Frustratingly, the equality of selling oneself does not seem to be filtering through to our presence on Linked In.  I often have to coach my female clients to up the ante on selling points and achievements, which are either too brief or missing entirely on LI.  While most of the male clients seem to have this covered, with a few exceptions, of course.  In my course 'What to do before Applying for a Job' I explain exactly where to put your big selling messages and promote your profile to the prospective employers in the right way.  Don't underestimate the use of LI for the background research phase, all recruiters in any corporate are crawling all over LI during their search and research phases for talent.  If your LI profile is lacking then it will let you down and you don't want to make life too difficult for yourself, if you have a profile that sells the recruiters will come to you rather than you having to go to the recruiters! A far more relaxing experience.  Here is the article that points out this disparity in male and female profiles on Linked In.  So regardless of whether you are male or female, if your LI profile is lacking this is something to action today. My course is perfect for helping you to attract hiring professionals, like moths to a flame, it is only a couple of hours of work and you can sit back and watch the recruiters contact requests hit your inbox, a much better way to go about your job search.

Onwards and Upwards!

Here is my latest short course on 'How to Make Sure your Big 4 Applications gets you Interviews'. It has just launched in time for this year's Big 4 graduate applications in September to PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY.  Each year, because of my Big 4 recruitment management background, I coach lots of students for their interviews and they have often come to me after sending off their application, sometimes with some really big errors and poor 'free writing' sections in their applications that I had to help them spin answers for in their interview, because I knew the interviewers wouldn't let them away with their mistakes and sadly for others they were distraught that not one of the Big 4 had invited them to an interview and I had to point out the errors on their application, which explained why it had gone wrong for them and help them come up with a plan B.  It is such a shame, and a waste of talent, and it got me thinking that I can design a course to help them before they send off the application and this is what I have just launched.  So if you are looking to bag a place on the very competitive graduate training programme at a Big 4 firm this is the course for you. It is packed with lots of very interesting 'behind the scenes' information, which will enable you to understand just what the Big 4 application screening team is looking for from you, and the pitfalls to watch out for, to make sure you get invited to interview. Don't leave anything to chance sign up for the course and put your best foot forward in your applications.

Good news!  I am currently in the midst of a major update to Interview Ready.  After a big marketing poll, I found a real desire for short online courses to compliment the 1:1 face to face online courses I run.  So starting today, and into the future, I will be adding a selection of informative and educational short courses on all manner of useful topics relating to interview. 

The first short course is all about how not to make a bad application.  Something many of my clients want to know.  Because of course, the secret to getting an interview starts with the application, make a bad or mis-application and your efforts will result in failure.  I have set out in my short course all the pitfalls to avoid and importantly the steps you need to make to ensure you stand a fighting chance of getting an interview.  Click here for the details and the best part is, while I get this all up and running, I am offering a fantastic discount on the course, as I need to get reviews before I start promoting widely and can offer it for the wonderful price of €4.99 a bargain! 

I will be drip feeding new courses, as I finalise them, and really look forward to your feedback and reviews.

If you have any ideas that you think I can make into a short course that you would like to learn about please don't hesitate to get in touch.

I have to bring this to your attention due to a number of people asking me if our coaching is group or 1:1 format, as there are a number of discount providers appearing in the Irish market on Groupon and other sales sites.  We only do 1:1 coaching because Group Interview Coaching will fail to help you in your interview.  Here is why:

1. There is not enough time to focus on you as an individual.  When it comes to coaching one size does not fit all.  Your answers are going to be based on your very own experience, so forget about generic group coaching.

2. In group coaching one or two people will always dominate the coaching with lots of questions and interruptions to get the coach to focus on them. This psychologically is called group dominance, the alpha of the group will always want to dominate others.  You are not paying good money to let someone else get all the attention.

3. You get what you pay for, never a truer word is spoken.  You may as well go and buy a book on how to prepare for your interview, it costs less than group coaching, and you will get exactly the same information.  With 1:1 coaching we go beyond the generics and actually go through each individual answer with you, helping you put the best of you in to all your answers.  No group or book can do that.

4. Every individual is unique, it is up to us as your coach to help you identify your Unique Selling Points, you may not even no what they are.  There won't be time in group coaching for the coach to do this for you.

5. Sometimes there are skeletons or blips in you background that you don't want to talk about in front of a group of people that will get to know your secrets. This is Dublin, it's a small town, and you don't know where you may bump into your fellow group members in the future, one may even be your next boss!  Don't risk letting your faults, or weaknesses become public knowledge.  As a professional coach we enter a vow of confidentiality from the very moment you contact us.

I hope that helps you see why 1:1 coaching is the only way to go with interview coaching.

If you are interested in booking a 1:1 confidential coaching programme get in touch here.

Just  under three weeks until deadline for applying to the top 5 law firms.  These applications are getting trickier than ever before, giving yourself plenty of time before applying is a must. 

Here are the deadline dates:

A&L Goodbody:  Dublin office 21 October 2016, Belfast office 23 January 2017
McCann Fitzgerald: 21 October
Matheson: 26 October
Arthur Cox: Dublin office 21 October 1pm, Belfast office 11 November 2017
William Fry: 20 October 5.30pm

Note the two deadline times for Arthur Cox and William Fry!

I am really unsure as to why Matheson have left this on the long finger, the firms are competing for the brightest and the best and the sooner they can get the best into the interview room the sooner they can offer them a role.  I am sure Matheson have their reasons..

This is the first step of a big process, to make sure you get the choice of traineeship, that you want, interview coaching will help enormously, making you feel more organised and professional. 

As always at this time of year, the Big 4 Accountancy firms will be conducting nearly 1000 interview in November and there will be overlap with the law firm interviews making this the busiest time of the year for interview coaching.  We are already fully booked for coaching from October 28th to 4th November, please make an appointment for coaching as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. 

Good luck in your applications!

I can't believe Autumn is here again, last year's coaching seems like last week for these prestigious graduate placements.  We are already in the midst of coaching students for these interviews and, as always, expect to be fully booked out.

Hopefully, those of you applying are giving a lot of thought to your applications.  These applications are your key to interview invite.  The most important thing is not to miss the deadline!

Here are the deadline dates this year:

KPMG:   5pm Wednesday 19 October 2016 for ROI Universities and Friday 28 October 2016 for NI Universities
PwC:      5pm Wednesday 19 October 2016 for Assurance, Tax and Risk and Monday 17th October for Consulting
Deloitte: 5pm Wednesday 19 October 2016
EY:       Thursday 6 October 2016 for Advisory/IT/Data and Cyber  Wednesday 19 October 2016 for Assurance, Tax, Transactions and Risk

Don't leave anything to chance, the roles available, although appearing plentiful, are not a dead certainty, you must perform to the best of your abilities in the interview, or risk disappointment.  Maybe you have your heart set on one particular firm, please don't make the mistake of putting all your eggs in one basket and only apply to 1 firm, apply to them all and give yourself better odds.

Our coaching is run by Clare Reed, ex Head of Recruitment at Deloitte and Head of Professional Recruitment at KPMG, she still works in recruitment, as an executive search consultant for the Big 4, and knows these firms well.  You can trust her to give the best advice and guidance in your answers and her track record over the last 8 years in graduate coaching is very impressive.

To book your coaching go to our Graduate Programme page and use the easy to use online booking system.

Best of luck to everyone interviewing this year.

Having worked as a recruiter in both recruitment agencies and industry over the past seventeen years, I have been assisted in my recruitment endeavours by great people and great machines. Technological advances today means company recruitment data management has never been easier.

For example, you may apply to a position advertised by an agency, or a company, by submitting a CV electronically, via their website, or a third party, such as a Linked In. You might expect the recruiter to open your CV, read it, assess it against available jobs and then decide whether to interview you, or leave you in the system for future roles.   However, a machine – the recruiter’s database, known as a talent management system (TMS), may be initially assessing you, particularly if you have applied to a larger company.

Any time a job specification (spec) hits the desk of the recruiter responsible for finding a suitable candidate, as in ‘Find me an accountant, someone ACA qualified, audit experience, FS clients, Big 4 background’, the recruiter firstly checks their database to see if there is matching candidates for that spec already in their database. So they type in the keyword search tool of their Talent Management System spec words such as: ACA, Audit, Auditor, FS, Financial Services, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst and Young, and hits the search function and up pops the list of results – the candidates matching the key word search. If the list is lengthy, say over 50 candidates, they may then cut the list by asking their database to show only candidates submitted in the last 3 months, as there is a higher chance these candidates may still be looking for a role. Recruiters can also add detail after the initial screen of your CV by adding specific keywords against your detail on the database to assist them in their search, for example Audit people management experience.

What does this mean for you?

It means you have to guess what keywords the recruiter may use to find you and you have to think like a machine by assisting it to find you. Your CV must not only sell you, it must also be filled with keywords that may be used in these searches.

Let's say you are looking for an auditor position, make sure you use variations of auditor: audit, auditing, audited, if you have FS clients use variations and synonyms: financial services, FS, banks, insurance, funds/fund, anything the recruiter might enter in the search tool. Some TMS prioritise candidates with higher keyword counts, therefore repetition of the main key words is a good thing but resist from taking away from the 'sellability' and readability of your CV.  Five or six repeats of the same keyword is better than 50 because it’s good to be found but you still have to convince the human, when they open your CV, that it looks professional and sellable to the hiring manager.

Place important key words towards the top of the CV, as TMS sophistication can rate keywords higher if they are found towards the top, you can use the summary section to highlight key skills that the job spec is asking for. A good place to start when trying to identify key words is the job specification, as the TMS may be using this to identify key words to match with your CV.  If you are still looking for a job two months later then send your CV in again, otherwise your recruiter’s search may miss you if they only search for recent applicants.

So there you go by thinking like a human and a machine you stand a greater chance of getting to the top of the list of a recruiters search when they use a TMS.

Recap:
* Know your keywords, look at job specs, pick keywords out and make sure you have them on your CV
* Use synonyms and variations of keywords
* 5-6 repetitions of a particular keyword is fine but make sure your CV still reads and sells well too

*Place important key words towards the top of the CV

* Resend your updated CV in to the recruiter via the TMS if you are still looking for a role two months later

I offer a CV assessment as part of all my Interview Coaching Programmes.  If you aren't sure your CV is selling you well enough or if it reads well for the TMS, as well as the Recruiter, let me help you by booking in on a programme that suits you.

Making a good first impression is vital for anyone going for an interview.  Us humans can't help ourselves, we have to scan the person in front of us to make a judgement of whether they are a threat to us, or not (in a primal way) and in a non primal way we look to see if the person is fitting in with the standards of our workplace, particularly if we are interviewing them.  If you dress to impress, and I mean give the impression that you look like the 'type' of person the company hires, you will start on the right foot.  If you go in with an outfit that is not of their environment you will stand out, for the wrong reasons.  Do check with the HR team, particularly if the company is a casual wear company, such as a technology company, what they expect you to wear to interview, don't assume they will be happy for you to turn up in casual wear.  When I worked i recruitment at Intel most of us wore hoodies and jeans yet for some reason, not my decision I might add, we wanted candidates to turn up in suits, it was a strange experience interviewing candidates in my jeans and trainers while they had their best suit on ( this rule may have changed since I left though).

I once interview prepped a candidate directly before they went for an interview at a legal firm and noticed they had quite dirty nails and hands and had to show them the way to the toilets to give them a scrub, these are the tiniest things I know but they can't be missed.  Too much perfume, or aftershave, can also be a problem, I recommend going natural with just regular deodorant on, you can't predict what memories certain smells evoke in your interviewers minds and you wouldn't want it to evoke a bad memory, or worse set off an allergy!

If you need further help I do cover this in my training and can give further helpful tips and direction on what to wear.

Here is another  good article on dressing to impress http://www.inc.com/quora/7-smart-ways-to-be-amazingly-professional-and-look-the-part.html 

What is your weakness?  I do not ask this question any more.  Why?  This is one of the most futile questions anyone can ask a candidate in a interview, it leads to answers that are often made up, unrelated to the role or just plain daft.  It really irks me that there are interviewers out there still asking this very 1990's question.  I train interviewers throughout Ireland, in corporates and the public sector, on how to conduct professional interviews and, without fail, because my course doesn't cover this 'dreaded question' the trainee interviewer will actually ask me if they can ask it in the interview, to which my reply is why would you want to? 

In 2016 there are much more effective ways of interviewing candidates, using competency and behavioural interview questions, situational and technical questions, that a lot of the old CV led questioning is being left out, along with ad hoc questions like the weakness question.

Today I was pleased to see a great article published on the BBC about this and other cringey areas in an interview
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160316-the-art-of-the-humblebrag.

However, if you really think this question will come up, I am here to help with this and many other questions that can make you dread the thought of an interview.  Have a look at our interview programmes for more information.