The subject of this blog isn’t new and it follows on from my last one about how to speed up your job search. And what I’m about to say has been said many times before, but as ever it all bears repeating. Most of our team who sift through covering letters all agree that far too many are just boring, vague or ineffective. Those go straight into the bin.
So what does a covering letter need to get noticed? Here are 8 tips from the team:
1. Sell yourself. A covering letter is a sales pitch. All of us who believe in something important are selling – be it a proposition, an idea, or maybe ourselves. This, by the way, doesn’t mean you steal credit–just that you emphasise your achievements.
2. Demonstrate interest in the job. Sounds obvious doesn’t it? But so many people don’t bother to do homework on either the company or the role for which they are applying. Reference something about what you have learned in your covering letter. This is where you can tailor the needs of the company/role to the expertise that you offer.
3. Address it to the right person! Every day we receive covering letters addressed to the wrong person and even to people who don’t work for our firm. The letter has been cut & pasted from one to someone else in a different firm. Sloppy and insulting.
4. Be declarative. A good covering letter is a page. Get to the point quickly, telling us what you’ve accomplished. “This is what I have accomplished…”
5. Omit the conditional. Avoid statements such as, “As conditions warranted..,” or “Given the circumstances…” Conditionals detract from the power of your message. Drop them.
6. Avoid the passive voice. Using the passive voice makes you sound like a bystander. Instead of “Our effort was led by me,” write, “I led our effort.” Remember, you are the initiator.
7. Proof it. Take it from us: don’t click send until you have a trusted friend or your spouse read your letter several times to check for clarity – did you mean to say that? — and typos – Oops!
8. Be humble. This is a caveat to the first item on this list. You are pitching yourself but remember that as a leader you achieve good results through the efforts of others. It is always good to mention how you work well with and through others.
Good luck and good letter writing. Your next job may depend upon it… but of course you already know that. If you would like to discuss how to write a CV or covering letter, please feel free to contact one of the team at www.chestertongray.com
Thursday 30 June 2011
Tuesday 21 June 2011
7 Ways to Speed Up Your Job Search
I’ve been in recruitment now for more years than I care to remember and try not to admit to, and I never cease to be surprised by how many times my colleagues and I are still asked many of the same questions that we were asked fifteen or more years ago. Sure, technology has moved many of the processes on and has eased the application process but there are still many of the same issues that candidates face.
So, not only is the job search often frustrating, but it also becomes intensely time consuming. Many candidates who are out of work end up looking for several months before an interview opportunity finally materialises.
How can you speed up the process and land your ideal job in less time? Here are a few ways that my colleagues and I believe that candidates can speed up their job search:
• Use trusted job search engines and networking sites. Looking for opportunities via job aggregators can lead you to postings by the actual company and not a third party. You can also sign up for alerts so you don’t miss any important opportunities. Many networking sites work the same way—someone who works for the company (or knows someone who does) often posts the job opportunity in a group or on a message board.
• Start blogging regularly. Creating and maintaining a blog helps to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. It’s also a great way to increase your visibility and broaden your network.
• Increase your visibility online and offline. There are many things you can be doing to increase your visibility. Blogging, mentioned above, is a prime example. You should also consider attending networking events, conferences, association meetings, Twitter chats, workshops, and webinars. All of these can help you gain more skills and knowledge about your field while meeting people who may be able to help boost your job search.
• Talk with a career coach. A lot of people are unsure of how to properly go about job searching—and it’s no surprise, as many of us were never formally taught how to job search. A career coach can help you navigate the world of the job hunt and give you tips and advice on how to market yourself properly. If you’re unsure of what makes you unique among the other candidates, they can help you identify that as well. We have many close links with coaches who have helped candidates reappraise themselves and move from a trough of inactivity to a successful interview. Talking of which….
• Be well prepared for your interview. In this tough job market, one of the worst things you can do to yourself is get an interview and show up unprepared. You need to know how you’ll answer the traditional interview questions and what experiences you want to highlight for the hiring manager in your answers. You also need to know as much as possible about the company, its culture, and how you’ll fit into it all.
• Volunteer your time at a local non-profit organisation. Volunteering is a great way to fill gaps in your resume, gain valuable skills, and meet new people. It’s also fulfilling to be using your skills to help a local community group and a great way to keep busy while job hunting.
• Optimise your CV and online profiles. Keywords are an essential part of the job search today. Recruiters like us and hiring managers are looking for a specific candidate and often find that person through searching several keywords or key phrases. These are often shared in the job description—so make sure that your online profiles and resume align with the job you’re applying for.
Keep your CV short, that’s ideally three pages or less, and pertinent. Despite the many articles out there on how to write a CV we still receive many that are well over ten pages and I’m afraid that most are dropped straight into the on-line re-cycle bin because we receive over 250 CV’s a week and simply don’t have time to read that much information and do the rest of our assignment tasks!
If you apply these basic principles when you are looking for a new job, then you will significantly improve your prospects. We can offer further tips and guidance to candidates on their job search so please feel free to call me or my colleagues for an informal discussion.
So, not only is the job search often frustrating, but it also becomes intensely time consuming. Many candidates who are out of work end up looking for several months before an interview opportunity finally materialises.
How can you speed up the process and land your ideal job in less time? Here are a few ways that my colleagues and I believe that candidates can speed up their job search:
• Use trusted job search engines and networking sites. Looking for opportunities via job aggregators can lead you to postings by the actual company and not a third party. You can also sign up for alerts so you don’t miss any important opportunities. Many networking sites work the same way—someone who works for the company (or knows someone who does) often posts the job opportunity in a group or on a message board.
• Start blogging regularly. Creating and maintaining a blog helps to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. It’s also a great way to increase your visibility and broaden your network.
• Increase your visibility online and offline. There are many things you can be doing to increase your visibility. Blogging, mentioned above, is a prime example. You should also consider attending networking events, conferences, association meetings, Twitter chats, workshops, and webinars. All of these can help you gain more skills and knowledge about your field while meeting people who may be able to help boost your job search.
• Talk with a career coach. A lot of people are unsure of how to properly go about job searching—and it’s no surprise, as many of us were never formally taught how to job search. A career coach can help you navigate the world of the job hunt and give you tips and advice on how to market yourself properly. If you’re unsure of what makes you unique among the other candidates, they can help you identify that as well. We have many close links with coaches who have helped candidates reappraise themselves and move from a trough of inactivity to a successful interview. Talking of which….
• Be well prepared for your interview. In this tough job market, one of the worst things you can do to yourself is get an interview and show up unprepared. You need to know how you’ll answer the traditional interview questions and what experiences you want to highlight for the hiring manager in your answers. You also need to know as much as possible about the company, its culture, and how you’ll fit into it all.
• Volunteer your time at a local non-profit organisation. Volunteering is a great way to fill gaps in your resume, gain valuable skills, and meet new people. It’s also fulfilling to be using your skills to help a local community group and a great way to keep busy while job hunting.
• Optimise your CV and online profiles. Keywords are an essential part of the job search today. Recruiters like us and hiring managers are looking for a specific candidate and often find that person through searching several keywords or key phrases. These are often shared in the job description—so make sure that your online profiles and resume align with the job you’re applying for.
Keep your CV short, that’s ideally three pages or less, and pertinent. Despite the many articles out there on how to write a CV we still receive many that are well over ten pages and I’m afraid that most are dropped straight into the on-line re-cycle bin because we receive over 250 CV’s a week and simply don’t have time to read that much information and do the rest of our assignment tasks!
If you apply these basic principles when you are looking for a new job, then you will significantly improve your prospects. We can offer further tips and guidance to candidates on their job search so please feel free to call me or my colleagues for an informal discussion.
Thursday 9 June 2011
The Easiest Way to Get a Raise and Promotion
If, for some reason, you need any urging to become more aggressive about your career and financial future, a recent study from Accenture should provide it. The study was designed to figure out how satisfied men and women are at their jobs, and what they plan to do about it. But buried within the results are some eye-opening statistics about who gets a pay rise or promotion–and why.
Accenture surveyed 3,400 professionals at medium and large-sized companies in 29 countries. Some 500 of those people were in the U.S. Respondents were split evenly between men and women and between three age groups: Generation Y, Generation X, and Baby Boomers.
According to the survey, only 43% of people are satisfied with their jobs. Why are the rest so glum? The leading reason, cited by 45 percent of people overall but by 52 percent of those in Generation Y, is that they’re underpaid. That’s not completely shocking, given that the survey also found that in the U.S., only 44% of women and 48% of men say they have ever asked for or negotiated a pay increase.
What happens when people do ask for a rise? In the overwhelming majority of cases, people who ask for a rise are at least thrown a bone. And in a significant number of cases, employees who do ask for a pay rise actually get more money than they were expecting.
Here’s how it breaks down:
• Some 25% of people said they got more money than they were expecting
• An additional 38% said they got the rise that they were expecting
• 17% got more money, but not as much as they were hoping for
• 5% did not get a rise, but they did get some other type of incentive
• Only 15% got nothing
To summarise that: Of those who asked for a raise, 85% at least got something. Some 63% got at least as much as they asked for.
So why don’t more people ask?
Another big reason people said they were dissatisfied with their jobs was lack of opportunity for growth, mentioned by 34% of people. (Another 25% said they were tired or burned out, which should be its own wake-up call to employers.)
Yet only 28% of U.S. women say they have ever asked for a promotion and only 39% of men have asked either. Of course, there are cases where employees badger for a well-deserved promotion for years and never get anything. But perhaps more often, people who believe they are underappreciated or stuck in their jobs should just ask for the job they want.
According to the report, here’s what happened to those who did ask for a promotion:
• 17% got a new role, and it was a better one than they’d hoped to land
• 42% got the role they asked for.
In other words, 59% of people who asked for a promotion got one. Things didn’t go badly for the other 41%, either:
• 10% got a new role, but not the one they asked for, and not one that was a clear promotion
• 10% of the time, nothing happened.
• 5% of those who asked for a promotion got new responsibilities instead. Even that’s not so bad. While it may sound like these people just got more work dumped on them, among U.S. survey respondents, 47% of people said that taking on new responsibilities had helped move their career forward.
I think that it would be an interesting comparison if Accenture carried out the same survey in the UK and whether the percentages would be similar.
When we interview candidates one of the things that we are always looking for is whether their motive is simply to get a job offer and then go back to their own company and to use it as a bargaining tool, so if you look at it from our perspective it would make our life easier if candidates took the initiative and asked for a promotion or a pay rise.
Fortunately we have very rarely been through the offer as a bargaining tool scenario, but if you’ve never asked for a promotion or a rise, why not?
Accenture surveyed 3,400 professionals at medium and large-sized companies in 29 countries. Some 500 of those people were in the U.S. Respondents were split evenly between men and women and between three age groups: Generation Y, Generation X, and Baby Boomers.
According to the survey, only 43% of people are satisfied with their jobs. Why are the rest so glum? The leading reason, cited by 45 percent of people overall but by 52 percent of those in Generation Y, is that they’re underpaid. That’s not completely shocking, given that the survey also found that in the U.S., only 44% of women and 48% of men say they have ever asked for or negotiated a pay increase.
What happens when people do ask for a rise? In the overwhelming majority of cases, people who ask for a rise are at least thrown a bone. And in a significant number of cases, employees who do ask for a pay rise actually get more money than they were expecting.
Here’s how it breaks down:
• Some 25% of people said they got more money than they were expecting
• An additional 38% said they got the rise that they were expecting
• 17% got more money, but not as much as they were hoping for
• 5% did not get a rise, but they did get some other type of incentive
• Only 15% got nothing
To summarise that: Of those who asked for a raise, 85% at least got something. Some 63% got at least as much as they asked for.
So why don’t more people ask?
Another big reason people said they were dissatisfied with their jobs was lack of opportunity for growth, mentioned by 34% of people. (Another 25% said they were tired or burned out, which should be its own wake-up call to employers.)
Yet only 28% of U.S. women say they have ever asked for a promotion and only 39% of men have asked either. Of course, there are cases where employees badger for a well-deserved promotion for years and never get anything. But perhaps more often, people who believe they are underappreciated or stuck in their jobs should just ask for the job they want.
According to the report, here’s what happened to those who did ask for a promotion:
• 17% got a new role, and it was a better one than they’d hoped to land
• 42% got the role they asked for.
In other words, 59% of people who asked for a promotion got one. Things didn’t go badly for the other 41%, either:
• 10% got a new role, but not the one they asked for, and not one that was a clear promotion
• 10% of the time, nothing happened.
• 5% of those who asked for a promotion got new responsibilities instead. Even that’s not so bad. While it may sound like these people just got more work dumped on them, among U.S. survey respondents, 47% of people said that taking on new responsibilities had helped move their career forward.
I think that it would be an interesting comparison if Accenture carried out the same survey in the UK and whether the percentages would be similar.
When we interview candidates one of the things that we are always looking for is whether their motive is simply to get a job offer and then go back to their own company and to use it as a bargaining tool, so if you look at it from our perspective it would make our life easier if candidates took the initiative and asked for a promotion or a pay rise.
Fortunately we have very rarely been through the offer as a bargaining tool scenario, but if you’ve never asked for a promotion or a rise, why not?
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