IT & Telecoms

I’d like to take a moment to talk job hunting, and to talk about salary expectations, the job hunting process, and thinking long term about your career path – specifically if you’re on the hunt for your first job. This post is inspired by a scenario that has occurred more than once with colleagues, friends, and family members. These generally tend to be people that have just finished school, or college, or their first “part time job”, but are seeking immediate employment as opposed to further education. I won’t spend any time judging that decision – after all, I made this same decision after my first year of 6th form, and I’ve worked at least one full time job since then. Maybe going to university is a better life choice, maybe it’s not, maybe it depends on the individual.   Setting the scene My wife and I have big families, lots of brothers and sisters. Two of these brothers have recently come to me with a request to help them with their CVs. They both wanted to have the best possible chances of securing an interview (that’s what job hunting is about, right? Having the best possible chances?), or at least having their CV read in full. Neither of them has significant work experience. They have some, but to bulk out their CVs, they both still have their Year 10 work experience listed. There’s nothing wrong with that, we’ve all started there at some point, but one of the things they didn’t understand at the time is that job hunting is a process that only works with effort – as if job hunting itself were a full time job. Which brings me nicely onto point number one…   Job Hunting is a numbers game… and it’s hard work! I advised them that job hunting is a numbers game. Yes, you need your CV to stand out and highlight your key skills and experience, but that CV needs to be seen by as many relevant hiring managers as possible. During my own job searches, I’d make hundreds of applications a day, and attend interviews 4 or 5 times a week. Though all the roles I applied for were relevant in some way, I made a point of applying for roles that weren’t exactly what I was looking for. At this point in my career, I knew that I wanted a cool job and a great salary, but I also knew point number two…   Experience is experience Whether your first job is a paper round, a retail role, a customer service role, a warehouse role, a corner shop assistant, a fast food chain, or voluntary work, you need to keep in mind that you can learn something from every scenario. I can almost guarantee that when you are interviewing for your dream job, you’ll be asked a question that starts with “tell me about a time when” or “here’s a scenario that you’ll face from time to time, how would you handle it”. I have, in the past, prepped people to answer these types of questions by digging into their work history and helping them to identify useful examples – but this is almost impossible if there is no work history to speak of. So remember, experience is experience – have your end goal in mind, but take one step at a time on your path to success. It may be hard sometimes, which brings me on to point number three…   Preparation is key Imagine you are a hiring manager – and if that’s not something you’ve ever experienced let me just lay out a few points you’ll need to bear in mind during this thought experiment. In a smaller business, your job title is not actually “Hiring Manager”, it’s likely something else and hiring people is just one of the tasks you need to complete to make the business work. You may also have HR tasks to complete, audits, accounts, sales, customer support, technical tasks, the list goes on. The point is, time is precious. In a larger business, the Hiring Manager may be tasked only with recruitment and perhaps some HR functions. However, it’s a larger company, which means more jobs to recruit for, and more applicants per role. Again, time is precious. The point I’m trying to make is that, rightly or wrongly, it is not the Hiring Manager’s responsibility to read your CV, forgive any spelling mistakes, and try to make sense of any long-winded (or under explained) points. The responsibility falls on you, the job seeker, to present the information to the Hiring Manager in a way that either makes them see you’re right for the role, or interests them enough to entice them to read on. Different recruitment professionals will give slightly different estimates for how long a Hiring Manager will spend considering a CV before deciding whether to continue reading or dismiss the CV. If they dismiss the CV, it likely won’t get another look in it’s current form, you’ll have to re-apply later with more experience listed. But, according to Glassdoor, you have 6 seconds to make the right impression. The only thing you can do here is to prepare! Here’s some ideas: Include a custom covering letter. Yes, it takes time, but as I said earlier, job hunting is hard work! When you’re writing your CV, don’t think about how wonderful you are, think about what you can bring to the table. For example, “I was Captain of the Girls School Football Team” is great, but “as Captain of the Girls School Football Team I coordinated the team during games, considering strengths and weaknesses of all players to facilitate teamwork and, ultimately, success” shows skills you have and can implement in a working environment. Research the company – if you can show you’ve put in effort at this stage, a Hiring Manager will see that as a skill even though it’s not been stated in so many words. Format your CV to make it clear, and readable. There are a tonne of examples covered in this article titled How to: Write a CV – if you’d like more information, check it out! So, you’ve written your CV, posted it to all the job boards, you’ve made applications which are relevant to your immediate goals and not just focused on that dream job. Now we need to talk about point number four….   Interviewing I won’t spend too much time here, because that’s not the purpose of this article. Plus, I’ve already covered off some points in this article entitled Candidates: Are you covering these questions in your interview? If you’d like a more rounded article on interview tips and tricks, make some noise in the comments, LinkedIn, Twitter, or message me directly, and I’ll get on it! I would like to quickly circle back to a comment I made earlier, about the number of interviews I attended per week. 4-5 is about average, sometimes more, sometimes less. I’d group them so I had one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so I wasn’t paying for travel every single day. It’s one of those things that every one assumes is fine, but when you’re job hunting (and therefore unemployed), don’t be ashamed or embarrassed by the lack of funds in the old piggy bank. Ultimately, that’s exactly the situation we’re trying to resolve, right? But it is important, particularly early on, that you attend interviews for roles that aren’t exactly what you’re looking for, to get the interview experience. You won’t get an offer from every company, but you will learn something about interviewing. It will be hard, but it’s worth it. As a side note, there is a line here – don’t waste an interviewers time – if you’re not going to get anything from the interview and they’re not going to get anything from the interview, it’s probably not worth the effort. Also, please, I implore you, to communicate with the interviewer or recruiter if you are unable (or unwilling) to attend an interview. If you "ghost" them, it’s rude, unprofessional, and you’ll build a reputation for yourself that you will struggle to “unbuild”. So, you’ve played the numbers game, you’ve interviewed a butt load, you’ve got a job offer and you start on Monday. Time for point number five…   Don’t fall at the first hurdle Your first day may be orientation, or training, or shadowing someone else doing your role. It may be a case of “here’s the coffee machine, go and ask everyone what they want”. It may not be glamourous, you might even not like it, but give it a chance. Remember, this is not your dream job, this is the path to get to your dream job. If your manager is a bit of a {insert chosen insult here}, remember that you are here to learn how to deal with that situation. When you interview for that dream job, and they ask you about a time when management was difficult to work with, you will have an answer! Learn how to deal with the situation, seek advice if need be, but stick it out! You’re learning! And if you’re working with customers, that’s even better. They can be rude and arrogant and have no appreciation for how hard your job actually is. But learning to deal with customers of varying personality traits is an important part of your professional development. Don’t give up straight away, every difficult scenario is an opportunity to learn more about yourself, and build your skill set. Your CV will look awesome, and your Interviews will be less like interrogations and more like conversations. Again, as a (very important) side note – There are some difficult situations which facilitate learning, and I would suggest you endure. I am aware that this article is targeted at inexperienced job seekers, and your safety is one million times more important than anything I’ve said so far, so remember this: abuse of any kind, bullying of any kind, discrimination of any kind, and unwanted advances or behaviour, are unacceptable. In the first instance, you should communicate with your HR department – it is their duty to ensure that each employee is treated fairly, equally, and has a safe working environment. Please don’t “stick it out” if the workplace is unsafe, or affecting your wellbeing continuously and without hope of resolution. Sometimes there are “bad days” and sometimes there are “bad jobs”. Seek advice if you’re not sure. And now for point number six, and the concept that inspired me to write this post in the first place…   Payday isn’t worth it… is it? So you’ve received your first payslip, congratulations! You’re excited! You tear open the envelope (or PDF, because 2020) You take a second to try to make sense of terms such as P.A.Y.E, Net, Gross. And then you see the section labelled “Deductions”. What’s this N.I? Is that how much Tax I really have to pay? What is an HMRC? There is a sales technique called “Reduce to the ridiculous” – this is when you take the cost of something, such as a sofa, and break down the cost across smaller segments of time so the overall cost is less intimidating. Unfortunately, we use this same trick to our own detriment when calculating our pay-per-hour from a salary. If you’re interested to know this, either visit listentotaxman.com or take your gross pay (after deductions) and divide by 12 months, then by 22 working days, then by 8 hours. The point here is, you may look at your pay and wonder if your time working for this particular employer was worth it. I would advise you to remember that, for your first job, the aim is to gain experience for future progression. Work hard, learn a lot, and use that to leverage a better salary in your next role. One step at a time!   A quick note on Covid19 It seems I can’t write a post or article these days without Covid popping in there in some way, shape or form. But this is quite important, if somewhat unfortunate. In a normal employment market, a first-time job seeker will have competition for any role they apply for. It’s difficult, but you need to have realistic expectations of your starting salary. Often, companies will opt to employ the person who brings the most value to a role, and if the pool of candidates is inexperienced, the salary will reflect that. Recently, I helped someone get their first job, and she was excited by the advertisement that offered £23,000 starting salary OTE (on target earnings) and disappointed when she didn’t make that much money. The salary on job descriptions is often presented in a way that gives the employer the best chance of hiring the best person, just as your CV presents you in a way that gives the best chance of finding a great job. If you have no experience to speak of, are inexperienced at interviewing, can’t provide recommendations due to a lack of referees, or if you’ve not done the preparation I mentioned earlier, I would suggest limiting your salary expectations to no less than what you can “afford to live off”, but not much more than that. I would advise this in a normal employment market, but I advise this even more intensively now. Redundancies, furlough, lockdown. These three elements mean there are qualified, experienced people going for the same roles as you. I’ve seen individuals qualified to MSc level working in McDonalds, and (non-medical) Doctors stacking shelves for Amazon. No exaggeration. And I applaud these people – these are tough times and there are doing what they must to put money in the bank and food on the table. These people demonstrate resilience and responsibility every day. These are the people you are competing with now, so it’s more important than ever that you don’t dismiss a role because you feel you’re worth more money. Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t, but that doesn’t change the market conditions.   It’s not all doom and gloom The industrial revolution changed the employment market globally. The dot net boom changed the way we run business communications globally. The eCommerce boom changed the way people shop, globally. The effect of change is in the eye of the observer – if you’re in the hospitality sector during Covid19, it’s likely your business will have suffered already, with more to come. If you’re in the telecoms business, emergency services, or online retail (such as Amazon), there are opportunities to make the most of the situation. As a job seeker, it’s tougher to find the types of jobs you may have looked for pre-Covid. However, keep in mind that lockdown has forced us all to learn how to work from home, a policy that many, many companies have adopted now. Remote work is no longer out of arms reach, even for first time job seekers. This means less money spent on travel, so that £18k basic is (other than Tax and NI) actually all yours. Online shopping has boomed, which means that warehouse roles are abundant. There are some great skills to be learned in a role like this! And if you can forgo a salary altogether, there are millions of people in need. The elderly, the young, animals. Try volunteering for a charity that helps people, it’ll look great on your CV, assist your mental health, and help you build skills for your next job seeking session.   Summary It’s tough out there, we’re in unprecedented times. Be resilient, persistence, realistic and diligent, and opportunities will present themselves to you. Don’t give up! And stay safe!    

Some of the articles and blogs I write have a lot of prep and research beforehand, and some are impulsive - I just type what I think and, if you're really lucky, I might do a quick spell check afterwards. This post, is an impulsive one, driven by a knock on the door from the postie. A parcel! Woopwoop. Not so long ago, my missus got a new phone, and she drove me mad! For me, any new gadget must be opened immediately. I need to touch it, feel the weight, feel the smooth surfaces, and fumble the little buttons and dials. 3 days I waited... for 3 days, her new phone sat in its box on the dining room table. Despite my pleas, she just had no enthusiasm, no drive. But if she doesn't know what's in the box, like the one that arrived today, suddenly she's intrigued... she brought me a Stanley blade to open it, and inspected the postage stamp and manufacturers sticker, trying to unravel the mystery that was the box. "What's this got to do with recruitment, business, or IDPP?" I hear you ask. Well...what's in the box is more than the sum of its parts, and that's important, because it leads me to a question that I've been asked a bunch, and now I have another answer to add to my previous answers... What are the teams at IDPP doing to weather months of isolation? Communication As a recruitment company, we spend a lot of time on the phone. Collectively, we can rack up thousands of hours. We are not so big on the KPI driven environment, but we understand that communication is key to success, so the numbers "just kinda happen"**. But we all know that, when it comes to sales, we are far more effective when face to face - something that just isn't possible right now. Another area in which face to face communication is king, is internally. As we are not in the office, we've relied on Teams to simulate the office environment, the support, the laughs, the general comradery. We get to see each other’s faces, and if nothing else we (read "I") can take some comfort in knowing that it's not just my hair that's overgrown like Seattle in The Last of Us Part II. Regular check-ins with Line Managers Again, this is something we are doing via teams, but the topics discussed in these conversations are usually person or function specific. We look at individual achievements, assess data, identify trends, and trial new ways to make our jobs more productive, more successful, or more enjoyable. And that's arguable the most important aspect - if we are not enjoying ourselves as we work, the strain on our mental health is unacceptable. Sure, there's evidence to suggest that under-motivated, unhappy employees produce inferior results, but that's not the point. The point is, we want our employees to be safe and happy. Period. And having these regular check ins allows us to support one another (it goes up the chain as well as down, managers are humans too!) and help each other through any tough times, work-related or otherwise. This is only possible if we have... Complete honesty regarding our struggles I've been very honest with my colleagues about the struggles that I have personally faced when working from home. I mention "these four walls" and "staring at excel documents" on a regular basis, because it can feel very lonely and isolated. I guess that's why it's called isolation... I've had days when I have absolutely ZERO motivation to work. Maybe I didn't sleep well, maybe I've burned out a little, maybe it's too hot, maybe I don't know the reason but I just can't find the energy to complete the tasks I had planned for the day. I console myself because I know that I regularly work through lunch (perhaps I shouldn't be doing that?) and work later into the evening than if I were office based and had to consider the commute home. When you weigh it up (and I have), there's defniitely more time spent at my desk working than I would normally do in the office. But these feelings and barriers are nothing to be ashamed of, and sometimes they don't even need to be "fixed" - sometimes just getting it off your chest, and having someone else say "actually, I feel a bit lonely also" is enough to make you feel less lonely. Tracking of progress, aiming for targets A key element of office life that I particularly miss is the healthy competition. Who has the higher talk time for the day? Who has the most interviews? Who has the best speculative candidate? It feels as though we are now less focus on competition within our teams, as we are competing against the version of ourselves that existed yesterday. I haven’t figured out why that is, if I'm being completely honest - but the nature of the game means that we are self-assessing, identifying potential opportunities for improvement, and then ACTIONING THEM! This, good people, is how we measure and facilitate progress! Excercise I've actually lost a little weight since being locked down - so I've been told (which is always lovely to hear). I haven't been trying to, but I have been exercising more. My fiancé and I bought bicycles, we make more of an effort to go for long walks, and we've even got pedometers - something I thought was a little silly before I actually used one. I'm now exercising more than I was when office based, and there are two things I've done to motivate me to continue this. Firstly, I've taken up filmmaking. Nothing wonderful, mostly just short compilations of home or family videos that will allow me to hone my video editing skills. If you have no objection to a little shameless self-promotion, check out the link at the bottom of these article to my YouTube channel. I mention the filming because it gives me a great excuse to get out the house and exercise, without realising I'm doing it, because I have another goal. This applies to my second recent motivational tool... Pokémon Go - yes, that's right! I've been relying on Pokémon Go to give me an excuse to go for a walk. Need to hatch those eggs, catch those Pokémon, and become the ultimate... healthy person. If I become a Pokémon Master along the way, so be it. But what's in the box? It's a fair question, and here's the answer. One of our amazing colleagues, Sarb Patel, has bought (and had shipped) boxes of the most mouth-watering, gooey, equal parts soft and crumbly, lick your lips brownies. Yes, this completely goes against my healthy points mentioned thus far, but to know that people like Sarb are thinking of you, and making the effort to not just check in but to put a smile on your face (which she has!), is a huge boost for the old morale. So, how are we handling isolation? The only way we know will work - Together!   **That's actually not true, the numbers don't "just kinda happen", they're a result of strong market knowledge, a strong work ethic, and a lot of hard work and effort on everyone's part. #teamappreciation