Being made redundant can create a mixture of feelings. First of all there’s the shock. In fact after the shock there will be a raft of emotions from denial, anger, depression and bargaining before reaching acceptance of your situation.  During this time you could be encouraged to share your emotions with your family, friends and colleagues.

One of your priorities during this time is to take stock – take stock of your finances and to take stock of yourself.

Being made redundant can be an opportunity.

Take this time to focus on what you really want to do next.  Is getting a job doing what you have always done what you really want to do? Or, could you do something similar that you might enjoy more?

Transferable skills for the redundant

Identifying your abilities, skills and attributes along with your career interests will help you decide on whether to remain in the same type of role or whether it is indeed transferable and you could find your dream role in something completely different.

Self-report questionnaires, inventories and worksheets are great simple and easy tools to help you identify your strengths and characteristics. These exercises, once collated, can give a redundant person back their self-esteem  to ensure that they are well prepared for the road ahead, and that their inner resources are well documented.

Once made redundant, you can use your days effectively by building a powerful CV, setting a strategy for your job search and focusing clearly on where you want your next job to be.

If you would like sample worksheets, personal inventories and self-report questionnaires send us an email.

Lynn Tulip is a career management and HR professional running her own HR consultancy.  Find her on online or follow her @LynnTulip @A4P_HR

Your CV / Resume needs to include Keywords that are relevant to the role you want and the experience you have.

CV / Resume Keywords are essential for job hunters

Uploading your CV / Resume so recruiters can find you is one of the key actions for job hunters, but making sure it is found  by recruiters is another important tactic.

For job seekers, the “Keywords” that matter are the words and phrases a recruiter uses while searching, like the words you type into Google when you are searching for something.

So what Keywords should you be using?

A simple question, however the answer has to be “use Keywords that apply to you and your experience”

Some top tips for getting the right Keywords on your CV / Resume:

• Use nouns with their descriptive adjectives – don’t sidestep or omit the action words and power language however you now need to focus on the job title and roles that the recruiter will be searching on.
• Pick up job descriptions of job roles that you want and identify the Keywords of  nouns and noun phrases that are relevant and make sure that you are able to include them in your own CV / Resume
• Brainstorm Keywords for your CV / Resume by developing a long list of possible Keywords.

Ideas for Keywords  include:

1. your next job title, standard job titles and non-standard job titles
2. names of job specific, industry specific and profession specific tools that you can use because of your education and experience
3. software & hardware resources and unique techniques that you are qualified to use
4. use professional and technical acronyms
5. include your qualifications, education establishments and certifications
6. name drop about conferences and publications where you have demonstrated your expertise

Of course, you are keen to find new or alternative employment and you are gathering as much information as you can about yourself, where you want to work, what you want to do and what skills and expertise you have.

You will double your success rate for interviews if you have a targetted job application

It might be that you have rewritten your CV/resume or completed a job application form but if you have not MATCHED the CV/resume or job application form to the vacant role you are applying for, you have set yourself up for failure.

Every job application needs to be unique

How do you match the job application you ask?  There are always clues:

1. The company’s published material – their values, their products or services and their markets
2. The advert – what does it actually ask for in the advert?
3. Research the role, the website and the area and check your alignment with them ALL

So, a few suggestions for first-timers:

• Give potential employers some credit – the document you present to them is your CV/resumé– you do not need to headline it with ‘curriculum vitae’
• Use your white space and set the information out clearly. Be consistent, list dates on the right hand side of the page.
• Use a contemporary font [verdana for example] and make good use of bold, underlining and capitals.
• Make the document look professional, check for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and ensure that there are NONE.
• Do not make up anything – it is essential to tell the truth.
• Position yourself in the first couple of sentences under your contact details. Write a short profile. Look on the internet for examples or ask us for help. Make yourself special.
• Extract your skills. Employers want to see what you have to offer. Your education is important but essentially, they want to employ people with good social skills, customer service awareness and even financial abilities. Think of examples when you have proven that you have these qualities and highlight them in a section.
• Include voluntary work or experience, social activities or sports that demonstrate leaderships and team work.
• Use bullet points to bring these to the attention of the reader.
• Avoid using a table format for the CV/resumé, it makes it harder to upload to the internet should you want to submit the document to job sites.

ASSESSMENT4POTENTIAL, specialise in working with students and supporting them into work.

Related post:

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION – Being able to think through in advance what you want to say; having report writing skills; showing you can gather, analyse and arrange date in a logical sequence; avoid jargon and adopt your writing style for appropriate and different audiences and be able to briefly summarise your written content.

NEGOTIATING AND PERSUADING – Demonstrating you can develop a line of argument, using tact and diplomacy and handle objections to your discussion; make concessions to reach agreement and show that you can challenge points of views expressed by others; be able to emphasise the positive aspects of your point of view and understand the needs of the people you are dealing with.

VERBAL COMMUNICATION – Making effective use of speech, conduct, dress and body language; the ability to present to an audience [using visual aids, building rapport, getting your message across, etc]; accurately hearing what people say to you and being able to clarify and summarise what they are communicating without interrupting; being able to help others define their issues and having excellent telephone skills.

CO-OPERATING (TEAMWORK) – Understanding your strengths and weaknesses and how they contribute to a team; being able to contribute ideas effectively in a group and taking a share of the responsibility in a group; accepting and learning from constructive criticism and giving positive, constructive feedback to others; being assertive rather than passive or aggressive and concentrating on behaviour that could be improved.

INVESTIGATING AND ANALYSING – Being able to clarify the nature of a problem before deciding what action to take; being able to collect, collate, classify and summarise data and formulate questions; showing that you can gather information systematically and find where the required information is available; be able to use results effectively using text/graphs/tables/pictures; have impressive decision making skills; be able to formulate questions and condense information to produce notes.
LEADERSHIP – Being able to set objectives; organise and motivate others; take the initiative and persevere when things are not working out; being able to take a positive attitude to both frustration and failure; being flexible and prepared to adapt goals in the light of different situations; demonstrating you can accept responsibility for mistakes and wrong decisions.

PLANNING AND ORGANISING – Demonstrating that you can manage your time effectively and use action planning skills to prioritise tasks effectively; being able to set achievable and measurable objectives and identify steps needed to achieve goals; being able to use lists ad complete work to a deadline; having effective time management skills and be able to work effectively under pressure whilst managing stress.

NUMERACY – Being able to use simple statistics; calculate percentages; multiply and divide accurately; read and interpret graphs and tables; use a calculator and being able to manage a limited budget.

Ki work currently has a network of over 50 career coaches throughout the UK and are contracted to the DWP providing job search support for professionals.

The career transition programme’s main target group is professionals that

- have been unemployed for 3 – 6 months or over;

- were earning over £40k per annum;

- could be looking for an alternative to full time or contract employment; and

- can afford the fees of £595 plus VAT.

The programme is for 12 weeks and includes

- 6 hours of one-to-one coaching

- 6 meetings with a group of five plus coach

- each meeting for 90 minutes once a fortnight

- a total of 15 hours of support

- web-based collaboration, marketing and research tools.

What might be of interest is that prior to the full launch, we are planning to run one or more programmes for FREE.

Would you be interested in participating in this first stage development?  Contact us now for more information

There are many experts out there, including ASSESSMENT4POTENTIAL, that offeradvice and guidance to help you design that perfect document.  Sending your CV electronically nowadays means that you might only have a maximum of 90 seconds to make an impact; and simple tips can make all the difference.

Top CV Secrets

Remembering to number and label each page of your CV might sound like common sense but it’s surprising how many candidates forget a simple thing like that.  Sending your CV by email means the CV is an attachment so ensure it is saved with an appropriate file name.  And, it might seem obvious but make sure that your e-mail has a unique subject title.

Some quick tips:

1. Don’t include a photograph unless requested
2. Spell check, grammar check and print on high quality paper
3. Avoid adding in too many personal details, interests and hobbies
4. ADD key words relevant to your job role and job search
5. Avoid gaps in your work history
6. Make sure your CV is uptodate
7. Write positive but brief letters or emails to accompany your CV
8. Tailor your CV for different job applications
9. Focus on your Knowledge, Skills and Achievements
10. Be truthful at all times.

Remember that your CV does not get you a job, it should however be getting you the interview for the job and the opportunity to demonstrate to potential employers your expertise and how you can work with them.

For an easy and fun way to get a fantastic job winning CV try Top CV Secrets.

Good luck

• people who listen
• people who answer questions with examples
• people who come prepared
• people who appear confident

Also remember during discussions (and in your letters) employers look again at people who can:

• Cut costs
• Get it done more quickly
• Avoid potential problems
• Improve appearance
• Organise it
• Increase sales/profits/turnover
• Use old things in a new way
• Provide more information
• Cut down time
• Reduce the risks
• Meet deadlines easily
• Cut staff costs
• Develop staff performance
• Turn round a bad situation
• Introduce new systems
• Improve teamwork and relationships

1) Ensure a robust job description/person specification is in place; you can’t recruit without this basic document.

2) Develop a job advert and best place to advertise – on the net, local paper, specialist journal – the role and the target market decides this

3) Develop a structured interview process – decide who is on panel, what will you say about the company and job, questions, ability test (or even an assessment day if it’s a senior manager or graduate position)

4) Short-list using a grid to avoid discrimination, invite chosen candidates to interview

5) Chose the best candidate on the day and provide a structured induction.

What do I mean by TOPICAL?

• T – Targeted at the specific vacancy, role or sector you are applying for
• O - Ordered and set out in a clear way
• P – Positive; demonstrate your achievements, your skills and your confidence
• I - Informative; gives relevant and reasonable detail
• C – Concise – usually no need for more than 2 A4 pages
• A – Accurate in content, spelling and grammar
• L - Logical; relates to what you want to do and what you are applying for.

The Framework

There are no hard and fast rules however an ideal and simple format to follow is:

Contact Details
Personal Statement  (optional)
Skills (optional)
Employment History
Education and Training
Interests and Hobbies (optional)
Additional Information (optional)

1. Contact Details - these MUST be clear and complete.  Remember to include your full name, postal address, at least one phone number and an e-mail address.  [It's worth setting up an e-mail account to ensure that your address is suitable for potential employers to contact you - hotlips69@mailservice.com is not appropriate!]
2. Personal Statement – A maximum of three sentences summing up who you are, what you can do and what you are looking for
3. Skills section – this gives you the opportunity of summarising transferable, sector specific and perhaps alternative or voluntary skills.  You might want to add an Achievement section here to summarise your accomplishments.
4. Employment History - list your most recent job role and employer first.  Ensure that the dates are included and relevant information about what you can do/what you did do are listed.  Quantify the statements.  Potential employers want to know what you can do for them.
5. Education and Training – list in reverse chronological order all relevant training, qualifications and if appropriate; school exam results.
6. Interests & Hobbies – depending on the role you are applying for depends on how much you want to include.  Risk averse employers do not want to read that potential employees spend their recreational time participating in high risk activities.  However intellectual, cultural activities are usually acceptable to mention – but be prepared to answer questions on them.
7. Additional information – you may wish to include details of your right to work, ability to drive and anything else that might support your application favourably.  You are not obliged to include your date of birth or your marital status.

Your CV is a sales pitch that tells a potential employer that your skills match their job criteria. It only has one purpose – to get you an interview. It has to be clear, concise, look good and sell your achievements.  A trained eye will take around 20 seconds to scan your CV. You must make an immediate impact because a potential employer may not get past the first half page.

Reduce your whole life down to just 2 pages, and make it 100% better!

If you would like more information, please contact Lynn