The Profiles vs. Cover Letters topic has not been definitively answered, and as with most job search topics different circumstances and personalities may call for different approaches. As such every application must be approached individually.

There has, however, been a distinct and increasing trend towards the adoption of profiles. Job applicants across a number of industries and levels of management are opting towards profiles as opposed to longer cover letters.

As with any other section of your CV, the profile must convey a large amount of information that is instantly recognisable, and deliver it in an extremely short space of time. As difficult as this process is, it ultimately presents a chance for you to sell yourself to your prospective employer in 10 seconds or less.

Within a brief and succinct paragraph, your profile should be able to demonstrate your previous skills and experience. Ideally the language and content should highlight issues that make  whoever is looking at your CV realise that you are the right person for the job.

While the writing of a suitable profile can be a complex and difficult process, it can also present an opportunity for the jobseeker. Within a few short sentences, an employer may have found the qualities, experience or ambition in order to convince them to keep reading and examine your CV in greater detail. A solid profile can be the first step in your successful application process.

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Across any number of industries the internships and work experience offered will vary wildly. With this in mind, the following article is intended as a broad guideline into how to find the information that will help you start your Internship on the best footing possible.

1. Dress code

If you weren’t clear from the interview, calling ahead and checking the dress code of the office is relatively standard. For the time it takes to make a brief phone call and clarify, you can put your own mind at ease and know you’ll be appropriately dressed. As with most things in an Internship you’re not expected to know these things immediately, so it’s perfectly acceptable to ask.

2. Start/End/Lunch

These may seem like tricky topics to address if you’re not sure. However if you weren’t fully informed of these details ahead of your first day you should check to make sure you have all the details correct. Remember not to think of it as “How long do I have to be here for…” and more as you wanting to make sure you’re there on time and meeting all your requirements etc.

3. Sick days/Holidays

The holidays you are entitled to will vary depending on the length of your contract, and for some interns can cause some difficulty or awkwardness in raising. While it wouldn’t be recommendable to address the issue as they’re still showing you around the building it is certainly something that’s reasonable to discuss. Again, approaching it as an understanding of requirements and expectations allows everyone to ensure there is no confusion or difficulty. Sick days will most likely be at the discretion of the company, and will probably depend on the situation.

 The various issues you’ll face during an internship or work experience may well be unique to your organisation or particular situation, however the way in which you approach the issue will usually remain the same. From the outset you can foster a position of honesty and openness by ensuring you communicate with your employers about any issues or questions you may have.

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With this in mind we thought it would be useful to pose a simple question:

How important is your CV?

The answer is, quite simply, extraordinarily important. Your CV is most likely the first contact point you have with a recruiter, hiring manager or the organisation, so it had better be impressive…

Errors

The Cpl Group recently conducted a survey finding that 89% of CV’s contain spelling errors. In our conversations with recruiters they have repeatedly stated that poor layout, grammar and spelling will cause them to lose interest in a candidate that might have otherwise potentially been successful. The CV with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes is at a significant disadvantage to the candidate with a well laid out and grammatically correct CV.

Content

One of the recurring issues we face at Career Consultants is candidates who are concerned about their skill set and how it applies for the job or field they want. More often than not the issue is not their skills or achievements; it is that these skills and achievements are not on the CV.

With any CV it is worth checking that your content accurately portrays your skills and experience to a potential employer. Your content should be efficient, economical and show every applicable reason why you’re the best person for the job.

Tailored

Each position is different (though some only marginally), and this should be taken into account with your CV. Having an excellent template is a good start, and will allow you to tailor your CV to the specific job. In this way you can emphasise your relevant skills and place less importance on irrelevant skills.

Your CV is typically your first point of contact with any organisation. The average time spent viewing a CV is approximately 30 seconds, so this presents a very narrow window for you to sell yourself. In order to get your CV to the top of that pile you need to ensure every part of it is correct, accurate and specific for the position at hand.

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Before you know it you’ll be surfing the professional networks, establishing connections and creating exciting opportunities for yourself and your business.

But there’s a slight problem. You don’t have a profile.

Building a profile is the first step towards starting your LinkedIn use, however for many it can be a tripping point. A good profile can say a lot about you, give people a snapshot of your professional credentials, and encourage them to engage with you on a professional level. A bad profile can leave people wondering who you are, what you do, and why you’re trying to connect. This guide will take you step by step through the main points from building your first profile.

Get a picture!

Frequently this can be a tricky topic for users. Either they don’t have a suitable picture or they’re not sure they want a picture of themselves up on the internet. A profile picture is typically a necessity, as not being able to put a face to the name can be quite disconcerting. The type of picture is important but not difficult, it should simply be a nice respectable picture of you, smiling if possible.

What’s a Summary?

A summary is a basic rundown of your current status, previous experience, and areas of speciality. LinkedIn has tonnes of examples of these, and if you’re not sure just start randomly checking pages to get a feel for it. Always write in the 3^rd person and be as economic with your phrasing as possible. People will usually not read a long summary so keep it to a few sentences at absolute maximum.

Work Experience

This can be a tough area to fill out (despite seeming relatively straightforward) as most are unsure of stating too much or too little information. Generally the key to this is moderation. Include the major working points of your career, the major duties in each job (the important ones, not the one where you were on tea rotation) and then leave it at that. If you’re job was more than a few years ago you don’t need to go in to massive detail about it.

Keywords

This may seem to be a minor part of the profile, but may well in fact be the most important (or at least, the most critical not to have) aspect of the process. The “Skills & Expertise” section allows you to list the areas you’re particularly good or interested in. This is not just for your profile, this will also allow keyword searches to rank your profile higher. Essentially, when people are looking for someone with, say, social media marketing skills, you can rise higher in that ranking by having it as one of your skills. This will ensure that when you want to be found, you will be.

There are a number of other elements involved in creating an online profile, however these are best discovered yourself, as you scan other profiles to see what you think works and what doesn’t and become more familiar with LinkedIn. Typically you should only place as much information online as you’d be happy to discuss with a complete stranger, however in this case you will most likely find that if you give a little, you’ll get a lot back.

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So basically, yours had better be to the point.

Cramming your life’s experience into 2 sheets of A4 paper can seem like an incredibly difficult task, and siphoning out the unnecessary from the important is even harder. In my own experience I had initially tried to cram everything I possibly could to persuade, nay, force a hiring manager to pick up the phone.

The truth is that in today’s market 30 seconds to view a CV is more than you’re likely to get. The reality is that you are probably dealing with someone who has a few dozen CV’s to get through and not a lot of time to do it. If yours is lucky enough to get 20 seconds you can consider yourself extremely competitive in an increasingly difficult marketplace.

This may seem daunting however it’s an opportunity for you to gain an edge over other competing candidates.

Knowing that you have only 20 seconds (probably a quick scan over your 2-3 most recent roles) allows you to be brutal in cutting unnecessary terms. Most CV’s contain some form of clutter or focus on insignificant details that don’t sell what you can bring to the company to a prospective employer. Keep it focussed on this job, not you in general.

Remember that a CV is not a summary of your life, just your career. Any details which are not relevant to selling your experiences to an employer should be examined carefully and you should consider whether or not they should be there at all.

Using the right keywords can allow your CV to be picked up during searches, and a well organised CV can be the difference in you making a shortlist, or being passed over.

The post CV- 30 Seconds to Impress (actually it’s closer to 20) appeared first on Career Consultants.

The basics are quite simple, a professional network for establishing and maintaining contacts in a business context. Similar to other social media sites you “add” people, and if they approve the connection, you have access to their profile. If you don’t they may keep their profile visible anyway, or they may have a restricted viewing that is only open to some. Unlike Facebook the content is not your daily comings and goings, but rather a summary of you as a professional, and perhaps any relevant industry news or events you’d like to pass on (though this is not required).

Getting more complicated

This is where things begin to get a little more difficult, however. What should you put on your profile? How much information should you give? Who can see it? The questions become more difficult from there, who to connect with, should you know them beforehand?

Fortunately, the answers to these questions are easier than they appear, and with some simple pointers they are very quickly resolved.

Getting Started

Your LinkedIn profile is essentially a snapshot of your professional history and current occupation. It is not quite as detailed as your CV, however will convey similar information in terms of your career and a basic overview of your achievements.

The summary section will be a brief profile (who you are, some key qualities) and a brief list of your major skill sets. This is important for both describing yourself and SEO processes, which we’ll discuss a little later.

LinkedIn will provide examples at every stage on exactly how much information to give, how to phrase etc. Importantly you will need to use your own judgement in how much information to give and what exactly is/was relevant. Privacy and access are issues that you can alter yourself in your account settings, but a good rule of thumb is to leave out anything that you wouldn’t be happy for the general public to see.

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Assessment centres may include the following:

• Presentation
• Group Exercises
• Competency based interview
• In-tray exercise

Presentation

As part of an Assessment Centre you may be asked to prepare and make a presentation. You will be

given the topic and perhaps some reading material. You will be expected to prepare your presentation in a short period of time.  The object of the presentation exercise is to observe your communication skills. Key things that an assessor will be observing are your ability to plan, structure and deliver your presentation.

Group Exercises

Group exercises examine how individuals respond in a group and/or problem-solving situation. Normally a group would consist of 6 – 8 candidates and a number of assessors would observe from a distance. The following are some of the skills that are being assessed: Communication, Judgement, Reasoning, Influencing and Problem Solving.

Competency based interview

You will be asked a series of structured questions which will require you to demonstrate examples of where you have previously used the skills/competencies required for the role. You will need to provide clear concise examples and this can be done using the STAR technique approach.

Using this approach allows you to:

• Describe the Situation you were in
• Outline the Task you had to do
• Explain the Action you took to get the task done
• Describe the Result you got and the benefit of the result

In-Tray exercise

Participants are required to stand in for a manager at short notice and cope with the in-tray exercise as best as they can, working against the clock. The in-tray could include memos, letters, phone messages, notes, reports and press releases and you will be expected to use your planning, prioritising, decision making, delegating and managing skills to complete this exercise.

The above tasks will typically be run by trained assessors, who will observe candidates competencies, group dynamics and any other issues that may arise.

Business dress codes are standard and, similar to an interview; candidates should arrive ahead of time and ensure they are never late. The proper research should be conducted on the company and the relevant industry factors should be examined. Remember, it is difficult to predict exactly what you will be tested on, so be as prepared as you can.

Practice psychometric and personality tests ahead of time, there are a number of websites at your disposal that will allow you to practise and most operate free of charge. Scoring within the right percentile may well mean the difference between a successful and unsuccessful application. Given the ease of access to these tests and the resources available there is no reason why you should not be fully prepared for any psychometrics you may undertake. Apart from necessary practise they will also allow you to identify any strengths or weaknesses in your skill set.

Assessment Centres operate on the basis of examining a candidate’s future potential and behaviour, so remember to put your best foot forward and be as prepared as possible. Within the group environment performances are typically based around a standard

Practise anything you may think will be relevant for the job and ensure your industry and company knowledge is as strong as possible.

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