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How to Pass a Group Interview

Group Job Interview Methods

Interviewers use a verity of methods to interview job hunters, the most common is a one to one interview closely followed by group interviews often used for sectors working with the public or in a team.

It is vital to have knowledge of all the different interviews employers use as part of the interview process, to ensure you are properly prepared.

Generally, when you gain a group interview you will be asked to complete a “group exercise” – build a bridge out of straws, complete a brain teaser or make a jigsaw, etc. The employer has no concerns if you complete the task or not, they are more interested in your reactions to others, your communication skills and how you work within a team.

By following these ten tips you can quickly gain a head start above the other interviewees:

  • Start by introducing yourself to the other interviewees and interviewers. Be polite and friendly and remembers people’s names.
  • Listen to the instructions for the group exercise, if possible write them down.
  • The first thing the interviewer will look for is to see who joins in with the activities; group interviews are generally used by employers looking for team members. If you don’t join in with the interview team activity, you probably won’t work well within a team environment.

Group Interview – working with groups

  • Join in with the group discussions and don’t dominate, let others have their say and give your own opinion.
  • Boost group morel, by telling people when they have had a good idea or suggestion. If someone is being quiet, ask for their opinion. This will show the interviewers that you try to involve others and will suggest you have managerial skills.
  • When you’re worried about your interview performances, an interview coach can help you prepare.

Group Interview People Skills

  • Learn to compromise and accept others’ ideas with an open mind, remember the idea of the task is to see if you work well within a team not to solve the problem – even though solving the problem can’t help; Google group activities for ideas and solutions.
  • When someone disagrees with you, say “it’s good to get everyone’s opinions and ideas” and ask how the solution can be improved. Don’t make disagreements personal, keep focused on the problem/solution, remember you’re a Team Player.

Group Interview – pre-interview preparation

  • Prepare a list of questions you can ask the group to get them motivated “has anyone come across this group exercise before?”
  • During the group feedback to the interviewer, demonstrate to the employer that you have participated in the group exercise and that you gave some of the input. You may gain bonus points by being the group member who feedbacks (have other group members join in with you)
  • Be enthusiastic throughout and when asked questions by the interviewer, mention your experiences and how this helped you complete the exercise. If you knew the answer to the group task don’t let on, slowly give hints to the group to pass the task. It’s more important to demonstrate team skills rather than being someone who knows the answer immediately.

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Recruitment Agencies – A bit Tricky

Get the upper hand with a job recruitment agency

Job hunters will often turn to recruitment agencies to help secure employment and why not, recruitment agencies will search for vacancies on your behalf, give advice on your CV and facilitate between you and the employer, your start date.

There are many good agencies you should sign up to and many agencies that give the recruitment agency sector a bad name and should be avoided, below are some of the reasons why.

Tricks Recruitment Agencies:

Advertise False Vacancies

This is a well-known recruitment trick, by advertising false vacancies, job seekers will register with the agency, and this allows the agency to boast to employers about the high level of potential employees and CVs they have on their database.

Asking for References

The agency will ask for a reference for the “false” vacancy. Remember there is no job, the agency is looking to gain new employer contact details.

Gaining Contact Details

When you supply the agency with the company name you previously worked for, they will ask “who was your line manager, was it Mr “False Name” and the common response is “No, it was Mr “Real Name” The agency now have a new contact for a new business that they will approach.

Finding Employers

Recruitment agencies need to find companies that are recruiting, they will offer the recruitment service and make money by charging a percentage off the employee’s wage. Agencies will often ask you to tell them which companies you have applied to; they now have new companies to contact. Once these companies’ sign up to the recruitment service you will quickly have double the competition for the position, that until you told the recruitment agency they didn’t know about.

The Perfect Job

The phone rings and the agency tell you “I have the perfect job for you but you need to start immediately!” If your working you may be advised to take this perfect job (remember when you take a job the agency gain a percentage of your wage, the more people who take jobs the more money they earn) even when you are employed, they may even tell that this job is so good you should walk out of your present job – burning your bridges and chances of a good reference.

Wage Decrease

Once you are offered a job, you may be told they were not able to secure the rate that you wanted. This is rubbish as they have already had discussions with the company regarding the rate of pay.

They may also tell you “there aren’t many of these jobs about I would take it if I was you” only take the job if you are happy with the wage, the recruitment agency wants you to take the job so they can earn more money, they are not interested in you as a person.

Time is Money

If you fail one or two interviews, the agency will tell you that they will keep looking for work for you, they won’t they will just drop you. They don’t want to spend time looking for work for someone who can’t pass interviews. Really they should give you interview advice to help you pass future job interviews, but they feel …time is money.

Introduction Fee

We all get excited at a prospect of a £500 introduction fee, recruitment agencies will offer you this fee if you introduce them to an employer which leads to a job. You will only receive this payment if you find out about the job and after you continue to ask for your fee.

Like we said at the beginning not all recruitment agencies are like this, just be aware and look for these tell tale signs.

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Free CV Review

CV Review

All job hunters from cleaners to accountants can benefit from a free CV review.

If you possess a good CV, you will already be gaining job interviews and most likely would never think to search for a CV review.

If your CV does not generate job interviews then something needs to change quickly, your first step is to check if your CV can be improved. Often CVs only need a little tinkering or re-designing, these small changes often lead into an increase of job interviews and job offers.

Free CV Review Service

As a free service offered by many CV writing companies, you should quickly take advantage of this great service. Warning – if any CV writing company ask for a deposit or your bank details then do not trust them, this should be a free service.

CV Template

If you need a CV creating from scratch, CV templates can help to get you started. The secrets of employment comes with a free CV pack containing CV templates, Personal Profile Templates and Key Words, Hobbies and Interest Templates and Employment History Templates, helping you create a CV in minutes – all you need to do is add in your contact details and education.

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How to Enjoy Your Job

Are you happy with your job?

Research has shown that 50 – 70% of employees do not enjoy their job! As we spend over a third of our lives in work, you need to find a career you enjoy, to help gain a positive work and life balance.

Many employees enjoy the industry they are in, only to find they have easily become bored in the company they work for.

Before you jump ship, first see if you can new ways to enjoy your job.

Find the Passion

Once you find the passion, you will be absorbed in your role; you will quickly start enjoying your work more. First, write a list of all the things you do enjoy about your job?

For each item, ask yourself “what is it, that I enjoy about this particular item?” and write down your answer.

Example “I enjoyed designing the website” why? “I enjoyed the free-range I was given, I love being creative and not having to follow orders and procedures”

Once you know the details of what you enjoy, you can start to use this in other tasks, making your duties more enjoyable. Once you’re more passionate about your job, you will put in more effort and gain better results. These better results will help boost your passion even higher.

Turn Your Job into a Game or a Sport

One of my first jobs after leaving school was collating and rolling advertisement posters, before packing them into boxes ready for dispatch. As I found this a little dull, I turn the task into a game, pretending that the job was a sport. As with all sporting professionals, I had a coach (this was a made-up voice in my head) telling me how good I was and that I could roll more posters in an hour than any other poster competitor.

I really wanted to be the best and was always motivated to do the job well, each day setting myself new goals or personal best. After a couple of weeks, my manager noticed my enthusiasm or gave me a new responsibility and a pay rise.

Routine or Not Routine? That is the question!

On average you will enjoy routines and following procedures or you will prefer to have choices and options, ask you answered the questions in section one; your answers may give you clues if you are motivated by options or procedures.

If you like routine, make one for your job – travel to work the same way, make a procedure for your working day, start with a certain task that will lead on to the next. When given a new task or role write a new procedure for it. As you do this every day your job role and task will become routine.  Use list and to-do books.

If you prefer options, start by choosing different ways to travel to work each day-this will make the beginning of the day more fun, if possible use flexible hours to alternate the time you start and finish work. When given a task to complete, look at all the possible choices you have to complete this task and work out which way will suit each particular task. Brainstorm and write on post-it notes. By choosing your own way to complete the task, will help you feel more positive.

Build up Your Works Social Calendar

First find a common interest with your colleagues, this way you always have the interest to talk about. Once you have several friends in work with similar hobbies you will have something to talk about and something to look forward to each day.  From this you can meet at dinner and break times, find somewhere to “chill out” and arrange social days outs or even drinks after work.

In many cases, people often make close friends that begin as working relationships. If you enjoy the people you work with, you often start enjoying the job more.

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How to Gain a Job Promotion

Job Promotion

Once you gain employment, its time to think about your next step up the career a ladder – A Job Promotion.

To be successful in your career, you need to aim high to help get away from low level jobs. We already know that the future employers in the UK will be looking for highly skilled individuals and a job promotion is one way to gain these skills.

The ideal job role is a position that challenges you (to stop you from being bored) in a job role that is inline with your values and beliefs – this helps you feel that you personally are achieving something you believe in.

How to gain a job promotion:                                                                                            

Personal Resources

First, look back at your career, then look where you are now. What have you achieved to gain your current position? What skills and qualities do you already possess? Which of these skills have you used to move this far forward with your career? Can any of these skills help you gain a promotion? Are there any weaknesses that you need to improve? What resources do you have around you to help you overcome these weaknesses? What else do you need to do before you gain a promotion?

We all have the resources inside us and these IAG questions will help you unlock your personal resources and the answers you need to help you gain a promotion.

Do You Want a Promotion?

Before achieving a promotion, you need to decide if a promotion is for you! What job role do you really want? Be clear; think about the duties and responsibility you are looking for. If you were promoted now how would it feel? Would you like this new role? Are you looking for a promotion up the career ladder or a side promotion to a different department? You may enjoy your current role, but would you enjoy the new role and responsibilities that will come with your promotion?

Make a Visual Action Plan

Write down your goal at the top of a piece of paper, make this big and draw a coloured star around it. Draw a thick 2 line path from the bottom of the page to the star, this can be straight or curved, add 9 horizontal lines to the path, making the path look like it has 9 large paving stones.

On these paving stones, starting with the one at the bottom at the page, write or draw the steps you need to take to reach your goal – your promotion. This is your personal promotion action plan, put as much or as little detail on as you want, the main part is having a written action plan that we can look at each day, as research will often show that we are more likely to achieve what we write down.

Let Others Know

Now you have direction and a plan to follow, you will know if you’re ready for a promotion now, or if there is something to develop before you gain a promotion. Once you are ready, let other people, including your manager, know that you are looking for a promotion. Be ready to back up why you are ready for a promotion with your knowledge, skills, attitude, determination and positive actions.  In some cases you will have to convince people several times that you are ready for a promotion; take any criticism as an opportunity to learn.

Take Pride in Your Job

Some employees gain promotions quickly in any company they work for, why? Most take pride in their work, when given a task they will be positive, creative and look at how they can complete their task, and then they will check to see if anything could go wrong or be improved before completing the task.

Be your best at work-everyday! Complete all tasks, no mater how small with equal passion and enthusiasm. Believe in yourself, believe in the job role, promote passion and hard work and never give up.

Embrace a Challenge

As your manger see’s this new positive you, they may test your ability by giving you more changing task; the best way to test if someone is ready for a promotion is to see if they can complete a task that they would be given in their new role. Don’t see any additional task as a chore or more work.

Embrace the challenge, manage your work and make an effort to complete the task before the given deadline. Don’t tell others about your additional work, they don’t care! Make every effort to prove yourself, this could be the difference between gaining a promotion or not.

If you have not been asked to take on additional work, ask for it! Look at the problems your company is having, solve them and take the answer to your manager – employers like people who come with solutions not problems.

Act like you have been promoted

Start taking on some additional responsibility and tasks that you would do once you gain a promotion. Become the expert and give advice and support to others, think about your comments at meetings and how you word your e-mails; communicate like you would once you gain a promotion.

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How to Ace the Job Interview

Tips to help a career professional ace the job interview

We all love a good story

When asked interview questions, don’t be tempted to answer your question as a list of achievements, as many interviewees do, use a story to sell yourself. Interviewers become bored of hearing list, while a story is intriguing and exciting, you can use a compelling story to build up suspense and make you, the main character, come out on top.

In your story highlight what you personally did to achieve a target or to complete a task. Add to the story, what others thought about you “My Manager said that I was the only one to…” use numbers and percentages to sell yourself “I had a 95% success rate…”

Sell Yourself

Why do you buy certain products? The advertisement tells you how you can benefit from buying this product; they don’t discuss the products faults. You need to use this procedure during your interview, explain how you will benefit the company and what you have to offer. Don’t discuss your faults and answer any potential negative questions with a positive answer.

When to ask questions

Many job hunters think that employers have an unwritten rule and we can only ask questions at the end of the interview – this is not true. By the end of the interview, with some questions you wanted to ask, the interview has moved on so much, that your questions can seem pointless.

Ask your questions throughout the interview, this will show you have confidence and allows the interview to turn, naturally into an employment conversation rather then a set of questions and answers.

Influence the Interviewer

Use a career coach to help you understand how body language, hand shaking, language patterns and mirroring can influence your interviewer.

You can quickly learn how to gain instant rapport with an interview and how matching body language and verbal language can make a positive impact on your interview outcome. Everything you need to know about influencing the employer is in the Secrets of Employment e-book.

Do you Job Hop or Have Gaps in Your Employment History?

Are you a job hopper? Or do you have big gaps in your employment history? Employers are more interested in how productive you are, again use a story that sells your strengths and don’t ever apologies, as this will weaken your interview answers.

What ever you have undertaken, several jobs, gap year, volunteering, education – talk about what you have learnt and achieved form this experience.

Be an Industry Expert

To give the interviewer confidence in your knowledge and ability, become an industry expert. This is good for two reasons, the first, by being an industry expert you will fully understand the industry and will be able to answer questions confidently. Second, an industry expert will know which company won the new contracts and which employers are best to work for; this will help you choice the employer you feel would suit your working personality.

Practice Makes Perfect 

Don’t struggle to answer questions, by thinking about the answers on the spot, think about the job role you are applying for; what would your duties be in this new role? What skills and qualities do you need to complete your daily task? Your interview questions will be based on these answers, from this you can predict what you will be asked and prepare your answers.

Many people use an interview coach to help them prepare for the interview and to complete mock interviews.

Think about the type of interview you have to attend and what, if any task or presentations you will have to complete. Not all interviews rely on just a one to one interview question and answer session. Learn what type of interviews you may have to attend and how to overcome interview fears.

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Job Hopping – what’s all the fuss about?

Understanding Job Hopping

There is no longer such a thing as “A Job for Life”

In the past, having job security (a regular income and good pension) and possibilities for promotion was high on the agenda; professionals looked for safe jobs in safe industries such as banking, where, with hard work you can move up the career ladder.

Previously employers ‘looked after’ their staff: mentoring individuals with a long-term view of helping staff members move into senior positions. Wages were increased through time-served processes, and at retirement, good employees left with a ‘golden handshake’.

Nowadays, jobs and industries are no longer safe and more professional job-hop. On average we changed our job or company every 3 years.

There had been a shift from one employer-for-life mindset to frequent job changes for a long time. This speeded up through global crises such as the 2007 banking crisis and the more recent Covid-19 pandemic where employers showed that they weren’t as employee-focused as they said they were by dismissing staff at the drop-off a hat.

This has led to the great-resignation, where employees will leave an organisation without a new position if the company is viewed as a negative employer.

For some employers, job-hopping can be seen as a concern – ‘why does this applicant keep changing roles? But this thought process is unlikely as many industries like to recruit staff from a mixed talent pool, with experience in different sectors as this provides new perspectives and skills to the overall team, encouraging job-hopping.

Technology and globalisation have changed the job market. Industries grow and decline more rapidly than ever before. Automation is removing low-skilled positions from the job market and advanced technology will create new roles in industries such as the space sector, renewable technology, and cryptocurrency and gaming.

The increase in adults returning to higher education to complete a second degree (or the first degree as an adult) has increased, resulting in an older generation making career changes at various stages through their careers.

In public-facing job sectors, job-hopping is seen as a positive or the norm, as employers only offer short-term contracts.

Why job hop?

Some hiring managers will stereotype job hoppers. When looking at your CV, resume, or application, a recruiter may believe the applicant will accept a position with the company only to quickly move on to something else-costing the organisation time and money as they will need to re-recruit for the role.

Most employers focus on the candidate’s qualifications, experiences, skills, and qualities, rather than the number of roles an applicant has had. Some applications only ask job-relevant competency questions, in place of the chronological order of previous positions as applications of old did.

Why you must job hop to be successful in your career

Job Hopping can be productive for people who like variety, options, starting new tasks, meeting new people, and gaining new experiences. But a role in an innovative or busy industry can offer the same varied opportunities.

Job hopping is proven to increase a career professional’s salary. Let’s say one person is on £35,000 and stays with a company for 10 years, gaining an annual 1.5% pay increase. Their salary after 10 years would be £40,618.93

A second employee job hops once every 2 years and gains a £3,000 pay rise per position. The final salary in a 10-year period would be £50,000 – nearly £10k more than sticking with one employer.

The truth is the final salary is likely to be higher, as career professionals will see a higher increase in annual salary per new position as their current salary acts as a baseline as to what minimum pay to accept.

An employee on £35,000 may be happy with a £3,000 pay rise but once on £47,000, the same career professional would only accept a new role with a minimum of £7000 increase.

job interview coaching

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Why You Need a Positive Job Identity?

How you are perceived in the workplace

In the current fast paced working environment, you can no longer rely on the concept of a job for life, even in traditional industries such as Banking and Teaching due to new technology and global competition.

Your job identity is becoming more important, as the number of job applications for every advertised job and promotion increase and the threat of redundancy looms over many industries.

Your job identity is the identity your employer and colleagues label you with; this could be positive or negative.

What is your Job Identity?

  • The Joker
  • The Worker
  • The Time Keeper
  • The Motivator
  • The Mood Hoover
  • The One Who Gets Things Done
  • The Helper

It is highly important to secure a positive job identity when you first start in a new company, as we all know first impressions count, it can often be hard (but not impossible) to change an employer’s first impression of you.

If you have a positive job identity, you are more likely to gain promotions and work your way up the ladder.

Job Identity by Groups

When starting a job at a new company you will often be quizzed informally by your new colleagues and line managers.

Like in a playground at school, your new colleagues are unconsciously checking if you have common working and personality traits. Often in the workplace, as in the playground groups often form.

Do you fit in with “the naughty kids”, “the moaners”, “the jokers” or “the hard workers”? That is the question!

This may be stereotyping and even prejudicial, but it is a frequent reality in most industries and companies.

You can often “be painted by the same brush” when you’re attached to a certain group, with a certain reputation-this can be positive or negative, choose your group carefully.

Individual Job Identity

Look at your workplace, who is the person who is always is always on time? Which colleague can always be counted on to put their all in to each task? Is there someone who will always drop what they’re doing to help others?

Do you have a “mood hoover” in your workplace, the person who we all try to sneak past, as we know that after five minutes in their company we’ll be convinced that the world is as bad a place to be as they tell us it is, the type of person who can suck the fun out of any task.

Both managers and colleagues can contribute to our job identities, although there may be a distinct difference in how your colleagues and manager see you in your work place.

The joker in the workplace is often loved by the workers, as the joker releases stress and is fun to be with. From a manager’s point of view, they may see the joker as a distracter who spends more time chatting to others than working.

Your job identity is given to you within a couple of months of working in one place, it’s important to ensure this identity is going to be positive. Remember your identity is rarely revealed to your face, but often discussed behind your back – especially negative identities.

Once given these are hard to change, people often play up to other’s perceptions of them, if you’re told that you’re lazy you may start to think ‘Why should I bother?’.“The joker” may feel he has to start each day by telling jokes, and “the worker” may take on too much.

Widening Your Reputation

Your reputation or job identity travels far through formal and more inconspicuous channels as your reputation can quickly pass through your company and even infiltrate other organisations.

You need to consider how you project your work identity in order to understand which of these descriptions your manager would use to describe you:

Candidate 1 “I will give this to X, she can always be relied on.”

Candidate 2 “No, don’t ask X, he spends too much time chatting-we have a short deadline.”

This job identity can be the difference between you moving forward in your career and feeling stuck in a job role that you start to resent.

Starting Your Positive Job Identity

At the beginning of a new role you will encounter a lot of new faces as well as a barrage of questions from colleagues, showing a healthy interest in the new recruit.

At the start it is advisable to keep your answers very general so that you have the opportunity to get to know the company’s ethos and practice as well as your new colleagues’ and manager’s personalities.

Once you know the office politics you are in a better position to word your answers and to give your own opinion to ensure the reinforcement of your positive identity. You have already tackled the job interview with success so it can be assumed that your new employer felt confident that you would fit in well with the current workforce and the company image.

If you discover that you don’t like the company’s work ethics or work politics, you will need to start your job hunting again to find an organisation in line with your working practice ideals.

8 Ways to Increase a Positive Job Identity in the Workplace                       

 Start by building Rapport      

  • People gravitate towards those who are like them, and everyone can find common ground with another person. Fi nd out what your common ground is and use it as an icebreaker.
  • By spending time each day asking people about their lives, enquiring about their children, partners, holidays for example, will show others that you are interested in them as a person and not just their value in the workplace.
  • Listen intently when others are talking, reassuring through positive body language, nodding and reassuring that you are interested. Don’t interrupt and at the end ask questions

Be an Expert

  • People follow authority and experts- you should start by sharing your job expertise. Don’t be embarrassed; people won’t know about your strengths, skills and experiences until you tell them!
  • Know what you want to achieve and let others know. Don’t cover your goal in cotton wool, don’t add pleasantries “I hope this is OK with you” as this can sometime make the message unclear.
  • You need others to see the benefits and possibilities of your ideas and experiences, so be truthful, and if something has not worked tell them and back this up with what you have learnt from the mistake, this will show you as knowledgeable and that you won’t give up.

Do You Want to be Respected or Popular?

  •  One of the most critical mistakes colleagues make at work is the pursuit of popularity rather than respect. In a new job we are concerned with how others see us and can easily dwell on this.
  • Respected employees rather than popular employees will make you more influential and more likely to gain a job promotion. Body language will often give you away unconsciously if you are looking for popularity rather than respect.
  • Avoid feeling pressured to agree with others, instead give your personal opinion using calm and relaxed voice – also smile as this helps others feel you are being helpful rather than just being negative.

Listen to Others

  • We all have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we talk.
  • Write down people’s names and remember their face, so next time you met you can address them by their name, helping to increase rapport.
  • Good listeners gain good reputations- When unsure what someone has said you should feel confident to ask them to repeat themselves.

Be Helpful

  • Be helpful to your colleagues with work and general tasks, invite people out for lunch, hold open doors, if you help people, then they will feel more compelled to help you.
  • When giving suggestions and presenting ideas, explain considering others vantage point, selling what they will get out of it personally not just the benefits to yourself or the company. Plan your timing.
  • Don’t interrupt when someone is busy or when they have other things on their mind, as they will not listen fully to what you are saying, in many situations you need to ensure your first conversation gets through.

Don’t Seek Out Recognition

  • When you have a great idea, especially when you have a brainwave during a meeting, don’t seek out recognition, allow time for it to find you.
  • Don’t get carried away with the pursuit of praise or too excited in highlighting to your manager the creative ideas you have thought up. You need to step back and dissociate yourself from your feelings, leaving your mind free to listen to the details of other colleague’s comments; otherwise you may miss valuable suggestions and your reputation may become one who does not care about other people’s ideas.

Show the Way to your Colleagues

  • When you have a great idea, you may need to get others to come along with you. To do this you need to explain what they will gain from your idea and what they could lose if they miss out
  • Give people clues, show people the way, prompt them and let them work out how your suggestion will work out, they will feel that they are part of the idea and will start to back you up-you will start to gain a reputation as a team member.
  • Don’t be too forceful as this will only work for a small period of time until people start to resent you. People like to feel they have contributed to what they are doing.
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How to Quickly find a Job Online – 10 Quick Tips

Quick tips to find an online job

In the past job hunters, would leave one job and quickly walk into another, in most cases without even having an interview – this job search technique no longer works, as employers often interview a number of candidates to show they are not discriminating against anyone.

More recently job hunters would look for advertised jobs in the job magazines, newspapers and in post office windows, you can still find vacancies this way, but the more homes that have the internet the fewer employers pay to place an advert in a paper. With the introduction of the internet, job hunting in the ’00s has changed:

Online job hunting has made finding vacancies, once you know what to do, quick and easy, in many cases employers will look for you.

10 online job hunting tips for you to use.

1. First, you need to spend time writing a targeted CV and Application Form and save these to your desktop. Spend time writing these documents and ensure you have highlighted all your skills and qualities that will sell you to the employer. To save time and to ensure you have a good CV you can pay for a CV writing service

2. Now you have your CV and application form, you can use these as a template for all your applications. When you next have to complete an application form (most application forms are now completed online), to save time copy and paste the answers from your saved application from into your new job application form. You may need to edit some of the answers to target it to the new job role. You can do the same with your CV.

3. Add your CV to job search engines such as Monster and Reed, these way employers will look for you. In most cases you can also set up alerts on search engine websites for jobs under industries, you will start to receive vacancies via e-mail within a couple of days.

4. On Google set up alerts for “industry name” new jobs and “industry name” creates new jobs. Google will e-mail you articles, websites and blog post for new jobs in your industry; You will now be one of the very first job hunters to hear of these new vacancies.

5. Visit company WebPages, under the tab “jobs” or “careers” you will find company vacancies; many companies will not pay job search engine websites to advertise vacancies as they feel they gain enough traffic from job hunters to their own site.

6. Join twitter, facebook, linked-in and other social network sites. You can link, be-friend and follow industry jobs, companies, job search websites, sector skills councils. From this you will start to receive hundreds of links to jobs and articles in your industry.

7. Use social network sites to ask industry experts question around industry jobs, new contracts and possible interview questions, many social network users are only to happy to share their own knowledge with you.

8. You can also use facebook or twitter to set up a page for “looking for ‘industry name’ Job” you can use this as an online CV and add links to your other websites so employers can see your work – this is a great resource for the media industry.

9. Use www.yell.com to find industry/company e-mail addresses, open your e-mail account and add all the e-mail addresses to the BCC (this way employers will not know you have made a mass e-mail) add your CV as a PDF attachment and put your cover letter text in the body of the e-mail. Speculative job searching is underused and has a 40% success rate.

10. Finally, Google “Job Title” in “Location” and find hundreds of links to local job adverts.

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Do i Need A Web CV?

Web CV

Technology has changed the way we search and apply for vacancies, in the past we would type a CV and post it out to employers, the mail would take several days to arrive and in some instances would be lost on route!

These days using the world wide web, job searching has speeded up. We can find a vacancy and contact the employer instantly via e-mail (or in some cases using a social network site)

CV

Currently, we e-mail employers with our CV attached as a PDF document and record the cover letter text in the body of the e-mail. Job searchers are using the Internet to evolve the way we job search and Web CVs are becoming more popular, especially in ITC, Media, Performing Arts and Catering Industries.

A Web CV is your CV online. By creating a one or two-page website you can design a creative-looking CV to catch the employer’s eye.

Unlike standard CVs you can also scan in your qualifications/certificates and upload these to your Web CV. For Creative and Performing Arts careers, you can add videos, photos and reviews, proving you have the skills, qualities and experience the CV states you have.

Web CV

A Web CV, like any other CV, needs to be brief, to the point and MUST be targeted to the industries that interest you. A Web CV is easy to update and can be used as a working web document. Don’t add your contact details to your Web CV, for security reasons, as anyone can have access to your online CV.

When applying for jobs, on your phone or in an Internet cafe, you can quickly e-mail the employer with a link to your Web CV. To make your website safer you can use a password-protected website, remember to add the password when you send your Web CV link to an employer.