Career Services from Measurability

CV Writing Advice

How to create an impactful CV (part 3). Short video outlining key CV tips. CV advice from leading CV writer Paul Mullan.

CAREER CHANGE STARTS HERE – Career Coaching Workshop

“There’s no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There is only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.” – Wayne Dyer

Many employees drift through their career working in jobs lacking fulfilment or any real satisfaction. Others believe that work is not for enjoyment therefore taking little action to find that dream job. As a result it is estimated that as many as 80% of employees are unhappy at work and on the wrong career road.

• Do you want to be inspired to take up the challenge of career change?
• Do you want your career to add to your life as opposed to take from it?
• Do you want to push yourself out of your comfort zone and adopt the strategy of measured risk?

 “Career Change Starts Here” workshop is your opportunity to learn essential career direction skills and to de-clutter your mind and focus.  It will help with career planning and motivate you to take action with insightful information on key career tools, job search strategies and winning CV writing.

WORKSHOP CONTENT

• Career clarity & career direction
• Career planning
• Expert advice to market yourself – CV’s & Cover Letters
• In-depth understanding of Job Search strategies

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP FACILITATORS

Jane Downes of Clearview Coaching Group www.clearviewcoachgroup.com
and Paul Mullan of Measurability www.measurability.ie  are two of Irelands leading Career Coaches helping jobseekers across Ireland successfully navigate career hurdles.

WORKSHOP INFORMATION

Davonport Hotel  Dublin 2.
Saturday 18th Oct 10.00 – 2.00pm.
Investment EUR195.00 (EUR165.00 before 3rd October)

BOOK NOW AS LIMITED AVAILABILITY!! info@measurability.ie

Career Coaching in Ireland – Expert Career Coach

I regularly write about Career Coaching and the benefits it can offer to individuals. This Career Coaching article outlines what coaching can offer you. These benefits are great but when you get feedback from a client it helps to explain things a bit better.

A Career Coaching experience

Below I have outlined an email testimonial from a Career Coaching client I met with June ’06. She has outlined her experiences from a 1-1 career coaching session with the support of the OPQ32 personality questionnaire

How a Career Coach helped me!!

I met Paul recently for 1:1 career direction coaching. I am working in finance. I completed a business degree specialised in accounting which led me to start the professional accountancy exams. In the last year I have become very unhappy working in finance. When I met with Paul we discussed my current role, what I liked, disliked about it. We talked about my interests, hobbies and what motivates me. I opted to complete a personality profile the results of which Paul had with him on the day we met. From this profile and the discussion we had it was clear that finance was not the area for me. I never considered my personality when making a career choice before and the negative effects that a job not suited to my personality would have on me. I have always worked in finance and felt that this was the only area open to me. Paul explained to me that there are a lot of opportunities out there, that I was limiting myself by thinking I would need experience in order to change out of finance to another career. I found having met and spoken to Paul about what really motivates me invaluable and I now feel I have the confidence to look outside of the finance area for a career choice. I left the 1:1 meeting feeling a great sense of relief, knowing what options were open to me now and really looking forward to starting my search for a new career.

Do you want to work with a leading Career Coach?

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Job Interview Preparation – Is it important?

Absolutely YES!!! Most jobseekers neglect preparation before interview and fail as a result. Quite often jobseekers who prepare for interviews lack the knowledge or direction on how to prepare properly. Remember the saying “fail to prepare, prepare to fail”. This is very true when we talk about interviews

What is important – Interview Preparation?

Understand the employer – This is the key to interview preparation. You need to know the employer and what they want. Only then can you focus your interview preparation.

Identify how you meet the job requirements – Hey this is what the employer will want to know at interview. You should also prepare examples and achievement to back this up.

Know your CV – The first question I ask individuals is when did you do you Leaving and most fumble to get an answer. This is just to prove a point. If you do not know yourself how do you expect the employer to know you.

Research the company – Expect to be asked the question – “what do you know about us?” Research the company shows you are prepared BUT also interested.

Interview questions – There are a number of questions that you can be certain that you will be asked. Having said this if you get the above points right you will be fine.

Another important point about Interview Preparation.

Try getting as much information about the recruitment process as you can. This will help you save time and improve focus during preparation.

Do you need help with interview preparation?

We can help you. We are experts in the area. Paul Mullan is a leading Interview Coach in Ireland (Dublin, Meath, Kildare, Louth) helping professional at all levels of the organisation across industry sectors. Read about Paul, the Interview Coaching service and what other individuals had to say about the service.

One of the popular questions I am asked by clients is “where are you based?” I guess most of them do not realise that 99% of CV design is completed without any face to face contact between career expert and the client as the process is completed by phone and email. I never recommend meeting as I find this adds unnecessary time to the process. It would be different for career coaching or interview coaching where 99% of this I complete face to face.

Important questions to ask a CV expert

Experience – Very few clients ask me about my experience and knowledge. OK this is outlined in my profile and many clients see my career advice in the Irish Independent, Sunday Tribune and websites like RecruitIreland. Having said this I think it is still important to ask the question.

Track Record – A few references would be nice.

Approach to CV design – Get the career expert to discuss their views on CV’s to get a feel for their knowledge and approach. There are many “grey men in grey suits” designing CV’s from standard templates with little impact.

Price – It is important to shop around but like any other service the lowest is not always the best

If you want more information about our CV writing service why not visit out website.

Jobseekers can fail interviews for many reasons. I received a phone call from a jobseeker I had previously help with CV design. Their problem had now moved another step down the line. They were able to locate the jobs and get the interview but unfortunately failing at interview. My initial response was to enquire what feedback they were getting from the employers. There was a mixed response which can be normal as may employers feel they do jobseekers a favour by letting them down politely greatly reducing the opportunity to improve. Two bit of feedback stood out. The individual said one employer said that he came across as desperate to leave his current job. Another employer said that he didn’t seem interested in the job.

Interview preparation – hiding desperation.

Quite often a jobseeker can be desperate to leave a job BUT employers will look on this negatively as the question will always be there – does this individual want to join us or just get away from the current role. The likelihood is that most employers will shy away from these individuals as could be perceived that negativity is your driving factor and you would take any job. If you are desperate you must ensure that you do not portray this to the employer.

Interview preparation – playing it cool

Many jobseekers use a play it cool strategy when job hunting. They will not show desire to join a company for fear that they may seem desperate or that it may affect salary and package negotiation. Playing it too cool though can give the impression of lack of interest.

Conclusion

There are responses that can help you get the balance right ensuring that you do not fall into the above pitfalls at interview. Interview preparation will hone these skills so ensure you spend the time. Interview coaching can help you iron out the problems and improve your success.

Most jobseekers take a reactive approach to job hunting. What I mean is that they send a CV to a few recruitment agencies or set up job posts with an online job board and sit back and wait for the interviews to roll in. This is great if it is working for you but what if you are not getting the results you want. There are 3 responses you can take;

1. Keep doing what you are doing – don’t be surprised when you keep getting the same results though!!
2. Change your approach when dealing with agencies or search the job boards differently.
3. Try a more proactive approach to job hunting.

Proactive job search strategies can help.

There are two popular strategies networking and speculative CV’s.

Speculative CV’s can take up a lot of time and seem a thankless task BUT when you do strike gold it can erase all these feelings and memories. A few tips about sending speculative CV’s include;

Targeted Approach – try to focus and not just approach this sporadically. Target a geography region or an industry sector. Ideally a preferred region or sector. Also record all your activity and responses.

Avoid HR Departments – Sending speculative CV’s to HR can be a waste of time. Although most recruitment will go through the department quite often there is an information time lag between them and the function you want to join. For example the Marketing Manager may know that an executive has just given notice or that it has been agreed with the MD to increase headcount and not have passed this information to HR yet.

Focused cover letter – A general letter with not title will lose impact. Find out the name of the department manager and address it to him/her directly.

Follow Up – Try following up with the manager you have targeted with a call. Have short sales pitch prepared.

Measurability offer expert career coaching services including career assessment, career direction, cv writing and interview coaching,

Most jobseekers fear them but I say embrace them. Ok competency interviews are more difficult BUT they mean that the client has put some though into the recruitment process. This means that you will not be assessed on you interview ability or what school you went to. Instead you will be assessed against the key behaviours and competencies for the role. This will reduce the chance of a wrong hire for the client BUT more importantly a wrong job for you.

What is a competency based interview?

These interviews are based on the theory that past behaviour is the best indicator of future behaviour. It uses probing questions such as “tell me about a time when you failed to achieve a specific goal” or give me a specific example of a time when you managed a number of projects simultaneously”. You need to prepare for competency interviews by recalling specific examples. You can also expect the interviewer to probe for more details on the situation you describe. If you have work experience great but if you do not use project, college of hobbies to provide examples.

How to prepare for competency based interviews?

You can ask for the competencies you will be assessed against. If these are not available try to work out what competencies will be assessed or hunt out similar job descriptions. Then use the STAR technique to prepare.

Situation or Task – Describe the situation, be specific and avoid generalization. Give the interviewer enough information so they understand.

Action – Describe the action taken and ensure you focus on “you” and not the team.

Result – What was the outcome or what happened? What did you achieve? What where the learning opportunities?

For more information about interviews or interview coaching visit our site.

Jobseekers lying on their CV in increasing with increased competition in the job market. Surveys have indicated that most hiring managers expect CV’s to contain lies of some form BUT this does not mean that they will accept lies if the uncover them. The answer is that they will not. Think again if you intend to falsify information on your CV as employers expect lies and they know where to look for them.

Education & Training – It is accepted that many jobseekers falsify education, training courses, grades and qualifications. It is generally accepted that employers will not check up on this information but you cannot be sure.

Gaps in the CV – This is now easier to get away with because jobseeker now make many more career changes during their career but it can be uncovered during reference checking.

Bumped up salary & benefits – Most jobseekers want to improve salary during a job move and will bump up their salary, commission and bonuses in a bid to get a greater increase. Salary lies are difficult to detect as most potential employers never speak to current employers for obvious reasons.

Enhance job duties – Basically this is the receptionist running the company scenario. A trained interviewer will normally pick this up at interview.

Jobseekers who lie on their CV rarely consider the consequences of these lies. They can get caught out and miss out on a great role, get caught out after they commence employment and get fired or land a job well above their ability and struggle badly. Generally speaking lies do not pay!!

For help to develop you CV contact us. We will help you design a CV that will make an impact without the need to tell lies. We help jobseekers sell themselves with our expert knowledge of CV’s and the recruitment and selection process in Ireland. Read what other jobseekers said about our CV service.