Homework Guru

CV's, Cover letters, interview techniques, and body language; everything you need to know to land your dream job after graduation! 

Guru Love <3

Interview Preparation...

It doesn't matter how much preparation I've done, I am always nervous before an interview. 

To minimise my nerves, I always ensure the following:

1. Dress smartly, it always helps me to feel more confident and professional and hopefully will for you too. 

2.  Prepare some examples that prove you hold certain skills...

Just researching the company in order to come across well in an interview situation is not enough, this structured approach tool helps to ensure that you show yourself in the best light. 

Before an interview, spend sometime thinking of examples, writing them down and talking through the answers so they can be delivered when asked in an interview with more conviction.

3. Always ask for feedback on the interview, especially if you were unsuccessful. Analysing the interview and your will help you to realise your strengths and weaknesses, and if you are being too hard/ not hard enough on yourself. Reflection is a vital tool in order to learn from experiences if you want to improve. 

4.  There are lots of different online tutorials that offer helpful interview techniques, like for instance monster.co.uk have their own Youtube channel that offers helpful hints and techniques to a good interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roZs-Eu4eZo

Do you have any more helpful preparations for an interview?

Guru Love <3

Got a spare 5 minutes for a little self discovery?

Ever wondered what career type you’d be suited to? Try this personality types questionnaire out... http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Ditch that 'one CV fits all view'...

It’s not enough (sadly for us) these days to just send out a generically made CV to all your potential employers, identifying the required and desired skills from your potential employer is essential when creating your CV to send them....Sounds scary, and how are you supposed to know if you’ve identified them correctly?

Well, hopefully this checklist will help in identifying the skills your ‘potential’ employer desires lovelies :)

The job description
The person specification
The job advert
The organisation’s website
Occupational research e.g. recruitment
Sector research e.g. HR

Although if in doubt, here is a list of some transferable skills that ALL employers seek...

Communication
Team work
Leadership
Initiative
Problem solving
Numeracy
Interpersonal
Self awareness
Flexibility and adaptability
Commitment and motivation

Providing evidence for your skills is ESSENTIAL

If you have a spare half an hour, have a look at this list and think of examples that prove you hold those skills. This will also help when it comes to an interview situation as you will already have that fabulous example of when you coordinated a team of people running that successful charity event waiting on the tip of your tongue when your asked to prove that your a key team player.

Make sure to give examples of when you have used these skills, they can be broad or specific to the industry. Go that step further....define the skill in a way that is relevant to the job.


Guru Love <3

Discrimination left right and centre....


Avoid putting your date of birth on your CV, I was recently advised to remove mine by a lecturer at the university who i'd shown my CV to. I (hope I'm not the only one) thought you had to put your DOB on your CV but oh how wrong I was.  'Discrimination occurs when someone is treated less favourably than another person because of their protective characteristic' (The Long Partnership, 2010) Women have a big enough struggle with gender discrimination, we don’t need to be discriminated on because of our age too. The Equality Act 2010 (Government, 2010) was established to help try to prevent discrimination based on such things as gender and age although sometimes its hard to prove, especially in the selection phase of recruitment when an organisation is trying to sift through thousands of CV's.

The boring bit...References 

Thelongpartnership.co.uk (2010) Age Discrimination. [online] Available at: http://www.thelongpartnership.co.uk/helpsheets/index/6_9age.htm [Accessed: 23 Mar 2013].

Legislation.gov.uk (2010) Equality Act 2010. [online] Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents [Accessed: 23 Mar 2013].


Humanmetrics.com (1998) Personality test based on C. Jung and I. Briggs Myers type theory. [online] Available at: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp [Accessed: 22 Mar 2013].