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Stuck in a dead-end job? Just arrived in London – new city – is it time to find your dream job? Whatever your situation you need to take action to avoid getting behind on your career goals. In todays economy there are plenty of companies struggling. There are also companies growing exponentially. Is your company growing or shrinking? If you havent seen sight of a promotion in the last 2 years in you current role its time to move on.

1) Self Assessment

You’ve heard of the term ‘play to your strengths’, right? It’s true, you really have to – this ensures you are using all your positive skills and attributes. When deciding upon a career, you need to consider your interests, your skills, your personality and your values.

Are you on the right path? To find out, take this Test which will highlight your strengths and weaknesses. It doesn’t take long, you will get asked a number of questions then you will be sent a report, based on your test.You may, of course, be already on the right career path and are pretty comfortable with your job and acquainted and with the skills needed – but are you fully aware of the extent of your skills?

Next, you should take a People Maps test to help you determine which careers would be most suitable for you.

If you have decided you need to change careers, it is worth taking a detailed test or working with a career planer.

2) Salary Survey

For many career swappers, salary is important. It could be the final decision. Salary surveys are extremely useful when choosing a new career. Simply, fill out a survey and you will be shown the salaries of compatible careers – showing you how much you could expect to earn.
Salary Survey.

3) Go Freelance

Just arrived in London, job hunting a nightmare? Can’t decide on a career just yet? Why not use your existing skills to allow you to work for yourself? Becoming freelance/self employed allows you total flexibility and the freedom to fit the work around looking for something more permanent or even a part-time job. Do you have any skills which can make you money? It could be anything from writing, web design, computer assistance or repairs, graphic design, film making/editing, translating, babysitting, ironing, cleaning and so on.

First, you need to register yourself self employed for tax purposes. All the information is here: Tax Office (HMRC)
The next step is to advertise your services – creating websites, placing adverts in relevant newspapers/magazines or posts on sites such as Gumtree are great ways to gain expose for your services.There are also a number of specific sites for freelancers, such as People Per Hour.

4) List Your Skills

After you’ve completed the salary survey and psychometric tests you should have pretty extensive list of your skills. Create a table in word document and list your skills. Separate transferable skills, specific skills and any personality traits. Once you have an accurate list of your skills you can use them to help you identify hidden skills in job descriptions get better jobs. But at this stage, you need to work out which of these skills you are better at and what careers would implement them.

5) Career Planning

Now you need to make a list of all the careers which are compatible with you. You’ll need to narrow them down, you can’t do them all, by crossing out listings which you would not consider and circling those which you have previously considered. Now your list should be a lot smaller and you need to start researching the careers. Check out job descriptions and employment details – look to match your skills, look for salary, education/training requirements and outlook. After this initial research into these careers you may decide that some may be inappropriate – you don’t fancy retraining, don’t want to take a pay cut or the prospects are not that good – cross out any which you feel are unsuitable.

Now you need to make a more detailed study into the remaining careers. One of the best ways to do this is by asking those who work in those industry or jobs – you can use LinkedIn for this. Another way is attend networking events for this industry and career fairs. Of course, once you’ve decided upon your new career you’ll need experience and you may have to do an internship – real hands on experience is a great way to gauge whether the career is really for you.

6) Set your goals

Setting yourself goals allows you to focus your search somewhat. Make long and short term goals.

Short Term Goals – where do you see yourself in 1-3 years?
Long Term Goals – where do you see yourself in 3-5 years?

Your goals need to be clearly defined – you need to know exactly what they are and how to get there and flexible – you should be willing to bend them a little.

Once you have chosen your dream career, that’s the easy part done. Now it’s time to get your dream job.

1) Too little or too much confidence

This is a bit of a no brainer. Confidence is highly important.  Interviewers can sense nervousness, as a shark smells blood, and can leave them with a false impression of you.

Some people believe you are either born with confidence or not. Wrong! Confidence is just another skill which can be honed just like the others.

One great confidence boosting way to think of an interview is to see as conversation with a friend who wants to know more about your career. Obviously, you can’t be as informal (although, many employers in creative and digital companies prefer informal ‘meetings’, perhaps in a coffee shop, to formal interviews).

Another approach is to walk into the room as if you have already been offered the job and the interview is a mere formality. This can be problematic though, as you could appear arrogant. But this technique does improve confidence.

Quite simply, you need to believe in yourself. Another confidence building technique is affirmation. Confidence stems from belief in yourself. To build up self belief in the run up to the interview, affirm your successes privately by saying short buzzy sentences to yourself. For example, ‘I am a great salesperson’ and ‘I achieved salesperson of the month 4 times.’ For a great way to practice your interview content, as well as the presentation, why not repeat one of your STAR answers.

Confidence can also stem from knowledge so really doing your research helps, so does great preparation such as all of the points this article makes.

For more great advice on confidence read 8 Self Confidence Secrets

2) Bad body language

You need to be careful with your eye contact – avoiding or breaking eye contact could give your interviewer the false impression that you are a shady, untrustworthy character. However intense staring at the interview is also no good.

When you speak you should make eye contact. When you are listening you can break eye contact a little more often. This will make you appear confident, likeable and appear to be a good listener – demonstrating great transferable skills for most jobs. Yes, at first, this might seem unnatural to you – why not practice with your friends.

Most people touch their lips or nose when they are lying. Keep your body movements in check. Avoid touching your face when you speak otherwise you’ll appear nervous and the interviewer may get a false impression of you that you are lying or exaggerating.

According to a recent study on sales professionals, those who mirrored the body language of their customers made significantly more sales than their colleagues. Analyse the speed at which the interviewer is speaking. If they speak fast you should try and match their speed as they are likely to get bored if you speak slow. The reverse is also true. If your interviewer speaks slowly and you speak fast – they will likely struggle to absorb what you have to say. Remember, your interview, and indeed the whole recruitment process, is a sales and marketing pitch.

3) Speaking negatively

Avoid negativity at all costs – regardless of the subject. You have never had a bad boss. A bad colleague. Bad software. Only focus on the negatives. Never use the word ‘problem’ – use the word ‘challenge’ instead. For example there were challenges dealing with our team based in another country but we overcame these challenges with strategy a, b, and c.

If you badmouth previous employers, what do you think this is going to tell the interviewer about you? You have a negative mindset.

Furthermore, do not tell your prospective employer any confidential information about your past employers, or about yourself – interviewers will not appreciate this and cause them to have negative opinions about you. It is surprising the amount of people who have missed out on the job of their dreams by making this mistake.

4) Not doing research

If you do not know about the company then the interviewer will assume you dont want the job. Spend at least an hour before any job looking through the companies website. Also search for articles and news about the company. Analyse recent press releases, big projects the company has completed. Also looking at the companies competition. What are they doing well?

There are questions coming such as ‘why our company’, ‘why this position?’ Have your answer ready. It doesn’t look good if you cannot explain the attraction of the company and role.

5) Not having the knowledge you claim

Careful what you put on your CV. If you have skills and experience on there that you are unsure of you could get caught out in the interview. If you have weaknesses make sure you spend time brushing up on those skills. Take online courses, watch videos. Match the items on the job spec to your CV. Whats missing? what areas do you need to improve your understanding of before the interview?

If you think about it, your CV (if you are from abroad, your résumé is called a CV [curriculum Vitae] in the UK), is an exercise in personal branding and marketing. It is a sales document – selling you! As with great marketing or advertising campaigns, for great products, your brand, should stand out above the competition. That’s exactly where you CV comes in.

Fail to spend enough time on your CV and your application for your dream job will fall at the first hurdle. A CV tells a prospective employer everything they would need to know about you before inviting you in for an interview – it is a tool used by the recruiter to tick boxes.

So, using the marketing analogy, your CV is the advert which persuades the employer to consider you. Regardless of the position, short or long-term, your CV is crucial. Often, candidates shortlisted for the interview stage are those who provided the employer with the best quality CV and Covering Letter. Without your CV being up to scratch, you won’t even get through the door.

1) Summarise your responsibilities with the STAR system

STAR System

The first step is using the STAR System to create your personal marketing and will form the basis of your objective statement and career sections of your CV and your covering letter.

Situation – the background.

Task– the task and goal which you where required to fulfil.

Action– the action taken by you to achieve the goal

Result– exactly what it says on the tin.

Every piece of writing in all of your personal marketing should consist of stories using this system.

Go back to your job description vs. personal spec sheet and add a fourth column, like so.

	Target Position	You	Real experience
Objective of the role and job functions	Add the red information and any from your own research which you feel are vital to the role and company	Here you add the matches from your own career experience.	In this column add basic examples of where you used your skills, both listed and perceived, to achieve similar and desirable objectives to those required, both listed and perceived. There’s no need for too much detail at this point, you can add it later when you hone it – this will form the basis of the STAR system.
Skills	Add the skills highlighted in blue.	Here list your own skills relevant to the role – and any which you posses which are not listed but which you feel are relevant – highlight them a different colour.
Soft Skills	‘Hungry to Succeed’ These personal skills are often left out but are essential to the role.	Add your own personal attributes here – list them all.

Got that down? Great, now let’s start building your objective statement. Your objective statement is the statement at the top of your CV which tells your employer what you’re about.

Objective Statement:

The cornerstone of any CV, covering letter and interview is your personal statement. But how to write it properly? Often we just make a vague statement of what we believe the employer wants. This is the wrong way to approach the objective statement – you need to be cleverer than that.

If Your CV is a personal marketing too, the objective statement is call to action – your personal sales pitch. The Objective statement should perform the following functions:

SHOW you have made or saved money. For creative roles it should show the ideas/creativity which have led to savings/innovations/sales

SHOW your skills – for career changers this is imperative showing your transferable skills making up for lack of experience.

SHOW the employer what you want to achieve.

Creative writers have a great little mantra: SHOW don’t TELL. Simply this means, in this context, don’t just make statements, back them up by showing the employer how you achieved your successes.

Objective statement, the winning formula:

• 4 lines max
• Includes the exact job title displayed in the job description
• Includes the objectives of the company
• Includes the skills identified from job description
• Includes years of your experience.
• Soft skills relevant for the role.

Careers Section:

In the ‘career’ section, under each job, preferably in bullet points, place the skills you acquired for example:

Web Designer

Skills:

• HTML
• CSS
• Photoshop

Achievements:

Use the STAR system to create a short sentence for each achievement.

For example, ‘{project}, with a deadline of 3 months to create {client} web site – completed in 1 month resulting in a bonus for the {company}.

Language:

Your CV is not the place for sloppy language.

Firstly, be concise – recruiters will receive hundreds of CVs in response to a single job application and as such, lengthy paragraphs will not be acceptable on your CV – make it short and snappy to really grab their attention, otherwise you’ll bore then to death and your CV will be screwed up, used as a makeshift basketball and get launched into the bin.

Secondly, use active verbs to get your point across i.e. completed rather than did.

Thirdly, don’t use ‘I’ or ‘we’ – the recruiter knows it’s you and repetition can get annoying. Always use third person. For example:

‘Awarded 2:1 BA (Hon’s) in Marketing. Three years Online Marketing experience. Specialising in social networking, has already made inroads by taking on own. Highly motivated to succeed in this industry. ‘

Examples of Power Words (action verbs):

Achieved Arranged Attended Assisted Co-ordinated Created Designed Developed Edited Established Helped Implemented Marketed Negotiated Supported Reorganised

Avoid ‘excellent communicator’ and other CV clichés:

This is the kind of general statement which everybody uses on their CV and is of no real use to you. Of course, these skills are very attractive to an employer but anyone can say they are an ‘excellent communicator’, what you need to do is prove your communication skills with a short statement underneath each job in you ‘careers section’ i.e. ‘effectively communicated with customers, colleagues and suppliers etc. Then, in your coving letter you can explain a little more- if it’s relevant. Remember the STAR system.

Keywords:

Will you be uploading your CV onto an online jobsite? Yes? Then you need to be aware of the basic keywords – your CV needs to be loaded with them in order for the search engine to see them. For example, if you hope to find a position as a copywriter key skills would be copywriter, editing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) etc. Again, avoid generic statements such as ‘good communicator’ or ‘project management’ – these skills should be apparent from the descriptions in the ‘career section’. You should have about eight good skills, for example –‘HTML’, ‘C ++’, ‘Sage’ etc.

2) How to format your CV

How hard do you think it is to create a great CV? It really isn’t that hard. There’s nothing stopping you from easily creating a CV that will make recruiters notice you. If you are highly competent in word processing, creating a CV from scratch should be relatively simple. And keep it simple – overcomplicating your CV could be a disaster.

CV Templates:

There are many CV templates available online – beware, if you find a CV template in the public domain, you are not the only one using it. Either way, firstly, you must look at a variety of different CV’s to get an understanding as to what a good CV looks like and what would be most appropriate for your needs. Generally, the best CV’s are those which are original, created by the applicant. I must admit here, I previously used a CV template that I found online, which, I recently discovered, is common and outdated – be careful. It’s all about doing you research and seeing how other people do it first.

Visual CV – a new Solution:

A really easy way to build a CV and store it online is by using www.visualcv.com/. Here you can create a CV – no need for messing about as it formats your CV for you. You can then send recruiters the link to the online version or download a PDF version of your CV. You may have to convert your CV to .doc format – PDF converters can be found easily online.

Format, Structure and what to Include:

Your CV should be in .doc or PDF format – note it’s best to have both. Your CV should contain the following:

Joseph Any Guy – (Centre justify and bold your titles – rather than underline)

Heading Section: – add your address and  telephone here. Keep this at the top of the document.

Objective Statement:

Objective statement – as above

Summary of Skills:

Summary of your skills – only keywords rather than long explanations – that’s what the covering letter is for. Remember, for each job you apply for you’ll want to change some of your skills keywords for those which are in the job description.

Qualifications:

Qualifications– list your all of your qualifications academic and vocational. Remember, qualifications gained from high school are irrelevant if you have a degree or higher qualifications.

Professional Qualification

List any vocational qualifications here

Career

As above.

Hobbies and Intersts

A short section on your hobbies and interests to help the employer find a little more about you as a person – not essential, if you other, have more important information you can leave this bit out. Note, your employer can see this on your social networking profiles. Yeah, they are going to Google you, so keep it clean.

If you are creating your own CV think content first rather than design, think about the headings and what information is appropriate. The overall design should be secondary.

3) Prove your skills

Are you creative? Are you applying for jobs where your creativity are skills required for the job? Even if you are not you should still have a blog or personal website to separate you from the competition.

Remember, the aim of a blog or website is to demonstrate you skills in an eye catching way– don’t get carried away – you can demonstrate the full extent of your skills in your portfolio.

Once your website is complete put a link to it on your CV.

4) Be truthful

Quite simply, don’t lie! Remember, a quick call to your referee’s and past employers, could catch you out. Besides, if you lie about skills in your CV your new employer will quickly discover you’ve embellished the facts and you could get fired.

5) Have different CV versions

Every job is different, you can’t just use one CV and expect it cover everything. For example, if you are applying for a number of different roles at the same time i.e. bar work alongside office admin different information will be relevant to the job.  Furthermore, even if you are applying for a number of similar roles, different employers will particularly value specific and different attributes. It is important to have a CV master copy – edit and hone all the information before you start tailoring it for specific roles.

The easiest way to adapt your CV to each role is by reading the job description or advertisement and identifying which of your skills and experience would be more relevant. Next, tweak your CV leaving only the most relevant skills for that role – but don’t lie, adding false information to your CV is fraud.

6) Proof read your CV

Just one spelling, punctuation, grammar or formatting mistake will see your CV go from the big pile to the bin. Recruiters are constantly looking for ways to narrow down the pile of candidate’s CVs and spotting mistakes is the easiest way to do so. So always read, read, reread and double reread your application material. Get someone else to read and reread it too. You can also find free or affordable proofreading programmes available online.

When I first stumbled upon this technique I was sceptical. I began the exercise with a negative mind but I was completely shocked by how I felt when I discovered my purpose in life. When I say purpose in life, I’m not talking about your getting your dream job or your family. I’m taking about discovering who you really are and why you’re here; it’s the key to happiness. Whether you believe you have a purpose in life it matters not but it might take a little longer – stick with it.

What makes you happy

To discover your true purpose in life you first you need to clear your head. You need to rid yourself of any social conditioning, random thoughts and limiting beliefs. Now you’re ready to discover your purpose in life, lets get started.

1. Go to a quite Place, alone with no distractions. Open up a word document (or do it the old fashioned way with pen and paper – that eliminates becoming distracted by the internet)
2. Entitle it, ‘My True purpose in Life’
3. Write whatever comes to mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s a complete sentence, it doesn’t matter if it makes no sense -just write. Creative writers use a similar technique to counter writer’s block – just keep writing and the words will flow
4. Keep going until you hit something which hits you so strongly you know you’ve got it

You may feel, after what seems like millions of useless words, like quitting – keep going and it will come soon. If it annoys you, or you need it, take a break – this could really help you gather your thoughts. Keep tying again and again. If you hit a wall and feel it is going nowhere – you can push through and eventually the feelings of pointlessness will disappeared.

Some of your answers may make hit you slightly – you’re nearly there! Keep going until your true purpose in life is shining back at you from the page.  Your purpose in life is also known as a personal mission statement.

Ask yourself deep questions

Ok, so you’re a tough cookie. No worries. Try asking yourself these questions:

What makes me feel great?
What makes me smile?
What are my favourite things?
Who inspires me?
What are my skills?
What do I regret in life?

Consider the answers – write them down if you have to.

Choose your action words

accomplish, assist, build, create, educate,  empower, encourage, improve, help, give, guide, inspire, integrate, master, motivate, nurture, organize, produce, promote, travel, spread, share, satisfy, understand, teach, write.

Which of these words really hit home? Write them down. Can you relate any of these words to your answers? Do your answers contain any of the words which you feel strongly about?

Write a 3 part mission statement

What you want to do?
Who you want to help?
What is the result?

For example, here is mine:

To create and spread knowledge which will inspire people to fulfil their dreams, make lots of friends and have thier perfect career.

Writing down your personal mission statement or purpose in life helps to reinforce them allowing your mind to process the information and guide you to happiness.

Right! You’ve completed the entire selection process and now you are ready to go into the salary negotiation phase. To ensure you get the package you deserve ensure you follow these steps. Firstly, as asking for a pay rise can be high risk, you need to plan your salary negotiation to ensure it goes well. Planning is extremely important. Try to remember this:

‘Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success’ – Henry Ford

He was right. If you want a higher slary you need to plan – theres no sense going into a negotiation blind.

1) Prior to the job offer

When you get called in for a second or third interview complete or bear in mind following:

Don’t compare your own salary to those of friends in other fields

Jealousy never gets you anywhere – because your friends make X doesn’t mean you should get the same. Different career paths and fields have different salary expectations – comparing your salary will just give you unrealistic expectations.

Research

If you’ve read the whole series of how to get your dream job then you’ll probably be screaming ‘more research, really!? Do not despair – it’s all worth it.  Yes that’s right; if you want a higher salary you’ve got to put the work in – even before you’ve started the job.

Search for similar job titles in the same industry; take salary surveys remember, jobs outside London may pay considerably less as London salaries have the London cost of living weighting.

Researching the salaries of similar positions helps you keep your argument grounded in the reality of the market, rather than the reality of your personal situation. It’s more convincing when negotiating your salary with proof that the offer is light, in relation to industry standards.

Get other Job Offers

One of the best ways to negotiate a better salary is by proving that another company believes you are worth more money than your present employer. It’s best to get hold of two other job offers – if you can’t, try to act as if you have other offers.

2) During the negotiation

More Skills  and Experience = more money

Consider your skills and experience – go back to the work you did identifying your skills for your CVand covering letter. Throughout the entire selection process you should emphasise your skills – they are essentially, your bargaining tools. Those with more relevant skills and experience for the job tend to get higher starting salaries. If you have any relevant skills and experience outside of the job requirements, that you have identified as vital to the job mention them – tell the employer why those skills would be vital to the company, thus justifying a higher salary.

If you are a career switcher and lack skills and experience, you need to be realistic about the salary you should expect to receive. If you have switched jobs or fields remember what you lack in experience in your new field is made up by transferable skills – be sure to mention them. For example, if your previous career was in sales, you’ll have fantastic communication skills.

Talk about What you deserve not what you need

Going into a salary negotiation complaining that your ‘children are starting university’ or you are ‘just about to have a baby’, will not win you a better salary – it just sounds desperate.

The number one, best way to negotiate the salary you deserve is by telling the employer how you will save or make them money.

Talk about the qualities and skills you will specifically bring to the role and company. Here is where you should also highlight average salaries in your field from your research – show them how you will go above and beyond.

Flexibility

You’re going to have to be flexible – you may not get the exact salary you want. One great technique is to give the employer a salary range. If you have other real offers on the table, you could afford to say ‘no’ – it could get the employer to raise the offer. It’s high risk but if you have the security of other offers then you have nothing to lose.

You last salary has no relevance

Never let the interviewer negotiate a salary based on your previous salary – be clear about this from the offset as it just isn’t relevant. Your salary should be based on your value to the company not what you earned in your last job.

Let the employer start

If you let the employer name the starting figure you will have the advantage. You may even be surprised by the figure the employer is willing to offer. Now, you can adjust your figure to what you were aiming for and come in with your offer.

Time is on your side

Let the employer think that you will take up another job offer if the package they offer is not right. If they are not quite offering what you deserve, ask for some time to ‘think about it’. This could work in your favour as, if they really want you, they may worry that you will take up another offer.

Remember, The Job isn’t quite yours yet

Don’t act like a shark and lose sight of the goal – it’s not a game of cards, you are not buying a used car – they are offering you a job but as it’s not final they could retract the offer. Remain company focused – show them what you can offer, tell them what you would do for the extra