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

It’s 2010 – a sigh of relief that we’ve got here.

2009 has been a challenging year for many of us, and despite the recession, lawmakers continue to update and later legislation which affects businesses employing people.

Why not try our quiz and check you’re fully up-to-date?

Questions

In memoriam

1.  What statutory rules affecting employment rights died in April 2009?

Births

2.  What new arrival joined the employment law world in April, the latest in a long and distinguished line?

3.  What new rules affecting those working with children and vulnerable adults came into force on 12^th October – but without their central database?

Honours

4.  Which bearded businessman was elevated to the House of Lords this year – and hired as enterprise car?

Paying the price

5.  Who hired an illegal housekeeper – and paid the penalty?

Moving on up

6.  What amount did a week’s pay for redundancy purposes increase to in October?

7.  What can employers in the restaurant and other service sectors no longer use towards paying the National Minimum Wage?

8.  What, since April, is 28 days or 5.6 weeks?

9.  Who, apart from parents of children under 5, disabled children under 18, and carers of people over 18, can since 6^th April request flexible working arrangements?

Nearly gone

10.  Can employers still lawfully require staff to retire at age 65?

Answers

1.  The Statutory Dispute Resolution procedures were abolished from 6^th April.

For more information, see NatWest’s news story: New rules on discipline and grievance handling now in force (April 2009)

2.  The new ACAS Code of Practice on discipline and grievance handling in the workplace came into force from 6^th April.

3.  The Vetting and Barring Scheme came into force on 12^th October.

4.  Lord (formerly Sir Alan) Sugar was hired by the Government as an “enterprise champion” and was given a seat in the House of Lords in June.  Read more: You’re Hired – Alan Sugar to advise government on business issues (June 2009)

5.  Baroness Scotland – the Attorney General – fell foul of the Home Office’s Civil Penalty Scheme for failing to check the immigration status of a person she hired as a housekeeper.  For more information: Attorney General fined for hiring illegal worker (Oct 2009)

6.  Statutory Redundancy Pay increased to £380 per week in October.  Check details: Redundancy Payments to increase (May 2009)

7.  Since 1^st October, employers can no longer use tips received by staff towards paying them the National Minimum Wage.  Read more: Tips will no longer count towards the National Minimum Wage (May 2009)

8.  Statutory minimum annual holiday entitlement increased to 28 days or 5.6 weeks from April 2009.  More info:  Annual Holiday Entitlement

9.  From April, parents of all children aged under 17 have the right to request flexible working arrangements from their employer.  Further info: The right to request flexible working

10.  Following a recent ruling in the Supreme Court, employers can continue to require employees to retire at age 65, provided they follow the correct procedure.  However, the ruling makes clear that changes to this rule may need to be made.  Read on: Retirement at 65 legal – for now (Oct 2009)

How did you score?

8-10 Well done!  You’ve pretty much kept up to date in a difficult year.  But make sure you look up the answers for the questions that floored you.

5-7 Not bad.  It’s understandable if some changes passed you by in this busy year.  But it is worth doing some homework on getting to grips with the changes you’ve missed.

Under 5 You’ve clearly been very busy “minding the shop” – but you have let some important developments in employment law pass you by.  You may be taking risks by not bringing yourself up to date.  Many of the changes this year are new minimum rights for staff, or things that mean you risk a financial penalty if you don’t comply with them.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Unpaid interns earn their rights (guardian.co.uk)
• HRTrain’s Top Ten Workplace Trends of the Decade (prweb.com)

We’ve done the shifting now it’s onto switching.  What will it be next?

Many of the city professionals are changing direction and using their transferable skills to find alternative employment.  Jack Grimston writes in the Sunday Times that “Bankers, Lawyers and other professionals flooding into schools may soon outnumber new graduates”.  So taking a reduced wage and an alternative lifestyle they are getting themselves back to work.

What will this mean for the schools?  A fresh approach in the class-room or a dull uninspired outlook?  How long before they want to return to their original chosen career?

Whilst reading the Sunday Times, I also picked up on the article on women entrepreneurs. That was a good read

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lipstick Entrepreneurs in The Sunday Times (thenextwomen.com)

The CIPD’s seasonal employment law quiz made me think!  How many employers fail when it comes to compliance and understanding their obligations?  I bet it’s a bigger number than you think.

Related articles by Zemanta

• HRTrain’s Top Ten Workplace Trends of the Decade (prweb.com)
• Your 21st century career will NOT be as an employee (flowingmotion.wordpress.com)

There’s a whole lot of expressions being used now to make sense of changing jobs, being out of work and looking for new opportunities.  Career management has never been more important as now in these recessional and challenging times.

If you find yourself in the situation of career transition then who do you turn to?  Can Job Centre Plus give you the answers and help you need?  Not necessarily.

Sometimes you might just need an independent unbiased person to talk to. Talking can lead to personal discovery; like understanding what your preferences are and where and with whom you want to work.  It’s not only your skills, knowledge and experience that need to be considered when you are searching for work.   Think about what you are interested in, the environment you want to work in, the values and motivations that are important to you too.  All are important if you want to enjoy and be fulfilled at work.

A professional career consultant has resources, expertise and knowledge that can help you get back on track and make sure that whatever gear you are in,  the career change is as smooth as possible.

The trouble is that within most businesses, the targeting and recruitment of the highest achieving individuals is a costly process. Hiring the right person can become a drain on your organisation’s resources and, even then, you can end up with the wrong individual in the post.

Some people wrongly believe that the successful recruitment of employees is not a process that can be effectively outsourced and that doing so is selling your soul.

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• Receive training in how to become a recruitment expert, which means you and your HR staff will gain important experience and knowledge.

• Enhance your organisation’s image with a slick and professional recruitment procedure, which means that top-class candidates will want to work for you.

• Enjoy the best ongoing support throughout the process and after the successful candidate has been employed.

Save time, money and possibly your sanity by outsourcing your recruitment requirements to Assessment4Potential. Our team of HR professionals, Occupational Psychologists and Recruitment Specialists are the Number 1 choice for successfully outsourcing the recruitment of top employment candidates.

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