Tag Archives: Employers perspective

12 days of Christmas, Job Applications, Job Hunting, No, Seasons Greetings

On the 7th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…

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On the 7th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…

…7 Swans A-swimming! Ah lovely, as long as you don’t get too close and then they hiss like geese. So we’ll steer clear of the swans and go for: On the 7th day of Christmas The CV Righter said to me 7 deadly sins of job hunting, 6 Key Achievements, 5 Golden Rules, 4 calling cards, 3 networks, 2 referees and a killer CV.

  1. Lust – Lusting after a new role can land you in trouble. The recruiter in me loves passionate project people, they are so easy to sell on to clients and the need for challenge over remuneration package is truly a refreshing change. But calling up recruiters to tell them how much you hate them and will never work with them again because this IS the job of your dreams and you must be put forward is verging on the stalker / psycho behaviour.
  2. Gluttony – move away from the job boards; stop eating up every role with the word “Project” in it. It is quality not quantity, pick your roles carefully and apply in bite sizes to keep track of your efforts.
  3. Greed – money isn’t everything; look at what else is on offer and I don’t mean pensions and healthcare. What is the organisations training policy? What are the chances of career progression? Are the projects going to add something to your portfolio?
  4. Sloth – make an effort, don’t just bulk apply with the same cover and CV. Tailor your letters and CV for each application. Making the effort does make a difference and lazy candidates become quickly apparent to employers.
  5. Wrath – sits close with Lust this one; keep your cool when looking for a job. I know it is frustrating and scary and you feel like you are putting all the effort in to a black hole. If you come across aggressive and grumpy to others then you are not going to get very far at all.
  6. Envy – don’t sit there thinking your colleagues / friends seem to have something you don’t as they seem to manage to score interviews and job offers whereas you never hear back from applications. Get some feedback on your CV and ask to see your peers CVs to understand what it is about them that attracts employers.
  7. Pride – stop being so proud, ask for feedback and listen to what you hear. Just because your CV reads fine to you, doesn’t mean it is!

 

On the 1st day of Christmas The CV Righter gave to me a Killer CV

On the 2nd day of Christmas The CV Righter said to me Two Referees

On the 3rd day of Christmas The CV Righter gave to me Three Networks

On the 4th day of Christmas The CV Righter said to me 4 calling cards 

On the 5th day of Christmas The CV Righter gave to me 5 golden rules

On the 6th day of Christmas The CV Righter said to me 6 Key achievements

Careers Advice, guest blogger, Internships, Recruitment

12 Steps To Make The Most Of Your Internship

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An internship is an opportunity that’ll prepare you for the rest of your career. An internship takes you out of your ‘student mentality’ and brings out the young professional in you. Still, an internship won’t mean much if you don’t know how to leverage one. Here are 12 steps to make the most of your opportunity.

1. Think Of It As A 10-Week Reverse Interview

Consider each day as just another day of your interview so that you’re sharp, focused and diligent. Would you lax off on your interview day? No you wouldn’t. Continue to impress each day and you’ll win.

2. Make An Impact

Make a measurable impact by thinking ahead and beyond, asking astute questions, showing your intelligence, willingness and dedication. Volunteer for advanced tasks and spend extra time to learn stuff from your superiors.

3. Ask For Help When You Need It

If your boss is the kind that expects you to learn on the job, don’t feel intimidated. If you’re stuck with something, don’t waste precious hours. Ask for help –your initiative will be noted, along with your efforts to save time.

4. Ask For Feedback

Ask your manager to give you feedback at the end of each week. Write down the feedback and the next week, show your manager what you did with the feedback given. Then ask for that week’s feedback.

5. Make Friends

Smile often and always make some pleasant conversation, though respectful and limited. It’s ok to be friendly with everyone, even your superiors. Make friends of everyone, from the mailman to the top man. All your friendships can be turned into your network later on.

6. Explore The Company’s Culture

Understand how your company works – the working culture, the dress culture, holiday culture and so on. Then compare this data with other companies. You’ll find many parallels within the same industry. This due diligence will help you follow the right culture when you begin your career.

7. Be Visible

One of the biggest complaints from managers is that their intern is invisible. Be visible. Be seen. Be known. Make yourself visible by voicing your thoughts and opinions respectfully, with confidence. Don’t hide.

8. Understand The Context

Learn how the organization operates. Interact with various teams and find out how everything works as a whole. . Learn about the various functions behind the running of the business. You will earn newfound appreciation for your employer and have a better understanding of what you’re doing as well.

9. Impress With Your Hard Work

This doesn’t mean you have to kill yourself with 90 hour weeks. Still, be willing to work hard and after-hours at times. Offer total support to your manager, such that he or she sorely misses you once the internship is over.

10. Watch The Clock

When assigned a task, do it within the given time. If you have doubts, get them clarified immediately. Find out if your manager will be available to clarify, or get the name of another person you can approach with doubts.

11. Understand Your Own Needs And Limitations

An internship is the perfect opportunity to pinpoint what kind of work you’d like to do, and what kind you don’t want to do. This understanding will help you fine-tune your resume and your inclination for your future career.

12. Don’t Duck Your Responsibility

Be bold, and admit to your mistakes. If you’re criticized, accept it and see about improving your work. Don’t look for a trophy – it’s not Little League. Sometimes it’ll be unfair, but you have to take it on the chin and do your best.

Gagan works for http://tictwo.com/,an internship training administrator and facilitator, who works with young college students and college grads from all over the world who apply for internship in China.

Careers Advice, CV Tips, Job Applications, PMO, Project Management, Project management CV, project management resume, Starting out in Project Management, Transferable Skills

Let’s talk about transferable skills – starting out in Project Management

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There’s always a lot of talk about skill-sets and particularly transferable skills; however if you want to transfer your career into the project management field then it is important to highlight the right skills which will be of greatest benefit to you and your potential employer. Now we all know there are differing types of project management roles from support through to managing and there are also more technical PM roles too – not just IT, they may be construction / engineering etc where you need to have a good knowledge of the field as well as PM methods to be successful in delivering benefits. So I am going to cover some key transferable skills for the PM aspect not any specific industry based element, here are a few to consider:

  • Investigating – Researching and questioning why? Key components to any good PM professional, being able to push back with quantifiable evidence is required even more now that funding is tight and projects benefits really do need to be explored thoroughly before starting off another project.
  • Planning – Planning / scheduling projects, predicting outcomes / scenarios, organising events and preparing for tasks – it’s a must!
  • Leadership – Core requirement for any good Project Manager and comes in very handy for Programme Support professionals too.
  • Influencing – The ability to gain buy-in is a big requirement for PM professionals, whether it’s from senior management, external (or internal stakeholders), sponsors or suppliers – you need to be able to persuade and encourage others.
  • Teamwork – Proving you can bond with others and build a strong force which produces results is key to successful project delivery.
  • Problem solving – Taking different viewpoints and exploring solutions is a big part of PM, from understanding workstream leads other commitments to supplier issues.
  • Budgeting – At some point you with be either managing your own budget or monitoring budgets on projects in a support element.
  • Decision making – The ability to look at your options and actually pick a way forward is crucial especially in a critical situation.
  • Training – Working with others either as a manager (PM) to mentor and train people in the project team or as a support person (PMO) to train others in various aspects of the project lifecycle such as risk management etc through workshops and 1 2 1 engagement.
  • Organising – From coordinating teams and individuals, arranging meetings and resources to scheduling.
  • Time management – Meeting deadlines and setting priorities are the core factors of project management and being on time is a given.
  • Creating – Not always highlighted as a core skill for PMs but in my experience of delivering projects, inventing, originating, designing or composing play a big part to success.

Now you can use this as a starting guide to performing a skills audit – once you have a list of transferable skills, you then need to provide some good examples of each skill (where you have used them / how / outcomes etc). These will help you form a basis for applications to project management jobs.

 

Careers Advice, guest blogger, Happy work environment, Observations

Spelling Matters: The Disadvantages of Poor Workplace Grammar

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We live in a world filled with text messages, emails and social messages, and since we’re using these mediums at a rapid pace, we tend to put grammar on the backburner. While you may think that intertwining they’re, their and there may not be a big deal, there are actually plenty of disadvantages to using poor grammar in the workplace.

You will not come off as a professional.

When you work, you need to think and act like a professional, and this includes writing like one. When you use correct grammar, your readers will think of you as a professional, but if your writing contains a multitude of major grammatical errors, your readers will not take you seriously, and they certainly will not think of you as a professional.

You could cause confusion.

When you don’t use correct grammar, it’s possible that you will confuse your readers. Depending on the topic or the type of writing being done, this confusion can be very damaging to your career or your company. If your writing confuses other employees about their job responsibilities or the deadlines to their projects, you could end up trying to make major corrections at the eleventh hour. This could be avoided if your grammar was correct in the first place.

You don’t exude quality.

You want your clients, coworkers and bosses to think of you as someone who produces quality work. If your emails are full of misspellings and improper grammar, it’s not going to convey this message. Instead, these individuals will wonder how they can trust you to do a flawless job when you can’t even structure a sentence correctly. This could cause your clients or bosses to look elsewhere when it comes time to having a project completed.

You could get passed up for a promotion.

If you don’t have proper grammar in the workplace, it could look poorly enough on you that you are not considered for a promotion. Many companies are starting to crack down on the grammar of their employees, and if it’s not up to par, the employees are not reaping any rewards, including promotions. Employers look very highly on the use of correct grammar, especially when conducting business with clients. They believe that the way that you communicate is a reflection of the company, and if your communications with clients are filled with misspellings and improper grammar, it’s going to look poorly on the company as a whole. Your employer will blame you for this, and you could find yourself remaining in the same position for the rest of your career.

Grammar plays a bigger role in business than you may want to believe. Even if you’re rushing through email responses, you need to take the time to read through what you’re writing and give it the proper proofreading. You need to make sure that your writing is clear so that everyone who reads it will be on the same page. And most importantly, you want to make sure that it’s correct so that it reflects highly on you.

Garrett Payne is a grammar fanatic and prolific writer.  He constantly stresses the importance of correct grammar and grammar checking in the workplace.