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Building on your Career

Building on your Career                                               

Generally people fall into two categories when it comes to building on their career; the first group will often find a job that they enjoy, work hard at it and only apply for new vacancies when they need to – often in cases of redundancies and I would add a re-active person, will wait till the last minute (final day before being made redundant) before they starting applying for a new position.

The second group, who are more pro-active, will continue to build on their career throughout their current position and I would add continuing to build on your career does not been “just job searching” you will agree, that a pro-active person who does come across a great opportunity will apply for the new position, advancing their career.

The advantage of building on your career means you are ready when it comes to applying for a new position wherever this is due to redundancies or an opportunity to advance up the career ladder.

 

How to Build on Your Career:                                                      

Become an Industry Expert; as the old saying goes “knowledge is power” the linked article will explain everything you need to know to quickly become an Industry Expert

Make Professional Contacts; collect and give out business cards, attend networking meetings – in many job sectors, it’s about who you know and the image you project

Let it be know you are keen to Advance Your Career; this will increase the opportunity for you being recommended for a promotion or interview offer

Collect Evidence of your Expertise and Abilities; keep copies of supporting e-mail, appraisals, employee of the month certificate, anything that can be used at a later job interview  

Continue to Update Your CV; add new positions, duties and qualifications, when it comes to applying for a new position, you will only need to make a couple of updates to your application

Keep a look out for New Opportunities; don’t wait until you hate a job before you leave, keep an eye out for positions that will advance your career, this can be both internal and external vacancies

Create a Careers Plan; Use a Careers Advisor to help your write a careers plan (or write one yourself) with short, medium and long term goals, recording a plan of action has been proven to increase your ability to follow it through, resulting in a new step up the career ladder

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How to Get Any Interviewer to Agree With Everything You Say

How to Get Any Interviewer to Agree with Everything You Say

 

Imagine you are attending a job interview and for some reason you get a feeling the employer is not fully convinced you are the right person for the job, how does this make you feel? As the nerves increase, your mind go’s blank and you start to forget your carefully planned interview questions and answers.

If you new how to get the employer to agree with whatever you wanted them to, what would you tell the employer to improve your chances of gaining a job offer?

Some employers will interview you, checking each answer, looking for your errors and/or weaknesses, if you could plant a suggestion knowing the employer would agree with it, would this improve your chances of employability or improve your interview confidence?

I agree these techniques are powerful, so don’t share them with every job searcher out there or everyone will be getting employers to agree with them. I would add, like all effective persuasion techniques this one is easy to learn!

 

Pacing and Leading

The pacing and leading technique has been around for a long time, often used in sales, all you do is pace the interviewer’s current situation, creating a “yes” set, followed by a lead – your suggestion or command.

During an interview session, we would pace the interviewer, as a hypnotist would pace his client, by pacing their current experience;

Hypnotist “as you are sat in the chair, listening to my voice….” The client can only agree with the pacing “Yes I am sat in a chair, yes I am listening to your voice”

As the client agrees, you add in your suggestion or command; Hypnotist “you are starting to feel sleepy” the client will carry on saying yes “…yes I am feeling sleepy”

Basically you Pace, Pace (pace again if you like) and then Lead.

Let’s look at this from in an interview situation, you cant say to an interviewer “you are sitting down, listening to my voice, you want to give me the job” or you can’t for that matter, start to dangle a gold watch in front of his face, swinging it from side to side saying “give me the job, give me the job” in these two situations you will probably be asked to quickly leave.

You can pace and lead any interviewer and I would add you need to pace and lead the interview without it being too obvious – pace and lead the conversation as part of your interview answers.

“You have recently won a new contract (Interviewer; “yes”) and you want to ensure your team meet the contractual specifications (Interviewer; “yes”) from my CV you can see me leading your team successfully achieving all the contractual targets (interviewer; “yes I can see you leading my team..I will offer you the job”) I will do this by XYZ”

The interviewer won’t be shouting out “yes” but will be agreeing internally, imagining you “leading the team successful” This technique is about getting the interviewer to visualise what you want them to do, because if they visualise it, they feel more compelled to do it, this is due to people associating emotions to their visualisations.

“Your company has been established for over 34 years and you specialise in selling Egyptian Antiques abroad and in the UK, you are looking to recruit someone like me with a passion for history along with the skills and experiences to sell antiques”

Did you spot the pacing and leading?

“You have already said you are looking to employee a young and enthusiastic person with a creative mind who can handle responsibility, give me the job and I will use my creativity and enthusiasm to add value to your company”

Alone using just one pacing and leading statement will not gain you millions of job offers, I would add you are trying to influence the employer thoughts and image of you throughout the job interview and when the employer imagines “giving you the job” “recruiting someone like you” or “seeing you leading the team” or any other embedded command you have told them to do, you are more likely to gain more job offers, wont you?

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One Line to Secure a Job Interview

With so many people being made redundant and an increase in small company closers, you can see why the demand for every job vacancy has arisen.

To beat the competition, you only need One Opening Line! If you knew which one sentence would secure you a job interview, would you add it to your application?

As we all know, employers quickly skim through your CV and Covering Letter, what they do all read is your opening line, it makes sense for this opening line to be the best sentence on your CV or Covering Letter.

Before writing your opening line, you first need to know what essential skills, qualities and experiences the employer requires, all you have to do is show you have these in your opening line.

Ask yourself, what is the one thing the employer would want me to achieve? This could save outgoing cost, increase productivity, make a profit, moving people forward with their life, it doesn’t matter what the employer requires of you, it’s about how you can prove you will achieve this in just one line.

Now you know what the employer requires, the type of person they are looking for, to add value to your opening line you need to evidence that you can achieve what you say you can achieve, you can do this by relating it to your own experiences.

This simple technique is how our CV Writing Service achieves maximum success with our customer CV’s

Example Opening Lines:                                                                                                 

  • “Successfully tripled company profits within a 12 month period by….”
  • “My leadership skills and innovation quickly turned around a company producing a high loss into a profitable company by….”
  • “Saved X company over 1 million pounds, by creating a new system to take raw materials to production to the sale of goods bypassing expensive third parties”
  • “Increased productivity and reduced sickness which lead to an increase in profits by 35% year on year”
  • “Experienced in successfully managing multimillion pound projects…”
  • “With over 10 years experience as a keynote speaker, delivering inspiring talks to groups of over 500 delegates…”
  • “My ability to problem solve along with my keen eye for detail, allows me to quickly find areas of high cost; in every company I have worked for this skill has helped me to decrease overhead payments leading to higher profits”
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3 Unstoppable Tips for a Covering Letter

3 Unstoppable Tips for a Covering Letter.

 

We all talk about having a targeted CV, gaining Job Interviews and Passing your first week at work, but many of us underestimate the importance of a Covering Letter. Every CV and Job Application Form needs to be sent with an accompanying Covering Letter, as our research has shown that 50% of employers wont even read a CV/Application Form sent without that all important Covering Letter.

To help you write a Covering Letter we have record 3 unstoppable tips for cover letter or you can use a Cover Letter Template – make it easy for yourself.

Wearing Your School Tie                                                

The most common mistake is made by addressing the cover letter to “whom it may concern” You will agree that you need the employer to feel associated to you, which means you need to make a connection and I would add once you have a connection you are more likely to gain a job interview offer.

Humans don’t like “new people” (animals protecting their territory) so you need the employer to find a reason to want to meet you (at the interview) research has shown that people can be influenced by similarities, even something as small as having the same name or coming from the same town (the old school tie routine) will unconsciously make someone more agreeable and you more likable.

The first way to make a connection is by addressing the letter to a named person and I would add the easiest way to gain a name is to telephone the company as ask for it.

Have a Chat                                             

The best tip is to keep the cover letter conversational, show your personality while at the same time highlighting your transferable skills needed by the employer.

As the employer reads your covering letter and application, they start to create a picture of you which is often distorted; the language you use on your covering letter will either create a positive or negative image of you.

A little cheat is to re-read the job advert, visit the company website and the job specification and copy the language your new employer uses.

Have they talked about “solving problems, fixing things and getting away from X?” or have they discussed “Achieving goals, meeting targets and having a positive future” You can use Away From or Towards Motivational Language to speak the employer’s language – hitting their motivational buttons.

The Only Time You Get To Brag

We often shy away from bragging about ourselves, don’t we? Well most of us do.

You need the employer to know how good you are, why should they employee you and what you can offer that other employees cannot.  If you don’t brag, they won’t know! The important factor here, is it’s not about how much you brag about yourself, it’s about what skills, qualities and experience you brag about, which means you need to know what skills, qualities and experiences the employer feels are their essential criteria for the position you are applying for? Record all these in your covering letter and application.

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Glossery of Application Terms

Have you ever completed a job application form and as you are completing the many sections you find yourself not understanding all of the employer’s application language? What do you do, Guess? Research? Or Panic?

To help you, we have written a glossary of terms for you to use to check you have the correct meaning to each term, helping your application be the best it can be. To help other job hunters, you can add a new Application Term and Descriptions that we have not added in the comments below.

Glossary of terms

Accredited training Nationally recognised training
Annual leave Paid holidays employees are entitled to
Apprenticeship Apprenticeships; Participants earn while they learn – combining practical work with accredited  training
Appraisal   A yearly or quarterly appraisal of your work normally undertaken by your line manager
Block release training The release of apprentices from their workplace to attend full-time vocational study
Bonus An additional payment made by an employer for good performance, meeting targets or greater productivity
Business hours Usually Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5
Casual work Employment with various working hours depending on the need of your employer
Commission A fee or percentage paid to a salesperson on each sale
Curriculum Vitae (CV) Written summary of a person’s educational qualifications, employment history and personal details.
CV writing service A service that will create, design and write your CV
Danger money Payment for work that involves some risk. in addition to your normal wage
Deductions Money taken out of your pay for payments such as health care
Dependant A person who is wholly or partly supported financially by someone else.
Discrimination Unfair treatment of someone, because of their colour, politics, race, religion, gender or other personal attribute which does not relate to work performance
Dismissal When an employer ends an employees employment
Flexitime Employees can start and finish work earlier or later than the normal times – hours need to be made up or extra days off can replaced hours overworked
Freelance Completing a project for someone at an agreed price
Full-time work 35- 40 hours; Full-time workers are eligible for annual leave and sick leave
Gross pay Pay before tax and other deductions have been taken out
Income tax Tax deducted from an employee’s wages by the employer and paid to the government
Job sharing One full-time job is shared by two or more employees
Maternity and paternity leave Time off while paid to cover a period of several weeks before and after the birth of a child
Minimum wage The lowest wage which may legally be paid to an adult employee –varies due to age
Net pay Pay after deductions have been taken out
Off-the-job training Training taken place outside of your work place
On-the-job training Training taken place inside your work place
Overtime Time worked that exceeds your contracted hours
Part-time work When you work less then 35 hours a week; Part-time workers are still eligible for annual leave, sick leave, etc
Piecework You are paid per number of “pieces” you pack or produce
Probation period A trial period that enables an employer to assess if an employee meets the job specification
Promotion Advancement to a job higher up the career ladder
Redeployment Movement of an employee between jobs in the same organisation
Redundancy pay Compensation paid by an employer to an employee whose services are no longer required
Reference A statement about your personal qualifications and character written by a third person
Retirement The end of employment, due to your age
Salary The amount of money you will earn whilst in employment
Seasonal work Work that is only done at certain times of the year
Self-employment A person who works for themselves
Shift work Working various patterns of hours; work may be rostered into two or three shifts over a 24-hour period.
Sick leave Paid leave to sick employees
Study leave Leave given to employees to attend courses of study that are approved by their employer
Trainee A person who is being trained by experience members of staff
Union An association of people working in one industry able to negotiate on behalf of employees with employers
Voluntary work Working for no pay
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CV Writing Secrets

Click here to download your e-book today: CV Writing Secrets E-Book For a short period, you can down load a free copy of the employment e-book, CV WRITING SECRETS GUIDE.

learn how to make your CV work for you, securing you more job interviews then ever before:

CV Writing Guide E-Book Content:                                                                                    

  • What Headings do you need on a CV?
  • How to Improve Your CV
  • Power Word’s
  • 10 Tips for a Perfect CV
  • Does Your CV Secure You Job Interviews?
  • What is a Targeted CV?
  • CV Templates
  • How to get rid of gap’s in your CV
  • Free CV Review
  • Web CV

This free offer will not last, if your CV does not do it’s job securing you job interviews you will need to learn the secrets of CV writing. The good news is, these techniques are easy to learn. CV Writing Secrets E-Book

  •  Feel free to share this e-book on your own website             

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CV Writing Service in Manchester

A good CV is a CV that secures you job interviews, how many interviews has your current CV secured you? To gain job interviews you need to understand what essential criteria the employer is looking for and then add this to your CV.

Unlike other CV writing services, we at Employment King use Experienced and Qualified Careers Advisors to write your CV, this as you will agree gives you the advantage as careers advisors have a full understanding of employers requirements.

Remember you only have 30 seconds for your CV to impress, make sure your CV is professional and stands out – does your CV show what skills you have that others don’t? Will the employer reading your CV know how by employing you, they will add extra value to their company?

Your CV is a selling tool you need to sell yourself – this is not a time to be shy!

CV WRITING SERVICE                                                                                                 

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Improving your Memory with the Memory Palace Technique

Do you find it hard to remember task your manager has set you? Do you sometimes go shopping and forget what ingredients you need to buy or do you want to improve how you can remember answers to exams and test?

A technique named the Memory Palace, which was made famous through the “Hannibal” books by Thomas Harris, can help increase your memory skills which will open up new possibilities for you.

The Memory Palace is one of the most powerful memory techniques available and is easy and fun to learn! The Memory Palace technique is based on the fact that we remember the details of the places we know; our home, place of work or local street.

By adding abstract images to these places with sounds and smells you can record large amounts of information that you can quickly access when needed.

If you would like to improve your memory skills then this technique can help and is easy and fun to use.

Memory Palace Technique                                                                                             

            

Picking a Palace

First you need to pick your palace, your palace is a place you know well, this could be your house, your school, place of work or even a street you know well. You should be very familiar with the palace you choose, you need to be able to close your eyes and re-call all of the details of the place or building.

When you imagine your palace, see it from your eyes as if you were there now, you need to feel associated with your palace, seeing what you can see, smelling the smells, hearing any sounds, tasting any taste and feeling the rooms temperature or objects you may brush pass, as if you were walking through your palace for real.

Close your eyes and in your minds eye remember all the details of your palace as if you were there now.

Distinctive Features

 

As you walk through your palace, start form the beginning this may be a front door or garden gate and notice all the details of your palace, if you can see a door notice the color of the door, be aware if the paint is peeling off or just been newly coated, whatever the details are become aware of them all now.

As you walk through your palace, in each room follow the same routine looking from left to right or right to left, as you visualize the room, be aware of any new taste or smells, make a mental note of anything that sticks out, anything that grabs your attention.

If you struggle to remember parts of your palace either pick a new palace or physically go to your palace and walk through it for real.

Continue to walk through your palace until you can easily remember all the details of every room.

Association

Take the list of items you want to remember and again visualize your memory palace from the beginning, we will call all the memory palace features that stuck out as a memory peg.

Using a “memory peg” (a feature from your memory palace; example door, picture etc) combine it with the element you want to memorize; make this as crazy and unusual as possible, as our mind will quickly remember the unusual.  

For each item you want to remember try to give it a visual reference, a sound, a taste, a smell and a feeling (internal or external)  

As an example, if a Personal Assistant wanted to remember a list of tasks you need to complete for your manager and your memory palace is your own house, you may start by being stood outside your front door.

As you look at your door a giant letter E comes through the letter box, getting bigger and bigger made out of the material you get in a car airbag. As it get so big it touches your face, feel the material on your face and smell the plastic smell and then the giant E quickly deflates like a large balloon making a trumping type sound. This represents your first task, checking your E-mails.

As you walk inside your palace past your front door, the next thing you see is your lamb on a table, the lamp is turned on and sizzling on top of the lamp light build is a piece of bacon, as you breath in you can smell that lovely bacon smell. Tasting the bacon in your mouth, which will remind you of your second task collecting your manager’s breakfast.

You can use anything in your memory palace that will associate your task, as a second example I may have walked past the door and seen a dancing pig wearing a muffin jacket to remind me of getting my mangers breakfast, like we said the weirder the better.

By associating these weird images to a place and items you know well, your front door, your table and lamp you can walk through your memory palace recording large amounts of information.

Visit Your Palace

Repeat the journey a couple of times (especially if your new to this technique), starting from the same point each time, paying attention to all your memory pegs. Once you have finished, re-walk the route starting from the end (your last memory peg) and walking all the way back through your palace until you end at the beginning, seeing your visual images in reversed order.

This technique takes a little bit of practice and for all you NLP-ers who follow this blog you are associating your items using VAKOG

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Writing a CV – Questions and Answers

How to write a CV

For some CV writing is a big barrier to gaining employment.

We are often asked questions from our members on CV writing and how to prepare your CV.

A CV is an employer’s window into your life, you need your CV to stand out and represent you in the positive of ways.

Employment King will offer a FREE CV REVIEW to anyone who reads this article.

Most Common asked CV writing questions and answers

How many pages should my CV be on?

Employers often tell us that they only want to see one or two page CVs; your CV should be short and to the point, highlighting your relevant skills and qualities needed for the position you are applying for.

Do I need to send a covering letter with my CV?

We completed a piece of research earlier this year on sending covering letters with CVs, many employers said they expect a covering letter and some employers confirmed that they do not even look at CVs that are sent with out a covering letter.

 Should I record the education section near the top of the CV?

If you have recently completed your education especially when you have received a qualification needed for your job sector, then record this near the top of your CV (just under the personal profile section) as this is your main selling point, often graduate schemes recruit people with certain qualifications.

Do I need to add a career objective on my CV?

No, as your covering letter explains the position you are applying, you do need to target your CV to the position you are applying for.

Should I add references?

You can record “References available on request” as this will save space and you will be informed when the recruiter is requiring your references, this way you can inform your referees and give them a “heads-up”

What headings should be on my CV?

Contact details, personal profile, employment history, qualifications, hobbies and interests and references

How do I get a job with my CV?

The most useful of questions; first think about the job role, the employer and the skills and qualities needed for this position. If you were the employer what type of person would you need for this role? What qualities, skills and experiences would you be looking for? Once you know this (clues can be found in the job advert and on the job specification) you can target each CV to each job role giving you a higher then double the chance of securing a job interview.

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The Ten Step Job Hunter Plan

After working with many long term unemployed job hunters, I have found that several common themes stop job hunters securing employment.

This ten step plan will help overcome these obstacles and clear the path to your new career. Long term job hunters after securing work often report that other areas in their lives improve including confidence, family relationships, stress levels, self esteem and their quality of life.   

A career coach can help you move forward with your life, your career and your future.

The Ten Step Plan                                                                                                        

  • Have a Clear Career Goal: Have you ever been to the supermarket not knowing what you want to buy for tea? Do you find yourself walking down each food section without choosing a product? It is the same with job hunting if you don’t have a career goal you will find it hard to apply for vacancies no matter how many job search websites you use.

You need to find a career that you will be passionate about, a job where you will wake up wanting to go to work – if you could choose any career and there were no restrictions, what job would you want to do? If you can find a career that suits your personality traits you will be successful as your values, beliefs and identity will match the job role.

  • Job Requirements: Once you have a job goal, your next step is to understand what skills, qualities and qualifications are needed for the position you will be applying for. You can easily learn this from reading job adverts, job specifications and job profiles. By recording the employer’s essential criteria on your CV, Job application and discussing how you possess these essential skills during the job interview, you will double the amount of job offers you receive.

 

  • Where are vacancies advertised? Depending on your job sector depends where the positions you will be applying for will be advertised. As some job sectors rely heavily on job search engines, others will only advertise on their company website, while others prefer to receive speculative applications.  A good starting point is the sector skills council.

 

  • The Speculative Approach: Remember, not all jobs are advertised often due to the cost of job advertisement. We just mentioned the speculative application; I have added this as a separate bullet point as there is a 40% success rate in using speculative applications. A speculative application is when you send a speculative letter and CV asking if the employer is currently recruiting.

 

  • Know the Industry: Become an industry expert, showing your industry and knowledge expertise on your application form and during the interview will increase your job offers, as employers often think if you understand the industry and job role you will enjoy and do well in the position.

 

  • Believe in Yourself: As well as not having a job goal, not believing in yourself is one of the biggest barriers job hunters have. In some cases this lack of self belief has stopped people attending a job interview, even when the candidate had made it to the interview venue.

An NLP Life Coach can help you improve your confidence, for now imagine you are a confident person, how would you stand? What is your confident posture like – do it now, is you head looking up or down, what will you say to yourself. Already you are starting to feel more confident by imagining that you are confident. If you believe you can pass job interviews you will!

  • Telephone Skills: I am always surprised that more job hunters have a fear of talking to employers on the telephone then they do talking to interviewers face to face. The secret to passing telephone interviews is practice, you would prepare for a face to face interview and you also need to practice for a telephone interview.

 

  • Interview Questions: from following the above steps you now understand about becoming an industry expert and you know the essential criteria needed for the position you are applying for. From this you can confidently predict the interview questions and prepare your answers. Remember to have a list of questions to ask the employer.

 

  • Keep A Record: It is important to keep a log of the jobs you have applied for, this way you can follow up unsuccessful applications and gain feedback from the employer. Often job hunters will gain a job interview and forget the position they have applied for which will lead to poor interview preparation. A job log will help you stay on track.

 

  • Keep Your CV Updated:Once you have been successful with your job application, continue to update your CV with your new position, duties and any new training. This way if you are unpredictably made redundant your CV is ready to go. Often employed people who are not job hunting accidentally come across an excellent opportunity and having an up to date CV will allow you to apply for the position straight away.  If your current CV does not secure you job interviews use a CV Template Package to update your current CV.

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