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It’s crucial on your curriculum vitae (CV) and during an interview that you insist upon making an example of yourself!

Why? It’s so easy to make claims about being able to work in a team or work on your own initiative, (claims that 99% of administration staff make on their CV by the way), but it’s another thing to example these claims. So, if you’d like to make your CV stand out from the crowd and your answers to pack more of a punch during an interview, make sure you provide real life examples to back up your claims.

On your CV, provide a concise list of achievements under your personal profile. I’m amazed that more people don’t do this. If you believe that an interviewer will go hunting, on your behalf, to establish your achievements by reading and re-reading your CV, you’re mistaken! Your achievements need to be concisely typed and placed beneath your personal profile where they stand out.

Your personal profile may, for example, detail that you’re passionate about customer service and nestled below in your achievements you could , (if it were true), detail that you were given a Customer Service Champion award in 2012. This would be an excellent example of positive reinforcement through providing an example and would have massively increased your chances of being placed in the yes pile of CV’s.

Exactly the same is true once you have secured an interview. It’s absolutely crucial that you rehearse your answers to typical interview questions by practicing your answers which incorporate cast iron examples. For example, if, during an interview, you were asked what your biggest strength is, you could answer in these two ways:

You could simply state, “My attention to detail” or you could explain:

“My attention to detail. For example, in my current role I am responsible for collating the sales team’s data on a weekly basis for my sales director. It’s absolutely crucial that it’s accurate because it’s used to calculate their bonuses. My data is double checked by the Finance Director and I’ve got a 100% record for the last 4 years”.

Who do you think made the best example of themselves? Answer: The same person who just got offered a new job! Whether you are composing your CV or answers to interview questions make sure you evidence every skill with a cast iron guarantee.

For more help on writing a great CV, getting prepared for interviews and general recruitment advice for getting the Best Jobs in Milton Keynes, please go to our website: www.ascendantrecruitment.co.uk

With so much discussion about austerity, belt tightening, and general down beat forecasts you could be forgiven for worrying about your future career prospects – or indeed whether you’ll have a job next week! For what it’s worth, we’re sure that things are beginning to improve. Nevertheless, if you are concerned about the future, it can pay to evaluate whether or not your employer considers you a good employee – and, of course, how motivated your employer will be to retain your services if the going gets really tough again in the future.

If you ask employers what constitutes a good employee they usually cite words such as hard working, dependability, punctuality, communication skills, flexibility, motivation etc. These words mean different things to different people and nobody trains you how to be flexible, motivated and dependable – so how do you know if you are behaving as a good employee? Most employers assume that their employees will be punctual, honest and dependable and it’s wise to concentrate on the personal attributes that form the building blocks of most ideal employees. So ask yourself the following questions:

How hard do I really work? Ouch! Look at the most productive person in the office and copy them! In these uncertain times, nothing really matches a real grafter.

How loyal am I? Loyalty counts for a lot in today’s marketplace and always speaking positively about your employer is one of the measures of company loyalty.

How flexible am I? Be willing to take on extra responsibilities and learn new skills could be just what you employer is looking for you to suggest. And within reason it’s best not to avoid doing something just because it wasn’t listed in your job description.

Do I take initiative? Look around for things that need to be done – don’t wait to be asked. Suggest new ways of doing things if it’s appropriate and come up with new ideas.

Would I want to recruit an employee like me? Really think about this one – if you arrive for work at 8.55 am when all your colleagues are there at 8.30am would you consider yourself for the next expensive training course, promotion, or even extra responsibility? Possibly not. So lead by example and do to your employer as you would want done to yourself. In today’s world it’s absolutely crucial to have the right mental outlook. As an employee you should look “to do” first and seek reward and recognition second; far too often these two activities are mixed up with dramatic consequences for your job security!

Would I want to work with people like me? Try taking time out to help junior colleagues – suggest a mentoring system if there isn’t one in place – it’s a great thing to have on your CV. If this may seem grandiose, simply make sure that you are positive to all around you and consistently strive to be the best that you can be.

Am I motivated? Appear eager to be at work each day and make sure that you’re keen to keep learning. You need to have that willingness to learn and move with the times. Never fall in to the trap we refer to as “Veteran’s syndrome”. Things never stand still and what you know today may be of no use to the employer of tomorrow so make sure that you keep learning.

The work ethic may differ from company to company but genuine hard work, honesty, punctuality, a positive attitude together with motivation and flexibility will all make for a valuable employee. If you’ve portrayed yourself at interview as dependable, ethical and flexible with a real desire to succeed then as long as you really work on those attributes, you won’t go far wrong, no matter what the economy is doing!

One thing I stress to the Ascendant Recruitment team, and in turn to our candidates, is the importance of preparation. Whilst we may be fully aware of the benefits of being fully prepared for an interview process, candidates in the job market might not as they will not be subjected to the interview process as regularly as recruiters are.

To counter this, and to ensure we provide the best service possible for our clients and candidates, we make it part of our role to give candidates everything we can to help them when it comes to interview preparation. This isn’t just the basic list of do’s and don’ts either. We provide candidates with interview notes for each stage of the process and then do our best to prepare them emotionally for the process.

Taking part in an interview can be a daunting prospect and it’s all too easy for a fantastic candidate to buckle under the pressure simply because they feel unprepared. Whilst it is easy to find out some of the more basic preparation required such as information on the company and the role itself, there are other areas which you may not realise you need to prepare for.

For example, do you know how you would explain why your skills and experience make you the best choice for the role? Sounds simple enough but so many candidates don’t think this through clearly before an interview and this will show to the interviewer. Before you go to the interview list your skills against the job requirements and make sure you take this note with you so you cover off everything. Think of examples to support this as well.

We’ll always go through interview tips with our candidates before they head to any interview, but there are five key points for everyone to remember:

1)      Enthusiasm is infectious – if you show you’re enthusiastic about the role and the industry, the interviewer will pick up on this and be more enthusiastic about hiring you

2)      Sell yourself in a confident, professional manner – It’s not about bragging or being modest. You need to find the balance between the two by giving examples of what you’ve done well in previous roles and highlighting the relevance of your skills to the role you’re applying for

3)      Never make an assumption – what you don’t tell the interviewer they will not know. Even if you’ve mentioned something in your CV or covering letter, mention it again in the interview.

4)      Do the confident thing to feel confident – offer a firm handshake and a warm smile. These small actions will make you look and feel confident

5)      Express your interest in the job – you may think it is obvious that you are interested in the job, but in this competitive candidate market you really need to make sure you stand out.

I wanted to write a short, but hopefully informative piece on how to quickly and effectively write a job specification, written from our perspective, the recruiter. I hope, that as I explain the crucial things we always want to know, it will help you clarify your thinking, speed up the writing of your job specifications and help you write job descriptions that help you to find the right person for your business.

First things first, establish your Key to Hire:

Basically the first question you should ask yourself is what are the non-negotiable skills, attitudes, behaviors and duties your role demands?  We call this your Key to Hire.

At Ascendant Recruitment we live and die by the 80/20 rule.  Richard Koch has written a great book all about the 80/20 rule if anyone is interested.

Your Key to Hire will make up a very big part of your job description.  For administration roles, (Ascendant Recruitment are Milton Keynes leading Office Support Recruiter), the Key to Hire can easily be 80% of the role.  What skills are essential if the person is going to make your role a success?  What attitudes and behaviors must they display if they’re going to really make an impact?  And what are the key duties the candidate must be able to perform?

Spend the most amount of your time on this part of writing the job description (your own unique Key to Hire) as it really is the most important part of the job description.  Get this right and you’ve taken a massive step in clarifying the type of person your business needs.  The opposite of this, is to ruminate for hours about silly little incidental skills and abilities that, even if the candidate possessed them, would have little or no impact on their performance. 

Second thing to do, establish the second most important skill, attitude, behavior and duty!

Simply repeat step one for your second key to hire

Third thing to do, establish the third most important skill, attitude, behavior and duty!

Simply repeat step two for your third key to hire

At the end of this process you will have established the top three skills, abilities, and behaviors you need a candidate to display and you’ll have clarified the three most important duties you want completing.  This will add a great deal of clarity to your recruitment process and massively increase your chances of quickly filling your role.

Ascendant Recruitment has filled over a thousand permanent roles since we opened our doors in 2003 and I can guarantee that if you use these three simple steps, you’ll have a very robust, efficient and accurate job description; possibly on one side of an A4 sheet of paper!

Some may scoff at the simplicity of what I’ve written because they like complicated.  We don’t like complicated we like simple.  Simple works, is understood by all and helps us, time after time, locate the right person for our client’s positions. 

By all means you can elaborate on the job description if you feel the role warrants it, but the elaboration must be built on a solid foundation of Keys (skills, attitudes, behaviors and duties) to Hire; never forget the 80/20 rule!

Final Tips

1. Don’t succumb to the temptation to merge two completely different skill sets in to the same role.  For example, please don’t think it’s a good idea to try and recruit an accounts clerk and also ask the person to complete telesales work – just because you happen to have two live roles.  It’s a bit like trying to recruit a builder who you want to cut hair in the afternoons!
2. Avoid your company jargon, no one else understands it.
3. Remember to focus on the big things that will really make a difference to your company; eliminate the pages of fluff!
4. If you’re using a recruitment agency, make sure you know this information.  We’re not psychic!!!!   Vague job descriptions will never produce relevant candidates.

This really is a whistle stop tour of writing a job description for office support, administrative positions only.

If you’d like any help to write an effective job description or with a piece of recruitment please call me or one of my team today!  On 01908 200270.

Alex Pratt’s book, “Austerity Business” 39 Tips for Doing More with Less, is a great book tailored to the environment we’re currently in.

On page 193 he explains what he believes our priorities should currently be.  Namely:

1. Growing your bottom line
2. Building your brand
3. Improving your cash efficiency

I think his advice to try and measure everything you’re currently doing on a daily basis against these three priorities; to ensure that every activity meets at least one if not two of them, is great advice. 

Not only is this great business advice for everyone tasked with running a department or a company, I think it gives job seekers a valuable insight into what every employer in the current job market is looking for.

Quite simply, as a job seeker, I think you’d greatly increase your chances of a successful interview if you’re able to demonstrate your ability to help your future employer achieve one, two or all three of the above.

So when you’re preparing for your next interview remember the pressure your future employer may be facing, even if business is good, and cogently explain how you’ll assist them in growing their bottom line, building their brand or improving their cash efficiency.

1. Yo’ve demonstrated that you’re very unhappy by taking the time out to look for a new position, attend interviews and accept a new role. If you accept a counter offer and stay at your existing company this will put a huge amount of doubt in your existing employers mind and almost certainly have a bearing on your future career prospects.
2. If you’ve been lured into staying at your existing company with an offer of more money you’ve got to ask yourself how much your existing employer truly values you. Remember this, the new company was prepared to freely offer you the increased salary; your existing company only did it under duress (they were in fact happy to underpay you while they could get away with it!) Do you really want to stay there? Really???!!! Bear in mind also, that all companies have pay structures and you’ve probably just had this and next year’s pay rises!!!
3. Accepting a counter offer does, without a shadow of a doubt, make you look indecisive and definitely burns bridges with prospective employers. Milton Keynes is a small place!!!
4. Once your existing employer has stabilised their ship and have gotten over the shock of nearly losing you a honeymoon period will set in. Typically this period doesn’t last long and comes to a crashing halt when they remember they’ve been forced into paying you more money! Often this quickly leads to a hunt for a cheaper replacement – beware!!!!!!!
5. Ask yourself honestly, once you’ve gotten use to the extra money, has what made you unhappy in the first place really changed? Typically the answer will be no, and typically within 6 months you’ll be unhappy again! Harsh but true; based on the scores of people we’ve spoken to.

The time to deliberate about whether you should move jobs, is before you even start looking for a new one!!!! Use this time wisely so you act intelligently and not purely on emotion. Take as much time as you need to decide if you want to move. Do everything you can to explore the possibility of staying within your current company; look at other departments, other geographical parts of the company or World for that matter, if that’s what you want to do.

But once you have decided that you’re leaving be strong! In fact be brave! Very brave!!!!

At all times act with respect and courtesy to your existing employer because you should never bite the hand that feeds you, (remember Milton Keynes is a small place). But please be clear that I passionately believe that, in most circumstances, accepting a counter offer will be career suicide, so I urge you that once you have your new offer, remember why you decided to start this process in the first place and be brave. Very brave!!!!

As they say, fortune will favour you!

By Nick Peacock

Acing the interview

The similarity between sport and interviews is there for all to see.

Typically within the sporting arena one competitor isn’t beaten by another. The loser is normally beaten by himself whilst the winner triumphs in the internal battle with himself; a battle that is often far harder than so called real battle with his so called competitor. Jack Nicklaus said that he didn’t win golf tournaments he just waited for the other guys to lose them!

An interview is just the same.

There are two battles you will have with yourself prior to an interview and if you win those battles you will give yourself the very best chance of success.

Preparation

Failing to prepare thoroughly is one of the single biggest reasons for failure at interview. We have all listened to the guy down the pub for loves “winging it”; but do you really want to be like him? The most successful people in the world don’t “wing it” – they are fastidious planners with goals and plans that they review on a daily basis.

If you fail to plan for an interview you’ve just lost the first battle with yourself. Let’s face it I don’t know many people who love planning, so we know it’s going to be a battle. Losing a battle that you knew you were going to have is even worse isn’t it? So not preparing for your interview, is the equivalent of losing a battle with yourself, a battle you knew you were going to have!

But here is the good news, getting prepared is easy. You don’t need to suddenly become an expert; in fact that could be just as off putting for an interviewer as you being unprepared. That said you need a good grasp of the basics in your tool kit. The following will make you’re more than prepared:

• What is the correct name of the company!
• How do they make a profit? Or if they are a charity who do they serve?
• What’s the driving passion of the business? (Their website or a catch phrase should help because every little helps doesn’t it?!!!!)
• Who are the company’s main competitors? Gain an appreciation of where the competitor may be stronger (and what could your company do about it?)
• Has the company been in the news recently? If so, why?

Once you have this basic but solid understanding of the company, (which will take no longer than 30 minutes research on Google) the job description and the purpose of the role (you’re going to be interviewed for) will make far more sense – and so will you, when you confidently answer the questions in your interview!

Remember, talking endlessly about your past achievements will not cut it. Your interviewer will want to discuss what you’re both there to discuss; the job, the company, what’s currently challenging that company and the opportunity that now exists (possibly for you) and your relevant skills.

Anxiety

Ok, we all get scared at interviews. A few nerves are good; they show you care. But we want to avoid complete debilitation – don’t we?!!

Being prepared will give your confidence a massive boost and so will a little bit of positive thinking. You must not defeat yourself by allowing your “negative” self to play the tapes (in your mind) of when you last messed up! This is the equivalent of the golfer facing a shot over the water, who prepares for the shot by remembering the last time he hit this shot into the water! Guess what he’ll do the same again because that’s what your mind has just told your body to do. Don’t worry if you don’t play golf, we’ve all got examples in our life when we’ve focussed all our emotional energy on what we didn’t want to happen and brought into effect.

So it’s crucial that you develop a positive self-image. Belief is the thermostat that regulates what we achieve in life.* Remember that because we are what we think about, you can set your thermostat to whatever temperature you like!

If this all sounds a little be to airy fairy for you (it does for most people because we’ve all been told that things are just meant to be or not meant to be – this is all part of the “winging it” mentality; which should be completely discarded because it’s rubbish) hang in there. Spend the night before (the interview) playing the positive tapes in your mind – the ones where you confidently walk into the interview room (free of anxiety), ask great questions and give equally brilliant answers to the very nice person who is interviewing you!

If by now you’ve filled your mind with positive thoughts as to how your interview will proceed, once you’re actually in there you’ll achieve this confident persona by taking control in a positive and confident way. A great way to do this is to relax and speak first. Do your best to get the interviewer talking by asking questions about the things you weren’t able to find answers to in your research. This will be really easy if you’ve done your research. Most company websites will post news updates, so all you’ll need to do is pick a story and a sensible question relating to this story and ask the question as you walk towards the interview room.

*p24. The Magic of Thinking Big.David J. Schwartz.