Posts Tagged “australia”
Your CV can take on a whole extra dimension – and can make things easier and more impressive for recruiters – if you add hyperlinks to show examples of your work experience…
Back in 2009 I volunteered to help promote a Twestival in Jerusalem, where I was living at the time. Due to the social-media-cutting-edge-communications nature of the event it was agreed that we would use all the latest promotional innovations, which at the time included a social media release.
Now, at first I was intimidated by this concept, but for the purposes of promoting the event, it turned out to be little more than a media release with hyperlinks, including links to the Twitter ID of all the volunteers, sponsors and other notables, as well as a few other relevant social media links. (Social media releases often also contain embedded videos or such like, but we didn’t have any of that sort of material to hand.)
This work got me thinking that my CV should really be more interactive, and so, over-time, I have worked to ensure that it is more like an eCV than a straight forward paper version.
This conclusion has since been reinforced by discussions with recruiters and from reading CV and application requirements for more online-focused jobs.
As one recruiter explained recently, if you make a claim about something on your CV, you need to be able to back it up with examples via links from the page. These links could mean the difference between you making it to interview stage or not.
So how do we go about making our CV into an eCV?
It is simple enough and you have probably already worked it out (if you don’t already have it in place). But in case you need a little bit of guidance…
- Insert hyperlinks for all the companies where you have worked (going back to real basics, this means that in MS Word, you highlight the area you want to create a link for, click on ‘Insert’ and then ‘Hyperlink” and then add the URL for the company)
- Link as many projects/achievements etc to online examples as you can. For example, if you have media releases, publications or websites, link them in to where you have listed them.
- Make sure all your social media IDs are included with hyperlinks.
This is an ongoing process. Only a couple of days ago I visited my CV to update the hyperlinks and make sure everything that could be linked was linked. I am already thinking of a few more things I need to go back to update.
Hope this helps!
Marjorie Solomon is the founder and editor of Talking Comms Jobs. She has 15 years communications experience and is probably still a job seeker.
I was recently pleased to discover an email in my inbox from a recruiter who had found me online and wanted to chat about a vacancy he was looking to fill. It is always nice to be head-hunted (conceptually speaking, of course), but I was also excited because I was under the impression that the contact had been made as a result of my new Linkedin summary, the subject of a previous TCJ post.
But no, I was all wrong: my recruiter had not found me via Linkedin, but via the similarly-named, Australian recruitment site, LinkMe. To be completely frank, I had no idea what he, the recruiter, was talking about at first so just kept assuming he was talking about Linkedin until he eventually took a moment to spell it out for me (…the ignominy of belated comprehension!).
Anyway, it turns out that I had registered with LinkMe some months before when I had first decided it was time to look for a job and had done so (if I remember correctly) with a vague idea that the site was somehow connected to Linkedin. I forgot about it until the recruiter’s email arrived in my inbox and all was, eventually, revealed.
Now, the recruiter and I met, had a great interview and both walked away feeling that the job was not for me and I was not for it – which happens. However, there were a number of other interesting things that came out of that meeting, some of which I may write about soon, but most relevant to this post is the fact that this recruiter actively uses LinkMe as a way of finding candidates.
He cited a number reasons for this approach including:
- The higher quality of applicants on LinkMe, in particular that they tend to be more tech and social media savvy.
- The shorter timeframes for filling vacancies.
- Avoiding the deluge of irrelevant applications that comes with advertising on one of the big job listing sites like Seek or MyCareer.
The last point is a recurring theme that I hope to discuss more at length soon, but the basic principle seems to be that serious, smart recruiters tend to avoid Seek, MyCareer and their like and try to hone in on quality candidates – and avoid the white noise – via:
1. Linkedin (let’s discuss recruiting and jobs on Linkedin more another time)
2. LinkMe
So, my advice for today would be, for those who have not already done so, take a moment (it should take no more than half an hour) to register and fill in your profile on LinkMe. And who knows, maybe you too will get one of those emails in your inbox – perhaps even one where you suit the job and the job suits you…
Good luck!
Marjorie Solomon is the founder and editor of Talking Comms Jobs. She has 15 years communications experience and is probably still a job seeker.
I have just added a summary to my linkedin profile. I first noticed that some of my Linkedin connections had them on their profile pages perhaps a year back but at the time I was not in the jobs market and so simply I dismissed the concept as border-line narcissistic and more social media detritus. I have since – slowly – come round.
As with all things social media, something that starts out seeming unnecessary and self-indulgent soon becomes cutting edge and then evolves into a virtual mainstream essential. I expect that Linkedin summaries are increasingly an example of this trend – especially for job seekers and those with ambitions to climb career ladders and build networks.
So I joined the fray. Working out how to write it wasn’t easy. It’s never simple – even for comms people - when the product you are promoting is yourself.
I looked around online for advice and got a range of responses. The first two tips I saw that resonated were by Victoria Ipri, CEO of Modello Media, in an article on this topic. She provided the following useful advice (among other things) :
- Always write your summary in first person
- Always include your contact information
I also found the Essay Expert’s discussion on this topic very useful because it provided an example of structure and style.
Perhaps one of the big things which I have come to appreciate is that this is not simply an opportunity to make an ‘elevator pitch’ for yourself (an idea which makes me cringe), but more that it provides a space in which you can to try to capture who you are as a character and a professional. If I look at it this way, it suddenly adds a valuable dimension to the process of self-representation in the job market.
But how important is it for recruiters? And more importantly for us, what difference does it make to for communications job candidates? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Marjorie Solomon is the founder and editor of Talking Comms Jobs. She has 15 years communications experience and is probably still a job seeker.
For almost two months I have been back in the job market, trawling through the various online job sites for communications jobs in Australia. I haven’t been in the business of looking for work for around seven years – having been self-employed since leaving my last full-time position at the end of 2006 (with a bit of ‘maternity’ leave thrown into the mix) .
Surprisingly, the job search process for PR and communications jobs in Australia has changed very little in that time. In my recent searches, I have relied on Seek and MyCareer (as I did when I found my last job back in 2004) and poked around some of the government and recruitment sites but have found the whole experience unfulfilling. (Despite being a Gen Xer - or perhaps because of it – I now rarely search for jobs in newspapers.)
I think the problem I am experiencing comes down to the fact that the process is neither focused nor contained. In between sifting through irrelevant job ads (and note to recruiters, I don’t believe there is an overlap between communications and media sales) on the general employment search sites, I am also plagued by the notion that I am constantly missing something.
What’s crazy is that more than ten years ago I was searching for jobs in the UK in a much more focused, concrete and reassuring context. To find a PR job (my comms speciality) in the UK one would simply search on the Guardian Jobs site or visit PR Week’s jobs pages. The process was simple and one could be sure that between the two sites you would have access to almost all the advertised positions in your specific field – because if an employer doesn’t advertise on one of these sites, they are not serious about filling a vacancy or they don’t know what they are doing – both of which sound alarm bells.
I think the communications industry in Australia is big enough to justify its own jobs website and I am prepared to put this to the test in the form of this new site. My aim is to provide a comprehensive listing of communications jobs around the country together with a useful (and maybe even interesting or entertaining!) series of posts on subjects concerning the comms job search in Australia and beyond.
Readers will see from the job categories the specific fields that I have denoted as belonging to the comms family, but roughly they include:
- Marketing
- PR
- Government Relations
- Advertising
- Copy Writing/Editing
- SEO/Website/Social Media
- Community/Stakeholder Relations
I am open to ideas about how this site should evolve and would love to hear what people would find useful in their job search.
In the meantime, good luck and happy hunting!
Marjorie Solomon is the founder and editor of Talking Comms Jobs. She has 15 years communications experience and is probably still a job seeker.
This week Mashable ran a story about strange interview questions based on survey results compiled by US-based jobs site Glassdoor. Here’s a sample of the questions:
“How many people are using Facebook in San Francisco at 2:30 p.m. on a Friday?” — Asked at Google, Vendor Relations Manager candidate
“If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?” — Asked at Hewlett-Packard, Product Marketing Manager candidate
“How would you cure world hunger?” — Asked at Amazon.com, Software Developer candidate
Some of these questions are so absurd that if I had been facing them it would have taken a great deal for me not to want to call an interview quits immediately and run, fearing that I was being interviewed by either a bunch of pretentious fools or lunatics. (I mean, really, are these the sort of people you want to work for?)
Obviously, these companies are considered to be employers of choice and most potential candidates would probably expect their interviewing process to be a little out of the ordinary. Fortunately, most employers don’t have such reputations for extraordinariness to uphold and, in most instances, our interview experiences are a little more reliable and run-of-the-mill.
But we still need to be as prepared and ready as we can be for the experience. If we can assume that we won’t have to field questions like those above, what sort of questions should we expect?
Glassdoor has a list of 50 common interview questions that are worth glancing at in advance of an interview. It also gives you a chance to think about who you are professionally and what you are expecting to bring to the job, as well as what you are hoping to get from the company and the position.
I quite enjoy interviews and have had a reasonable strike rate over the years. My approach tends to be:
- Research the company thoroughly; read through its website; Google any news or chat about the company. And, of course, we are talking about jobs in communications, so research the big issues affecting it, its business and its reputation.
- Keep in sight who you are and what you have done to get to this moment; refresh your familiarity with your CV, remember what experience you have… your achievements, your skills, what things you would do differently etc. I know it seems crazy that you might have to swot up on your own professional history, but if you are anything like me, sometimes it’s easy to forget the details.
- Re-read the job ad and your application letter.
- Know your own story. Determine the image you want to project – as a professional persona and in terms of your career trajectory. Be prepared for questions about your plans for the future (although I must admit I have never had to field such a question).
- Be prepared to engage. You may well be asked if you have any questions: have a number that demonstrate your understanding of the company, its issues and perhaps how well you know your job.
It is also extremely important is to be relaxed, yourself and as charming and/or amusing as the occasion and your nerves will allow (I know this is often easier said than done). I find a shared moment of amusement goes a long way towards scoring a second interview or a job offer.
I welcome any thoughts you may have.
Best of luck!
Marjorie Solomon is the founder and editor of Talking Comms Jobs. She has 15 years communications experience and is probably still a job seeker.
It’s much harder applying for communications jobs; not because the application process differs so much from other types of industries, but because an application for a communications job is subject to unusually pronounced scrutiny long before the interview stage.
What do I mean exactly? Well, I’ll share my impressions as someone who has been in search of a comms job in the past few months. Talking up my strengths and talents is not something that comes easily in either a personal or a professional environment. So I often find myself squirming in discomfort as I draft an application. For a start, I feel terribly self-conscious when I expound about my ability to write well. Now, strong writing skills are definite essentials for any worthy communications practitioner, but it just feels so wrong to have to spell it out. Every time I write on this subject (including now), I feel I am opening myself up to extra scrutiny, resulting in eventual professional humiliation. After all, shouldn’t it be clear from what I have already written that I am (or am not) a good writer? I experience this recurring moment of paranoia: what if the person reading my application has one eye-brow raised thinking ‘you call this good writing?’.
Then there is addressing such concepts as ‘creative thinking/approaches’ which makes me cringe as I piece together my application thinking that everything I am saying about my employability is formulaic. And to an extent it is, but I think that there are levels at which the HR people reading our applications have expectations that our CV and cover letters will conform to some sort of standard (I welcome any HR views here) so it just becomes another uncomfortable claim that grates when included, but feels glaringly absent when left out.
Having ‘an ability to meet deadlines’ makes me smile. Meeting an application deadline seems a worthy means of illustrating one’s ability to meet – or not meet – this requirement. (Every time I submit an application I feel I should put a footnote at the base of the application pointing out that I have illustrated my ability to meet deadlines…or, alternatively, “See, I told you so!”.)
But ultimately my worst one is ‘attention to detail’. And this is not simply because for me personally this professional attribute has not come naturally, but has in fact been an acquired skill – following some horrifying post publication discoveries and many years of painstaking double, triple and quadruple checking of copy (confessions of a typo queen). I live in constant fear of my own self-destruction and, even now, writing about this very subject, I have a disturbing metaphorical itch that tells me there is a stray word in this copy or an inelegant expression that will be instantly recognisable to all who read this and completely missed by me. I am groaning as I write this…
But this is the disadvantage of being a comms practitioner. It is a joy and a privilege to be able to write for a living, but as writers and communicators we are subject to an additional burden of expectation. Job hunting puts us on the line. We become vulnerable and exposed as we aim to sell ourselves, our experience, and our talents. And while all jobs seekers share this vulnerability, there is a unique awkwardness experienced by those of us in the business of words and spin.
The aim of this blog is to try to lighten the load a little by providing a forum to share the moment, the pain and the self-consiousness. I look forward to sharing the journey with you.
Marjorie Solomon is the founder of Talking Comms Jobs. She has 15 years communications experience and is not sure if she is a job seeker.
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