Category Archives: Job Applications

Careers Advice, Job Applications, Job Hunting, Recruitment

Understanding who reviews your CV

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When applying for jobs it can often feel like your CV disappears into the abyss – rarely receiving any replies, occasionally receiving the automatically generated response, and you are often left wondering whether your application was read. Chasing after feedback can be just as frustrating, if you can actually get through to the relevant party to discuss your application – often being fobbed off with generic responses such as “we have over XXX applications for this role so we cannot provide individual feedback” or worst still, a response telling you that your CV is fine (because they are too busy to bother spending 5 minutes to talk through details.

So understanding where your CV might end up when you apply for a job is a good starting point to enable you to make more informed decisions about structuring your CV and about where you might concentrate your applications.

  • CV sifters – this is becoming a popular and cost effective way for organisations to manage applications, taking out the recruitment element and fees. Companies specialise in taking bulk loads of CVs and sorting through to produce a shortlist of applications. Some are specialised in particular career fields but a lot are generalists and will work to a guide provided by the hiring manager. This works in respect of a popular job in that it sorts out all the relevant CVs (believe me, no matter how good the job advert, you will always get random applications from completely irrelevant job seekers), however if the sifters are not specialised and your CV reads in a technical or role specific terminology then you may find your application being put in the recycle bin.
  • Who reviews your CVRecruiters – often generalist recruiters tend to work on a pepper gun approach, taking a group of CVs which “appear” to match the job and sending them all to the employers. Similar to the sifters, this can generate a misleading hope (if they tell you they are sending your CV to the client) as you will probably be in a batch of 20/30 CVs. If the recruiter is working on dozens of jobs then it is fair to say they may not have spent a great deal of time reviewing and matching up CVs specific to the role. Not always the case but worth bearing in mind if you are wondering why you haven’t heard back or if you have been rejected post submission to the employer.
  • Specialist recruiters – these are the people you put a lot of faith in, they should know their game and in an ideal world have actually performed the roles prior to specialising in recruiting for them. As fees tend to be higher for these agencies, the employer expects to see a condensed shortlist of CVs which bear a close match to the position. This can mean a greater chance of interview should you be chosen for the shortlist but can also mean it is much more difficult to get into the shortlist in the first place.
  • HR staff – instructed by hiring managers to run a recruitment drive for a role, some HR staff are fantastic and really ask the right questions of the hiring manager and research the role, others take a less formal approach and create a list of “must haves” and use these to tick off when reviewing CVs. Remember that this tick list is most probably used by most reviewers to a point so it is important that your CV states are the things you have done which are relevant to the role.

The lesson to be learned from all the above is to ensure your CV is clear, do not assume because you have a job title of XYZ that you automatically have experience of ABC. Making assumptions and not spelling it out is the first step to failing to get past the reviewer on your job search journey.

Job adverts, Job Applications, Job Hunting, project management recruitment

Reasons why your project management job applications fail

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I have been approached literally hundreds of times over the years by job hunters asking why they are not getting calls following on from job applications – each case is usually slightly different but on the whole it comes down to a few reasons listed below:

  • Incorrect matching for job – in the current climate, most employers are less flexible with what they will accept in regards to skill-set and experience. If they are asking for a professional with specific product knowledge or project management method of delivery then they tend to stick with this requirements list and interview those who already have a close match. Remember, you need to meet at least 90% of the role requirements to be in a position to be considered for the job.
  • Poorly written job adverts / job descriptions – this comes down to recruiters and HR staff either not understanding the role or using old job descriptions to create new ones which are often out of date and not relevant. Therefore when you see an advert which doesn’t give any real detail about the organisation / projects in hand you are taking a leap of faith with your application.
  • Generic CV – alongside the generic job descriptions, these rarely give enough detail about your experience and specialism. As employers want project professionals who are closely aligned to their requirements it can be difficult for them to gauge you and they will naturally pick out the CVs which spell it out.
  • Job is closed – yes, a lot of roles are already closed when they go to advert. Why do it then you ask. A good recruiter will already have some candidates in mind for a role as they are qualifying it; as such they will have made contact with the candidates and will have sent in a shortlist to their client before writing up and publishing an advert. This is because there is a lot of competition for these roles with recruiters and time is of the essence, the advert will go online after, which will generate interest and more CVs for next time. Also the recruiters know that the best way to generate further business is to be seen to be publishing lots of new roles – the busier the agency appears to be the more likely they are to get more leads.
  • Fake job adverts – there are still a number of job adverts placed out and about which are “fishing” adverts, usually generic in their form and not unlike the above scenario. But these tend to be nonexistent jobs purely used to help build a recruitment database.
  • Too slow – not all roles are filled when published online, especially the harder to fill positions, but with competition high from your peers, you must be quick. I have published roles which have generated hundreds of applications within the first few hours, I have interviewed and shortlisted before the day has ended.

Looking for work

It is not uncommon to believe your CV is saying all the right things and reads clearly to others but all too often the common trait is that you know your job inside out and assume others will understand this. The CV becomes a document so in tune with what you know rather than a clear communicator of your exposure to different elements, difficulties you have faced (this sets you apart from others), core competencies (as you assume the reviewer will know you covered all aspects) and the types of projects you worked on (believing that leaving out the technical element will make you a more transferable candidate). My advice is to first address your CV, ask for a review – make sure it is honest! Then when you are confident it is good, keep an eye out for roles which look genuine and apply swiftly.

Careers Advice, Internet Recruitment Sites, Job Applications, Job Hunting, project management recruitment, Recruitment

Internet Recruitment Sites

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Often the first port of call for most looking for a new job – internet recruitment sites can be effective but need to be tackled in the right way to ensure you are harvesting good results. It is easy to apply online for roles and using the job boards provides very easy access to hundreds of recruitment agency job adverts. However if you are merely applying for anything and everything which broadly covers your skill-set you could be off to a non-starter – look at it from the recruiters perspective, if you apply for roles which vary significantly in salary and seniority then you are wasting their time. You will get noticed but for all the wrong reasons, quickly being labelled as a “apply for all” candidate who does not A. Read the job advert or B. Does not understand their own skill-set

Take time to really understand which roles are relevant for you and make sure you don’t assume that the recruiter knows what it is like to work at xxx ltd. When I say this I mean I have seen CVs which are rather limited in information and often do not have enough of the skills covered which are required for a role, therefore the application is rejected and it is not uncommon to have a call from the candidate asking why they were rejected. When explaining the key areas for the role the candidate will say they have done this and my response was – it is not in your CV. No matter how good a recruiter is at their job if the CV is not including the key skills asked for in their client wish list then the CV will be rejected from the client and it is important for the recruiter to maintain a good relationship with their client.  Sending in CVs lacking vital information looks bad on them so they won’t do it.

Your CV also needs to be compatible for the recruiter databases – often there are some guidance notes on the recruiter sites as to what works best with their systems, make sure you follow these but a good rule of thumb is to keep the CV to a basic formatting and avoiding tables and text boxes. Otherwise you may find that your CV is not displaying correctly on the recruiters screen and could be missing large chunks of information. As the recruiter will be dealing with hundreds of CVs on a daily basis you will easily be discarded for a CV which is correctly formatted and states all the key requirements for a role.

Keyword searching by recruiters is also very popular these days due to the volumes of candidates in databases so it is important to make sure you weave relevant keywords within your CV – do not just list a mass of keywords! This is not helpful to the recruiter who requires some context of how you have used skills, software etc. Take a look at roles being advertised and check that the terminology is similar to that used in your CV, make sure you really work at placing some effective statements about when you have had exposure to certain aspects such as the project lifecycle including how, when, why.

Job Applications, Job Hunting, LinkedIn, project management jobs, project management recruitment

Part time Project Management jobs

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More and more project professionals find themselves in a position where they need to work part time – this may be due to home commitments such as caring for dependents or even other interests such as writing books / working for charities etc. It may seem that employers will not be interested in part time employees as projects can be very time consuming, however there are a great deal of organisations out there who would benefit from experienced project professionals working on a part time basis due to budgetary constraints.balancing home and work

These types of roles are rarely advertised as the hiring managers have not yet thought about taking on additional support in this capacity but it does make sense. Therefore it is important to really think about how you can add value to a project or business and make contact with heads of projects etc. A first port of call would be your existing contacts base – update your CV and drop them a line explaining your desire to work on a part time basis and don’t forget to add in the benefits of a cheaper resource with a great skill-set. Once you have made contact with previous employers, colleagues, and contacts then you are on their radar – hopefully they will keep their ear to the ground and suggest you for additional resource with their contacts too. Then you should look to research organisations who have project management functions to see what is new with them – the best starting point would be to look at their news articles to see if they have anything new in the pipeline which could potentially yield new roles, such as new products / mergers / overhauling legacy systems etc. Before making contact – look to see if any of your contacts have any connection to the organisation, LinkedIn is perfect for this. If you find they do – ask for an introduction to HR or ideally heads of projects. The next part is really important: write a speculative covering letter which includes detail about their changes then talk through your relevant experience and exposure to this, do not be afraid to blow your own trumpet – but simply stating you are brilliant isn’t the way to do it, talk about your actual accomplishments which are relevant to the project and how you add value. Then talk through your desire for a part time position and spell out how this can be a cost effective resource for the project. Some flexibility to your working hours is always a bonus, so if you can be flexible – tell them so!

There is a fair bit of work required on your side with this approach to finding a new role but with competition high for the few part time roles advertised, it is this proactive behaviour which will yield results.