Is there a Black Hole for C.V.'s ??

Bitsie

Just seriously starting to wonder is there any 'real' job offers out there.. I am searching for jobs everyday on the internet on FAS and jobs.ie mostly but I have sent loads of applications off for jobs advertised only never to hear from them again...no response from anyone either way.
Does anyone else find this is happening?? How am I ever meant to get another job!!:(

Ellechim

Bitsie,

You need to be very careful. Some firms are hiring but they are few and far between.

Many jobs advertised by agencies are speculative - they have recruited similar roles for companies in the past and advertise them but there is no concrete role there.

The best thing in this environment is to reply to jobs advertised directly by the company either on their website or in the newspaper.

I would follow any application up with a phone call within a few days of sending it in. Many companies send out automated mails saying 'thank you for your application'. I think if you don't hear from them in a few days you are perfectly entitled to then phone up and say (in your friendliest keenest voice) 'I'm really interested in this role, can you plesae let me know when I'll hear something regarding my application'......

There are a lot of people out there losing their jobs and you need to a) differentiate yourself and b) go after any opportunities very hungrily.......

Make sure that everything about your application is as good as it possibly could be - ie no typos, spelling or grammar errors, no unexplained gaps on CV, follow any instructions with the application, etc.......

Best of luck..............

Bitsie

Thanks for that, i know what you mean about chasing them. I had purposley only sent an application directly to the employer and have avoided all recruitment agency ads for this reason but so far have only heard back from one company.

AARRRGH

Bitsie wrote: »

How am I ever meant to get another job!!:(

Two big issues:

1. December is always a bad month for recruitment. When I used to handle the financies for a large recruitment website I remember our sales were always down about 60% in December.
2. A lot of companies now have a hiring freeze.

What industry do you work in? What skills do you have?

Bitsie

i know its a bad time for getting jobs put im talking about the jobs that ARE being advertised and then when you apply for them you never hear anything back.
Im an architectural technician with 7 years office experience so also looking for office/admin/secretary jobs etc.

T-Square

A *lot* of jobs being advertised on for example irishjobs.ie *don't exist*.

What's also happening is this...

1. budget approved
2. job advertised as perm at 20% less than last years going rate
3. job pulled
4. job approved as contract as a rate 20% less than last years contract rates, and only for 3 months
5. job (contract) then pulled while management sit on hands, not knowing what to do

Also, very very few companies are paying recruiters their exorbitant fees, instead they are advertising directly. So pick your search options wisely, i.e. just 'companies' not both (companies and recruiters).

Chase up each application, and best of luck, you'll need it!!!

@Bitsie: I suggest you down play the building trade side of your skill set, and try to sell yourself as something else.

AARRRGH

Bitsie wrote: »

Im an architectural technician with 7 years office experience so also looking for office/admin/secretary jobs etc.

If you send me your cover letter and CV (<snip>) I'll take a look at them for you, just in case you're doing something silly.

All you can do is keep applying. As a previous poster suggested, give them employers a ring to follow up on your application.

AARRRGH

T-Square wrote: »

@Bitsie: I suggest you down play the building trade side of your skill set, and try to sell yourself as something else.

This is good advice.

Bitsie

i am not looking at recruiment sites. I have changed my cv to enhance the office skills side more so too.

JDLK

Cover letter provides an interest in your CV, CV provides and interest in meeting you (never mention salary expectations in either your cover letter or CV)

Cover letter should read like a quick summary of your professional life and should cover the following areas: How your career has developed thus far and how you have managed the developement, where you want it to go from here and how the prospective company fits into your plans and what you offer as an individual. Should read like a story, non technical.

Focus on your strengths, I am highly motivated, passionate about technology, have spent over X years in research and development. I wish to move into senior managment, I have a proven team and leadership record. I am seeking a new challenge. I feel ABC ltd's commitment to marketing innovation and award winning customer relations fits perfectly with my proven marketing experience and academic awards. I believe my ambitions to do XYZ with my career will be beneficial to ABC.

Please find my CV attached and please do not hestitate to contact me.

Thank you

You


Your CV should be no more than 1 page (this is a new trend- you wont be crucified for 2 page but 1 page has become the standard for top business schools and top companies)

Layout:

Contact details at the top (incl name, address, email, phone- you do not need to provide nationality or date of birth unless you feel it is necessary for the job)
Career experience follows, starts with most recent, dates on the left (date month is not necessary you can leave it at years).
Do not repeat the job title in the responsibilities section ie it is obvious a Car Salesman will be responsible for selling cars or a computer repair technician is responsible for fixing the computers
*Highlight customer focus ex: Managed X amount of long standing customer accounts and regularly kept in contact or provided first line tech support to over 200 employees.
*Highlight your achievements in the position ex: Exceeded sales targets 3 years running, Top sales person for 2003 or Exceed agreed SLA for resolution of computer problems every quarter.
*Highlight Teamwork- ex: Regularly communicated with regional sales team to formulate forecasts, or was a member of an IT project team which successfiully installed a new system
*Highlight leadership- ex: Initiated and lead sales team in new car model launch or Led the IT training for new system. Also a good one here is "I trained and mentored new staff"
*Highlight social and commercial awareness: ex: Opened talks with local football team to sponsor their kit, or I initiated an electronic recycling program in my IT dept for old equipment

If the company you worked with is particularly renowned for success then try to tie yourself to it in some way: For example- "Actively particpated in training for ABC's new system/product.

Academic qualifications follow: Again newest and highest first - you do not need to list the modules you did unless specifically asked, you do need to list grade.

Professional qualifications/awards

Languages

Interests: Try to show intellectual and social development,for example I love travelling as I am interested in foreign cultures, I am an avid reader of hsitory and follower of politics, I volunteered for Concern. Teamwork and leadership should again be highlighted- I play football, I manage the local youth team, I give swimming lessons.

Memberships- if you are a member of a professional association list it - do not expand unless you are a high ranking member or your participation has resulted in an achievement of some kind. Example: Member of the Irish Association of Managers

(I cant get the margins on the message editor to work but suffice it to say that dates and section headers below should be in the left margin)
_____________________________________

Address * Address* Address* Address* Address* Address*
email* *phone*
*Name

Career Experience:

2004-2008 Sales and Account Manager, Ford Automobiles, Ireland
*Responsible for over 100 key european client accounts
*Exceeded sales target 4 years running, helping
branch exceed targets by over 10 million
*Worked with Irish sales team to co-ordinate
the successful launch of the 2005 Focus
*Inititated and led the quality assurance drive of 2007
*Attended industry presentations on bio-fuel cars

2000-2004 Title of job
*Customer focus/responsbility
*Achievements
*Teamwork
*Leadership
*Commercial and social awareness

Education:
1996-2000 BA in Business, University of Life (Grade 1.1)

Professional Awards: Certified Ford Gold Level Salesman

Laguages: English (fluent) French (Basic)

Interests: Volunteer for childline
Rugby player for School of hard knocks won league
Car enthusiast
Travelled around Asia

Membership: Member of the Irish Automobile Sales Association
Member of the Irish Volunteer Board

Mrs OBumble

There's some good advice here - and some that I'd totally disagree with.

JDLK wrote: »

Cover letter provides an interest in your CV, CV provides and interest in meeting you ....

Cover letter should read like a quick summary of your professional life and should cover the following areas: How your career has developed thus far and how you have managed the developement, where you want it to go from here and how the prospective company fits into your plans and what you offer as an individual. Should read like a story, non technical.

IMHO: the cover letter shows why they should take an interest in you for this particular job. So it's about the job, not about you. No point saying that you're passionate, career focussed blah blah, if they're looking for a temporary widget-assembler!

JDLK wrote: »

(never mention salary expectations in either your cover letter or CV)

Agree 110% on this point.

JDLK wrote: »

Your CV should be no more than 1 page (this is a new trend- you wont be crucified for 2 page but 1 page has become the standard for top business schools and top companies)

If you've had more than a three jobs, or they're technical, this is nonsense, there's no way you can fit everything into one page. - see the attachment where I've taken the example you gave and done this.

If you're looking for a technical job, you need to mention the specific technologies you've used and roles performed, not just the title.
(eg - "everyone" know what a car salesperson does ... but a software developer can do vastly different things, eg:

l

• ead-developer on team writing a widget marinating system (200 users, C++, Unix, Java-applets, Oracle database, Active-directory)
• legacy database conversion project - wrote DTS packages for conversion of 1.2 million records
• worked on various maintenance projects for a legacy system (Cobol, running under VMS, RDB database) - roles included dev-lead, quality-reviewer, analyst and core-developer

JDLK wrote: »

Contact details at the top (incl name, address, email, phone- you do not need to provide nationality or date of birth unless you feel it is necessary for the job)

In the example, these aren't labelled - this may confused some of the computer-processing systems that go through looking for details.

It is helpful to include nationality if it will re-assure the employer that you're able to work here without needing a work-permit.

JDLK wrote: »

... dates on the left (date month is not necessary you can leave it at years).

True if you were there for a long time. But for shorter term assignments (eg a six month contract) it looks silly. As an employer, I'd assume that if months were missing, it was being used to cover something (eg a three-month jail term!).

JDLK wrote: »

Do not repeat the job title in the responsibilities section ie it is obvious a Car Salesman will be responsible for selling cars or a computer repair technician is responsible for fixing the computers

Sometimes true, sometimes not.
"store assistant: deli counter, food preparation, customer service and sandwich-making, end-of-day clean-up"
is quite different
from "store assistant: shelf-filling, in-store cleaning, security monitoring"

JDLK wrote: »

*Highlight customer focus ...
*Highlight your achievements in the position ...
*Highlight Teamwork...
*Highlight leadership- ....
*Highlight social and commercial awareness: ....

Good advice - if the position you want requires team-work and leadership. However if it's an independent operator where the focus is something else (eg an auditor to check compliance with quality processes), then this is what to highlight.

JDLK wrote: »

Interests: Try to show intellectual and social development,for example I love travelling as I am interested in foreign cultures, I am an avid reader of hsitory and follower of politics, I volunteered for Concern. Teamwork and leadership should again be highlighted- I play football, I manage the local youth team, I give swimming lessons.

Noticed that the example doesn't have all the extra words in it. IMHO you're unlikely to have space for them. I'd only list interests if they're relevant for the position. Otherwise, provided you've got the relevant skills and experience, it's none of the employer's business whether you play soccer, GAA or a flute (and some will discriminate on silly stuff like this if you let 'em).


One more big thing: spelling and grammar. Get these right. Every time.

JDLK

Some good points there.

I agree you should tailor your CV and cover letter for the specific job your applying for.

There isnt a major issue with going into 2 pages and it really is down to personal preference. As I said business schools such as Smurfit and Trinity both advise their graduates to create a 1 page CV, this is based on industry feedback.

Format wise the board doesnt lend it self well- so I have attached what is the current format from a leading Irish business school.

Bear in mind that as you regress through your career you will most likely have had less and less exposure to leadership,commercial awareness etc, you do not need to make something up for each role- indeed as your roles regress and they get smaller it looks better on your CV progression wise

As the poster above said, on a 1 page CV space is a big factor so think about your audience- if you are applying for a Tesco Supervisor job, having worked as a Tesco cashier and the person who will be reading your CV is a Tesco manager- you need to highlight supervisory aspects of yourself. Listing your daily duties, while valid, may be slightly redundant if the person reviewing your CV is familiar with that role and will not seperate you from other cashiers applying for the role.

This is also true of structured business departments with standard linear career progression from junior analyst, to senior analyst to team lead to supervisor to manager.

The key to the CV is it sparks enough interest to make the person want to meet so they can talk to you more in depth about your experience. There are alot of drab CV's out there with basic info and lists-

make yours stand out

*Trinity and Smurfit make graduate CV's available for public perusal. Trinity used to have theirs online (I think they're in the process of uploading 2008's at the moment) Smurfits can be picked up for free on the campus.

Bitsie

This is certainly all great advice but to be honest, I was just wondering if anyone else experience the same as me, where I am emailing off applications in response to jobs posted on FAS and hearing nothing back?
My CV is done and I tailor my cover letter to suit the position I am applying for.

qwertz

I am self-employed in the IT industry and over the past ten years I have been working on more than 20 projects for mutliple clients. How would I best structure my CV?

AARRRGH

Bitsie wrote: »

This is certainly all great advice but to be honest, I was just wondering if anyone else experience the same as me, where I am emailing off applications in response to jobs posted on FAS and hearing nothing back?
My CV is done and I tailor my cover letter to suit the position I am applying for.

I suspect the HR people don't know what the story is with their vacant positions (i.e. do they have a hiring freeze or not) hence the no (or delayed) replies.

T-Square

Yes, it is standard practise for them not to reply.

MagicMarker

Don't ignore recruitment agencies, I did the same thing and got no where.

So I bit the bullet and applied to them, met up with a few of them over the space of a couple of days, that resulted in a couple of interviews with employers which resulted in a job.

Like it or not, recruitment agencies are your best bet right now.

JDLK

qwertz wrote: »

I am self-employed in the IT industry and over the past ten years I have been working on more than 20 projects for mutliple clients. How would I best structure my CV?

Were these projects running consecutively or concurrently?- ie were you working on mulitple projects at the same time? In anycase you have only one employer for the last 10 years: You. So I wouldnt structure it in terms of each company which would look like you had 20 employers rather I would structure it by projects undertaken as each employer does not necessarily represent 20 seperate skill based projects.

For example if you have worked on implementing CRM systems for 5 of those 20 clients at different times over the 10 years then make a section called CRM projects: The roles you played, achievements etcs (see previous post, and put the clients in the customer focus section ie these were your CRM clients)

The next section would be the next project type, maybe you were involved in providing Technical support- this would be the section: list of clients, achievements, etc.

Again it would depend on the prospective company you are trying to join. If the company is a CRM ststem provider obviously play up your CRM projects, understanding of customer relations (ie your own clients) project management, team and leadership skills

qwertz

Thanks, much appreciated. Keep the tips coming!

JDLK wrote: »

Were these projects running consecutively or concurrently?- ie were you working on mulitple projects at the same time? In anycase you have only one employer for the last 10 years: You. So I wouldnt structure it in terms of each company which would look like you had 20 employers rather I would structure it by projects undertaken as each employer does not necessarily represent 20 seperate skill based projects.

For example if you have worked on implementing CRM systems for 5 of those 20 clients at different times over the 10 years then make a section called CRM projects: The roles you played, achievements etcs (see previous post, and put the clients in the customer focus section ie these were your CRM clients)

The next section would be the next project type, maybe you were involved in providing Technical support- this would be the section: list of clients, achievements, etc.

Again it would depend on the prospective company you are trying to join. If the company is a CRM ststem provider obviously play up your CRM projects, understanding of customer relations (ie your own clients) project management, team and leadership skills

JDLK

qwertz wrote: »

Thanks, much appreciated. Keep the tips coming!

As self employed person you have unique skills in terms of self management and an understanding of the real issues surrounding customer satisfaction and self motivation. Any prospective employer who feels you have an understanding of the issues they face rather than just and employer/employee realtionship would defintely differentiate you so i recommend playing up those skills aswell

dragonfly!

Hi OP same used to happen to me, then one day I rang the company and got an interview and started last week:D
Its only on a temp contract for 4 weeks but its better than nothing, dont be afraid to ring up and show you are interested, good luck!:)

Bitsie

yeah i have applied for 2 jobs on the FAS website just now so ill ring them in the morning to follow up on it and see what happens!

JDLK

Just a generic note regarding CV's:

Do not underestimate the "Interests section", this section allows you to differentiate yourself from other candidates (especially if you are a recent graduate, where experience and qualifications wil be fairly similar to your competition).

The interest section should contain teamwork and leadership examples.
It should be structured so that you list an interest and how you applied yourself to it.

For example do not just say I am interested in Music
Say I am interested in music and am currently learning to play the guitar.
Do not: I am interested in snooker
Do: I am interested in snooker and have competed in the 2006 All Ireland Snooker competition and am a member of XYZ snooker club

People often overlook this section but it demonstrates self motivation, competition, team work and leadership as much as the other sections.

If you feel that you do not have sufficient interests then you should get them.

This may sound cynical but volunteering can add huge weight to your CV- If you have any holes in your CV check out the Irish volunteering service who can place you in team based volunteering, computer skill volunteering, management volunteering etc based on your skills and requirements.

Final note: You should add an interest which is somehow related to your career- for example Leading technology companies want people who are passionate about technology, qualifications are a minimum and competition is rife- you might say that you are interested in new technology inventions/innovations and regularly attend technology expo's and/or read technology magazines

** Sorry Bitsie, Ive kind of gone off topic, I'll stop now

Bitsie

AARRRGH wrote: »

If you send me your cover letter and CV (steve at acme.ie) I'll take a look at them for you, just in case you're doing something silly.

I have sent these onto you...cheers.....;)

AARRRGH

Bitsie wrote: »

I have sent these onto you...cheers.....;)

I've just replied...

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

MagicMarker wrote: »

Don't ignore recruitment agencies, I did the same thing and got no where.

So I bit the bullet and applied to them, met up with a few of them over the space of a couple of days, that resulted in a couple of interviews with employers which resulted in a job.

Like it or not, recruitment agencies are your best bet right now.

You're joking right? IF anything an agency is the worste place to go...

Firstly there is one job advertiese on the internet, with possibly hundreds if not thousands of applicants.

Secondly, companies are trying to save a few euro and they will try avoiding recruitment agencies, apart from the few companies that HAVE to outsource recruitment due to lack of competencies...]

Hopefully there will be some boost in january with recruitment and what not...

AARRRGH

Ah agencies can be ok. I've gotten two jobs via them. The problem is you've gotta put up with a lot of retards before you find a decent one.

deepriver

AARRRGH wrote: »

Ah agencies can be ok. I've gotten two jobs via them. The problem is you've gotta put up with a lot of retards before you find a decent one.

I dunno.. I am convinced they are all retards and missfits that couldnt work anywhere else, my most retarded friend was a very sucessful recruitment 'consultant'

deepriver

op... recently I was on the job market and probably got a 1/50 response rate on applications, standard practise was no reply or an inteview (no pfo's whatsoever)... just another point I have heard anecdotally there is a huge deficit in your area... suplus graduates / low number of positions.. my brother is an arch grad and I believe he is moonlighting as a web developer / graphic designer with his CAD skills... have you go computer apps skills?

PurpleBerry

HI Bitsie, in response to your original question I am finding the same thing. I also find the same jobs being advertised over and over. I have even recieved a few replies saying "Unfortunately we are no longer accepting applications for this position." It really makes me feel like responding with a polite-as-possible "Apologies for the confusion. I had assumed that a position advertised on this date would still be available. Perhaps you should not advertise positions if they have been filled. Thank you for your co-operation."

Of course I might as well say "Hi, don't ever recommed for any positions or work with me in the future. Tell all your friends."

T-Square

One of the biggest Irish jobs websites, changes the "last updated" field on a daily basis, regardless of whether or not a recruiter has touched it.

Unprofessional? very.