You have no doubt heard all about the Job Search Support service Arras has been providing in partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions in support of the Job Centre Plus. Recently an increasing enquiry from potential candidates is whether our service is a provision to place their CVs in front of our clients – our response is “no”: our service is to best provide a service which is tailored to the individual’s needs. This may be reviewing and assisting in re-writing CVs, guidance on finding the hidden roles, and market intelligence, to name a few.
Come across on the phone as a 'people person', regardless of who you are speaking with, and you may do yourself more favours in your hunt for employment than the other essential tools, too.
However the most valuable advice we do provide is how to make yourself attractive to potential employers – recently I have been working with one candidate who has signed up for the JSS service, and he presented a CV to me which I felt required some work to bring out his key skills and more importantly to potential employers – essentially, I hit on where he can add value. Dealing with a committed and enthusiastic candidate, I felt the information I gave and advice I made was listened to and, more importantly, put to use. Within a day or so of our main session I had a revamped CV in my inbox awaiting further review.
In our last session there were a few tweaks required to his CV and we discussed how to ensure high visibility in regards to networking, etc., and I discussed an opportunity which requires his skill set, background in business transformation projects and, most importantly, exceptional stakeholder engagement skills. One key skill which has become increasingly apparent in our sessions is that my candidate is an exceptional “people person” - polite and informative, patient and articulate. At this point I was only qualifying the role, so we discussed the opportunity and how his skills meet the needs of the employer and mutually decided it would be an ideal opening to present his new improved CV to a client initially for some working feedback. The client was very impressed by his CV and asked to meet the candidate for an interview last week – my candidate begins his new role this week.
Whilst the Job Search Support Service at Arras is not a service set up for offering candidates to our clients, from time to time we are presented with exceptional candidates with a close skill set to our clients needs. In these instances we are more than happy to put candidates forward for relevant roles, one thing this exercise has highlighted – you might be in the right place at the right time! The right place is Arras People: the right time is in your hands!
Image courtesy flickr, attributed to Ken Banks, kiwanja.net, and reused with permission.
