Ready? Steady? Go!

Ready? Steady? Go! by Jo Gascoigne, CEO, Gascoigne Partners
Never before has it been so important for candidates to prepare themselves properly to find new career opportunities. The job market has always been competitive and with the current economic crisis that is upon us and with many companies trimming their workforce to the bone; it is more challenging than ever for professionals to find work or new opportunities.
In a bid to tighten their belts, in agencies and companies across the land cost cutting/saving measures are being taken. Outsourced work is being brought back in-house, temporary and contract workers are not having contracts renewed, a policy of last in/first out is being implemented to reduce costs. In other cases the rule of meritocracy is being applied with firms reviewing, assessing and ranking their employees in order of value to the organisation and starting to release people from the bottom of the ranking up.
Where previously there might have been abundant choice and a personal network of friends to tap into to find work, this network alone will now not suffice in the search for new opportunities. Candidates need to prepare themselves and develop a ‘career toolkit’ that they can dip into whenever necessary.  Once this toolkit is prepared and all the tools are sharpened, a methodical approach then needs to be applied to finding new opportunities.
So what should be included in the new career toolkit? Well, a combination of traditional tools such as a curriculum and letter of application, but also more modern tools such as a Self-Marketing Plan, a personal website and how about a Youtube video of yourself? When you consider that a letter of application may only be read for a maximum of 20 seconds (if at all!) and a curriculum will get 1-2 minutes of attention from a recruitment specialist or potential employer, it is essential that these be designed in a headline-grabbing way to entice the reader to read on. A badly designed curriculum may well screen a candidate out from a position that they were perfectly capable of doing!
It is so easy to apply for a position advertised on the internet with the left click of a mouse button that many good candidates are applying for positions that they are not right for. Is it any wonder that the system is becoming clogged up? This partly explains why only around 20% of open positions are advertised, because companies do not want the administrative nightmare of managing mass applications with only a few curriculums being relevant for what they are looking for. Imagine for a moment that you were only allowed to have 50 copies of your curriculum during your entire career! You would be more choosey about who you sent them to and when. You curriculum would, in effect, have more value.
Spread the word; ask for help. It is fundamental to tell people that you are looking and where you want to get to. Your personal network, including web 2.0 social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Xing will enable you to eek out the opportunities that are not advertised. A personal recommendation or introduction is an excellent way to get to speak with the right people. Our clients often tell us that rather than liking a specific recruitment company per se, find an excellent consultant that understands their business. You must find these consultants, whichever company they work for. Recruiters that have this kind of relationship with the types of companies that you would like to work for and then build a rapport with them. At Gascoigne Partners, we specialise in Marketing, Creative and Communications professionals, if that is not your niche, find a recruitment company that does specialise in your area. If it is your niche, they we believe that you should be talking with us!
See yourself as a unique brand.
The reactive search method (websites, newspapers etc) is valid when looking for a new position and you must keep your eyes and ears open at all times. However, when you consider that 80% of opportunities are not advertised and will not be found in this way, a proactive approach is more likely to get you the longer lasting results you are looking for. What is going to make someone choose you as the ‘washing powder’ of choice over all the others on the same shelf in the job supermarket? Branding! Seeing yourself and promoting yourself, as a brand, is fundamental to your success in securing a great opportunity for yourself. Perhaps you are a crossroads in your career and you really want to clarify what role and what type of company you want to work for.
As part of the Gascoigne Partners Client Care Programme we take a lot of time and effort to find out about our clients’ business and what type of candidates would be successful. Apart from the obvious necessary qualifications and experience, when we are looking for candidates for our clients, a cultural fit is the most important factor that we know will ensure a great and lasting match. So therefore it makes sense for you, the candidate, to look for that same cultural match and align your brand with it.
Only then, when you know what your unique brand is, can you ‘sell’ that brand to potential employers and recruiters.  And remember that the buyers will not come to find you, you need to indulge is some serious strategic product placement to get yourself noticed.  We often get asked when someone should approach potential employers and our advice is simple. When you are fully prepared and when you are happy. If you are felling down, you will not be in the best frame of mind to get the type of position that you deserve and when you are feeling down, you need to pick yourself up quickly. Being proactive is a sure way to achieve this.
When out of work, there is often a temptation to spend all your time looking for work. Whilst a sense of urgency is paramount, you will get diminishing returns and perhaps become dispirited by overdoing the search and receiving rejections. It is far more productive to spend the initial period preparing for the journey ahead. It is important to remember that the other roles and responsibilities you have must not go on hold. It is a good idea to divide and organise your time and remember that you are not only a job-seeker, but perhaps also a son/daughter, brother/sister, mother/father and friend. Take time out to exercise and read a book and meet with family and friends. You will be in a better frame of mind to get the right opportunity. If the Pareto principle is to be believed, you will get 80% of your results from 20% of your activity. So why sweat the small stuff and spend 80% of your time for only 20% of your job-hunting results?
Before you define your brand, you need to know what your target audience is. Look at the location, culture, size, financial viability and structure (horizontal or vertical) of the companies you want to work for. Find out who the person who has the power to hire you is. Show a genuine interest in their company and decide why it is that you want to work for them and why they would benefit as an organisation by having you on their workforce. Then call them, send them your curriculum and a personalised letter stating what you feel you could bring to them. Perhaps they are not hiring right now, but they might be in the very near future and you want them to call and chose you, not any other brand.
If you are a creative you will also possess a portfolio. Along with your letter of application and curriculum, the structure and composition of this will also be crucial to you getting in front of the right people.  It can be in either digital format, or printed. Our preference is for digital, shown on a laptop. In a pdf format, samples can be sent to clients and the portfolio can be updated easily. At Gascoigne Partners, our clients and we are acutely aware that it is unfair to judge someone’s ability when they are not there to explain the creative thinking behind their work. It is important to show not just finished work that was accepted by clients, but also development work and concepts that didn’t make it to market; particularly if you like the work and are happy to discuss why you think it was a valid solution to a brief.  Many candidates now have their own website where a curriculum and samples are held and can be downloaded. This can be used along with a professional profile on websites like LinkedIn, Xing and Coroflot.
So, we have already restricted to 50 the numbers of curriculum that you have available to in your life. Are going to make sure that they get into the hands of the right people at the right company, for the right opportunity? What will make you stand out from the crowd on a piece of paper? A well-structured, clear, concise curriculum is needed. We don’t need to know if you have been divorced 3 times and the address of the house where you live. We will probably use your age and a photo to make an ill-informed judgement about you just because you had a bad-hair day when the photo was taken. Keep it simple and only give personal information on a requested basis.
We have found that by far and away the most powerful way to convince someone to consider YOU as a good candidate is to give examples of your achievements. As part of the Gascoigne Partners Candidate Care programme, we ask open ended, behavioural-based questions to illicit achievements from our candidates. You need to state what value you added to that position and how. See yourself as a results-driven solutions provider. State a problem (or challenge) that needed to be solved, what action you took and the results that you obtained. Otherwise known as PAR’s (Problem, Action, Result). These have 6 core elements;
-It required extra effort
-You did it or helped do it
-You enjoyed doing it
-You did it well
-You are proud of it
-You did it successfully (measured)
Once you are able to see your working life as a series of great achievements rather than a list of responsibilities, people will want to know you. These PAR’s must run through your brand like DNA. Achievement will be mentioned in your letter of application, your curriculum and most importantly of all, in the interview. They may highlight your leadership, motivation, organisation, team building or other qualities. There must be a common theme that reassures the interviewer that your achievements point towards evidence of positive behaviour that they think you will repeat once you join their organisation.
Companies will naturally have concerns; they will worry about at least 5 things. Can you do the job? (Skill concern). Will you do the job? (Motivational concern). Will you get along with the others? (Team concern). Are you manageable? (Manageability concern). Can the company afford you? (Money concern). It is imperative therefore that you have covered these points with examples of achievement that reassures the interviewer that they need not be concerned about them.
If you tick all the right boxes in terms of experience, skills, education etc, the single most depressing factor that you will encounter in an interview is a lack of chemistry between you and the interviewer. It’s depressing because you can’t do anything about it. Perhaps it is still worth enduring the interview because the company and people behind the interviewer-barrier do have the chemistry that you are looking for. Rightly or wrongly people tend to make their minds up about you within the first 5 minutes! Around 90% of your communication impact will be a combination of how you look, your body language, tone of voice and confidence and energy that you exhibit. So prepare, start strong and be yourself.
Securing your next career step is not just a question of luck; although that can play its part. It is more a methodical, planned, structured process that allows you to take control of your career, rather than be bounced around like a Pinball. Get that preparation right and promote your brand and you stand a great chance of working for your chosen company.
Gascoigne Partners S.L are a Spanish recruitment company, specialising in Marketing, Creative and Communications professionals. Jo Gascoigne is the founder and CEO and has over 20 years experience, including 10 years in the Spanish market.