Has the traditional CV had its day?

Everything else has changed. The CV alone remains - but has technology called time on this monolith?


Much has changed in the way we recruit today, even compared to just 5 years ago.  Pre-recession (or financial implosion!) the High Street was dotted with local and National recruitment offices open for business, largely serving the local market. Job Boards were there as a tool not a competitior, cutting fees to the level of the cost of a family meal in a local diner was unheard of, RPO, BPO was only for the big boys.  There was a commonality (largely) in the way the industry worked.  Go back further to the 1980's and it was a world of faxes (if you were lucky), no emails, nor CRM software, no job boards - just local job pages, a telephone and CV's copied to within and inch of their life liberally doctored with copious Snopake - and you went home without a pager, mobile, laptop or iPad. It was labour intensive, up close to clients and candidates, with paper based systems - and thousands of paper CV's in bulging filing cabinets.

Take a recruiter from today and pop them back into that scenario and they would relate to little - except the CV. - because essentially that is the one constant in the development of recruitment and recruitment process over the last 50 years.

Is it all about to change? Will social media and new technology supercede the need for the resume?? Is there a better way to present a candidate?  A viable alternative? We think so!

REC - Permanent workforces set to grow,

Permanent workforces set to grow, according to latest REC JobsOutlook

Released on 15 June 2011

Employers are predicting that they will be adding to their workforces in both the short and longer terms, the REC’s June JobsOutlook shows. This is encouraging news ahead of this week’s employment figures and at a time when the short-term outlook for the jobs market remains volatile.

Despite current economic uncertainties, confidence among employers has steadied with 64 per cent expecting to increase their permanent workforce in the next three months with 65 per cent looking to do over the next 12 months. Only six per cent say they are expecting to make staff cutbacks over the coming year.

Seventy eight per cent of employers are planning to either increase or maintain the number of agency staff in the short term, with 77 per cent planning to do the same in the next 12 months.

Commenting on the latest figures, Roger Tweedy, the REC’s Director of Research, said:

“Employer confidence is at a 12 month high. The picture is one of cautious optimism as businesses assess how the UK economy will perform in the coming months.

“This comes at the same time as consumer confidence has taken a significant upward turn after almost a year of steady decline. We expect this to result in increased fluidity within the jobs market.

“Though the May Report on Jobs showed a deceleration in the rate of growth, it is important to note that there was still an increase in actual placements in most sectors. The JobsOutlook data confirms a more upbeat prognosis for the mid and longer term although the ability of the private sector to absorb public sector cuts remains in the balance.”

Credit - REC Website

Occupational Health Advisor, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire to £39500

Experienced Occupational Health Advisor wanted for key position with leading FMCG employer based in Leicestershire. This is an autonomous role within a nurse led UK OH team with responsibility for 500 site and field based associates.

Our client is a truly global influence in FMCG food, manufacturing and distributing a diverse range of products across continents. With 100 years of history, and being home to some of the worlds’ best known brands, this is a corporation founded on core values which demonstrate its commitment to the people that make things happen – people like you. A job here is never just a job – are you up to the challenge of a career with this market leader?

This role provides occupational health expertise and clinical leadership to the business and site team, aligning the service to local client needs. IT involves co-ordinating and auditing the work of the OH service providers to deliver a comprehensive service including; case management, clinical care, risk assessment, work related environmental issues, and where necessary to perform and maintain core health centre activities.

Accountabilities

 Manage and drive health promotion and health education programmes at site level, with some national co-ordination responsibilities

 Accountable for the provision of an effective case management service for all associates

 Managing the processes for work, non-work illness and injury

 Delivery of Health Surveillance programme to meet statutory requirements

 Occupational Health advocate to other disciplines both internally and externally to the business where an occupational health input is required.

 Advising the local management team, P&O and other key stakeholders of agreed strategic OH initiatives

 Ownership and preparation of nominated occupational health policies, standards and procedures for the national occupational health team

 To collect relevant metrics to establish priorities; monitor trends & plan appropriate interventions for the relevant business unit

 Prepare and disseminates educational and informational materials.

 Budgetary ownership and management of local site expenditure within the agreed framework

 Develops and maintains co-operation between public, professional, and voluntary agencies.


Background Experience and Qualifications needed:-

 You need to be a RN with specialist qualification in Occupational Health, with direct experience in occupational health, preferably in a commercial setting

 Have commercial business awareness

 Excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills

 Strong psycho-social background conducive to perceiving and reacting sensitively to both the associate and organisational needs

 Ability to effectively interact and influence at all levels both within and externally to the business

 Demonstrated planning and organisation skills

 Computer Literacy

Salary in a band £34,000 to £39,500 plus a benefits package which includes 2 bonus opportunities, a contributory pension scheme and private health care, as well as a positive approach to your ongoing training and development.

This is an urgent requirement so please apply without delay

Maximise Your Chances of Interview Success– SnipTip 2

 Do Your Research!

There are so many things that could potentially scupper your chances of landing that dream job. Some of the things you have no control over but there are some things you can do to help you improve your chances of success.

If you got the interview through an agency or consultant hopefully you will have received a full brief on the job and the company. Depending on the level of the role you may need to do more research on the company – for instance if you are going for a senior role you should know who the CEO is at least and maybe the names of some of the Directors. Find out how well they are doing financially through their quarterly results (if they have to publish them), what they do, where they do it, what are their main products, brands and services. It might be useful to find out details of any recent or planned acquisitions – or even disposals - your role may be connected to those milestones. Who are their competitors? what have you read or seen in the media about any company news or promotions? Most of this information can be easily found on the internet or at Companies House.

Taking an interest into the company and how it operates may make a difference to your chances of success. Research the company. Research their market - information is power.

Interview Snip Tip - Appearance Counts

First impression do count and count a lot when it comes to interviews – so make the most of those first few seconds in a room of strangers by paying attention to how you look.


An interview is a chance, amongst other things, to showcase the best of you from how you look to what you say - so lets start with your appearance. Here are a few reminders:

• Hair should be clean and tidy
• Style is a matter of personal choice of course but hair the colour of a national flag may not go down well in the more conservative sectors and could hamper your chances. Be aware and do your homework on what sort of culture the company you are visiting has.
• Piercings again are a matter for the individual, but do be aware of the impact they may have on the interviewer who will be assessing whether you “fit” the company image- safer to stick to ear rings or studs. A tongue piercing which hampers your ability to speak clearly may not help land any job that involves verbal communication.
• Clothes should be clean, well presented and in a style appropriate to the job you are going for. If it is a commercial environment business dress is the safe option.
• You need to be squeaky clean, smelling fresh – and if you use aftershave or perfume best advice is that it should be subtle and not strong enough to floor the interviewers.
• Get a good nights sleep so you look your best and feel fantastic!
• Always check yourself in the mirror before you leave the house - remember to smile, look yourself in the eye, believe in yourself and be confident.

Looking good will add to your confidence levels - Make sure that first impression is the one you intend to give – not the one that is unintentionally implied by your appearance.

Preparation will always pay dividends - good luck in your next interview!

Maximise your chances of interview success - Get prepared!

Questions questions questions!! Interviews are full of questions.  Some questions are predictable - so doesn’t it make sense to prepare?
One thing is certain - interviews are stressful.  Getting ahead of the game by preparing for the predictable will relieve some of the pressure and leave your mind processing power free to tackle some of the tougher questions that come your way
Depending on the level of the job you may just have to talk through your CV and give an account of what each job involves or at the other extreme you may have to answer tough situational (tell me a time when… )  or behavioural (what did you do about…. How did you react or feel?) questions that require examples, facts and figures and detailed outcomes to properly answer.
If you are going for a non-managerial, junior or unskilled role you will need to demonstrate that your contribution to the company meant more than just turning up each day. Be prepared to discuss your previous roles of course - but in your preparation consider also the successes you had, how you maybe shared your skills to help a colleague in their development and how that helped them, where you had influence over others even though you were not a supervisor.  Consider not just the skills and abilities you needed to do the job, but also the skills that each role required in order to exceed expectation, for example the ability to prioritise work, your presentation skills that you maybe used in induction training for others, communication skills developed in building effective business relationships and which produced positive outcomes, training and mentoring others, motivational skills, the ability to embrace change and adapt,  the use of specific software, like Excel or a sector specialist package which will save on training time and costs. Think in terms of the contribution you made and why the company was better off because you were there - where did you add value?  Where could you add value for a new employer?  Include any recognition or awards that your work earned you – and if you have paperwork (certificates, copies of annual reviews) take them with you just in case Doing this preparation as a checklist for yourself before you go for interview will mean that this information is at the front of your mind and available in your memory bank for easy recall.
Whilst you are going through this exercise it is a good time to take an objective look at your CV.  Are there any gaps? If so, make sure you have a credible and truthful explanation.  Have you covered the key areas of your contribution and responsibilities in each role? What was your reason for leaving? (avoid saying you were headhunted,  rather focus on the positive outcome of the move in career terms)  What were you paid? Were there other incentives and how did you do in meeting those targets?  Does your work history flow logically or is there something that sticks out - if so ensure you can explain why you went of at a tangent at that time. Have you included all your qualifications and work related courses?  Have you recently upgraded or re-qualified? Do you have bearer references that might just clinch the deal?
So what questions can you prepare for? Here are 20 to get you started.
1. What do you know about our company?
2. Why are you applying for a position with our company?
3. Why did you go and work for your last employer?
4. Describe a typical day
5. What kind of people do work best with and why?
6. What did you like most / least about your last job?
7. Which of your duties did you find most difficult - why?
8. What motivates you?
9. Why do you want to leave your current job?
10. What do you consider to be your greatest strength / weakness?
11. What element of your job gives you the greatest satisfaction?
12. How do you approach tasks you dislike?
13. What does this job offer that your last job did not?
14. What would you like to avoid in your next job?
15. How would you describe your relationship with your last supervisor?
16. How do you like to be managed?
17. How would your friends describe you at work?
18. What did you learn from each or your previous jobs?
19.What does the prospect of this job offer that your previous jobs did not?
20.The three most important duties in this role are X, Y and Z - what experience do you have that would qualify you to perform these tasks?
The list is potentially a great deal longer but hopefully this will help with the preparation of your interview responses. Winners always practice - success demands investment in preparation.
Good luck

Recruitment is Dead - Long live Recruitment!

There is a buzz in the ether getting louder by the day. The end is nigh for recruitment companies they say! Well as a recruitment business owner that is enough to get my attention, and thought it serious enough to take a deeper look. To see this in context we have first to give a respectful nod to the past to get to the “why” and put the latest “ogre”, Social Media, centre stage. Should we be frightened of this new pretender, or use the challenge as a springboard for a new recruitment concept?

I have been in recruitment since 1989, and came to Peterborough from London, leaving financial services to join a major national recruitment company as a Sales Development Consultant.

For those of you old enough to remember the Internet was still to be invented, computers had 5 inch floppies (if you had them at all) Word Perfect ran on DOS and recruitment depended on typewriters, filing systems and gallons of white correction fluid. CV's were all paper based and posted through snail mail, ads were all in the local paper with it's once a week offering in the weekly job pages. - technology was in its infancy (some may say better for it) and Peterborough was lagging behind London by a long way!

By 1993 when I opened my first independent recruitment business things had moved on a pace - we worked on laptops, had a data base, a fax, and computer based testing and training! WOW!

Then came the Internet, emails and JOB SITES. At that point the soothsayers forecast the end was nigh for recruitment companies. What happened in effect was that recruitment changed, adapted, progressed. What had been very much a local affair got caught up in globalisation and modernisation - maybe even radicalisation. Who knows what was in the mind of the first job sites - did they intend to replace the High Street, or even specialist niche agent? In effect recruiters embraced the technology, pleased at last to spread their net further afield. Move on a pace and those who jumped first achieved significant competitive advantage over those who held fast to the classifieds as their main source of candidates.

Technology changed the face of recruitment for ever. But it did not stop there, this is, after all, an unfolding story.

The burgeoning web offered small companies and large corporates an even playing field - equal opportunity to present a 24 hour shop window always open for business - always open for applicants to browse and apply for jobs on line.

Then came the recent earth shattering financial implosion. Personally I think this was a cataclysmic event for much of the business world, but for sure caused a mercurial shift in recruitment and it's role in business.

I could go on and on about the effects of that on recruitment. In a nutshell however the effect has been to polarise the marketplace - high volume low margin RPO companies at one end of the spectrum, with Search companies and niche players at the other. The bit in the middle is at risk from internal recruiters, job boards and flat fee recruiters.

Predictions are those on the High Street are vulnerable and unless they change their model they will not survive.

The latest risk is the growth of Social Media in recruitment. Millions of people globally now have Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, My Space accounts that have taken over from writing a letter, making a call or sending an email. Recruiter beware - ignore this at your peril - it is happening!

OK so that's a potted background - but what is the reality?

Why does recruitment exist at all as an industry? I am sure I am not the only one to ask that question! The standard response is that good recruiters add value to the recruitment process, taking a clients problems and delivering added value solutions - saving time, saving money, always adding value. That of course includes filling jobs with the most appropriate candidates - but now more than ever we need to be adding value through market knowledge, enhanced services, maybe psychometric testing, running open days and a whole host of time saving professional services. It is not just all delivering CV's, after all the jobs boards do that very well, it's not just all about budgets, if it were the flat fee recruiters would not be able to cope with the volume of business coming their way. It has to be about our ability to manage all of the elements and resources available to us as professional recruiters in a way that delivers results and exceeds expectation - and better than customers can do for themselves.

In my view the future of recruitment centres around people, and delivering what they want, when they want it at a price appropriate for the service offered using the most appropriate medium.

Maybe the future of recruitment agencies will depend on having a wider range of services so we can deliver a true end to end solution, helping business to succeed in attracting the talent it needs through listening, understanding, interpreting requirements into a workable plan of action which capitalises on all of the elements available in today's hi-tech instant action environment - job board advertising, managed advertising flat fee options, fixed fee, pay as you go contingency and search, embracing Social Media, - a service managed by professional recruiters, not sales people or media moguls - all under one banner.

Hybrid recruitment is here - and is available from Peoplemax, the consulting division of Jobmax