Help landing a job thread

>4.  Anyone use some sort of lightweight personal CRM to manage leads and opportunities ?  Sounds overkill but I need someway of keeping track of everything.  In a few days I already have half a note book filled and I need to get organised

I just used Google Sheets. Good luck!

3.  The recruitment consultants all seem to want to have a chat ‘to bring the role to life’.  Feels like they don’t have roles and just trying to scam to find leads

Its a necessary evil (like estate agents)

Its a case of who you know, rather than what you know, situation.
They have the networks of the people who hire, and may know of a job before it even hits the market.

They are selling you as a product, so they have to get to know you before hand.

Its a case of who you know, rather than what you know,

It's not what you, or who you know. It's what you about who you know...

Its a necessary evil

+1- when an agency lands a role, they need to  have candidates ready to thrown at the client so you’ll have to deal with them.

Make sure  your cv is up to date asap and have various versions that could be tailored for variations of your role.

When buzzwords/skills appear in job specs, make sure they are in the cv.

Most online applications via LinkedIn have a “covering letter” box. Make sure this picks up the keywords- have a few already written so that you can copy & tweak rather than concoct from scratch.

I used a simple spreadsheet to track applications- sometimes handy when the job appears again after a couple of months!

3.  The recruitment consultants all seem to want to have a chat ‘to bring the role to life’.  Feels like they don’t have roles and just trying to scam to find leads

The worst job interview I ever had - a complete waste of time for me and the interviewer - was a result of a recruitment company basically just fulfilling quota.

We need to send X people to interview in order to get paid. They were totally useless.
A lot of jobs I subsequently applied for had the very clear "no recruitment agencies please" message on the application page.

Maybe it's different in other fields but for mine (chemical engineering) they hadn't got the slightest clue.

I had a bit of a shock company announcement this week.  I’m being put at risk.

FWIW, I've taken VR twice when it was offered and in both cases it was fantastic. An opportunity for a fresh start, being paid a decent chunk of cash to leave an organisation, a few months leeway to find a new job. It can work out for the best. Just take your time to sift through the implications, work out how long you can survive (based on family income / outgoings and your redundancy payoff) and take it from there. Best of luck!

I bought a new bike with my payoff! 🙂

Best of luck OP.

I'll just say have a look on Indeed as well as LinkedIn, they seem to be getting more and more vacancies lately.

Thanks all,

I absolutely think this will be for the better mid to long term.  Short term however its a whole bunch of unexpected stress to deal with.

I'm looking to focus on the elements of the process that are in my control and get cracking with stuff.  After such a long time I'm really looking forward to a new challenge.

There is a chance they opt to keep me and slot me into a role, but I think that is unlikely given the number of redundancies being suggested

What roles are you looking for?

1. Linkedin as a resource, is it worth premium, is quick apply worth using?
Not in my experience.

2. The market looks tough, and salary ranges are not what I was expecting given all the recent talk of pay inflation is that the case? Salaries look to be in the same range as several years ago.
It's not great out there, but it depends on the role - what roles are you looking for?

3. The recruitment consultants all seem to want to have a chat ‘to bring the role to life’. Feels like they don’t have roles and just trying to scam to find leads
You are the product they are going to sell. Be nice to them and build relationships with the good ones.
Also, ask them to review your cv - if they can't provide constructive criticism of how to improve it, they are probably not worth dealing with.

4. Anyone use some sort of lightweight personal CRM to manage leads and opportunities ? Sounds overkill but I need someway of keeping track of everything. In a few days I already have half a note book filled and I need to get organised
As has been said, google sheet.

No need to speak to recruitment consultants, they will keep you talking for 30 minutes and I wonder if they do this because they have targets to meet? I just ask for a JD, if they won't supply that then they don't have a role. If the JD fits then it might be worth chatting to them.

ps I just landed a new role via a recruitment consultant 🙂

My wife (insurance industry) has had decent experience with recruitment companies - and a few still send her job opportunities from time to time even though they know she is settled where she is for now. From what she says you get a feel for the good ones.

Me - can't help - never even had a job interview! 🙂

I voluntarily ended a contract role last year and have been looking for the past 5 months (IT/Tech/Energy). Ive been done a mixture of staff and contract roles in the past and im 52, which I think doesnt help. My experience so far:

The tech market in the UK is currently not good unless you have some very niche in demand skills e.g. SAP s/4HANA

Most jobs are advertised on all the main sites including linkedin

Many roles have multiple agencies trying to fill them- I went direct to the employer for one role, then had 3 more agencies contact me about the same role

Salaries/Rates are dire with the exception of some very niche industries or roles

Ageism is definitely a thing in certain fields

Many roles just keep getting re-posted

4 interviews for one role seems to be the norm

Be prepared for 3-6 months before something comes up- you may get lucky, but suggest preparing for the worst

Just create a simple spreadsheet tracker of what you've applied for- it is useful as stuff does get re-posted or appears on different job boards

I'd be looking at senior roles in delivery / tech / enterprise arch.  Salaries of PMs and programme managers are pretty much the same as when I used to recruit into those roles several years ago.

My back up will be contract PM whilst the market improves.  Hopefully I can land something in that space pretty easily.

The challenge is find a role that doesn.t mean a long commute to london 2-3days a week.

Its very early days, but I'm prep'd for up to 6 months to land something.  After 6 months we will start to be in a bit of trouble - then I'd have to pick up anything local to pay the bills

Linkedin premium is a big no, think it's very naughty exploiting people like that.  Linkedin is my world and would make good use of the covering letter, be seen to do research as it helps and good luck!

Like many others have said its not what but who you know. Make time to catch up with the people you know and ask them if they know any companies looking for your skills? Research states 78% if the time you find your next job through someone you already know.

As opposed to asking if they have any job roles for you, as humans have an unhelpful habit of wanting to sound positive -  with let me check, send me your CV, etc but don't actually have roles but don't want to tell you or disappoint  :/

Best wishes

James

Linkedin as a resource, is it worth premium, is quick apply worth using?

Don't know if premium is worth it but being in Linkedin and up to date is.  After two rounds of advertising for my position when I was leaving my job we used a recruitment consultant who then just scoured Linkedin for people with a profile that was close and called them.

it's worth asking any friends you have in similar jobs where they would advertise any open positions.  It's not always obvious

You know this already but your CV has to be tweaked for each position but we had one recent applicant who went as far as including our logo in her application and that was great for her as it made her stand out.

Recruitment bod here, 20 years experience in house and agency side, so this might be something I can speak about with some knowledge:

1.  No, not worth it at all, don’t pay for it.

2. Salaries are weird at the moment. Some sectors/skill sets are back to silly high levels whilst others seem to have been left behind. And there no real consistency in what is high and what is not. Just assume it won’t pay as much as you’d ideally like and you may be pleasantly surprised.

3. We want to have a chat as we want to know more about who we’re sending across for the job and that they can do what they say they can. We also want to explain some of the nuances of the role so there’s no suprise later in the process. Plus, there may be other roles that we know about but aren’t yet advertised that we can tell you about. I won’t say that the days of fake job ads are completely behind us, but it’s pretty rare now. A good consultant will work with a few different firms in a given sector so 30 mins talking to them might get you in to doors you didn’t know about.

4. Keep a spreadsheet or similar, but accept that you won’t hear back from a lot of applications. Personally, I try and drop a “thanks but no thanks” email to all unsuccessful applicants but when some roles get 200+ mostly unsuitable applicants in the first 24 hours it isn’t easy to be perfect on this.

More generally, up date the CV making sure it talks about your achievements and ideally tangible results. You don’t want it to read like a job spec, you basically want it to say why someone should hire you over the other 200 applicants. So think about specify you’ve delivered, money saved/brought in, what you’ve done that makes you special.

Feel free to drop me a DM if you want more info.