Is your CV headed for the graveyard?

In light of new technologies and on-line recruitment sites, could your CV be becoming more and more obsolete? Social experts are predicting that whilst your CV is good explaining your credentials and relevant work experience, on-line tools which express your CV in so many more ways than just 2 sides of A4 ever did are becoming increasingly popular.

Whilst these new ways of expressing yourself are a new avenue for career building they should be treated with caution. With a rising older population resulting in less technical savvy individuals, some people still demand a written CV, but these new avenues outlined below allow you to stand out from the crowd.

Video CV’s – Graham Anthony’s Interactive CV landed him a high profile job at a leading PR agency. In his video he explained his CV in depth in rich detail. Converted it to a YouTube video and the viral marketing campaign began attracting 95,000 YouTube hits. It became a viral success and has been hinted as the   video that changed the original CV.

  

Infographical – Infographics has taken off in recent years, displaying information in a visual form allows the reader to gauge a lot more about who you are and makes you to stand out from the crowd.

Social Networking CV – With advancements in social networking, more and more employers are looking on Social Networking sites to find out who you say you really are.

Personal Website – Creating your own personal website has been relatively easy in recent years, with so many free web based and freeware available creating your unique domain and web page has been easy as a couple of clicks.

Whilst these avenues have been highlighted as beneficial to stand out from the crowd you should be careful. What you think is a good expression of yourself could be treated negatively by your future employer. In most cases a written A4 CV is sufficient enough to be included in your application. Likewise in many cases many high profile companies have written application forms offering little room innovation and expressionism.  

Nick Clegg Vows to break 'Who you know culture'

We have all been told countless number of times that you need experience for any type of job you apply to. If you don't have experience, then it is just going to be harder to get your foot on the job ladder. 

Within certain industries such as finance or banking there has been an evident culture in the past years whereby its not 'what you know' but 'who you 'know' and this culture has enabled many students to explore opportunities in fields which undoubtedly they wouldn't have dreamed of getting into without the connections they have made. More recently it has been noted that of all parties 'The Conservatives' who are proposing this ban with the liberal democrats, have auctioned off internship opportunities to raise party funding with many Internships in specific sectors such as Finance going for as much as £3,000. 

From a organisation point of you the 'who you know' culture is evident whereby, its easier for a CEO or Managing Director to employ someone who they believe that can do the job, or as a matter of fact, help friend out to provide their daughter / son with experience. It takes much longer for a CEO to interview potential candidates for possible Internships  and more importantly advertising on recruitment sites is expensive. 

Its good what the government have said about proposing a 'blanket ban' on the 'who you know' culture but in hindsight it is difficult for a complete blanket ban as many people know a lot of people and it is difficult for people to stop growing their connections or invade on their privacy. 

You can see the full interview on the BBC News Website below.  

It turns out that Nick Clegg got his first internship through internal networks

The truth behind the Statistics

Recently a University (From now on label this university x) recorded that they had an 96.1% of graduates employed after they graduated, that is startling figure especially during the current graduate unemployment crisis.

But what does that statistic actually mean, does it mean that university x is a great university to go to if you are looking for full time job after you graduate or is that number extrapolated to justify that university x is a great university for employment. In my opinion it probably means both.

Students looking to go to university now should be weary about the future job prospects after they graduate. This might seem a strange thing to say, but by the time you have got through your first couple of years, you should have a mental and physical picture of what you want to do when you graduate, therefore the statistics of people employed should be a very useful guide on which university you want to go.

However there is more to these statistics that originally first thought?

What you have to consider is what the statistics do not take into account, is your job entirely related to your degree. Is this job part time / full time or even is this casual work, just to stop the annoying people who conduct the survey to stop bugging you.

Css-tricks conducted a survey based on how related is degree to current job. Of 5,500 votes casted online, 40% (2,187) said that it was not related and only 37% (2,011) said it was directly related. This suggests that graduates leaving university are most likely faced with going into a job which isn’t entirely related to your degree. Would you say this was money well spent?

It would also be interesting to see how many of the students were actually employed on graduate schemes? Obviously these figures would reveal the naked truth of our education system. Furthermore whether there are enough graduate schemes for the number of students coming through. Of course research organisations would be scared to release this information and the detrimental impact it could have.

Why Graduates need to be dimensional

Every year the media, universities, colleges are telling you that you need to become dimensional. In today’s job environment and climate this is becoming more of a major strength in securing that dream job.

What do they mean by Dimensional?

Being dimensional can mean a number of things; firstly don’t just apply to one job. Just because you have applied, doesn’t mean you automatically think you should get an interview. There are millions of graduates out there all looking for the same thing, you need to be dimensional, just because you have had dreams of working at the organisation you have applied doesn’t mean that they will take you on. The minimum average for graduate’s applications is 35. This shows that not only do you have to apply to more than one job but there is a lot of competition within this industry.

Don’t just apply to one industry. Just because you want to work in marketing, doesn’t mean you won’t be good at finance or HR (Okay, so maybe you really hate numbers and this would be a bit of a problem). Marketing encompasses a broad range of industry sectors, including Market Research, Advertising, PR, Social Media the list continues as you would imagine. To cement your position you should apply to a broad range of industry sectors, you should not just focus on one specific industry you should also be aware of other sectors and companies in this industry too. Use your degree to the best of your ability, you may have done a module in consumer behaviour or marketing research and you may have enjoyed it, this opens up your career options and makes you become more dimensional in your job search.

The best graduates are those that are commercial aware. To be dimensional and improve your chance of securing your dream job, you need to make the most of the knowledge around you. Applying to a finance role? The importance of being commercial aware is crucially highlighted here. How has the recession affected the company you are applying too, what are the major strengths and weaknesses of the industry you are applying too maybe just a few questions that could come up in a typical job interview.

In summary then, the key to securing a graduate job or job then is you have to be dimensional. To be dimensional you need to expand your career options, the phrase ‘You never know until you have tried it’ is never more so in today’s environment, just because you haven’t dabbled with social media, doesn’t mean you won’t be any good at it. It is about taking your piece of the cake and eating it.

Graduate Schemes or Jobs or a mixture of both?

My friend recently attended an assessment interview for a finance leadership graduate scheme. When he got there he was startled to find out that the company had over 30,000 applications for all graduate positions within the company he was applying too.

This statistic proves that it is increasingly difficult for perspective graduates to get their foot on the career ladder.

I am in the process of submitting applications for graduate programmes, although this is still my main focus; I am applying speculatively to other companies too, just because they don’t have vacancies on their website, doesn’t mean they don’t have vacancies at all. In some cases they will have vacancies and want people to fill.

Furthermore there are loads of companies out there who don’t have graduate schemes, but have vacancies for jobs instead. Yes graduate schemes are impressive and if you are fortunate to land yourself on one then congratulations, but what’s really the difference between a normal jobs in the industry, than a graduate job? They both still pay equivalent or near enough the same amount. They both allow you to progress within the company.

It seems every article these days in the media is centered on how many graduate jobs there out there for prespective graduates. What is a reality however is that you are probably better off just applying for a normal job in the industry such as a sales executive, marketing executive. These roles aren’t specifically graduate jobs, but the process in which you apply for these may be shorter and may lead you to less competition with other prespective graduates all in the same position as you.

Moreover I am concentrating on finishing my degree. Your degree is one of the most important elements, without a good degree these days you will find it difficult to get on the career ladder. Whilst graduate programmes are important and after you graduate you want to be able to work in several big organisations, the foremost and most important element should be your degree.