Search Results for 'CV preparation'

Around about now, thousands of students are bursting onto the jobs market. The jobs market can seem a daunting place at the moment. This generation of students have known only negative economic commentary and conditions since their Leaving Cert days, and many are deflated by it all. But being deflated is not a viable action plan.

Q: I’m going for an interview next week, and it’s a bit like going back in time. In what we will call a previous life, I knew two of the five people who will be interviewing me - one in a professional context (we worked in sister organisations) and the other in a social environment (we played five-a-side together each week through mutual friends). Should I acknowledge the fact that I know them when I go in the door? (Tom, email).

Q: The interview was going fairly well, I felt. I had handled their queries well and had even managed to score some extra points based on the research I had done into the organisation. Sooner than I had anticipated, they asked me if I had any questions for them. I hadn’t, and took this question as the cue that they were wrapping things up. I made to leave, and they let me, replete with the usual ‘thank you and we will be in touch’ palaver: it was only afterwards I realised that maybe they had more questions to ask me. Was I premature in my departure? In fairness, they did get in touch – a Dear John, alas. (GP, email).

Q: I felt I was going grand in a recent job interview – I had dealt comfortably with all the questions about my CV, my training and strengths. But I stumbled badly at the end when they asked me what I knew about the company. The truth was I knew very little: I had a look at their website but I found it very technical. Plus I don’t know anyone working there. I took a bit of a guess about one product they have – and got it wrong. I didn’t get the job. Even though I know I did poorly, I’m not sure how I could have prepared any better for this question in the circumstances. Any pointers? (GMcC, email).

We will call him Joe (because that’s not his real name, with a passing doff of the cap to Con Houlihan). Joe is a salesman. He took up the redundancy offer last May. Summer holidays beckoned, and he was happy to spend a few months hanging out, for the want of a better phrase, with his seven year-old son.

Q: I qualified as a primary school teacher last year. I’ve spent the last few months sending out CVs, but to no avail. Some of my friends are saying I should call into schools, rather than sending on CVs, but I think that might only make a nuisance of me to the principals. I’ve only got a few days subbing along the way. Even though I have applied for about eight longer-term positions (maternity leaves, mainly), I have only got called for one interview, and I didn’t get the job. I’m beginning to despair. Any tips? (DR, email)

Location can have such a powerful impact on careers. If the job requires you to be in a certain place, at a certain time, to do certain tasks, then the fact that you live 70 miles away, and need to drop off the children at school each morning, can so easily rule you out.

Q: I’ve been called to interviews. My immediate reaction was to run a mile. I haven’t done an interview since I left school, and that’s not today or yesterday – let’s put it this way, I’ve lived through my fair share of currency changes. I’ve run my own business for the past 25 years. I’m probably set in my ways. Can you teach an old dog new tricks? ‘Needs must’, hence my return to full-time employment. Any suggestions? (KK, email).