Author: Dan Carlick

Recently, a couple of ex-colleagues, and now indeed friends, were made redundant. It’s not the first time this has happened to someone I know and I’m certain it wont be the last. I found myself having the same conversation with them: “how do we make ourselves visible to recruiters?”, they would ask. 

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Seems simple enough, right? But, when I actually sat back and thought about it there was a realisation that even I needed to think about how to actually approach this. Flipping it on its head I thought to myself, “what type of profile attracts my attention?”.   

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With that being said, I have tried to create a whistle stop “Beyond the Paper” guide to getting your LinkedIn page the attention you want. 

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1 – Profile picture, name and location. These are the basics of your profile but they help to add a human element to the candidate. Nothing fancy is needed, just a simple picture of you!

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2 – A brief overview of yourself. This bit doesn’t have to be exhaustive, but it does give you an opportunity to explain what you do and some of your skills. This should help you appear in the right talent searches and help recruiters target your specific experience. 

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3- Update your career history. Make it current with up-to-date job titles, timelines and even responsibilities. The more information you provide, the better. Remember, key words really help. If you have been working in semiconductors, then state it. If you have been working in machine build, then state it. Niche industry candidates may want to think a touch broader in their descriptions, for example, equipment for manufacturing pillows should perhaps be original equipment manufacturer or machine builder.

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4 – Education. Internal and external education can be of huge value to future employers. Again, to remain visible it could make the difference between receiving a message or not.

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5 – Recommendations. As consumers we constantly look at product reviews from other consumers. It may sound really obvious, but potential employers will do the same thing on your LinkedIn profile. Ask your team, ex-colleagues and friends to write you professional references. Every little helps. 

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6 – Create visibility. If you want to be noticed by recruiters who are looking for the skills you have, then you can change your status on LinkedIn to “open to opportunities”. This is based on complex algorithms and ultimately stops anyone working for your current employer from seeing that you are open. However, it lets those outside of your business know that you could be open to a discussion. 

And there you have it, a quick guide to getting your LinkedIn profile noticed by more people. If you want more information or help in setting the profile up then feel free to contact me directly on [email protected] and I would be glad to help and advise. 

How many of you have gone into an interview feeling unprepared? We all do it, even recruiters go to interviews (as paradoxical as it seems). It is that familiar feeling, when you’re stood outside the office of your new potential employer and suddenly the harsh reality hits that Googling a list of common interview questions perhaps hasn’t prepared you as well as you’d hoped. With each job interview, you are meeting new people, selling yourself and your skills, and finding out what it is you know and don’t know. It is understandable why these scenarios can feel rather daunting. That said, there are ways to make a job interview feel much less stressful – a little bit of the right kind of preparation can go a long way! We’d like to share with you Delve’s top tips to make sure you ace your preparation and have a successful interview.

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So, how do you prepare for an interview? Here are some key things we believe will help you to feel as prepared as possible for your interview.

1.     It’s all about trying to anticipate the questions they’re going to ask you. This sounds like I’m stating the obvious here but we’ll go into this in more detail in a second.

2.     Work with your recruitment consultant to understand some of the softer points about the opportunity, not just the physical facts such as more about the company and role, but more about the people you’re meeting and the culture.

3.     Give examples, but make sure they’re as relevant as possible.

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So to achieve point one, you need to understand as much about the business and the role as possible. For example, find out exactly what the business does, what their products or services are, the size of the company, the industry or industries they work in, their customers and so on. For the role, you need to know what you’ll actually be doing on a day-to-day basis such as the software you might use, the people you’re speaking to, product line you’ll work on, where in the process you will work on a project. For example, if you’re going for a Project role, you should find out where you pick up the project and where you would pass it on and each individual step in between, the project value, whether you’ll use Microsoft Project, who you will deal with, etc. Once you’ve gathered this information, it’s up to you to simply think about your best example for each stage where you’ve had experience in that particular area. I would recommend doing this in a mind-map format.

Of course, you won’t have examples for each and every point (and if you do, you should get the job!) For the areas you are missing, make the effort and do the research to find out as much about these areas as possible. Say if you don’t have experience working in a specific industry, research as much as you can about that industry. Being honest and saying “I haven’t got experience in that area but having done some research into it I can say…” can really help as it shows your willingness and ability to learn.

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For point two, this is straightforward: make sure you challenge the the recruitment consultant representing you to have the information you need on exactly who you’re meeting, what they’re like as people, what they’re looking for and the culture of the business.

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And for point three, this may seem simplistic but it’s actually a key opportunity to illustrate what experience you have. Think of the interview discussion as your second CV! It’s also an excellent opportunity to break the ice.

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For more hints and tips on what to think about before an interview, feel free to contact a member of our team and we’ll be happy to help.

When you’ve dealt with a recruitment consultant, you’re likely to have been asked many different questions about yourself and your background. Has it ever dawned on you to think about what questions to ask your recruiter and how this can benefit your job seeking journey?

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We commonly overlook the importance of preparing questions for the recruiter. How is it that the correct questioning can help you in landing your perfect role? Remember, your recruiter has an existing relationship with your potential future employer and therefore will be able to share information on the role and company that will aid your preparation. Make sure to use your recruiter to gain as much inside knowledge as possible!

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Preparation is the key. In previous blogs we’ve spoken about not only understanding the hard facts such as what the business does and what is the role (usually in the form of a job specification), but also being able to understand the ‘softer’ points such as the paradigm and culture of the business, who you’re meeting and what are they like.

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Here a few quick and easy examples of questions you can ask your recruiter:

• Make sure you’re clear on who the meeting is with, what their role in the business is, and ask for a bit of background on them. Depending on how well the recruiter knows the client, you could also ask where they’ve come from and about their values.
• If you are looking to progress, what are the opportunities for progression?
• What is the size and structure of the team, and how has this grown in recent years? (This helps to give an indication of future opportunity).
• It is also essential to understand some of the challenges the company are facing. It doesn’t help you to only know the positives: every company has its own problems and to understand them will help with your preparation and set a clear expectation going forward if you are successful.

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These are just some of the things you need to think about. To discuss this in more detail feel free to get in touch with a member of our team.