We all know that higher education can be costly, but how does the cost of your degree stack up against the rest of the world? Have a look at the infographic below and find out!
Credit to the guys at Education Requirements for the original article.
Category Archives: CV & Resume
Start a blog and land your next job!
Instead of spending ages designing and tailoring your CV to stand out in the pile, why not consider actually doing something that will make you different from all of the other job candidates? One of the best ways to show your passion for a particular industry and your knowledge of a specific area is to write a blog and believe it or not writing a blog may be just what you need to do to score your next job.
Start a blog and make your job application stand out for all the right reasons.
Not your average CV
Whilst pretty much every job seeker has a CV (or at least they should have) not everyone owns a blog. The great thing about writing and publishing blog posts is that it demonstrates the skills, knowledge and passion you claim to have on your CV. It shows that you are far more interested in the line of work than the other candidates and is sure to impress employers.
Improve your digital footprint
Today it is common for employers to vet potential employees by performing Google searches. If a prospective employer ‘Googles’ your name and finds your blog, they are going to be so much more impressed than if a drunken Facebook photo of you on your mate’s stag-do appears. Remember that everything you put online leaves a digital footprint and unless you make your social media pages private, they can be explored by employers and could do you a disservice.
Present yourself as an industry expert
One of the great things about writing a blog is that it shows you have in-depth knowledge of a particular subject. It will inform employers that you are up to date with the latest industry trends and news and know exactly what is going on. Writing an industry-relevant blog will help present you as an expert and show employers that you are much more valuable to them than the candidate next to you.
You’ll instantly become more interesting
If you think about how many CVs and job applications employers have to go through, you will understand why they get bored so quickly. By writing a blog and including the URL on your CV, you will instantly become more interesting to employers. Not only will it give them something else to look at, aside from yet another CV, but it will also give you something additional to talk about when you inevitably land an interview!
You’ll be surprised at how useful your blog is when it comes to answering interview questions and it will often be able to make up for a lack of experience elsewhere.
Employers have become increasingly interested in industry bloggers.
Setting up a blog
Setting up a blog could not be easier. There are plenty of free blogging platforms online, with two of the most popular being Blogger and WordPress. If you are just starting out and want to use your blog for job seeking purposes, you don’t necessarily need a fancy design or domain, just make sure your content is top notch!
Conclusion
With so many benefits, it’s a wonder that everyone hasn’t already jumped on the blogging bandwagon. If you are looking for a way to make yourself stand out from other candidates or simply want to show employers how passionate you are about the industry you work in; blogging is the way to do it.
If you have already got a blog and are ready to use it to land your next job role, be sure to check out YourJobList. Applying for jobs can be extremely time consuming, but having a dedicated tool to manage your job applications and assist your job hunt can make the process a whole lot easier.
Image credits: xioubin low & the tartanpodcast
The history of the CV (infographic)
Thanks to the National Careers Service for this graphic. For more information visit nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk.
How to Explain Gaps in Your CV at Job Interviews?
Redundancies and job losses have been rife over the past five years. One effect of this is that, when it comes to putting together a CV, many people are finding they have career gaps they fear might put off potential employers. The question is, how do you present these gaps to those potential employers? That all depends on the reason for your gap and how long you’ve been out of work. Here are a few tips:
Reasons for Career Gaps
There are hundreds of reasons you might have a gap in your CV and have spent an extended period of time without a job. The most common of these are redundancy, taking time out to travel, and taking time out to become a parent. In modern society it is quite common to take a gap year or time out for ‘personal travel’. It is also common for new parents to take time away from the work place to spend time with their small children. Rather than view gaps for these reasons as a negative thing, emphasize the positives you have learnt, and how that time out will enhance your ability to perform your new role. Staying at home with a baby will have improved your time management and your ability to multi-task. Taking time out to travel will have broadened your cultural understanding and you’ll have probably learnt a thing or two about money management as well! Focus on these positives rather than the negatives associated with being away from the workplace. If you have gap in your CV for a reason you don’t think would be viewed favourably, because you were spending time in a rehab facility, for example, or because you took some time off to deal with a family bereavement, then it’s probably best not to discuss these at your first interview. Having career gaps due to illness, unemployment and rehabilitation will suggest you are a ‘high risk job seeker’ and might dissuade the recruiters from meeting with you again to learn what else you have to offer.
Focus on Years and Not Months
One tip for presenting very small career gaps in a way that won’t be noticed by recruiters and potential employers is to focus on the years you were in certain roles on your CV, rather than the months you were there. Rather than write:
March 2010-January 2012. Marketing Executive.
April 2012 – Present. Marketing Manager.
you could simply write;
2010-2012 Marketing Executive.
2012 to Present. Marketing Manager.
By doing this there is no gap on your CV to explain. If your career gap is longer than a couple of months, though, this technique will not work: when it comes to applying for new roles, honesty really is the best policy. If you lie on your CV you’re likely to be caught out and may lose the role you were given anyway.
Talking About the Gap
If you do have a long career gap, during the interview process, particularly if the recruiter is reading your CV, they may ask you to explain it. The most important thing to remember is to think positively, and draw attention to all the positive aspects of your CV, rather than focus on the bits that are harder to talk about. As already mentioned, draw on the new skills you learnt during your career break and compare them positively to the skills you would need to complete the role you’ve applied for. Perhaps the trickiest kind of extended career break to explain is one for illness or rehabilitation. Rightly or wrongly, potential employers may view this with concern, fearing you’ll take an extended period off work again. The best thing to do in this instance is to keep your explanation short and to the point: you took time off because you were ill, but you’re firing on all cylinders again now and ready to get back to work. If you did anything else during the time you were out of work (such as volunteer work or training for a marathon) then now is the perfect time to mention this too.
A career gap can be difficult to explain but if you’re open and honest then it shouldn’t prevent you from gaining the job you deserve!
Thanks to guest contributor Emma Crosby for this great article.
How To Get Noticed By Recruiters
Recruiters pride themselves on being able to find the best candidates. But what if they haven’t called ? Here’s how to get their attention.
Credit to the guys over at How to Write a CV for the original article.
The Anatomy of a Great Resume
Check out this great infographic. Lot’s of great tips!
Credit to the guys at Top Counseling Schools.
Skype interviews: Is it more tricky to be grilled by video?
The job interview is an ordeal that most people face at some stage in our career. But as video starts to take the place of the face-to-face interview, is it easier or harder now to land your dream job?
The job interview as we know it may never have existed if it wasn’t for Thomas Edison.
Frustrated with hiring college graduates who lacked the right knowledge, Edison devised the first employment questionnaire to narrow down his applicant pool.
The survey was thought to be so difficult that in 1921 the New York Times nicknamed it a “Tom Foolery test” and claimed only a “walking encyclopaedia” could succeed.
Questions included: “What is the weight of air in a room 20ft x 30ft x 10ft?” and “Where are condors to be found?”*
But today the trick to making a good impression at interview may be less about what you know and more about how you come across on camera.
Jean Luc, a 30-year-old marketing professional from Greenwich, recently had his first video interview for a role at a web start-up company based in Berlin.
“I had the usual nerves before my interview. But I Skype all the time as my parents live in South Africa so it felt like a much more familiar process. What I found quite disconcerting was when I first turned on the video, my interviewer had his camera turned off.
“It would have been awkward if I turned my camera off and on again so I just went through the interview with a black screen. It was a bit like talking to myself.”
Looking in the wrong place is just one of the common pitfalls of video interviews, says New York-based career coach and blogger Megan Broussard.
“It’s tempting to watch yourself in that little box to make sure your hair isn’t in your face or that you’re not making weird facial expressions. But the truth is that it is very distracting to the other party and can come across as shy and even insincere – two qualities both employers and new hires want to avoid.
“It’s OK to watch the speaker on the screen, but respond by looking into the camera to create the illusion of direct eye-contact, always.”
In the US more than six out of 10 HR managers now use video to interview job applicants, according to a survey.
How to cruise a video interview
- Set the stage: Make the room you’re in a reflection of your work -polished
- A plain backdrop can be less distracting
- Test the lighting: Even if your camera isn’t the highest quality, make sure it flatters your features and the interviewer can see you clearly
- Dress the part: Be as conservative as the organisation – wear smart bottoms in case you have to get up during the interview
- Work the camera: Minimise the video image of you so you’re not tempted to watch yourself
- The employer expects eye contact and anything else will distract him or her
- Do a test run: Call a friend or family member to make sure speakers and microphone are working and they can hear you clearly
Tips from Megan Broussard – aka Professional – a career coach and blogger from New York
Click here to read the original BBC article.
Credit to the original author, Hannah Briggs, over at BBC News.
Social Media: How’s your social CV?
Great post – check it out!
Being responsible, creative and motivated means you aren’t!
Your LinkedIn profile is not a beautiful or unique snowflake.
If you try to stand out from the crowd by describing yourself as “creative”, “motivated” or “responsible”, you’re actually making yourself look like you lack creativity and aren’t motivated enough to take responsibility for your career by penning a cliché-free LinkedIn Profile.
We make that assertion on the basis that LinkedIn’s annual list of buzzwords in its members’ profiles includes those three terms among the top eight words that members use to describe themselves.
First conducted two years ago, this year’s effort saw the seriously-social network comb through profiles penned by over 187 million members to find the most-used words. Entries in languages other than English were translated and the whole lot poured into a big data melting pot that spat out the following eight terms as the most-used:
- Creative
- Motivated
- Multinational
- Responsible
- Experimental
- Effective
- Specialized
- Analytical
LinkedIn argues that using those words in your profile makes you stand out from the crowd in the worst possible way – as someone who can’t articulate your values in anything other than words devalued by overuse, or lacking qualities that can be accurately described without resorting to blandishments.
There’s at least one piece of evidence out there to suggest employers already see through these words, as those of you who recall our story from early this year about a job ad for ‘mediocre developers’ may recall.
Check out the original article, by Simon Sharwood, over at The Register.
Resume tip for IT contractors
The resume for a tech contractor shouldn’t look like a resume for someone looking for a full-time position. Here’s how to make yours different.
That’s why a contracting resume should look different than a normal chronological resume. Instead of organizing your resume chronologically by the companies you’ve worked for, arrange it by individual project, with the projects that contain the wanted skill set first.
Continuing with the C+ analogy, let’s say that your last contracting job was actually migrating a small office to Windows 8. Since that’s not relevant to the direct needs of the hiring manager, you can push that down further on the resume.
The first project you list will be the one where your C+ skills were most in use.
Project title: Creating Desktop application for Windows
Duration: You can write this in hours, weeks, or months
Technology used: Lead with C+, but list all other technologies that lent themselves to project
Description: This is where you can describe the level of complication of the project (without, of course, giving away proprietary details), what project milestones had to be met and what intervals, etc.
This gives the hiring manager the information he or she is looking for right off the bat. And, once you have delineated all of your contracted projects this way, you can then copy and paste the order as needed when sending out future resumes for gigs that ask for different specialties.
Credit to the guys at TechRepublic for the original article.
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