News and Insights · TDRS Recruitment

Knowing your career goals

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:31:23 GMT

In today’s job market, setting and understanding your career goals is more important than ever.

Before you begin to look for a new role or career it is sensible to set yourself some goals.

Understand

Yourself
Your values
Your interests
Strengths & weaknesses

This is essential to define your career goals and bring you closer to your desired career outcome.

Take time and reflect on what motivates you spend some time with your thoughts and feelings and core beliefs.

There are a range of goals you could set yourself.

What are your long-term ambitions?
Salary – what do you want to earn?
Maximise your potential – when are you passionate about your work? When do you perform at your best?
Adaptability – this is key to staying relevant and competitive.
Upskilling & personal development - what skills to do you need to develop?
Define success - what does success look like for you?

Knowing your career goals is the foundation to a successful and fulfilling professional life.

Career goals provide a purpose and focus to align with your aspirations and guide you towards a prosperous career.

Take the time to reflect and transform your aspirations into achievements.

TDRS have extensive networks providing a wide range of job opportunities we use expertise to match your skills, experience, and career goals with suitable openings.

If you need our help and assistance – contact us.

How to write a great job description

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 11:22:16 GMT

The very first impression a prospective employee makes of your company is most likely going to be the job description you present. By ensuring the first impression is the best it can be, a successful candidate will be on their way to having a positive employee experience within your team.

Job seekers will inevitably spend their time reading through countless job descriptions, trying to determine which roles they would be a good fit for and to take the time to apply for. It is worth bearing in mind when writing your job descriptions they are, essentially, competing against those of other companies to gain the attention of the best candidates. The key to writing a successful job description is packing it with detail while keeping it concise.

What is a job description?

A job description should present a summary of responsibilities, activities, qualifications and skills relevant to the role you are aiming to fill. It should captivate a job seeker’s attention, giving a taste of the company’s mission and culture and presenting a place where they would want to work. It should provide enough details so that applicants can determine whether or not they are qualified for the position.

Job Title - This will be the first thing an applicant will see. It should be specific and targeted toward the kind of applicants you are hoping to attract. Avoid using any internal terminology that those outside of the company wouldn’t understand and use standard phrasing for the levels of experience, such as ‘senior’ or ‘junior’.

Job Summary - This is where you really need to grab the attention of the reader and draw them in to look further. Give a brief overview of the company and the kind of team they would be joining. What makes your company unique? And why should they want to work there? Include here the location and some idea of work hours also.

Responsibilities and Duties - What are the core responsibilities of the role? Remember to give applicants as much detail as required while still keeping it concise. Your aim is to give the reader an understanding of what the role entails, what the requirements are, and the day-to-day activities they would be carrying out if they were successful in their application. An applicant should be able to determine from reading this if they feel it is a job they can do while also getting a sense of the work environment and how the role fits into your organisation as a whole.

Qualifications and Skills - Of course, this section is where you highlight any education, qualifications, certifications and experience that the role would require. But also, detail any soft skills you require a candidate to have, things such as communication, problem-solving, time management, and so on. Again, remember to keep it concise. The temptation here is to describe every trait and skill you envision in an ideal employee, but don’t overwhelm applicants. Give a flavour of what you want - the essentials - you can look for other traits and skills further on in the hiring stage.

Salary and Benefits - No job seeker is going to take the time to apply for a role if they aren’t sure it would meet their requirements. They are looking to earn a living, so need to be sure that the salary a job offers would allow them to do that. So include a salary range in your job description. Also, consider what other benefits they might get from taking a position within your company and present them here too. These could be things such as holidays, gym memberships, flexible hours, company vehicle, dog-friendly offices, and so on.

With any luck, a well-written job description will ensure you have ample applicants to choose from. But it is so important to take the time with this first step in the recruitment process to get it right. A successful applicant should know exactly what they are walking into when they start the role. They will know what is required of them, and their beginning in the company will be less stressful for both them and you.

Tips for creating a great CV

Mon, 22 Aug 2022 11:37:38 GMT

When job hunting, arguably the most important tool in your kit is a good, strong CV. Your CV is the first impression an employer will have of you. Ensuring you have written it well can be your gateway to success. A strong CV will lead to an interview, and an interview will hopefully lead to employment, but it all begins with the CV. So here are our pointers for how to sculpt it perfectly.

Research Roles

Employers will be looking for a specific skill set and type of person for the role they are hiring for. Therefore, if you want your CV to impress, it is a good starting point to research the types of roles you may wish to apply for. What are the requirements for the role? What hard skills are they looking for? These are skills such as computer skills, languages, or management skills. Look at job listings in your industry, take note of what they are looking for and bear this in mind when you are writing your CV so that it is targeted toward the type of roles you are after.

Structure and Format

How you lay out your CV can make a difference in how well it is received. By ensuring that it is presented in a clean and sleek format, it will be easier for an employer to navigate their way through your CV and take in the information they need.

It should be presented in a professional manner, don’t be tempted to use fancy fonts and colours; they won’t help your CV stand out but just make it harder to read. Use a basic crisp font, simple colours - black on white is best, and separate each section clearly with a bold header. Ideally, you should aim to keep it to two pages, and the sections that should be included are as follows:

Name and Contact Details

These should be at the very top of the CV in the right-hand corner, which will ensure that they won’t be missed. Where relevant, you may wish to add a professional title beside your name, such as ‘management accountant’ or ‘English graduate’ - this will set the tone of the CV but should relate to the roles you are applying for. The only contact information that is needed is your name, number and email address. It may be worthwhile to add your location also.

Personal Statement

This is an introductory paragraph that should catch the reader’s attention. To write a successful statement, you should keep it short and sharp, somewhere between five to ten lines of text. It should be packed with in-demand skills and experience. This section should give the employer an overview of your industry-specific skills, types of companies you have experience in and any qualifications and benefits you will deliver to the company. It should grab their attention, excite them and draw them in to read the rest of the CV.

Core Skills

A bullet-pointed list of your most valuable attributes split over two or three columns. This gives a snapshot of what you are offering as a potential candidate and can be taken in at a quick glance by busy recruiters and hiring managers. This list should be heavily tailored to target specific roles you are applying for and should include things like role-specific skills, qualifications, industry knowledge, languages and IT skills. This section can also be quickly and easily edited if you wish to tweak your CV slightly when applying for different roles.

Work Experience

By providing examples of your work experience, you are demonstrating your abilities and how you are able to apply skills within the workplace, proving the impact you make on a team and what an asset you would be as an employee. This should be listed in reverse chronological order, giving most detail about your current and more recent roles and less for earlier employment. If you are new to the workforce and have no previous employment to list, you can instead give details of any voluntary roles, school/college/university work placements, part-time jobs or any other occasions where you have worked to support a company. Make sure you lay this section out in a way that is easy to read and process. Head each role with the name of the employer and the title you held, and give a brief outline of the company and the goal of your role. List your key responsibilities in short, concise bullet points, trying to showcase your full skillset and demonstrate how your actions impact your employer. Finish with a list of your achievements within the role; this is where you can impress an employer by showing how you have been of most benefit in previous roles.

Education

In this section, list any qualifications and the dates you attained them. An experienced candidate may go light on the details as their work experience will give credibility to the skills, but a more junior candidate may need to elaborate on some of the qualifications in this section to ensure they are giving detail on all they are capable of.

Hobbies and Interests

This section is not essential, but you may wish to add it if the hobbies you have are relevant to the application. For example, an employer will not need to know that you enjoy eating out or watching movies, but if you run your own blog in your spare time and are applying for a writing position, this may give you a further chance to showcase relevant skills.

Curating a strong CV is vital during job searching, and hopefully, with this guidance, you will be able to do just that.

How to smash your interview

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 11:42:40 GMT

Interviewing for a role is the most nerve-wracking aspect of job searching. The good news is you submitted your CV, they liked how you came across on paper, and now they want to meet you properly to determine how you would fit the role and the company. But meeting new people can be daunting enough without your future employment riding on those first impressions!

Don't worry, we are here to help

Here we have a list of our top ten tips for making the best impression during that all-important interview.

1. Do Your Research. This is one simple area people fail in interview prep. Do your research on the company beforehand, look at their website, read the 'about us' section, familiarise yourself with the products and services they provide, look at customer reviews and check out their social media platforms. This will help you better answer questions such as 'why do you want to work with this company?' Without this research ahead of time, an employer may assume that you're not necessarily bothered about a job with them; you just want a job anywhere.

2. Arrive Ahead of Time. Arriving late for an interview sets an immediate negative tone. Arriving on time will be adequate. But arriving early will give a very positive first impression. This will also mean you have some time to sit in the foyer or waiting area to go over your CV or the job description one last time and compose yourself, settling any last-minute nerves.

3. Dress to Impress. You may not necessarily need to go out and buy a brand spanking new suit to interview in, but you will need to appear in a professional manner. By dressing smartly, you give a positive first impression before you have even opened your mouth; it shows that you care and that you have high standards.

4. 'So, Tell Me About Yourself'. This question or a variation of it is bound to come up during your interview. Often we don't like to talk ourselves up, and this question could quite easily cause you to become flustered. So prepare your answer ahead of time, being sure to touch on your skills and abilities, experiences, education and achievements you have made during your career.

5. Achievement. Ahead of your interview, think about one significant achievement you have made, either in your personal or professional life, that you are most proud of and can discuss. It is incredibly probable they will ask you to talk about an achievement you have made, so going with an answer ready thought out will save you grappling your brain to pick one to discuss in the moment.

6. Evidence of Your Skills. When reading through the job description, think about how your skill set will match up with the responsibilities of the role. Then prepare yourself with examples of those skills from your previous experience that you can discuss during the interview. Show them that you are equipped for the role already.

7. Strengths and Weaknesses. This is another question that is incredibly probable during an interview so give it some thought before you get in the room. What strengths will you highlight? Things such as adaptability, time management, technical skills, managing workload and being a self-starter are good go tos. But weaknesses can be harder to discuss. You don't want to put a potential employer off, so what do you answer? Things such as 'I find it hard to say no to people' or 'I'm not very confident talking in front of a large group' or 'I find it hard to let go of projects' are good answers, and give an example of how you are working to improve on that weakness.

8. Manage Nerves. Preparing for the inevitable nerves will help you get ahead of them to manage them. It may help you to look up breathing techniques or relaxation exercises you can do while waiting to go into the interview, so you go in calm and collected.

9. STAR. The STAR technique is a fantastic device to help you answer difficult behavioural questions. This may be a question that requires you to give an answer describing a situation where you faced conflict with a co-worker or had to work under pressure or work as a team. Using the STAR technique to shape your answer helps you break it down into four steps:

Situation - describe what you had to deal with.

Task - what needed to be done?

Action - the action taken by yourself and others.

Result - what happened as a result of the experience, and what did you learn from it?

10. Ask Questions. And finally, at the end of the interview, you are likely to be asked, 'Were there any questions you had for us?' The temptation is to say that no, you think everything was covered, but don't. Prepare three questions you would like to ask at the end. That way, if one is answered during the discussion, you will still have two left to fall back on. This will mean that you finish the interview giving the impression that you are interested in the role and the company and already keen to know more.

We hope that our top ten tips will help you approach your next interview with confidence, and we wish you absolutely every success.

If we can be of any help with any part of your job search, please contact us .