HELPING YOU STAND OUT OF THE PACK

Do you remember what it’s like when you’re single and going out for a night on the town, with the optimism that you may end up meeting that special someone?

It may have been decades ago, or as recent as last night. Fresh in your mind or not, I’m sure you will be familiar with the extensive preparation strategies you’d make before setting off for the evening. Maybe something like putting on a bit of Rod Stewart or some other mood music of your choice, picking out a selection of your finest clean clothes to choose from, jumping in a hot shower (or soothing bath), then back out to brush, floss, and sterilise with a shot of listerine. Then..

• If you’re a bloke – have a clean shave or prune your designer-beard with the surgeon-like precision, deodorise the pits, pull the iron out of the cupboard for the first time in a while, get your gear on, splash on a bit of Hugo Boss, pump yourself up in front of the mirror and head on out with your chest out.
• If you’re a lady – maybe a bit of Veet on the legs, apply the eyeliner and other goodies in your Maybelline range, spray a kiss of Chanel No5 on each side of your neck and selected extremities, slide into (after a rigorous selection process) your outfit of choice, and finally saunter out the door with some cautious optimism that the blokes you meet won’t all turn out to be complete knobs (for which you’ve already prepared an emergency rescue strategy with your mates).

Whatever you did (or do), you most certainly made a big effort to present your best.

Looking for love and looking for a job have many similarities. You’re essentially looking for a new relationship (possibly to get away from a bad one) that fulfils your needs. Making that first impression can open the door to great opportunities.

No doubt a jobseeker also wants to make a great first impression, yet so many do the exact opposite. The CV is the first impression they’ll make on a prospective employer or recruitment agency. Yet rather putting time, effort, and/or investment into developing an outstanding CV they effectively dig out the old daggy one they last used however long ago, bolt on a bit about their most recent job (often in a different font and format), shove it through an application portal and hope for the best. If you’re that single person it’s the equivalent of bypassing your hygiene routine, whacking on some dirty old clothes you’ve pulled out from the bottom of your laundry basket (with questionable stains and odours), not bothering to check yourself in in the mirror, then heading out only to have no success time after time and wondering why.

Sure, sometimes there’s the odd successful moment. Usually around 2am when there’s not many options left, the club is about to close and someone (possibly equally as desperate) wanders over to them after many a drink with the simplistic mindset of “they’ll have to do”.  Yeah, if there are little/no other applicants they might get a call up for an interview. But when there’s plenty of other strong applications who have made the effort, to the bottom of the pile that CV will go.

The difference between the single dag in the club and the dodgy CV in a hiring managers’ inbox is that at least in the club, they possibly have the opportunity to win over others with clever conversation, a quick wit, wicked dance-moves, a fat wallet, or all of the above. The CV can’t speak, dance, or woo the reader by buying them drinks all night. It sits there mute, being judged.

It isn’t about being overly vain or building yourself up to be someone you are not. It’s about making the effort to put your best foot forward, whatever style you prefer. Whenever people are selling something they’ll almost always invest time (and money) to present it as best possible, tempt prospective buyers, and secure the sale.

Your career is the biggest investment you can make in life. It will allow you invest in other things (such as property), and pursue many of the things you love outside of work. It makes sense to invest in your CV because it’s the primary gateway to new career opportunities. The alternative is to pull out the dodgy one and hope for the best. What’s your choice?

#sellyourself

– Guy Wilson

There is great truth in the saying “first impressions matter”. For a jobseeker, they can be the difference between progression or rejection with any application. Here’s some tips on the 5 ways you will be making a first impression on a prospective employer or recruitment agent.

TIP 1 – Your CV. “Less is More”

Like a good movie preview – your CV should tell enough of the story to engage and interest the audience, so they want to buy a ticket to see the whole movie. You want to entice the reader to learn more about you, rather than give them the whole script.

Keep your CV long enough to cover the important stuff but short enough to make it interesting.

TIP 2 – Your phone rings. “Answer the unknown number”

Many people who manage the recruitment process for vacancies (e.g. hiring managers, HR managers and recruitment agents) will make a phone call as their primary contact method. Don’t expect an email for you to return in your own time.

Yes, you may be getting unwanted calls from unknown or private numbers. Deal with those as you see fit. But the next call might be from someone who’s interested in your application.

Take the call. And be prepared to take it, even expect it. Managed right, an unannounced screening call from a prospective employer or recruitment agency can help get you the competitive advantage and effectively sell yourself against your competition.

But if you genuinely can’t take the call, you need an effective voicemail service. Which leads us to the third tip…

TIP 3 – Your Voicemail. “Don’t let a dodgy voicemail cost you an interview”

When was the last time you listened to your voicemail recording on your mobile phone?

It’s amazing how long it can be since you last heard your own voicemail, most likely when you played it back in setting it up however long ago. If you cringed when you listened to it, a prospective employer might do the same. How do you come across?

Or maybe you’ve got an automated greeting, they can be fun for the caller. “Please leave a short 10 second message….”, that might be ok enough when someone you know rings.  But when a prospective employer calls and needs to introduce themselves, give a reason for their call, and communicate their return contact details, a 10-second limit can be very restrictive. And when they get cut-off by the annoying automated voice, you expect them to call back and try again?

Or maybe you’ve got no message service at all and the phone just rings out. Again, are you expecting they will call you back?

You could try dialling back the number you’ve missed the call from, but it could be from anyone in a potentially large organisation. Or maybe the call was from a private number, that’s a proper dead end.

The caller may well have moved on to the next call and speaking with another star candidate who’s now got their attention. Yet you’ve a missed call and no clear information on how to reach someone who (once?) wanted to speak to you.

Have a simple voicemail greeting with the opportunity for the caller to leave an informative message. And call them back as soon as you can.

TIP 4 – Your Linkedin Profile Photo. “Simple and professional”

Whether you like it or not, prospective employers and recruitment agencies will often search your LinkedIn profile during the candidate assessment and shortlisting processes of a vacancy. And amongst other things, your profile photo is the first impression of how you present. You’re not expected to look like Fabio or Miranda Kerr, but how you present can affect how you might be perceived.

Here’s some simple Do’s and Don’ts…

Do…

• Have a clear, recognisable headshot
• Use a recent photo
• Use a professional setting
• Smile!

Don’t…

• Use your Tinder profile picture (you’re not here to pick up, you’re trying to get hired)
• Use a group photo or one of you from miles away (this isn’t Facebook, we want to know who you are!)
• Use a picture from 20 years ago (living in the past can be condemning yourself to stay there)
• Have booze around you (you really think looking like Pete the Pisshead is gonna make people think “hey this is the wagon we should hitch our star to”?)
• Look like a goose (or any number of other unfavourable terms, such as one rhyming with “banker”).

TIP 5 – Your Interview. “Get to the church on time”

Being on time for an interview, seems ridiculously obvious. But what happens when the world throws you an unexpected curveball on your way in, or when firing up your computer for the zoom call. What’s the impression you’ll make if you arrive late, sweating like a pig and flapping like a seagull?

Or when you Zoom interview is about to start,  your WIFI has gone on strike, you can’t connect-in, or IT in general just gives you the middle finger?

There may be genuine reasons, but they definitely aren’t excuses. With effective preparation you can be ready for almost every situation that may try to stop you making it to the church on time. And stop you from making your first impression a poor one. Like a good scout – be prepared.

Want to know how?

Well you can learn all that and more by dropping me a line to learn more about how I can give you all the tools, insights and confidence to help you “Sell Yourself”.

info@sellyourself.com.au / www.sellyourself.com.au

Ever asked yourself “What is the real benefit of Recruitment Agencies”?

If you’re a jobseeker or a hiring manager, it wouldn’t surprise me if your impression of recruitment agencies wasn’t favourable. I get asked this question a lot but it’s rarely a genuine, open-minded enquiry. Rather, it’s mostly been a challenge thrown at me by the enquirer (often with a few “colourful adjectives” thrown in) to change their mind.

I honestly feel there are great benefits in working with recruitment agencies. However as is the case with any profession in life you’ll deal with some that are much better than others.

Like many industries, there can be stigmas and stereotypes. Before my career in recruitment I was involved in the roadworks industry, so I’m used to copping abuse. Out on a roadworks site with all manner of crew and machinery, staged to undertake functions at various times, only for people who you’ve never met to wind down their window and yell out obscenities at you like “get back to work you lazy ####!”. And then there’s when things were thrown at you, or an arm come out of a window and point a gun at you (it didn’t happen to me, but it did to colleagues of mine one night).

Anyway the purpose isn’t simply to tell you war-stories, it’s that many industries have stigmas and stereotypes. Ask the average Joe, and he’s likely to bag them. Police, Lawyers, Politicians, Public Servants, Bouncers, Roadworkers, Real Estate Agents, Insurance brokers, Builders, Accountants, Footballers, Recruitment Agents, Mechanics, Human Resource Managers, anyone in IT…… I could go on…

We’ve all come across people in various careers who’ve not been up to the task, given us poor service and let us down. But for every one of those people, there are many others who are pretty damn good at what they do. And there’s always more to what they do than you’d think.

So coming back to the benefits of working with Recruitment Agencies. Here’s a few key ones

If you are a jobseeker..

• They can have access to vacancies you otherwise wouldn’t see advertised or know of.
• They can give you further insight into vacancies for your information and benefit.
• They can convey your skills experiences directly with their clients (your prospective employers) further to what is written on your CV.
• Their service is free!

And even if you aren’t looking for a job, good recruitment agents may be in contact to make you aware of jobs with their clients they feel you could be both interested and suitable for (if they’ve thoroughly consulted with you previously, they will know your skills and interests).

If you’re a (prospective) hiring manager.

• They can give you access to a vast pool of suitable candidates beyond what you can get through a direct job ad. For example, they can openly or confidentially sell your vacancy to passive candidates (not every candidate is an applicant).
• They can help sell you and your company to candidates, overcoming lack of awareness or  negative perceptions/stigmas that may impact on candidate interest. And no matter what company you work for, there can be stigmas.
• They can allow you to “do your day job” while they go find the talent you need, rather than you being distracted and impacted by going about all hiring yourself.

The emergence of Linkedin over the last decade has been an enormous leap forward in connecting professionals of all types. Many companies I knew thought this would prove the death-knell of the recruitment industry, as there was now a way to find talent themselves without the need to pay an agency to do so. Well, if all companies wanted to invest in hiring a crack internal recruitment team working 10+ hours per day investing time in building extensive market knowledge and personal networks (by fully-qualifying the skills, experiences, expectations, and aspirations of every candidate they speak to over an extensive period of time),  then yes there may have been a chance recruitment industry would have been killed off. Instead, the recruitment industry is still very present and in many markets, thriving. If people were emotionless drones then it would be easy to do a linkedin search for people, find the skills a company needs to fill a gap, and buy them. But people are not that simple.

When I started out in Recruitment I was under no illusions it would be easy. In my original interview for an agency I ended up working for, the Sales Director said this – “Recruitment is the only sales environment in the world where the product you are selling has a brain”.

It’s a statement that stayed with me ever since. A brain has emotions, feelings, abilities, and ambitions. It can overstate or understate. They’ll make mistakes at times. They are all unique and we’ve all got them (and yes, some have more brains than others!).

A good recruitment agent, amongst many things, is one that fully understands the recruitment process and goes to the effort of understanding their candidates’ and clients’ true needs. A good recruitment agent can match one brain with another, not just match a list of skills needed with a list of skills possessed.

If indeed you have a negative view on recruitment agencies, I don’t expect anything I’ve written above will change your mind. That will only happen when you deal with a great recruitment agent. There are many out there, and if you ignore the frogs you may kiss along the way, you will find the ones that are right for you.

– Guy Wilson

Ever applied to a job, and been knocked back only to hear something like this…

“We need someone with local experience”.

Chances are if you’ve moved to Australia and searching for a job, you have. And possibly more than once. Local experience can mean different things to different people but generally these are candidates who’ve done a similar job previously in Australia, and almost always Australian citizens or permanent residents.

If you’re an employer who’s had the view that local experience is essential, have you ever asked yourself why?

Of course there are genuine reasons that local experience is an essential pre-requisite for some jobs, and (while not to be confused with experience) some companies aren’t approved to employ people with particular working visas. But in my recruitment career I’d often find out that, despite a hiring manager initially demanding candidates with local experience, after some enquiry and open discussion it really wasn’t necessary at all. The initial request for local experience was never due to prejudice or anything untoward. Simply put, it was seen as the easier option. A safer bet, less risk, to “hit the ground running”, and lower cost. But is it really?

If you’re an employer, consider this scenario. You’ve been trying to fill a vacancy and have two applications which meet your requirements on paper. Both applicants essentially have the same credentials and working history however one has all their relevant experience in Australia, while the other has all their relevant experience overseas. Who poses the most risk if you were to consider hiring them?

• Is it the overseas applicant who may have taken on a lower-level job since arriving in Australia, and/or may take some time to get up to speed with localised methods, standards and industry knowledge to effectively do the job?
• Is it the local applicant who, in a candidate-short market, may have great interest from your competitors, reject your offer for others (including counter offers), command remuneration above your budget, or be a target for head-hunters into the future (who are also seeking “local experience”)?

You can find risks in every kind of candidate if you look hard enough. So from a different angle, which candidate would take on your role with everything they’ve got to both meet and exceed your expectations?

It could be either one of them, or both. But it shouldn’t be a newsflash to realise that a person who’s migrated to Australia, struggled to find a job at their level of expertise, and done whatever it’s taken to keep the wolves from the door over a period of time will give you their absolute best effort and loyalty in repaying you for giving them a shot. And while sponsorship of employees can be a significant cost, so too can having a vacancy for an extensive period of time or paying an inflated salary to tempt/attract the “ideal candidate”.

In a recent interview with the ABC, I saw the CEO of Engineers Australia (Dr Bronwyn Evans) convey that there are tens of thousands of migrant engineers in Australia who are currently not employed, or underemployed, within the engineering sector. Yet vacancies for engineers in Australia have soared by 97% in the last year, with massive investment in government-funded infrastructure projects. As of December last year, an estimated 47% of migrant engineers looking for engineering positions are unemployed in the sector. And of those who are employed in engineering, one-third are underemployed (i.e. in positions beneath their level of expertise). And the preference for “local experience” is the major reason (Source – www.abc.net.au/news – “Migrant Engineers overlooked for work and jobs, report says” – 12th December 2021).

So, of all the migrant engineers currently in Australia, almost 65% are currently under-utilised. 65%!!

In my career it’s been quite common to see the CVs of overseas candidates where their local experience was far beneath their credentials and experiences they bring from abroad. People such as long-term professionals and senior managers in major companies overseas who’ve since migrated to Australia with their families, only to be driving delivery vans, working in restaurants, or even working in trade assistant roles on a factory floor. In conversation with candidates like these, the circumstances were overwhelmingly similar. Despite vast amounts of applications over a long period of time, getting an interview was rare, almost impossible. And when they actually did receive any feedback on their application the most common reasoning was, yep you guessed it, “we need someone with local experience”. They desperately wanted a shot to prove themselves, but it was rarely (if ever) given.

Migrant engineers (and other professions) may not have local experience, but they have a number of other attributes that can be attractive to prospective employers. The resilience to keep moving forward despite getting knocked down, the hunger to prove themselves, and the enthusiasm to make the most of every opportunity afforded to them. But ultimately – many of these candidates CAN and WILL have all the necessary attributes to do a fantastic job. If only they were given the opportunity to prove it.

An interview is no obligation to employ someone. It’s the opportunity to understand how someone may be able to fulfil the needs of, and add value to, your business. If resilience, hunger, enthusiasm, and the attitude to succeed are valuable to the success of an organisation then reconsidering the need for “local experience” could be the best move any company can make.

– Guy Wilson

• info@sellyourself
• www.sellyourself.com.au

Ever seen a CV of a person and thought “Too experienced”, “Over-qualified” and immediately moved onto the next application?
Before pressing that red button, I strongly encourage hiring managers/agencies to closely consider “senior” candidates in application reviews. Why?
Because they could not only be the best person for the job, but also the best person for your business (or for agencies, the best person for your client).

Firstly, consider why a senior person in your vacancy would be a negative. Is it because of presumptions like:
“They’ll get bored”
“They’ll want too much money”
“They’ll leave when something else at their level comes along”
“They’ll want to do things their way, not ours”
Or others?

So many senior candidates have genuine reasons for seeking to “take a step back” in their career. And so what if you knew that such a candidate to your position was genuine and posed absolutely no risk in any/all presumptions that come to mind. Would this change your thinking?

Furthermore, what if you also knew that the person could not only do the job standing on their head, but brought numerous other benefits to your organisation?

If you press the red buttonstraight away, you’re never going to find out.
But in an interview, you might just unearth a goldmine. An interview is no obligation to hire someone. An interview is an opportunity to learn more about somebody, and how they can be of benefit to your business.

Consider this. Would you gain value from an employee who can bring any/some/all of the following to your organization?

• Efficiently delivery of all tasks of the job at-hand
• Minimal (if any) supervision needs
• Vast networks of additional industry contacts
• Innovations and business improvement ideas (attained through vast career experiences elsewhere)
• Additional leadership / mentorship to junior team members

Yes, first and foremost for any vacancy there’s a job to be done. And indeed, there may be genuine reasons why a certain level of qualification and experience is best for your vacancy. But there also could be someone who can do the job well, and bring you so much more.

#sellyourself