Welcome to viewpoint

Careers & workplace advice from Hays

In today’s job market, it will take much more than the right qualifications, skills and experience to land a top job in 2016. Here are 10 ways to aid your job search:

 

 

 

1. Disrupt your CV: We’ve all heard of digital disruption, so think about how you could ‘disrupt’ your CV and add a digital element to it. While a traditional CV remains the accepted way to show you have the necessary skills and experience for the role, you could add a link to a website, video or blog post that profiles digital examples of your work or demonstrates your expertise in a particular area. Adding such links at the end of your CV will help you stand out – provided they are relevant to the role you have applied for.

2. Align your online and offline CVs: Hiring managers will research you online, so make sure the CV you submit matches your online profile. Any discrepancies throw up a red flag. At the very least you’ll be asked some hard questions in the interview, and at worst your CV will be removed from consideration. 

3. Be open to freelancing: With employers looking for flexible headcounts and jobseekers looking to expand their industry experience and networks, freelancing is an option worth considering.

4. Target realistic jobs: Employers are becoming more impatient with candidates who apply for a role that they are not suitable for. In 2016 it is therefore important to be realistic in the roles you consider, and clearly demonstrate your suitability for a role based upon your experience.

5. Promote yourself: You need to go outside your comfort zone and promote yourself on social media to get ahead in 2016. A LinkedIn profile will not be enough if you are not active online – so like, post, share and comment on relevant content, ask for endorsements, be active in relevant groups and showcase examples of your work and achievements.

6. Study relevant qualifications: Keep up-to-date with industry developments. If you need to undertake training make sure it’s the right training. In every industry there are certain qualifications that employers value above others. So make sure you do your research and work towards the qualifications that employers actually value.

7. Be a change agent: In our increasingly technologically sophisticated world of work it’s inevitable that significant changes lie ahead. Employers are starting to look for candidates with an appetite for change, so in 2016 make sure you are known for driving innovation, integrating technology and learning best practice from others in order to make informed changes to the way business is done.

8. Size doesn’t matter: If you choose not to hide your LinkedIn connections, be aware that employers can make assumptions about you based on the quality of your online connections. For many employers, the value you can bring to their business is an important consideration in their hiring decision. Your connections should show potential employers that you are associated with people relevant to your field, which can be a powerful endorsement of your reach.

9. Learn to cope with rejection: Highly-skilled professionals are in high demand, but that doesn’t mean employers will leap at the first candidate they find. As well as the required technical skills you need to have the right industry background and cultural fit, which means it could take a few applications before you find the right role for you. Don’t take the rejection personally.

10. Stay on top of a recruiter’s talent list: There are a few simple ways to stay at the top of your recruiter’s talent list. These include keeping your recruiter informed by updating them if your circumstances change, following their advice, and keeping your word. So if you say you’re only interested in permanent work then decline an interview for a more lucrative contract role your credibility with your recruiter will take a hit. Similarly, trust your recruiter and don’t go over their head to contact an employer direct.

About to start your job search? Reading our job searching tips will help ensure it’s a success

 

Share this blog:

In my humble opinion 2016 will the year of “The Digital Diviners”. Why Diviners?  Because they need to be visionary, to see the future and anticipate change – or even, according to Merriam-Webster be “a person who uses special powers to predict future events”.

So who are the ‘Digital Diviners’?

1. Influencers: Influencing is a crucial skill for anyone with aspirations to lead an organization or to be part of it through a digital transformation. Being able to understand and relate to a business and what the opportunities are, seek out the problems that need to be solved, build an effective relationship with the tech (DevOps) delivery team and having broad enough shoulders to withstand failure – all the while taking the senior management with you on the journey.

2. Customer experience: A CX guru has the capability to transform an organisation’s relationship with its customers. Understanding what they want, how they would best like to interact, what their optimum journey would be and putting it into practice are the “must have” talents for 2016. There is a whole industry built around helping companies understand their customers’ journey. Organisations that are lucky enough to have this talent inhouse are at an advantage – as long as the right influencers (see above) are listening to them.

3. Data translators: By that I mean people with the skill to find you the right data and make it meaningful. The big data hype of the last few years has seen many of us buried in fabulous trends and graphs beyond our wildest dreams. But what I’m referring to is beyond analysis and even insights, the skills I am talking about enable businesses to understand and practically USE the output from the story that their data reveals to produce measurable results that improve profitability.

If you don’t have any (or not all) of these skills, I’d plump for either 1. or 3. as my first picks, depending on the environment you’re in. If there is already an appetite for change or even perhaps a fear of not moving fast enough, then finding the right Influencer is probably the right place to start. They may be someone from within your organization – if they have the interest and passion to drive improvement, the confidence to be self-sufficient, a deep understanding of the business and credibility with the key stakeholders, you are onto a winner. If that appetite isn’t there, then a great data translator could be just the ticket to showing those stakeholders that they DO need to act, what the ‘use cases” might be in the new world and the impact it could have on the company.

I strongly believe that doing nothing is not an option. “Why should we change, it’s always worked this way” was the attitude that many companies held to their detriment, I’m sure I don’t need to name them! Disrupt your own business before someone else does. As I said in a previous post, thinking about how you would do things if you were a start-up, without the constraints of politics and existing methods can be really useful to free the creative minds to think about how to deliver better results. Fundamentally, that’s what we are all striving for!

So there you have it – my top 3 hotspots for digital careers in 2016! What’s your pick?

If you enjoyed the above blog then you might also find some of my other blogs interesting:

Share this blog: