Alternatives to the traditional CV

It's probably safe to say that most jobseekers at present have their two or three page CV created and saved in Microsoft Word. It's also equally safe to say that if you're a jobseeker, you're in the same situation as a large number of similarly qualified and experienced candidates, who have similar MS Word based CVs.
A question to ask yourself is, how are you standing out?.
If the answer is that you're not standing out, then perhaps you may want to think about it from the perspective of a hiring manager with a job to fill.
This manager will have a large amount of CVs to sift through, all of them in MS Word or variants. However, here are some simple steps to help your application stand out from the rest.

1: The World Wide Web
There are a number of ways of hosting your CV on the internet, and rather than just emailing your CV to the hiring company, why not consider emailing a link to your online CV or Resume as well?
My favourite site in this area is www.visualcv.com. They allow you to host your CV for free, creating a custom url or web address based on your name, e.g. www.visualcv.com/ruadhri where you can view an example that Ive created.
Also bearing in mind that more and more people are using mobile devices to view their email, why not create a version of your CV that can be easily used and designed for mobile devices?
Here at mynewcv.ie we are pioneering this method, feel free to get in touch to learn more about this service.
Don't forget about sites like www.linkedin.com and www.xing.com, not only are they great networking tools, but they are also places to get recruited!

2: Portable Document File
Also known as PDF, Adobes product is an excellent way of creating a static, read only version of MS Word documents.
They print better, look better and cannot be manipulated, plus as they are effectively an image rather than a standard file, they hold any and all formatting, irrespective of the software being used on the hiring managers technology.
The only caveat Id mention about PDFs is that if youre sending the document to a recruiter or to a large company to be held on file, most recruitment searching technology is geared towards MS Word, rather than PDFs.
That's not to say that they're not searchable, but only that its easier not to.

3: Consider the Resume
Especially in Western Europe, the mindset has been to use the CV as the main sales document, however, feedback from hiring companies, bearing in mind how quickly they must decide on candidates for specific roles, a one page resume can get you to the top of the pile.
If your communication skills are such that you can condense your career into one page, then what are you waiting for? It will guarantee that you stand out from the other applicants, and if well written, will leave the reader wanting to know more. Plus its an excellent interview tool, just one page, with space for notes by the interviewer of course can be very useful.

If you require more information on converting your CV to a Resume, feel free to contact us.

Using Social Media for Jobsearching

Firstly, how would you define social media. In my view it simply boils down to the whole web 2.0 concept, interactive web based marketing if you will.

Depending on where you are in your jobsearch you can have different avenues open to you, but if you’re already in employment, its not necessarily a good idea to have your CV absolutely everywhere including in front of your current bosses, who tend to take a dim view of this kind of behaviour

So for this exercise we’ll take the point of view of someone who has their CV ready but is not currently working and attack the market using the web and social media.

For jobsearching using these tools there are three big sites that you need to become acquainted with, namely www.LinkedIn.com, www.Twitter.com and www.Facebook.com.

LinkedIn I believe to be the most effective as it’s purely professionally based, theoretically about business relationships and not fun! Although that’s a matter of perception!

If you’re not on LinkedIn and you are looking for a new role, what are you waiting for? It’s a great place to have your details, even if you’re not looking for a role and allows people to find you or your skillset. It’s also very much a recruiting place to be for hiring managers and recruiters alike. It’s very user friendly and you can import your CV, however, a resume or one page abridged version of the CV is much more useful for this purpose.

There is a guide to help you to create a full profile, but essentially once these steps are followed, you will have entered your career and educational history, plus what kind of contact you’re looking for, job opportunities, contact from old colleagues etc, you can then start to use it in a smart fashion using the following steps.

Use your gmail and or hotmail etc. accounts to find existing contacts who are already on LinkedIn and connect with them. Recommend someone who is not expecting it. This means writing a short paragraph on them and how wonderful they are which they can then display on their own page.

Grab a personalised url, that is, linkedin.com/Ruadhri for instance. This can then be used on your email signature. Get a photo up, not so much because of how you look, but because its now de riguer to do so and you will stand out for the wrong reasons if you don’t have one. But remember, this is a business website so the Xmas party photographs are not the ones to use!!!

Once you have these mechanics created, start getting into it. Use the comment box to say what your current situation is. Those who view your profile will see this as well as those who are connected to you already.

Start seeking out those whom you know and connect with them, browse their connections to see who they know. Of course etiquette as always plays a part so be sensible rather than taking a blunderbuss approach to connecting. Always write a brief note to the person, rather than use a default I’d like to connect paragraph provided.

Once you’re more comfortable with LinkedIn use the Groups Function to get in touch with likeminded people in your sector or position or even use the careers advice group, one great one is Paul Mullan’s Measurability jobs club. Ask questions, or even better answer questions, become an authority and before you know it you’re having lunch with people and discussing opportunities.

The second mentioned site, and of course there are many but we’re focussing on the top three, is of course Twitter. If you’re not familiar with it, well where have you been but it’s a micro blog where you have 140 characters to post on what’s happening. The idea is that you follow people, and they can follow you. However, there is a facility to private message and have conversations off the main site which is where the genius is.

In terms of personal branding it’s important to stay on message and as mentioned in previous podcasts, try to stay away from being controversial.

Anyway, get yourself a username and a good image or picture of yourself and begin to follow people. Do this in a similar way to your LinkedIn profile, find people you know, respect and or like and follow them. Chances are they’ll follow you.

However, the popular idea abroad is that Twitter is some kind of game where you try to get as many followers as possible. I don’t buy that, the trick is to create a dedicated news channel if you will, following what’s going on in your sector by getting the smartest people in it to tell you. Also, many many recruiters and job boards and hiring companies “tweet” their jobs so keep your eye out.

Going even deeper into twitter, I recommend downloading the free tool TweetDeck.com where you can have various columns of styles of tweets, predefined searches, so that as soon as someone tweets “Project Manager, Dublin” you’ll know about it in real time. Get your application in first! Also, check out Tweetdeck’s integration with TwitJobsearch.com, this is a tailored job search engine using whoever is already on Twitter. It’s a tiny bit technical if you’re not that way inclined but give it a go, it’s really easy once you get into it. There are lots and lots of roles out there, but if you don’t know about them…..

Feel free to email me on sales@mynewcv.ie if you require hints and tips, for instance who’s good to follow. Bill Gates tweets now, but chances are he won’t tell you about a job, but people like mneylon from Blacknight hosting or the aforementioned Paul Mullan may!

Finally on the big three Facebook. This comes with a health warning as if you go on Facebook with only the aim of getting a new role, and your boss sees you there and requests to befriend you and you either let her see what you’re doing or say no…..you can guess the rest.

Having said that, there are tons of groups, lots of people to get back in touch with and so many people to whom you can communicate your current situation to.

For instance, if you search “job” “Ireland” under the business drop down list, there are 95 dedicated groups including support groups, recruiters, hiring companies and job boards. Facebook themselves have sourced a large proportion of their employees through this method.

Another health warning with Facebook is that it can be great fun, very time consuming and you may find yourself sidetracked with getting that email out to the guy you were in secondary school with and saying aaaah over pictures of his honeymoon when you’re supposed to be finding your dream role. But if you must go all social, make sure your contacts know that you’re looking for that dream job and write down what it is on your “wall” or homepage. Because you can bet your life that someone is looking for you but will they find you?

Some quick hits here Monster.ie The best CV database (bar enigmasearch.com of course) many many hiring managers and recruiters have access to this database so get the CV there and make sure that you fill out the correct parameters. If you can’t get to the job you want, you should take pains to make sure that it can come to you!

Visual CV.com is a favourite of mine, this will allow you to create your own CV, looking rreally good and professional using a series of templates, and a printable PDF Adobe document page too. More and more hiring companies are viewing Visual CV, so get your bespoke URL or web page, e.g. visualcv.com/Ruadhri and put this on your email signature too!

Moving onto Blogging. Anyone can go to bloggertone or google’s Blogspot and create their own page. The trick is to talk about what it is that you are an expert on. Blogging can be time consuming and you often can find yourself thinking about what it is that you’re supposed to say! Having said that, if you’re not going to position yourself as a subject matter expert, why not use a google based blog like blogspot.com to get your CV online on a platform that’s supported by the biggest search engine! Makes perfect sense and of course, as more CVs go on the internet, more people looking for strong candidates are using google and bing etc to find them. Bespoke tools like enigmasearch.com and CVfox utilise google’s Custom Search engine to find these exact candidates for free, so remember the Irish Sweepstake Slogan, “if you’re not in, you can’t win”.

Forums such as boards.ie and askaboutmoney.com have excellent places to ask questions, but again, be conscious of your internet profile, always vanity search, that is put your name into a search engine and see if there’s anything up there that a potential employer will view as a negative.

Perception is Reality - How a CV must be a Sales Document - By Ruadhri McGarry - mynewcv.ie

Perception is Reality - How a CV must be a Sales Document - By Ruadhri McGarry - mynewcv.ie

So you've gotten your CV ready, it's two pages, it looks good, but you've not gotten any responses to your applications. How can this be?

You're an expert in your field, with lots of specific achievements and everyone speaks so highly of you!

What you may be missing is the title of this piece. Perception is reality.

You are the one who's created such excellent benefits for your employer. You know and everyone you've worked with knows that you're the "go to" person on a range of issues, the subject matter expert, the one who holds it all together, dependable, professional and a real leader.

Does your CV say this, loud and clear????

If it doesn't, it needs to and you need to do it today!

Your CV is not the place to be modest, above all else, it's a sales document. Think about it this way. If you are writing a tender for your employer, pitching for business, you are going to boast and probably exaggerate (a little bit, that's allowed) to make sure the reader of the document sits up and pays attention!

You are going to say, firstly, you've found what you need. You won't have to waste any more time reading any more tenders because my company will solve your problem, ease your pain, and allow you to sleep at night.

If you're taking it seriously, you will approach your CV in precisely the same way.

This part of the job seeking process is in your control, so you need to take control of it. You have the chance to hold the reader's reality in your hands. He or she will perceive what you give them, so give them your best!

If you're not getting results from the CV, STOP and start again. Give it to someone you trust who has a good business mind and take the following steps.

Ask them for one hour of their time and effort and ensure your friend has a pen and paper ready because they'll be taking notes (whether you tell them or not is your call but this is a "mock interview).

Write down or print the next set of headings and pass them to your friend. (I will refer to you in future as the jobseeker or JS).

1: Ask JS to summarise their career for you in two minutes. When they finish, ask JS why they are a good employee. Write down the answers.

2: Read each line of the CV to JS. When you reach a full stop, ask "what did this achieve?" and write down the answer.

3: Repeat step 2 until you complete the document.

4: Ask JS question one again. Write down any variations on the first answer.

5: Hand your answers to JS.

Now, JS, I feel we're getting a little closer! At this point, you need to take the answers that your friend has given you and amalgamate them back into the CV.

Make sure that every feature has a benefit. Every piece of experience that you've had has a related upside for the employer.

This is precisely how to boast properly in a CV and exactly what hiring managers want to see.

If you don't do this, if you just list a bunch of things that you did, without the impact of them, the perception is that there has been no positive impacts and you're dead in the water.

Make hiring managers perceive the reality of your experience and do it now!

How to Avoid Career Suicide in the Online World by Ruadhri McGarry www.mynewcv.ie

In the business of job hunting and recruiting, both parts of the process are relying on and using the internet, social media and blogosphere more than ever. This of course, is a natural business evolution. No problems there.

However, more and more prospective employers are not only finding candidates and prospects online, but they are also making negative choices based on what any one individual may have posted on certain social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others.

If you are a jobseeker, I implore you to conduct a “vanity search” using your name in a search engine. Find out, if you, or anyone you know, has posted negative comments, or portrayed you in a bad light online. This can be fatal to a job search. Should you find anything negative before a prospective employer does, get it offline as soon as you can, and take steps to ensure nothing like that happens again.

If your CV is online, be it on LinkedIn, Monster or VisualCV.com, have a third party check it for you to make sure there are no glaring errors and that all of the information posted is correct.

Should you use a photograph or image to represent you on whatever media, ensure that it’s “work safe”, that it is not offensive to anyone and that again, a third party has approved it.

In Ireland recently, a candidate for a local council election found less than politically correct pictures of her from Facebook splashed across the national media. These pictures were in fact from a friend’s page, not her own. This is a great example of how not managing your online brand can tarnish a reputation. (As it happens, this particular candidate was elected. Just.)

In the future, tomorrow’s graduates, who are extremely switched on to media such as social networking, may find youthful misadventure coming back to haunt them if they are not made aware of the potential harm to a career that this can have.

In conclusion, it is vital that this element of risk assessment through “vanity searching” be performed regularly to maintain control of your online brand and avoid a potentially disastrous outcome.

To learn more about CV and Jobsearching advice visit www.mynewcv.ie or contact sales@mynewcv.ie

CV Formatting - The Inside Track

How to get the most out of your CV, to make sure it stays out of the trash and to make it easier on the eye.

Many people make the mistake of having a massive CV. This guarantees you two things.

Any information that the reader wants will not be found and therefore it will not be read.

There are various mistakes, but here's the inside track on what to avoid and how to make your CV stand out, without being considered flashy.

Size

Any more than three pages and you're in trouble, unless you've been asked to submit a CV for a very specific role.

Two pages is best, but be aware of "spillages" from one page into another. Each page should end and begin as separate parts of your career history.

Contact Details

Whatever you do, get yourself a decent and formal email address. There's no easier way of giving the wrong impression with an inappropriate handle.

Content

Don't assume the reader knows all about your employers so best to follow the format below.

Name

Contact details

Career Summary

Career History

Dates

Company (website if appropriate

Your Job Title

Brief overview of company followed by your initial role and your current role.

Bullet your responsibilities but make sure that each one has an outcome or demonstrates a positive impact your work has done.

Repeat for each relevant employment.

Gaps

Don't leave gaps in the CV, but address them if you were away, unemployed, at college, but a gap suggests a lie which gets the document in the bin!

References

Don't mention contact details of your referees, ideal is "Excellent references available on request" but if you're in a small industry this is a chance to name drop whilst still retaining control of the reference check as without contact details, they'll have to go to you.

In future articles I'll address each point in more detail but feel free to get in touch for specific questions that you may have.

How to ace an interview!

A very brief and simple guide to acing an interview.

If you've been provided with a JobSpec you will already have a list of the competencies that are required to be successful in the role. If you don't have a jobspec, write one!

All you need to do now is prepare two examples for every competency and be ready to explain each using before, during and after. Or I prefer;

Situation: What was happening Behaviour: What did you do to change it Outcome: How did your actions positively change the situation

e.g.

Competency = Delegation of tasks

Situation:

Prior to my joining the department each manager was responsible for various projects and was extremely hands on, jack of all trades, master of none

Behaviour:

I ascertained which staff members had specific strengths in certain areas and targeted them specifically with the delivery of these tasks within pre agreed timeframes

Outcome:

Happier staff with more responsibility, more time to drive projects forwards and achieving quicker delivery.

Etc.

Know the competencies required (jobspec provided or that you write) Prepare two examples for each

Situation Behaviour Outcome

Tell the interviewer!

How to deal with Redundancy in the Job Hunting Process

When an employee's position has been made redundant it's natural for confidence to be low and when entering the job market (albeit reluctantly), confidence is important.

Also, before we get into the meat of this discussion, please note, remember and live and breathe the fact that your position within the company has been made redundant, not you!

If this has happened to your position, it happened to your position. You could be the best employee of all time, and if the company folds, it folds. You have not been made redundant, your position has.

Regarding how to bring up the topic of the redundancy of your position, it should be in the cover letter/email or phone call. Not mentioning it will make prospective employers think you've something to hide and it will be the first thing on the interviewer's mind. "Why is this candidate on the market?"

At the interview, it should be mentioned by the interviewer, as in, small talk to address it early on, but there are certain things that you can do to turn it to your advantage.

The interviewer will use past performance (and in particular, longevity) to suggest future performance. If it's a permanent role, they'll be investing heavily in you, so they need to feel comfortable that you're in it for the long haul.

So, the line to take is very sad that the company could not make it through the recession (or for whatever reason) and that you would have been very happy to stay as their product/service offering was exciting, and you yourself had been instrumental in putting the team together and invested a lot of emotional energy into the project. You have many close friends there, and enjoyed the time with your previous employer.

This means to them, that you're a good employee, passionate about the company, a company man, if you will. Rather than, "well, I hated the place anyway!!!"

But also, to try to look on it as a positive, what lessons did you learn from the company in terms of mistakes? Did they go too far too soon? You need to be comfortable (tell them this) that the next company you work for has a strong and robust business plan and is capable of growth even now, this kind line of conversation, which puts the onus of sales back onto the interviewer.

They'll go right off topic selling the company, how wonderful it is. If they don't, if they shrug and say "erm....", you may not want to work there if this is the attitude of the interviewer, who is after all, effectively an ambassador for your prospective employer.

So remember, your position being made redundant is nothing to be ashamed of and not a reflection on you personally, so try not to take it personally. Some of the smartest people you know have been made redundant recently or definitely in the past, so try to accept it and get into a positive frame of mind. Employers want to see how prospective employees deal with negatives and set backs, so use this one as an opportunity to show your strength of character. Don't play the blame game, and attribute your situation to bad management or work practices, even politicians. You are where you are, and you'll get back in the game soon. Just keep the faith.