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Routes to Market – we
traditionally think of the key ways of identifying current vacancies as being press adverts, agencies and the internet. But at
our age there is every chance that our next role will actually be found by talking to
those we have built up as a network over the preceding decades, including social and
family contacts as well as work-based colleagues. And the further route of speculatively
approaching organisations has one of the highest success rates of all. This section
provides guidance on the five approaches, encouraging everyone to try them all, at least
initially, and then concentrate on the ones that appear to be proving most rewarding.
Winning CV’s
- the first of the two key
marketing activities, the other being the interview. How do we ensure that the document is
read at all? How do we ensure that we provide the information that will get us
interviewed, but not so much that we turn them off? How important is length, layout,
grammar? Emphasising that the purpose of a CV is not
to get the job, but to get an interview, is an essential part of the positioning, and
there is no doubt that time and care spent producing the CV can dramatically affect your
chances.
Methods of Selection
- when we were last selected
for a new job, the decision was probably made on the basis of just an interview – and
a fairly unstructured, hypothetical one at that. Selection methods have advanced a long
way over the past 10-20 years, and we may now find ourselves faced with ability tests,
psychometrics, assessment centres etc – and
any interview held will probably be more structured and objective than we are used to.
Being prepared for the fact that these methods MAY be sprung on us, and having an
understanding of how they function, goes a long way to reduce our apprehension and improve
our performance.
Interview
Preparation and Behaviour - having produced a CV that is successful in getting us in
front of the hiring manager, there is a large amount of preparation that we can do in
advance to increase the chances of success. This includes research into the
job/organisation as well as planning our own responses to questions. The section then
looks at how to optimise behaviour at the interview to keep the interviewers interest and
present ourselves as well as possible, and how to avoid some of the small,
“un-thought-of” obstacles that might upset our performance.
Notes
on Image -
the way we look, speak, dress, behave has been with us for a long time
– much of it is by choice and we have no intention of changing it. BUT we do need to just check out whether any
aspects of this are likely to decrease our chances so that we can at least pose the
question “do I modify this during the selection process to increase the chance of
success”. Remembering that over 60% of how a person forms an opinion is based upon
how you look, this may be the time to swallow our principles for a brief while and, for
example, wear quieter ties, longer skirts, different jewellery, shorter hair.
Coping
with Redundancy - some of those using the job search guide will be looking
for another job because they have been made redundant. This can arouse a wide variety of
emotions, often negative, which may well get in the way of our ability to positively sell
ourselves into a new job. This section is written to hopefully provide some assistance to
those who are going through this difficult situation.
The
Self-Employment Option - a significant number of those changing job,
particularly in a redundancy situation, consider self employment as an option. This
section is not intended to be comprehensive but provides some initial pointers and
references to start people on the right road.
Click here to access the full guide in
the Laterlife Members Club.
or read
the introduction to Don's initial section on Planning your campaign
or jump to the introduction to a specific section:
Introduction
Planning your Campaign
Planning your Campaign continued - Analysing yourself
Routes to Market
Winning CVs
Methods of Selection
Interview
preparation and behaviour
Image
Coping with
redundancy
The self employment
option
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