Welcome to viewpoint

Careers & workplace advice from Hays

Have you ever felt like your boss’s boss is somewhat of an enigma? After all, this person is more senior, and usually less visible than your boss, and as such it can be trickier to build a rapport with them. Yet your boss’s boss could be a valuable person to have on side throughout your career, if you get this relationship right.

As an experienced senior leader, your boss’s boss could teach you some valuable lessons about their own journey to career success. From a more practical perspective, they will also often have the final say on the decisions which could propel your career forward, from approving your attendance on a training course, to granting you more responsibility within your role or getting that well-deserved promotion.

Of course, when developing a relationship with your boss’ boss, there’s a fine line to tread, and you have to be tactful. After all, you don’t want to undermine your immediate boss and damage this important relationship. At the same time, if you want to progress your career within this organisation, you really need their boss to have a positive opinion of you and your abilities.

I believe the below advice serves as best practice for getting noticed by your boss’s boss.

Build a strong relationship with your current boss and team

Your current boss has a closer connection with their boss, and from time to time, the two of them will discuss your performance, a discussion which will rely heavily on your boss’s input. Therefore make sure the two of you have a good relationship, whereby you strive to meet their expectations and ask for constructive feedback on where you could improve in your role.

When considering your performance your boss will also factor in how much you collaborate with your team. If you work in isolation of everyone else, you will harm the productivity and dynamic of the team, and your boss is sure to notice. As such, you need to maintain an open and communicative relationship with your colleagues, helping them when needed and also asking for their insights and expertise.

On the whole, make sure your boss identifies you as being a conscientious, self-improving team player. Your boss’s opinion of you, and thus their boss’s opinion of you, won’t often be worlds apart, so it is important to get the former relationship right first and foremost.

Increase the dialogue with your boss’s boss

Understandably, you may be feeling slightly intimidated by your boss’s boss, especially if you haven’t spoken to them much in the past. Start off by looking out for openings to make small polite exchanges, such as a cursory “hello, how are you” as you pass in the corridor, or offering to make them a tea or coffee if you are both working late in the office.

As your confidence builds, share your ideas or questions with them at opportune moments, for instance if they are giving a departmental update and open the floor for questions at the end. The key here is to keep an eye out for chances to start building a professional rapport. Stay mindful of their seniority and be aware that any overly familiar exchanges may just harm your progress, for instance calling them a nickname that only other more senior colleagues call them. Use your common sense to judge where the boundaries are, and strike the right balance between friendly and professional.

Self-promote your expertise

Build your expert reputation within your organisation through some tactful self-promotion.

Talk to your current boss about the opportunities available for sharing your expertise, for instance; starting a blog, offering to speak at events, or presenting to their boss at company meetings and so forth. You can also build your reputation by offering internal training sessions or offering to train new starters. In doing so, you will be able to establish yourself as the “go-to” person for a certain area of expertise within your organisation, an accolade which should get fed back to your boss’s boss.

Think bigger picture

Whilst being known as an expert in a specific area is important when getting noticed by your boss’s boss, remember to think beyond the demands of your immediate role and towards the strategic direction of the team and business.

As Hays CEO Alistair Cox states in one of his blogs: “Thinking big means breaking out of silos”. Therefore, show an interest in other areas of the business, don’t be afraid to ask questions about the current objectives and challenges to the business as a whole, and be proactive in suggesting your own ideas. Your boss’s boss will notice somebody who understands that they are part of a wider business strategy, and can break out of the confines of their role to contribute to this strategy using their bigger picture thinking.

Getting noticed by your boss’s boss is, for the most part, about building your relationship with your current boss and team, whilst developing a reputation as an expert but also as a big picture thinker within your organisation. It is a delicate situation to navigate and it will take time, tact and patience. However, once you have this key person on side, then they, alongside your current boss, can support you as you progress your career within this organisation.

Want to progress in your career? Our career progression tips will help you get to where you want to be
Contracting is becoming more and more popular among professionals. To learn more about contracting and whether this could be a career path for you, listen to our podcast with Travis O’Rourke, Hays Canada President.

Podcast notes:

Could you please explain what contracting is and how it differs from temp work?

  • I look at all this new type of work, assignment based work, as being flexible work. Flexible work typically has two different kinds – contracting and temporary. Temporary might be for a day or a week or a month, and you might not know you’re going to have the assignment until the morning of the actual day.
  • Contracting tends to be much more deliberate, where you’re going to have a set start date and a set end date, typically over a defined length of time, and you’ll know it’s coming down the pipe.

In what industries or fields of work is contracting most common?

  • These days IT is easily the most common. Obviously it’s been big in construction for many years but IT, I would say,  is now comprising of 50 or 60 per cent of the contracting space. Within that you can break it a little bit further down into digital and marketing. These days the line between marketing and IT is bleeding together quite closely.
  • Education and finance are also quite common as well.

What are the main benefits of contracting over permanent work?

  • The freedom. In a contracting role you are more likely to be offered more remote accesses, more flexibility as to when you start and complete your work.
  • It allows you the flexibility to work when you’d like, and how you would like to do it. There’s also a lot of increased income potential opportunities, they’ll be paying more for your flexibility and your skill set, rather than for your management capabilities. It’s typically you on your own doing what you do best.
  • It allows you to take control of your career, you can select only the assignments that appeal for you. You can essentially play with your resume, and give yourself experience into new technologies or new environments and new industries that you wouldn’t have had if you stayed in the same job for 15 years.
  • It can give you a quick career boost, a lot of the time individuals will look at taking a sabbatical, to get exposed to something different. With contracting you’re there to show up, do the best work that you can and then leave once the job is complete. Of course, you want to get a reference afterwards, but it allows you to focus just on the task at hand.
  • Networking. Networking is the number one way that most individuals find a job, and when you work in contracting you are able to get exposure to more companies and people, and the amount of credibility that you’re going to be able to build up in your specialism is second to none compared to what you would get in a permanent role. In a permanent job for the most part you are surrounded by the same individuals every day.

What are the benefits to businesses when it comes to using contractors?

  • For me, the number one is bringing in new skills. Take IT for example, if you are installing a new piece of technology, let’s say you’re putting in SAP, chances are you don’t have employees who are familiar with SAP because when you hired them you didn’t have the system in place. So bringing in a contractor to ensure that your systems are up and running, and then to cross train all of your long term core staff is a major benefit to using contractors.
  • You can upskill your existing workforce. Contractors typically have exposure to many different environments, and they will be passing on what they have learnt from these experiences onto your full time staff.
  • The flexibility, both temporary and contract. A lot of times, whether it’s through economic upturns or economic downturns, employers can be a little bit shy to hire permanent staff. The reason being, you’re looking at a commitment to someone’s life, they likely would have left another role in order to take this one. If there is any potential instability coming down the pipe, you really don’t want to be in a position where you have to let this person go. So hiring a contractor and extending their contract can be a nice way to ease into that long-term decision.

What are the key things people should consider before going into contracting?

  • For all intents and purposes, contracting is running your own business. You’ll have to do your day-to-day work on top of regular admin tasks that you’ve probably never had to deal with in your permanent job.
  • Whatever path you take there’s a lot of administrative work that you’re going to have to be thinking about. Not setting this up properly will just add additional stress to your life.
  • Being organised upfront is critical, as contracting is supposed to give you the freedom to do other things.
  • You’ll need to make sure that you are an adaptable individual. You’ll need to be adaptable to how that business actually does work and how the culture of that business works, leaving the impact on the stakeholders that you did a good job will be key to getting a reference for your next role.
  • A lot of times you will be treated differently from a permanent employee and you need to be comfortable with this. You won’t always have the same benefits or vacation time as permanent employees and that can be tough to get over.

Thinking of becoming an IT contractor? Ask yourself these six questions before making the jump into IT contracting

How can a contractor ensure that they have a steady and consistent flow of work in the pipeline?

  • My best advice is to hire a recruiter. They will quietly shop your resume/CV to find your ideal industry and role while you are in your current role. So ideally,  your recruiter will have your next role linked up for you by the time you have finished your next assignment.

Read more: 3 tips for finding your next IT contracting project

What steps do you need to take to become a contractor?

  • First step, make sure that there is a market for your skills. Check what the market is offering from a financial standpoint in a contract versus a permanent role. If you are entering a ‘client’s market’, meaning there are many more candidates available than there are jobs, getting into contracting can be very tough.
  • Set up your own legal entity. This means that if you become successful and want to bring on a second employee or some administrative back up, your business has already been properly set up.

What’s the best piece of careers advice that you’ve ever been given?

  • When you enter an organisation, nobody will ever remember exactly what your accomplishments were, but they will all remember how you made them feel, and the impact you left on that organisation. So leaving that lasting impression on your colleagues that this person can be trusted, that this person was a pleasure to deal with and I would like to work with them again, is going to be critical for a contractor’s success in order to pick up that next assignment.

If contracting is a career path that you’re interested in, please be sure to check the procedures and laws in your local market first, as they may vary from country to country.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Have you recently finished your education and are now about to take your first step into the world of professional work? Creating your first CV as a school leaver may feel like a difficult task, but you are not alone.

CVs for graduates tend to follow the same template. Just because your experience is mainly academic, it doesn’t mean that you can’t create a winning CV. Use this template to help showcase your employability and find your next role after education.

A graduate CV template and a CV template for school leavers are structured in the same format:

  • Contact details
  • Personal profile
  • Key skills
  • Work history
  • Education
  • Hobbies/Interests
  • Additional Information

Once you’ve got this foundation, you can tweak and adapt your CV template to each role you apply for. It’s much easier to redraft than to start from scratch. But how do you begin writing a graduate CV?

Start your CV with contact information

The first step of writing your CV is to place the essential information at the top. This includes:

  • Your full name
  • Contact phone number
  • Location or address
  • A professional-sounding email address

If your email address is still [email protected], I would advise changing this ASAP!

Beneath this essential information, link to any online professional profile such as LinkedIn. Make sure your profiles are up to date first. And stay active on these channels, to demonstrate your interest in your field of work. Learn more about making the most of your LinkedIn profile.

Download your free CV guide from Hays

Include a Personal Profile that relates to the job description

A strong personal statement is particularly important for someone without much experience. Use this part of your CV to explain:

  • why you are applying for this role
  • why you are a suitable candidate.

This information may not be immediately clear if you have no experience within a certain area. Be specific about why you want to work in this industry.

A potential employer will already know why an experienced sales coordinator would apply for another sales role. However, a recruiter may need help understanding why a History graduate is applying for a job in sales.

For more inspiration, read our guide to explaining why you want the job.

Graduate CV example:

Use your personal statement to introduce yourself. Explain how your academic and employment history or skills and achievements relate to the role you are applying for.

“I am a History graduate with a keen interest in pursuing a sales career. During my degree, I was largely graded on my presentation skills, and this was an area in which I scored highly.

I also held a part-time role as a retail assistant. During this time, I enjoyed developing my interpersonal and customer service skills.

I would like to apply my communication and interpersonal skills to a more challenging sales role. I’m looking for a role with room to grow and develop as a professional.”

Highlight key skills prominently on your CV

Next, use bullet points to define a list of your skills. This part may seem tricky given your lack of professional experience. But consider what hidden skills you didn’t even know you had.

Shout about self-taught skills:

Have you taken it upon yourself to upskill in any way whilst you have been unemployed? If not, it’s never too late to start. Look for opportunities to set yourself apart from the competition.

Transferable skills:

You can learn transferable skills through work experience, part-time jobs or education.

For instance, a History degree may require you to write a lot of essays. As such you can demonstrate strong writing and communication skills. You may also have been required to present your essays to a lecturer. During this time, you will have developed valuable presentation skills.

Soft skills:

Your soft skills reflect your personality traits and often can’t be taught. Examples include being naturally well-organised and a problem solver.

Reflect upon which traits people have always praised you for. Think about positive feedback from teachers, friends or family. You can even take a free online aptitude test to discover more about your core strengths.

If you are struggling, don’t worry. It may be easier for you to think of these skills once you have completed the work history and education part of your CV. In which case, you can return to this section later.

Provide a detailed work history

Many first-time job seekers often struggle when they reach the work history section. If this area of your graduate CV is looking particularly bare, include everything you can think of. Even include previous roles that are not directly relevant work experience to the role you are applying for.

For instance, mention volunteer work or a part-time job you had whilst studying. Including these roles will demonstrate your work ethic, maturity and employability.

List your experience in reverse chronological order. Always start with your most recent role and include:

  • The company name
  • Your job title
  • Your employment dates.
  • A couple of lines detailing the main aspects of your role
  • Bullet points listing your responsibilities and which key skills you developed as a result.

You can also add any career highlights and achievements. If you can, link to online examples of your work and portfolio.

Avoid CV clichés

Avoid using too many CV clichés when talking about your work history. These clichés tend to be overused phrases which don’t really provide any evidence of the skills you claim to have.

For example: don’t state that you “provided great customer service” without giving any other information. Always offer examples to support each statement.

Instead, use action verbs to explain how you provided great customer service. Rather than saying “provided”, you could use the action verb “improved”. Action verbs sound much stronger on a CV and prompt you to provide evidence of your strengths. Read more on action verbs.

Lastly, do not, under any circumstances, lie about your experience. The transparency of your graduate CV reflects your integrity. Potential employers can easily uncover these lies during an interview or beforehand.

Provide a detailed summary of your education

Next, add your recent education starting with the last place you studied.

Make a list including:

  • The educational institution
  • The dates you studied there
  • The course title and qualification type
  • The grade you received

When writing a graduate CV, you can also use this space to go into more details about your achievements, such as:

  • which different projects you worked on at university
  • online examples of your work
  • the skills you developed as a result of these projects.

If your work history is very limited,  you should put the education section above the work history. This is a useful formatting tip that lets you lead with your most impressive examples.

Introduce your hobbies/interests

Do not underestimate the extracurricular section on a graduate’s or school leavers cv . This section provides potential employers an insight into your personality.

List your hobbies/interests with enthusiasm. And remember to include any extracurricular activities you were involved with during your time in education.

Don’t be afraid to go into more detail in this section. Talk about:

  • individual and team achievements
  • personal awards
  • the core strengths and skills you developed during this time.

For instance, you might mention how you played for your university women’s football team. If so, then celebrate how this team reached the semi-finals of the national university championships.

Read more in our guide to including hobbies in your CV.

How to conclude a CV for graduates

At the end of your CV, remember to add a final subheader titled “Additional Information”.

This section should include:

  • any other qualifications (e.g. First Aid training)
  • licences (such as a clean driving licence)
  • certificates which don’t clearly belong in any other sections of your CV

Lastly, put “References available upon request” at the very end of your CV.

Remember to proofread your CV

Finally, don’t forget to proofread your CV multiple times. You can also ask somebody with more professional experience than you to sense-check. As for specific feedback on your graduate CV: would they hire you?

So, you may not have much professional experience, but that’s really no reason to panic. You can still create an impressive graduate CV. Focus on optimising the skills you didn’t even know you had. And avoid embellishing the truth or providing irrelevant information.

Your graduate CV is your ticket to getting you on the path to job search success. So take the time to follow this template carefully. You will be invited to an interview in no time.

Updating your CV? Our CV writing tips and advice will help you get started