks: Have you seen a person’s “Klout score” play a significant role in their being hired (or fired)? I pose the question after reading a multi-page article on this topic in the latest Wired magazine. In my experience, Wired has been a pretty reputable (although sometimes far-reaching) source of information. If Klout was able to truly deliver a viable rating of influence, this is not as far fetched as some may think. As a matter of fact, its a great idea. So… I’m glad some folks think this is silly, or ridiculous. The more, the better. That just means less people for me to compete against as I progress through my career! According to Wired, there is a growing trend to use Klout in the decision making process for new employees. Has anyone seen this first-hand? If so, how did it work out?

In Answer:

I have seen lots of people say that someone has used Klout to grade potential new hires, but I have not seen anyone in the world of recruitment use it as a main criteria for finding and selecting anyone.

There seems to be a rush to stupidity in Social Media at present, with a whole batch of new articles on the latest and greatest thing since Facebook, etc. Every time someone launches a new social media thing, there’s a flow of “How to get hired using X” type articles.

The answer presently with regards Klout is NO, and that’s based on two criteria. The first is based on a fundamental of the world of recruitment, which all of these articles seem to completely miss.

Firstly, if I had an employer customer looking for someone, why would I use Klout as part of the analysis of that candidates fit to that job? Klout is a theoretical measurement of someone’s online personal leverage, ie: how often they do something and others listen/take action. So its only relevance would be for positions that included a large proportion of social media, or management of. That suggests that its either a marketing or product launch type position, heavily engaging a GenY type audience that are mostly engaged online. I’d hence be looking at people with that type of track record: marketing based degree, marketing professional certified, a couple of product launches or marketing campaigns, etc. The ideal candidate would probably have written a couple of papers or articles, so I’d be on the lookout for those far more in the overall candidate analysis than a Klout score.

Secondly, is Klout a credible tool? At present they keep changing their algorithm every few months, so what was a good score last month is not so good this month. There is also a lot of industry wide critic of Klout, so much as other have pointed out its now has its own critic site at klouchebag.com.

I think where Klout could be useful, is if you were a in a product launch, and wated to hire a celebrity/personality to get at a particualr audience. We have seen numerous advertising agencies use popular Twitter followers in various campaigns, mainly fast food and snack orientated so far, to launch or enhance a campaign. Having chatted to a few people in that market, they have used Klout as a metric, but that’s alongside numerous other market-tested criteria. At the end of the day, the customer wants people to buy, not just re-tweet!

So, in summary, until Klout stabalises, how can it be seriously used by anyone? Secondly, if it were to be used in candidate search and selection, it would be at a third level or supplementary issue of candidate selection, over any primary search criteria (ie: career track record; education).

I’ll just add, from a European perspective, if a candidate asked me why they were rejected, and I stated it was mainly because of their low Klout score, I think a lawyer would tan my arse from here to eternity! Professionally as a recruiter, I conclude that they would be absolutely right to do so.

Good Luck!

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Employment law changes

April 2012

So, what was last week like for you? Get a new job, get made redundant, or were you in Jeremy Hunt or David Cameron’s position and get hounded by the press?

Or, you could have been sat in the UK Supreme Court, watching the world of UK employment change forever.

Two sample court cases went in front of the UK Supreme Court last week, and set legal precedence. They were known in legal circles as the Homer case and the Seldon case, but what affect will they have on your job search?

The Homer case

The Homer case was brough by ex-police officer Terence Homer, who worked as an adviser on the Policy National Legal Database. The judges ruled that Homer was at a disadvantage in comparison with younger workers because he did not have time to complete a law degree before his retirement date, meaning he could never achieve the promotion.

Chris Wellham, employment lawyer at Hogan Lovells, commented:

Employers will have to be cautious approach to requiring job applicants to have a degree, or failing to promote employees without a degree. It will question whether high levels of experience is an acceptable substitute to having a degree.

The Seldon case

Leslie Seldon was a partner at City of London legal firm Clarkson, Wright & Jakes. Seldon was forced to retire at aged 65, and took a case against the firm, after the company claimed the move was “legitimate and justifiable”.

Clarkson, Wright & Jakes provided a defence based on public interest, in that it said retiring all partners at 65 was acceptable as it allowed associates to move up the ranks to partnership, and gave the workforce reasonable expectations on when senior vacancies would arise.

The Supreme Court justified Clarkson, Wright & Jakes having a retirement age based on “public interest”, but could not reach a verdict on whether the retirement age of 65 in Mr Seldon’s case was justified, in that the firm provided no evidece that as a result of his retirement younger staff were promoted. The case will go back to the employment tribunal on this point.

Presiding judge Lady Hale, said in judgement:

Improving the recruitment of young people, in order to achieve a balanced and diverse workforce, is in principle a legitimate aim. But if there is in fact no problem in recruiting the young and the problem is in retaining the older and more experienced workers then it may not be a legitimate aim for the business concerned.

The Employment Implications

The Homer case will change job adverts by effectively outlawing the terms “graduate” or “degree-qualified”. In much the same way that since 2006 the words “enthusiastic” and “energetic” are rarely used, as they could be construed of being aimed at younger staff.

The Simpson case means that while firms can retire older employees, they need to have a proved HR management strategy, and possibly proof of younger employees being held back, before such a judgement call could be deemed rightful.

Potential practical solutions

With regards the Homer case, many employers could take a lead from the professional societies, in giving different routes to qualfication. We already take account of this in the Job Adverts that we write, so that while a degree may prove one option, in example 5+ years of mentored experience may provide another. It doesn’t mean that the words degree or graduate will become outlawed personally, it just means that the level needs to be justified for that position, and then diverse routes defined. Often the definition of what is required these days is defined by the insurance companies, so the words degree and graduate personally won’t become outlaw in all cases.

The Simpson case is the more difficult call. It suggests to me that post age 65, there could be a case for enforced retirement on blocked-promotion grounds. But do you raelly want to chuck someone out, particularly if they have been a loyal employee? My view os that retirement has become a more flexible term in the last decade, and more so since the economic crunch. Pensions don’t buy as much retirement income, people are more active, so they want to work on. It suggests two practical solutions to me:

• Flexible retirement: rather than a fixed date of 65, why not an optional date between 60- and 70? Employees could be offered instant optional retirement, or a turn-down hours type option
• The waiting room: an age could be defined, 65 seemingly being the legal agreement. All employees over 65 keep their jobs, but when a potential new promotion arises in that grade, the oldest person in that grade is enforced to retire. It could hence mean that you work until 65 or 70, depending on grade and skill

I don’t think with regards retirement age and enforcement procedures, that the Simpson case will be the last that we see taken in front of the UK Supreme Court, or even taken further to the European Court of Human Rights. The law from enforced at 65 was changed purposefully, but seems to have left the door open as to what is legal and what is not. Hence only further judgements will clarify the potential acceptable positions.

Good Luck!

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My dream job just got advertised!

Do you know what yours looks like?

Should I be writing a blog today? Not sure, don’t think so, I should be filling out a job application for my dream job!

But, when we start out by providing our Free CV Review service, and ask job seekers two simple questions:

1. What it is that you want do do next?
2. Who are the Top10 employers that provide that opportunity?

Those who have been in job search mode the longest, can’t answer the first part, let alone name one ideal employer. Are the two positions – inability to know what your dream job looks like, and associated longer job search – linked? I conclude so.

My dream job

In a quick background summary, like all small boys I loved railways! My grandfather owned a small holding right next to the former GWR mainline north of Taunton, and I could hence either meander off into his fields to watch the trains from the side, or when older walk up the quiet lane to an over bridge and wave at the drivers. Dreams via a trainset didn’t turn into a career in the nationalised railways, and I am very happy that I choose telecoms over the steel road. Plus, it meant I could sample rail travel around the world.

Having been a rugby fan, and wanting not to spend the rest of my life in the traffic jam which is the M25, I had always planned to move back to Wales, where I gained my first Masters degree. The opportunity came 20 years earlier than I planned, and I have no regrets moving back: low cost and easy access to a compact capital city, with sea, beaches and great walking all within a 30min drive. Yet only 2hrs to London by a train on which I can sit down, at a cost of £10 and 45mins more than it was from North Kent. Out of touch and isolated? Keep thinking that, and then we can keep living in this great part of the UK!

But I still have that hankering for railways, and would love – when I retire, in at least 15+ years – to spend some time working on one. There is fairly easy access to the West Somerset Railway from South Wales, and they have just advertised my dream job: station manager at Crowcombe Heathfield station. I can’t think of anything much better than working in the rolling Somerset hillside, with steam trains puffing by every so often, and taking care of the station and its passengers. Lovverly!

But its a bit too early to take my dream job, much as though its available. I know where I want to go next, and when I want to take certain opportunity, and that’s what I noticed about the most successful job seekers.

Career Plan v Right Opportunity

When I started researching Why Do Good Job Seekers Get Rejected, my first though on Successful Job Seekers was that they had to have a career plan. Sorry, it wasn’t true!

The truth was, whether they had: spent the previous few months thinking about it; had progressed through 200+ job applications to know what it was; or anything in between. They all knew what their next ideal job looked like.

Why does this work? The general view of job seekers is to create a Professional CV which is much like a patchwork quilt or a blanket. Resultantly, they believe that they can chuck it at any job application, with minimal adjustment, and then hope – with fingers crossed – for a Telephone Interview, or any other response. The reality of this approach is, unfortunately, unlimited rejection!

Good job seekers, as I outline in the 5 Steps To Employment:

1. Know what they offer
2. Know what they seek
3. Know what the market is looking for (50+ jobs)

They hence have an online and in personal profile that fits the ideal job applicant for those types of jobs. Hence, they get engaged more by sector-specialist recruiters and employers, and converting more Telephone Interviews into Job Interviews, and Job Interviews into Job Offers, get employed quicker.

Or as I put it, they throw aimed javelins over random blankets!

Improve your job search, instantly, with focus

The answer to solving most job search problems, instantly, is to ask the job seeker what they want to do next? Normally they then caveat this with “But that job doesn’t exist” or “No one’s recruiting for that right now”, to which our normal response is “And, have you checked that?” Most often the reply is “No!”

Answer this question:

If 50 jobs existed in the market, right now, and you couldn’t win one of them,

would you say that you had a good or a bad job search technique?

Yet many job seekers at present apply for 250+ jobs at present, to even get a single Job Interview. Better to apply for what you want (focus) and improve your job application technique, than get stuck in Any Job Will Do syndrome or Job Search Hell!

To do that, right now, ask yourself the following three questions:

• What it is that you want do do next? (title, market, geography, pay)
• Who are the Top10 employers that provide that opportunity? (name them, write them down)
• Can you find between 20 and 50 such jobs advertised, right now, on your favourite Jobs Boards?

Or, if you want our help in doing that, then just request one of our Free CV Reviews, and we’ll be happy to help and advise.
Good Luck!

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Agency Work

Temporary Job

How to get Agency Work or a Temporary Job

Even though as a recruitment agecy we don’t handle Agency Work, I often get asked how to get Agency Work or a Temporary Job.

The system I keep recommending works time after time, and very quickly, and its quite easy to deploy as long as you are willing to put in a bit of research work first.

As with all of our advice, it is based on the 5 Steps To Employment system.

Work Agency

The first issue with seeking any type of work, is discovering what you have got, and then positioning yourself in a field or market which actually is employing (50 or more jobs?).

Agencies like all recruiters are more selective than employer clients. Specifically, they want people who will enhance their reputation, and hence retain that employer client for more agency work. This is achieved by sending in people who:

• Do what they claim on their Professional CV
• Settle in quickly with the team that they are assigned to
• Pick up the work quickly, and do it
• Don’t create any issues within the employer client

In reward, these agency workers tend to be kept very busy with a contiual stream of work, and don’t have to scramble around various agencies calling up looking for something.

So, if you want to be a successful Agency Worker, then:

1. Have a skill which is required in the market (50 or more jobs)
2. And/or be a reliable and good worker, and enhance that agencies reputation

Agency Work System:

The first issue with an successful system of getting work, is to remember that People employ People. This is as true with Agency Work and Temporary Jobs, as it is with any employer.

The system consists in the Job Application step of seven steps:

1. Assess the market: who hiring, and what are they paying? Could you do a quick course, or adjust your skill set towards what is being hired for at the right rate?
2. Create a list of target agencies: this should be made up of a combination of three types of agency: specialist agencies in your target market (ie: accountancy, secretarial, etc); those who are advertising a lot of jobs on the job boards that you research (make a note of the person to contact in these adverts); and those agencies in your area (ie: Agency Work London)
3. Meet the Agencies: in the world of Click to Apply, much as though you can apply online, if you want work you need to make a personal contact in the agency. They then work for you, rather than you chasing them. So each agency that you have found/researched, ring up and make a personal appointment/meeting. Make contact with a named person (target the one you found in Step2), and make sure that you are talking to a person who handles employer clients and not just an admin or someone who handles job seekers. Take your all of your certificates and professional registration documents, so that clearance of your qualifications is instant. Take time to get to know them, and ideally look to spend 30mins with each agency.
4. Agree what types of jobs you are suitable for: agree what types of jobs they think you are suitable for, and how you need to adjust your Professional CV
5. Interview the Agency: ask how quickly they think that they can find you work? As they have agreed the target market and timescale, ask to see how many people that they have placed in that area in the past month? A good temp agency should be able to get you work within 3/4 weeks. If they haven’t placed anyone similar in that timescale, then why register with them?
6. Adjust your rate for quick Employment: To get work quickly, the easiest way is to drop your hourly/day rate. But while chatting to the agency, ask what their percentages are over what the employee day rate is? Hence with some agencies, much as though you may go low, if they charge a fixed fee below a certain rate, there is no incentive for the employer client.
7. Manage the communication: now manage the communication. Be prompt in following up on your CV actions, and then agree to communicate regularly. At kimimum, speak once a week on the phone with your contact, and if they haven’t found you any work with four weeks, ask for a meeting. Don’t look like a desperate job seeker, act like a professional! If an agency hasn’t gained you an interview in 6weeks or more, the its a sign that you ought to be reviewing your relationship. No work in 3 months is an instant chop!

How many Temp Agencies?

The next key then, is how many agencies? Agencies want to offer their clients great people who are unique to them. Secondly, when an employer client sees you offered by more than one agency, then you look like a desparate job seeker. Hence at both agency and employer levels, they will be very reluctant to employ you. Further the agency from client feedback of having seen you in more than one agencies list, may well put you on a Do Not Use list. To avoid this problem, I’d suggest therefore work with between 4 and 6 agencies at maximum. Spread this around in terms of specialisation and geography, and be honest if they ask if you have registered with others, explaining your reasoning. If they don’t get you work, then change one or two every four weeks, and make sure that you actively deregister. You may well find that after deregistering, you suddenly get an offer of a Job Interview. Don’t worry, its a normal lazy agency trick! It is up to you whether you take it or not.

Do Not Use List

All Temporary Employment Agencies have a Do Not Use List, which lists job seekers who through various pieces of assesment they do not wish to place. This list has to comply with all Employment Law and Discrimination Legislation, so it is normally based on the fact that you were dismissed early from a piece of Agency Work at the clients request. There are other reasons that you will get placed on there, including being serially difficult to handle by the agency staff, or being highly persistent/looking like a desperate job seeker, and registering with too many other agencies.

What should you do if you end up on a Do Not Use List, or suspect that you have been placed on one? Firstly, call the agency if you are not getting any work, and ask what the problem is? If they seem willing to work with you, ad opportunities suddenly appear, then its just been a drop-off in communication.

However, if opportunities do not appear, then ask again why? If you are not happy with the answers, then seek out and register with another agecy, before actively deregistering with that one. There is no point in fighting against their decision, it will never get you work any quicker.

If you fail or make a mistake in a job, and get dismissed by the client early, then engage the agency and put your side of the story across. Always be prepared if necessary to applogise, remember you represent the agency and its retention of its reputation with that client is revenue to them. Enabling them to achieve that means that they will work for you to get another position.

OK, let see the principles of the system in operation…

Howdo you get a job through a temp agency?

Mike, a creative artist who is looking for temporray admin work: I have been registered with at least 12 temp agencies and have been calling at least weekly to each one for the past six months. So far, I’ve been placed on 3 one-day assignments and one full-time job where I was fired after two weeks (given a very vague reasoning). I’m wondering just how should I go about working with these temp agencies? They always say they will call me right away when something comes in. Is it possible they’ve only received a handful of jobs in the last 6 months? Who should I be speaking to at these agencies? Is there something else I need to be doing in order to really get them to pay attention to me?

In Answer:

Well, you have made the right third step, but after that made a few errors.

First step is to assess the market: who hiring, and what are they paying? Could you do a quick course, or adjust your skill set towards what is being hired for at the right rate?

Second step is to create a list of target agencies. This should be made up of specialist agencies i your target employment area, those who are advertising a lot of jobs on the job boards that you research (make a ote of the person to contact in these adverts), and those agencies in your area.

Third, phone each agency and ask for a personal appointment/meeting. Make contact with a named person, and make sure that you are talking to a person who handles employer clients and not just an admin or someone who handles job seekers. Take time to get to know them. Then agree what types of jobs they think you are suitable for, and how you need to adjust your CV/resume.

Then having agreed to do that, ask how quickly they think that they can find you work? As they have agreed the target market and timescale, ask to see how many people that they have placed in that area in the past month. The key here is that agencies want people who will do good work, reliably, and then the client will pay them and keep engaging that agency. The fact that you didn’t do that with one agency suggests that you are on their Do Not Use list. You may not only have lost yourself work, but them a client as well.

To get work quickly, the easiest way is to drop your hourly/day rate. But while chatting to the agency, ask what their percentages are over what the employee day rate is? Hence with some agencies, much as though you may go low, if they charge a fixed fee below a certain rate, there is no incentive for the employer client.

The next key then, is how many agencies? I’d suggest that 12 is far too many. Agencies want to offer their clients great people who are unique to them. Secondly, when an employer client see’s you offered by more than one agency, then you look like a desparate job seeker. Hence at both agency and employer levels, they will be very reluctant to employ you, ad the agency from client feedback of having seen you in more than one agencies list may well put you on a Do Not Use list. To avoid this problem, I’d suggest therefore that you want to be choosey, and work with between 4 and 6 agencies at maximum. spread this around in ters of specialisation and geography, and be honest if they ask if you have registered with others, explaining your reasoning.

Once you are registered, rather than eMailing on a regular basis, set timescales of communications with your contact. Once a week should be minimum, but pick up the phone and talk at leats one a week, and meet once a month. A good agency should need more than a few weeks to place a reliable and initially cheap employee, and once you are proven you won’t find getting work a problem.

The position you are in now, suggest that you ought to reasses everything, from target market to agencies that you are registered with. I’d start by calling each, and asking for feedback o why they are not getting you work? What more could you do to help them? If they agree that they can’t help you, then what’s the point in being registered with them? If an agency hasn’t gained you an interview in 6weeks or more, the its a sign that you ought to be reviewing your relationship. No work in 3months is an instant chop!

There is work out there, I just conclude that in part due to personal branding/positioning, and in part due to over registration/being put on at least one Do Not Use list, you have dug yourself into a job search hell. Don’t worry, its easily solved, you just need to go back a bit and make sure that the agencies are working for you.

Good Luck!

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Job Application:

Interface and Handling

While the internet tries to make Job Application easier, there’s an age old problem of the Employment Process that makes Job Application more difficult. What type of interface and handling are you dealing with?

You may have made a few job applications, and you may be accepting of the fact that different companies and organisations will have different cultures, and hence different ways and forms of Job Application.

But one element behind all that intreface and handling, is the key question of who all that Job Application information is going to? Answer that, and you can greatly improve your job application success.

Job Application differences

Clearly, there are differences between companies, in both size, scale, location and approcah to recruitment. Whilst all should be legal, these differences will necessarily dictate changes in how job applications are processed and handled.

But as I have said many times before, one principle always in job application and employment: People employ People. This is why I always put the emphasis on getting to and enagaing the Hiring Manager as early as possible in the Job Application Process.

Job Application interface

So the key question before submitting any job application, is to answer the question:

Who is handling the job application interface?

This is not an answer of which type of internet interface or form they are using, but the type of person who would be the first point of contact. There will be one of three answers to this, and that will dictate how you should approach that job application:

1. Human Resources
2. A Recruiter or Head Hunter
3. The Hiring Manager

Presently, around 50% of hiring is undertaken by large corporates (companies with a turover of more than £100M), and the rest by other organisations. The top1000 companies in the UK do as much hiring as the rest of the organisations, combined. This genreally means that the Job Application interface is handled for these types of companies by Human Resources.

Human Resources

In the old days, HR hired and Hiring Managers got what came out of the hiring process. These days HR facilitate the process, which is driven by the Hiring Manager.

If you have choice, then personally avoid HR! They have a different agenda to the Hiring Manager, and will be some what distant from most as hiring will be a fairly irregular process for that Hiring Manager.

If you have to go through HR, then ask questions which only the Hiring Manager could answer. Ask enough, and most HR people just hand you over to the Hiring Manager, as they don’t want to play postbox.

If you see multiple job opportunities at the same company, then use HR to guide and direct you in: agreeing the best job that should apply for aginst your competencies; guiding you to which job has the least competition.

Recruiter or Head Hunter

There is a whole article on knowing how to spot a Head Hunter from a Recruiter, but generally:

• Head Hunters will approach you, and their fee will i part be paid up front
• You approach Recruiters, and their fee will be contingency-based, ie: only paid if their candidate is hired

The key with any Head Hunter or Recruiter is to asses:

1. How close they are to the Hiring Manager
2. How they are paid and how much competition they are in for this placement

Some recruiters will find what they know are market-short skills, and then pitch these to target employers. In other words, they may not even have a brief or a signed contract with that employer, they just know that that employer will be interested in those skills.

Until you can answer the above questions, and know both why that Head Hunter?recruiter know’s what the ideal candidiate looks like/the hiring process time scale, then remember that your CV is currency in this market place. Don’t hand it over until you can answer all four questions, other wise unfortunately you just become recruitment fodder.

Hiring Manager

Normally, you will only deal directly with the Hiring Manager in two situations:

1. Small and Medium scale enterprises, where there is no HR department
2. Executive vacacies, where the hiring manager is the Chairman or Chief Executive

My guide, if you are early in your career, is to be cautious of SME’s. Companies of less than 24 employees won’t have formal systems, and hence any training will come secondary to earning revenue. This is particualrly true in the Professions, such as Accountancy Jobs.

In all cases, where the Hiring Manager is handling hiring, expect the timescales to vary (as their workload and hence focus does), and that the key issue will be social fit, ie: do you get on with them? So find business ad professional things in common, and talk about industry issues over personal specifics or their business strategy. You need to build to enable yourself to be seen as the solution to their employment opportunity.

Combination

If you find a combination of all two or more of the above, be very cautious!

More than one recruiter approacing you means that its a contingency fee based opportunity, and it becomes like picking a horse in the Derby or the Grand National in which to win a race. So don’t pick a horse, choose to speak to the prize giver. At least one recruiter in this situation will be desperate enough to giveaway enough information to allow you to directly contact the employer.

Other combinations means that although the organisation has one agreed formal hiring process, the other person who has approached you doewn’t agree with that process, or their has been a relationship failure. Be very, very cautious in this situation. At some point, someoe will win in the orgaisation and someone else will lose, and betting either way is not wise. If that’s the organisation that you really want to work for, and you accept that this job application is a bet, then get as close to the Hiring Manager as possible.

Job Application Success

As I have written before, Job Application Success is all about people, and specifically the Hiring Manager. But recognising who is handling the interface will greatly improve your chnaces of employment success.

In example….

Different Job Application interfaces and handling

Thomas, a job seeker, asks: In a job search at present, and getting confused. Some companies have a manager do the hiring; some have HR; some have recruiters; and some have all three. Why is this? Should you tailor your job application, CV and job interview for each type of hiring person?

In Answer:
Accepting that different companies will use different processes, all of which have to be legally compliant, you also have scale/size differences to cope with. All of this makes job applicatio far more complex that ideal for the job seeker, placing additioal challenges in their pathway to employment.

The simple answer is that People employ People, specifically the Hiring Manager. Anyone else that you speak to is simply facilitating the hiring process, and hence although they may well influence the choice of the eventual successfully job applicant, they won’t be the person who makes the final decision. Only the hiring manager does that.

So ayone you speak to who is not the Hiring Manager, you have to ask two key questions of:

1. What is their relationship to the Hiring Manager?
2. What do you need to do to enable them to place you in front of the Hiring Manager?

If you can’t answer those two questions, then they are a barrier over a facilitator. Also, as another human being, they will have a different view on who the ideal job applicant is to the hiring manager. So it is essential that you get to the hiring manager as quickly as possible.

The basic answer to your question is to use the same Professional CV no matter what the interface, but you have to choose when to use it with each different type of interface, to ensure that yoy get and provide the right information to eable you to get to the next stage. The most critical of these is the recruiter, who I suggest most use their LinkedIn Profile for, as opposed to their CV.

At the end of the day, People employ People, and ayone else is simply facilitating the hiring  process. Accept this, and you will make quicker progress to getting employed.

Good Luck!

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