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The Job Description & Interview Success

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 by Leslie Fearn
Questions You Can Create From A Job Description

Questions You Can Create From A Job Description

For anyone seeking a new role, understanding a job description is a key element of interview preparation – alongside gathering company information, researching interviewers background, finding out the style of interview, knowing if there will be psychometric tests etc.  Ensuring you have a comprehensive job description from your recruitment consultant or direct from an employer is key to knowing what questions you may be asked should you be lucky enough to secure an interview.

 

There are two distinct reactions I get from candidates when I discuss job descriptions (JD) with them.   The first is from those who don’t worry about it all.  They may give it a quick glance and try to grasp what the job is about but go on their own way and say what they want to say at the interview, without really focusing their answers.  The second are those who pick the JD apart word for word,  and come to the conclusion that they cant be good for the role as they dont have every piece of experience required.  In both cases, they miss completely how useful a JD can be – it can actually give you most of the questions you are likely to be asked, if you study it correctly.

 

One tip I give people when preparing for an interview is to turn the job responsibilities / job duties on the JD into questions, and then try to answer those questions.  This makes people think really hard about their own background, and with practice, means they bring to light the most relevant experience they have which matches the JD.  Ordinarily, I run through some examples with the candidate to make it simple to understand.  To show you what I mean, this is taken from a real JD for a Commercial Analyst position I am currently looking to fill. 

 

Job Responsibility on the JD – Work with and influence regional managers and other employees who have an impact on financial performance

Question you could make from this – Tell me how you have influenced / educated regional managers and directors in relation to improving the financial performance of their businesses ?

 

Job Responsibility on the JD – Ensure site budgets are scrutinised for accuracy, reviewed at Regional level and have approval from the CFO

Question you could make from this – How involved are you in the preparation and review of site and HQ  budgets ?  Who do you interact with to ensure accuracy and sign-off of the budgets ?

 

The idea is to keep practicing the answers to these questions over and over again.  I recommend this to everyone I meet, simply because by turning the JD duties into questions, you will get to the stage where you can answer the questions really well and with confidence.  It is likely that the interviewer will be the same person who prepared the JD, so when they talk about your relevant experience to the job content, they are going to take their lead from the JD. 

 

By practicising these questions, your responses will become ‘quick off the mark’ and very detailed.   As everyone knows, there is nothing worse than the sound of silence when an interviewer is waiting for you to answer a question !

 

Another tip that may also be useful relates to the section at the end of JDs headed “Attributes Required” or “Capabilities Required” (or something similar).  You can use these statements to tell them why you think you are the right person for the job.  For the Commercial Analyst position above, the JD mentions they are looking for someone who can embrace change, is results-focused, can develop staff, is a strong influencer / networker.  By repeating these words back and giving the interviewer examples will re-inforce how suitable you are.

 

Never see the JD as just a list of job duties.  It can actually give you a lot of the questions and answers you will need for an interview if you use the information wisely. 

 

Best Wishes

Leslie Fearn

 

If you found this subject of interest, you may also like the following related posts from Approachthemarket.com

 

The UKs 50 Largest Company Career Sites

7 Tips To Stay Motivated During Your Job Search

Three Steps To An Organised Job Search

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‘eLearning – Stand out in the Job Market Crowd

Thursday, August 12th, 2010 by Sarah Cooper

 

The current employment climate ensures that job candidates have it tougher than ever. The recession is arguably still with us, unemployment isn’t going away, and many jobs are moving abroad.

 

It was in this context that Innovate CV TV spoke to Femi Yusoof, Partnership Manager at Sarina Russo Job Access. As you can see from the video, we discussed a range of issues with the recruitment champion and job search specialist.

 

Given the competitiveness of today’s job market, we naturally asked Femi what he think job seekers can do to make themselves a far more attractive candidate.

 

With barely a pause – after all, he’s consulted many on the issue – Femi launches into a discussion on continual professional development. One can, and should, constantly be updating one’s personal arsenal of professional skills.

 

How best to do so? Femi a vocal advocate of eLearning. Online education is an arena, he argues, with tremendous opportunity for job seekers.

 

A report by the Ambient Insight Research suggests that in 2009, 44 per cent of post-secondary students in America were taking some or all of their courses online, and projected that this figure would rise to 81 per cent by 2014. Europeans aren’t bucking the trend, with the EU estimates the eLearning industry worth 38 billion euros.

 

Why has eLearning become such a popular method of education, and why does Femi advocate the practice as an effective job seeking tool?

 

-          Effective Learning: while the effectiveness of the eLearning experience will vary from institute to institute and from course to course, eLearning is becoming increasingly respected as a method of education. The US Department of Education’s study into the effectiveness of eLearning concluded: “students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction”. While the findings are being debated, the report was an astounding endorsement for online education.

 

-          Convenience: A wide array of professional courses, with varying levels of qualification, can be completed in a relative short time, in the comfort of one’s own home (or coffee shop!). The level of the pace of learning can generally be controlled, within reason, to the user’s lifestyle.

 

-          Competitive Advantage: Attaining any new professional skills will help enable a job seeker to stay ahead of the competition. But even if the skills one has attained through eLearning do not directly correlate with the job opportunity, the mere record of extensive independent learning demonstrates a candidate’s initiative and willingness to learn.

 

-          Gap Closer: One of the greatest risk a candidate faces is the dreaded CV-gap. Regardless of the gap’s reason for being -  examples include health matters, travelling or personal issues – recruiters and employers are known to raise an eyebrow. Online courses are terrific CV gap-closers.

 

 

“It’s the 21st century,” contends Femi. “[the internet] is a tool we can all access…we all use it for buying products, personal use and so on…why not use it for learning?”

 

So park yourself in front of the computer while enjoying a cuppa: it could be the best investment you ever make.

  Adam

Adam Lewis  is Innovate CV’s Chief Operating Officer. Innovate CV  is a free and interactive new generation CV that makes creating, editing, distributing and tracking a CV a simple and straightforward process. Innovate CV
TV- a series of free career advice interviews with a broad range of various professional leaders – will help you prepare for your next job opportunity.

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A Saviour For Some, Not For Others – The Spell Checker

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 by Leslie Fearn

keyboard_declanTMNot checking the spelling and grammar when we write a letter, article or even putting a CV together is something we all do, and something we usually regret afterwards.  It happens too frequently, and unfortunately for me and many other recruiters, people who send in their CV do not check thoroughly  for such errors.  As I have pointed out in previous posts, consultants here at McGinnis Loy can receive up to two hundred applications for every role they advertise and it is really important  to  ensure your CV does not get rejected at the first hurdle.  Spelling and grammatical errors are now easy to avoid thanks to a good spell checker, but even these cannot pick up every spelling mistake.  There are times (as you will see below) where some words are spelt correctly, but there are different ways to spell the same word. 

 

It is one area in the recruitment process where care and attention in constructing your CV is paramount.  When it comes to presentation of your CV, you should always use a spell checker, but only as a first review.  I always recommend candidates read their documents through twice more, word for word, to ensure the context is right and the correct words have been used.  Let me give you some examples of what I have seen.  In some instances, the spelling has been incorrect (but would not of been picked up by the spell checker because there are different ways to spell the same word) or the word has had one or two characters added or removed that doesn’t make sense as a result, but the word is spelt correctly.

 

Examples of Incorrect spelling:

 

  • A CV contained the word ‘Dominoes Pizza’ instead of ‘Dominos’
  • Someone who worked at X-changing wrote  ‘Exchanging’ instead of ‘X-changing’ which is how the company name is spelt
  • A Manager at Sterling Relocation wrote ‘Stirling Relocation’ instead of ‘Sterling’
  • Someone who worked at Chequer International wrote ‘Checker International’ instead of ‘Chequer’.

 

Examples of where characters have been missing or added by mistake:

 

  • A ‘strong work ethnic’ instead of ‘strong work ethic’
  • ‘Supervise three members of staff’ instead of ‘supervised three members of staff’
  • ‘Heads of Finance’ was someone’s job title instead of ‘Head of Finance’
  • ‘Monthly on to one staff appraisals’ instead of ‘monthly one to one staff appraisals’
  • Someone who speaks fluent ‘Ditch’ instead of ‘Dutch’

 

The best advice is to use spell checkers, but don’t rely on them 100% of the time.  Ensure you proof read your documents at least twice afterwards, just so you can pick up on any mistakes that a spell checker would not be able to find.

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The devil is in the Detail

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 by Leslie Fearn

devil

Unlike the infamous saying, this post focuses on the positive context of detail, and how adding more information into your CV is the right thing to do, not the wrong thing.  As a recruiter, I can receive up to 60 applications to just one job advert in the current climate.  The CVs that grab my attention are the one or two page variety that tell me more about an individuals personal interests than work experience, and the longer detailed CVs that have substance in them.  So as you would expect, it is the latter that I really give most attention to.  

 

I’m not convinced by the argument of a 2 page CV and don’t think I ever will be, particularly when you consider people can have 10, 15 or even 20 years of experience.  Being realistic, how can anyone get so many years of experience plus a personal profile, qualifications, systems skills, personal interests and career achievements properly presented on just two pages ?. 

 

I don’t even believe the “2 page CV” is what it’s about anyway.  What job seekers should be doing is making their CV as relevant as possible to the advert they are applying to.  In order for it to be relevant, it needs to show depth and meaning, and therefore needs to be detailed.  Detailed means it should be as long as it needs to be, without the pressure to condense everything down.  Surely it is better for a CV to be 4 pages long and gets put onto the ‘youre hired’ pile rather than 1 or 2 pages and gets put onto the ‘youre fired’ pile. 

 

The reason I put many CVs on the ‘no’ pile is because there is not enough detail in the CV to convince me they have the experience in the first place.  Detail is everything, because without it, there are 59 other CVs waiting for me to review. 

 

Let me give you some examples of why adding detail in a CV makes the recruiter’s and employer’s job easier, and your job easier when you secure an actual interview.  If an employer advertises for an Office Manager and one of the key responsibilities is someone who can supervise a team of 10 staff, a lot of CVs may just contain the words ‘staff supervision’ as a bullet point and leave it at that.  Without any additional detail, is this 2 staff, 5 staff, 20 staff ?  The person reading it wont know, because you have left the reader to assume any number they decide to pick out.

 

Below I highlight a number of real cases where people have put skills on their CV, but there is actually no substance to what they have written.  As I personally focus on Accounting & Finance, these are what I experience time and again regarding poorly detailed CVs.

 

Example 1

 

What I normally see on a CV: Budgeting and forecasting

 

What I would like to see on the CV: Liaising with the Sales Director, Operations Director and four EMEA Commercial Managers regarding preparation of the annual budget for the region and individual countries, and quarterly revenue and cost re-forecasting   

 

Example 2

 

What I normally see on a CV: Sales analysis

 

What I would like to see on the CV: Responsible for in depth sales analysis of the EMEA region, which covers 25 countries and 32 entities.  This includes segmentation of sales by product line, sales channel, gross margin, largest customers 

 

Example 3

 

What I normally see on a CV: Processing of invoices

 

What I would like to see on the CV: Processing of up to 1,000 invoices on a monthly basis with values of £5-£500 per invoice, across 400 live supplier accounts

 

Example 4

 

What I normally see on a CV: Monthly management accounts

 

What I would like to see on the CV: Solely responsible for preparing the monthly management accounts which includes P&L for 5 business units (then consolidated), cash flow statement, full balance sheet, analysis of revenues and costs compared to last month, quarter and year.

 

I am not looking for a whole essay for each company you have worked for, but certainly something more substantial than 2 words to explain each key part of your job.  Not only does it show you have actually put some effort in, but it allows you to tailor your CV to the specific job advertisement, stops the reader from assuming you have or don’t have the requirements, and includes relevant facts and figures to back everything up.  One of the worst examples is something like the one below, again taken from a real CV:

 

Aug 1999 – Feb 2010

EMEA Financial Controller

  • Supervising a team of qualified accountants
  • Monthly Management accounts
  • Budgeting & forecasting
  • Providing commercial support
  • System implementation
  • Ad-hoc projects

 

This creates more questions than answers for me, and here are just some I would ask: how many staff, what specifically is contained within your management accounts, what support do you offer, what system did you implement, and what are ad-hoc projects ? (plus many more).  Looking at this from a recruiters or a potential employers point of view, it doesn’t tell them very much.  Remember the reader doesn’t know you, doesn’t know the company you work for, and doesn’t do the role you do. 

 

I really believe that the more detail you put on your CV, the more likely you are to receive a call wanting to invite you to an interview.  A one or two page CV that is generic, not detailed and shows little effort has been applied just doesn’t do it for me, sorry.

 

Leslie Fearn

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Once More With Feeling…

Thursday, May 20th, 2010 by Sarah Cooper
Where's Your Passion?

Where's Your Passion?

I have touched on this in previous posts but it keeps coming up time and again in my interviews and so: Once More With Feeling:

 

Why do you want the job!

 

Please don’t tell me because it’s permanent and local. Of course I wouldn’t you reply indignantly and yet people do.

 

Imagine I just asked you what attracted you to your current or last partner? How flattered would they be if you said it was because they conveniently lived next door and offered you financial security?

 

It may sound obvious and you’ve heard it all before but employers do want to know – and are hard to convince- that this is genuinely the role and organisation for you.

 

Whatever the economy experts say, right now the majority of volume applications received are from people affected by redundancy, contracting or been out of the market for a while. I need to be reassured that I won’t be recruiting for this job again in 12 months when your future is looking brighter? You need to give me that reassurance.

 

How do I do that? With effort on your part. You must do your homework. Take a look at Les Fearn’s post on company research. You have to demonstrate an interest in the organisation, be loaded with observations, questions and a thirst to know more about them that surpasses the remuneration on offer.

 

Show excitement! Lord Alan Sugar saves people with passion on The Apprentice, where is yours? Reflect on how the role’s duties and the company’s culture meet your needs, both now and in the future.

 

The same applies to your chosen field- Why Finance, HR, IT, Marketing, Sales, Medicine, Administration, Consulting and so on. Avoid the generic clichés. Ok so you may have fallen into it, but why stay? You may have started a relationship as a friend set you up on a blind date, but please don’t tell me you’re together years later based on habit?

 

You still think this doesn’t apply to you? You might not make the obvious remark about just wanting a permanent job, yet, how many times have you commented you want a role in a good company that will develop you further? That’s what they all say, it’s generic.

 

Be observant, notice your partner’s new haircut, comment on something unique to them, show them that you care. Take an interest in the company and they will be interested in you.

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With Size 5 Feet? What About Potential?

Thursday, May 13th, 2010 by Sarah Cooper
Can you fit the exact requirements?

Can you fit the exact requirements?

Recession brings redundancies and headcount freezes that place the remaining employees under more stress, with more to do in less time, during a period of uncertainty.

The need to recruit can be apparent to all, but just not an option. It follows then, when a position is proposed, the sign off procedure can become even more complicated. It may involve many more stakeholders all of whom have their own agenda, in turn adding more to the post’s responsibilities, required skill sets and experience. In addition, they can each bring a different interpretation to the personality profile.

Everyone wants to get it ‘right’. The wish list gets longer to justify cost and with budget constraints the salary lower as “It must be easier to recruit in a recession surely?”

The problem with too many cooks is often they do spoil the broth. With everyone’s different visions the ultimate candidate takes on almost mythical proportions.

With a long exacting criteria list, multiple stakeholders added into the process and conflicting opinion, the recruitment process gets longer and more drawn out. When measuring against different requirements the goal posts move and opinions polarise. Instead of getting closer, many relevant candidates may fall out with the time taken and in fact the lists gets even longer still, now with things added the client definitely doesn’t want.

I’m not complaining. I’m an external recruiter and this is where a good one will come into their own. This is where we earn our fee, finding talent, drawing on a well established network deeper than the floating pool and consulting to provide an effective process, delivering results.

My concern and reason for the post is around ‘potential’. The never ending requirement list loses sight of what the candidate could become and instead through the rejection cull, focuses purely on what they have been.

When we named our Recruitment business ‘Mcginnis Loy’ is was inspired by the following quote made by Alan Loy Mcginnis:

“Focus on your potential not your limitations”

Experience is gained, skills are learnt and attitude is self motivated, yet, potential is something an employer can work with and mould. Potential is a tool from which you can create many great things.

For candidates faced with the moving target you need to be realistic. If you are not hitting the key criteria and at least 2/3rds of the wish list then it’s not going to work. Yet if it’s in just one non critical area then focus on your transferable skills and your potential to use them. Talk of how you have overcome similar problems or got up to speed in another area. Demonstrate your desire and ability to learn. To be more.

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Job Hopping Through The Recession?

Thursday, May 6th, 2010 by Sarah Cooper
Are You Worth The Risk?

Are You Worth The Risk?

As a perm recruiter, through the years I have seen and rejected many CVs of which the candidate could be defined as a job hopper.

Just to qualify here, I am not talking about professional contractors (although if you are one and applying for a permanent position I suggest you make it clear why this post is the right one for you on a permanent basis and make your motivation for applying evident, focussing upon the content of the position and / or organisation and not the current climate!)

I mean those who have a string of either short term contracts or permanent roles from which they have moved on from in quick succession whilst searching for a permanent position.

Now I’ve read a few interesting articles on the subject recently from Mark Suster’s candid view with great definitions in an article for Business Insider , Nick Corcodilos in his great blog ‘Ask The Head Hunter’ and followed the subsequent discussion on LinkedIn.  This got me thinking about some of the CVs I had seen in recent months and whether it was time for me to re-evaluate my own job hopper generalisations further.

For entry level candidates, for which it has been tough, shouldn’t we commend those who have used contracting and temporary flex work to gain experience of any kind? Particularly to those who have strived to get into their chosen sector with voluntary work and work experience stints coupled with employment to ease their financial burdens no matter how irrelevant ?

What of those who after redundancy from long service, hop about experiencing cultures in different organisations helping them to define their future permanent role needs?

Yes every situation may be different in its own way, but as the posts I read outlined so well, when you are 1 in a 1000 we aren’t going to take the time to find out. We can spot the gloss-overs and pull apart the lies; we can see the pattern and cycles. Every three months or so boinggggg! The contract ended, the perm role was miss-sold, and maybe it was, but you raise more questions than you answer:

Can you make a decision? Can you commit? Will you always find the grass greener on the other side? Do you know what good looks like to you? Will you sacrifice an increase in salary, better commute or bigger job title tomorrow for the reasons why you are accepting this post today? Are you a risk worth taking? How can I tell?

One of the points to make here is that although the number of applications are high, the number of relevant candidates who match all of the clients increasing list of requirements (point to be covered in another post, ) is low. You may have through your movement some very desirable skills and exposure, hitting more of the criteria.

For me the candidate review is more holistic. If someone ticks all of the boxes yet their motivations are confused or unclear, then it is not enough. I need you to thrive in your next role creating a win-win for everyone.

So if you’re misunderstood in a time of recession take a long hard look at your motivations. If the pattern has been unbreakable ask yourself why? Not convinced then follow Nick’s advice and dump the CV. When applying to agencies remember in some cases they can add commentary and weight to your application, they can help you over the CV humps and vouch for you if they believe you to be right for the job.

If you have had a series of roles and believe this is the position for you long term, talk me through motivations and reasons for leaving. If the contract ended tell me why? Completed early due to your speed and efficiency? Extended from initial period? Was it maternity cover? Redundant: in what context? Did the whole site close? Were there several waves? Help me to understand what makes this role different and justify the risk.

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Video / Screencast: Your CV / Resume Profile

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 by Sarah Cooper

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Video Screencast: CV / Resume Chronological Format Walkthrough

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 by Sarah Cooper

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Posting CV on Job Board – STOP prepare first

Thursday, March 25th, 2010 by Sarah Cooper

Your information can be bought and sold. You need, in this day and age, to protect your personal information where possible without paranoia taking hold. The majority of people searching CVs on a job board have paid for the privilege and are therefore trying to fill jobs. You need to make sure they can contact you. The more flexible you are about contact the more calls you will receive. However, if you are currently working all of this contact could be a problem.

A common sense approach is usually the best option. It is only fair to advise someone what you are prepared to do yourself and if I were posting my details online tomorrow I would do the following:

1)      Create a personal email address for the purpose of my search. I would steer clear of the weird and wonderful such as This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it as first impressions are important, and although it may show a sense of humour, it may not be necessarily shared. I would use this address on all of my applications and registration processes, instead of personal or work addresses. Apart from keeping my search secret, it would also keep all of the information in one place, and be something I could later stop using once the search was over to avoid future SPAM.

2)      I would remove my full address from my CV and state instead the general town and areas I am prepared to travel to. This is different to the signing up information that may be required; where possible I would elect to keep this confidential. The use of postcodes are commonplace to help employers locate candidates in the right geographical area and so very useful on your profile. However, your CV is easily printed off and separated from the secure environment of the board and to that end I would remove my full address details on the CV itself.

3)      If you are being as confidential as possible and you don’t want calls at work I would also remove the name of my current employer and generalise to industry sector. If my job title were confusing and not really representative of what I did, or was jargon heavy, I would also generalise that. Remember to comb your CV for references to your current organisation. There is no point in trying to make it confidential if three lines in you refer to it again, for example:

Company: Confidential – Recruitment Industry

Recruitment Manager 2005 – Present

  • Manage a team of 7 in compliance with all of Cherry Tree Ltd’s policies and procedures.

4)      Use keywords and ensure all of my relevant qualifications were present. This is very important as some roles specify particular qualifications as a pre-requisite and therefore some recruiters search job boards using the qualification as the only search term.

5)      Even though your ‘right to work’ in the country will need to be addresses, I would under no circumstances put my national insurance or passport number on my CV, which I have seen some candidates do of late.

6)      Remember to deregister. Once my search was over I would ensure I had removed all of my details from the job boards. I would double-check this to prevent calls sometimes months and in some cases over a year after I had originally posted details.

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