Guide to Employment

The purpose of this guide is to provide some general information about the employment process. The idea is for you to pick out the information that is relevant. I suppose I should tell you a little bit about myself to help you better understand my first-hand experience in job hunting. I graduated in 2011 with a BSc in Mathematics – First Class. I had intended to do an MSc in Astrophysics and Cosmology but that did not work out for me. So since around October 2011 to July 2012 I had been looking for work. That is a fair amount of time to be unemployed for and during that time I believe I have learnt a few bits and pieces to help augment your chances of getting successfully employed. I am going to go through the whole employment process, which runs from creating your CV, to applying for jobs and finally proceeding through the whole application process which upon successful completion, gets you employed.

CV and Cover Letter

Before you can start hunting for a job, you need to have a CV / resume. A CV is basically a tool which you use to sell yourself to an employer. It's usually one or two pages long and it lists your personal contact details, your education and work experience to date as well as your skills and competencies. You can also add hobbies and interests to a CV as many employers are interested in what potential candidates do in their free time. It is of absolute vital importance to have an effective CV which highlights your main capabilities to recruiters because your CV is essentially the first impression you give to recruiters and it needs to be a good, lasting one. It is not unreasonable to say that there are hundreds of people applying for the same jobs and the truth is that recruiters just do not have the time to completely read through every single CV that they receive. Often they will screen the first few sections of your CV and make a quick decision as to whether to bin the application or to place it in a pile of CVs to follow up on at a later date. I went and spoke with a careers advisor and he gave me some advice on how to improve my CV which I want to share with you. Admittedly I landed a job before I could put his ideas to the test but what he showed me made a lot of sense and whenever I next get round to updating my CV I will definitely adopt the following approach.

A cover letter can be used to accompany your CV and it is used to go into greater detail on some of the main aspects of your CV that relate to the job you are applying for. So while generally speaking your CV should remain pretty consistent while applying for jobs, your cover letter should be adapted to best illustrate your main selling points specifically for the job you are applying for. I'll be honest though I barely ever varied my cover letter. I used a rather generic one but it covered some key competencies that lots of employers look for anyway so it wasn't so necessary for me to modify it too much. I am going to jump the gun a little here. Most if not all job applications have a list of competencies that they are looking for in candidates and it is the purpose of the cover letter to go into detail how you fulfil each of those criteria. For example one of the criteria could be something like "needs to be able to think logically". On your CV you may have a bullet point or something concise which claims that you can think logically. The cover letter should then have a detailed example to prove your logical thinking to the employer – usually from your academics or from previous work experience though any other activities that you can use to prove yourself should not be overlooked either. A cover letter should include your contact details, just as your CV does. It's important to not only let the employer know why they would want to hire you but to also specify why you are applying for the job and what your own goals are. I'll provide the main body of my cover letter as an example of what the main body of text could be like but there are plenty of examples on the internet which you can use too.


Applying for jobs

OK so you have a powerful CV ready to be sent off to a whole bunch of job vacancies. Before you do so though, consider what could be the most effective approach in applying for a job. In the United Kingdom around 15%* of people become successfully employed by applying for jobs through newspaper articles, job sites on the internet, local job centres and another 15% through employment agencies. So then, what about the other 70% of the working population?

Networking. Indeed, the majority of people land jobs through information obtained by other people, by word of mouth so to speak. Not all jobs are publically advertised, there is a hidden job market too. For example a new position may open up in a company but before that company puts out a public job advert they may ask some of their current employees whether they have a recommendation for someone who could fulfil the job role. So how can you get yourself involved with networking? By interacting with many people through whatever means necessary. Stuff like Facebook and Twitter can help but I would strongly recommend you to get a LinkedIn account as this is a professional networking website and recruiters do search for candidates through LinkedIn. I have had a few job opportunities pop up from recruiters who found me on LinkedIn so I can vouch for its viability. Make an account and then start adding people you know - Friends, family, colleagues, and teachers etc. The bigger your network is, the greater the potential in receiving opportunities for employment. Remember in the world of job seeking, the majority of the time it is better to keep doors open rather than closed. So build on and maintain your network. If you haven't spoken to someone on your network for a while, strike up a conversation with them to open up that door rather than doing nothing and keeping it closed. At the end of the day it really is just a numbers game.

Now I'm not saying to just rely on any one method to land a job. Ideally you would be using every means available to you to get employed. My point is that from a statistical point of view you should focus most of your effort and time trying to find opportunities through other people. My personal recommendation is to mainly search for jobs through recruitment agencies and networking.

Application process

Nowadays application processes can be quite long and tedious. That's just the way things are and most people just have to deal with it. The basic structure of employment procedures is as follows.

1) Application form.

Once you find an opportunity ensure that when you fill out the application form you target every single competency that the employer lists on the job advert. Those criteria are basically a checklist that recruiters will tick off as they read through your CV and/or cover letter and you really should cover all of them before submitting your application. Be aware that the majority of employers will only contact successful applicants so if you apply for a job and haven't heard back after around a week, you should assume that you were unsuccessful for that position.

An employer will then get a whole bunch of applications and they have to do an initial sorting to choose candidates to follow up on. This is done by screening all of the applications against each other and comparing which ones stand out the most, usually by screening for key competencies the role requires and such.

2) Telephone interview / Online testing

I have found that companies usually do one or the other, but some do both. Employers use telephone interviews because it is cheaper and easier for them to do so. They are usually quicker too. It can cost a fair bit of money for an employer to undertake a formal interview with applicants especially if there are a lot of potential candidates to choose between, so a telephone interview is a preliminary interview used as a secondary sorting to gather candidates that the employer would like to interview face to face. You should use the fact that it is a telephone interview to your advantage though. Unlike a face to face interview, you can have notes to hand to utilize during the telephone interview and you also have the advantage of choosing where to take the interview too - preferably in a nice quiet room.

Some employers utilize something called psychometric testing which in a nutshell is used to measure the potential of candidates. These tests come in different forms but the main two are Numerical Reasoning tests and Verbal Reasoning tests. A third common test is known as a Logical Reasoning test. If an employer asks you to take one of these, be sure to familiarize yourself with what you are up against - there is plenty of material on the internet too so researching is easy. I'll be honest and say that the Numerical Reasoning tests are the toughest of the bunch and I was not good at them at first. You're probably thinking how could this be the case since I am a Mathematician and all but strictly speaking this is not a maths test. It tests your ability to manipulate figures and extract relevant information from tables, charts and graphs and the time limit is pretty strict. The actual mathematics used is very basic - standard operators (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), fractions, decimals, percentages and ratios. That being said, there are a few formulae that I found useful.

% change = |[(Value after change / Value before change)-1]*100|

The beauty of this is that it can be done in one shot on the calculator which saves precious seconds.

% of x expressed as y = (x/y)*100

Present value / decimal size in relation to original value = original value

Ratio conversion of x: Divide by x then multiply by y

Increase x by %: x*1.%

Dividing a partial quantity by its relative % gives the total quantity

Reverse %: (100/%)*x

Don't worry if this is over your head at the moment. Unless you're applying for a graduate level role or a management role of some sort, it's unlikely you'll have to take a test like this. Those formulae above will make a lot more sense if you start practicing through a few tests. You can find plenty of content on the internet like I said but I will recommend the Graduate Wings website and SHL as a good place to start to familiarize yourself with psychometric testing. Some employers like to give out a personality test as well and I suggest you try and answer them as honestly as possible rather than picking answers you think the employer wants to see. Usually there's no right or wrong answers here and the employer just wants to try and understand potential applicants better. Some employers might be able to determine whether you have answered these tests truthfully by observing your general behaviour in an interview. The key to doing well in these tests really is practice. I started out being poor at numerical reasoning tests but after a few weeks of practice, my mental arithmetic had picked up considerably and that helped me get employed as I ended up scoring in the top percentile in the general intelligence assessment test I ended up taking for the place I now work at.

3) Interview / Assessment Centre.

The final stage of the application process is usually either an interview or an assessment centre which includes an interview anyway. In both cases, you will be given a briefing of the structure that will take place for the final selection process. Be sure to study this carefully and ensure you fully understand what to expect on the day. Researching the company is a must. Study up on some of their main accomplishments as well as some basic facts and figures like how big the company is, their competitors, what the company does, where their offices are located and stuff like that. A face to face interview is pretty similar to a telephone interview though you should be weary that if you did do a telephone interview prior to a final stage interview, then you should expect the employer to go into more detail on areas that you may have had difficulty in answering in the telephone interview. Usually when I've completed a telephone interview, I have an idea of which questions I struggled more on, so make sure you get those tougher questions ironed out for the final interview. Another thing to note is that a final stage interview is not always one on one. I've been to my fair share of interviews where I've had two people alternating questions. Usually one person is a manager of some nature and the other is a technical person. If you do get multiple people interviewing you, be sure you give each person a good amount of attention. Again, if you're asked to give an example demonstrating a certain quality or skill, do try to relate it to the work place or academically. If you cannot though, then using a hobby / interest is fine. At the end of the interview, the interviewer(s) will ask if you have any questions for them. Make sure you do as it shows you have a genuine interest. It is a good idea to have a question or two planned beforehand so that if nothing of interest sparks up during the interview you have something to fall back on.

Assessment centres are where an employer invites a certain number of candidates to assess them all simultaneously throughout the day. There is usually a combination of group activities as well as individual assessments. The former tests how well you can work together with other people in a dynamic environment and the latter is usually an interview but they like asking candidates to do an individual presentation as well. You may be asked to redo a psychometric test to confirm that you were the same person who took the online test before. You will be told in advance if you have to prepare a presentation or if they plan on retesting you - they're usually not done spontaneously but they can be. The company will also give out a couple of presentations to tell you more about who they are and what they do and so on. It's very important to be active and engaging during these assessment centres and be sure to ask questions throughout the day as this shows the employer that you are interested. Try and talk with the other candidates frequently too as they will be assessing how you go about interacting with other people and if you keep it to a minimum, you will not be noticed by the employer. An assessment centre is the hardest application process. Do not feel too disheartened if you are unsuccessful in one of these. I have failed my share of these too and you really do need to get a first-hand feel for them to understand how they operate and such.

It's just not working out . . .

It happens and sometimes it is beyond your own control. But if you have been applying for jobs and you just cannot seem to land an opportunity, then the best thing you can do is to augment your CV. I learnt this one the long way because I can be a particularly stubborn and narrow minded individual. Before landing the job I did get, I did a month of voluntary work in a small company to gain some recent experience. I think it really helped me both during the CV screening and at the interview I went to because not only did it make my CV loads more appealing, it also gave me something work related and recent to talk about at the interview I had. Employers are aware of the state the economy is at the moment and when they receive a CV without much / any paid work experience, the next best thing is voluntary work and it can really make your CV work that much harder for you. If you really don't want to do it though, then you should try and do something productive with your time that you can add to your CV. For example I started going on bike rides and playing the piano as additional interests which I talked about briefly during my interview because as I previously mentioned, a lot of employers really are interested in what candidates do with their free time. Of course this is assuming you are only looking for work. For those of you who are job seeking while studying, you can pretty much disregard this section as you probably have enough on your plate as it is.




If you have found even one thing remotely useful in this article then it has fulfilled its purpose. It's a tough and competitive world out there but ideally you've found something which will help you out in your future job hunting. I wanted to write this up because I know how difficult and stressful job searching can be and I thought perhaps I could try and help people who are in those circumstances now.

Good luck and happy hunting!

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* Obtained statistics during an appointment with a careers advisor.