JOB HUNTING 2021: TIPS ON RECRUITMENT FOR EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES

 

We are coming to a close of the year 2020 which has turned out to be quite a tough one for everyone. Jobs have been lost, livelihoods sources disrupted and salaries cut or missed in ways never seen before. No to mention deaths of loved ones from the COVID-19 virus.

Moving into the next year, I would like to share a few notes on CVs and interviews for those who will need such highlights, especially as we start new job hunts.

Work on your CV:

Many CVs that are presented to job applications are in very bad shape. I bring it to you that at times you can look at your CV and do a few basic changes on your own even before asking for a professional to revise it. A CV is a tool one uses to market their experiences and skills to a potential employer. Have it bring out the best picture possible. The CV should have information that helps you get the next role and therefore not a place for items like your marital status, names of your partner and children, your weight, age, apartment number, your religion, government issued numbers such as ID, passport NSSF etc.

You do not need to copy and paste your entire job description on a CV to highlight what it is you are doing or did. Job descriptions are written in certain ways and easy to tell when copy pasted onto CVs. Focus on the key deliverables of your position and share some of the successes under the roles instead. They paint a better picture than reading phrases such as ‘Perform any other duties as assigned by m supervisor’.

Write our CV in simple language and leave out the many graphics out of the document unless you want your prowess in graphics to be used to determine your suitability for a position. There are numerous one page CV templates that are usually shared around that really look amazing to the eye by their brevity, colorfulness and design while in the end that is all they carry except the details that help the job seeker land an interview. Be aware of what CV format will allow you to showcase your experience and skills n as far as it brings an advantage to you over other competitors.

Get used to compressing your CV in one or two pages. We have numerous large CVs flying around with information that can be cut down and compressed. Many times we have roles that require one or two page CVs and folks reach out to tell me how the job advert they have seen is being unrealistic in asking for such a short CV. What I know from seeing large numbers of CVs is that a one or two page CV is possible to create. Start of by weeding out some of the unnecessary information referred earlier in this note. Go on to see what else does not add value in marketing you to a potential employer and you will see lots of that including phrases that totally mean nothing like ‘hardworking, result oriented professional’ that every CV carries. Prove your hard work and result orientation by highlighting outcomes or successes in your work and not by pasting a template.

Where you are busy or have a few coins to spare, you can engage the services of someone else to revise for you the CV and bring out the best for you. There are numerous agencies and individuals who do that at a fee, seek them out and most importantly treat it as a paid service and you will mostly get good results if you pick the right professional to do it. Just note that CV writing or revision takes some time so do not send one to the reviewer when the job you are applying for is 24 hours away.

Interview Preparation for job seekers:

A good CV will get one an opportunity to interview. An interview requires some form of preparation on the part of the candidate and the interviewer. Many job seekers have encountered at least one negative or traumatic interview experience that bordered or being bullied, disrespected or outrightly being harassed by the panelists. We still have employers who see an interview as a favour they are doing candidates and so they believe it is them who hold the magic wand.

An interview is an opportunity for a candidate to also review the company and decide if they want to work with them and it starts from the interview experience. Harassed candidates will not want to come and join the agency even if they are hired. Poorly coordinated panelists are also a put off in interviews especially when one encounters inordinately large or gender imbalanced panels. We have many times walked into interviews that have over ten panelists to be asked 6 questions by only three of them with another 6 looking into their phones or computers or reading newspapers. Acts that are clearly very disrespectful for the candidates and the process. In some cases, another two members of these panels will raise their heads once a while to ask very demeaning and annoying questions and derail the line of thoughts by everyone else.

Employers must see interviews as a chance for the candidates to also interview and evaluate them hence the need to also prepare and treat them with dignity.

On the part of the interviewee, it is important to come prepared for an interview. Dress the part even even when having an online interview. You have no idea how many people have inadvertently joined an interview on video with their bare chests or wearing nothing but vests. Avoid such accidents by dressing appropriately for the exercise. Another form of preparation requires the candidate to familiarize themselves with the role they are coming to interview. Check the internet once more for the advertisement or go on to ask the HR to kindly share the PD with you as they invite you for the interview. A professional recruiter or HR will gladly send it so as to allow you prepare and bring out your best. It is very unfortunate to interview candidates who have totally mixed up the roles they are being interviewed for. Yes, it happens and the results are obvious.

Towards an interview preparation, one needs to have an idea of their lines of communication. Numerous applicants miss opportunities to interview by simply not checking their mails regularly, pick or return calls from ‘numbers that they do not know’. If you list your email on your CV, make sure you check the inbox and all other folders including the spam folder daily or each couple of days. Your interview invite could be expiring in your spam folder or getting lost in the mass of other promotional emails in your inbox. Pick and return calls even if you have debts or lied to someone’s son or daughter before. Ask any Recruiter around you about the number of times they dropped a candidate for not responding to interview invite calls. If you list your number on a CV, pick that phone when it rings.

It is normal to be anxious during an interview but one needs to know that it is the process that will determine the suitability. Therefore, do not let anxiety sink you and drown you out. Arrive a few minutes early, familiarize yourself with the location and the place, read the materials that you find at the reception, speak to the people you find there even if they are waiting too. Pace around if there is space or read a book or articles on your phone including checking your social media pages. These actions will somehow help you calm down.

Another critical piece in interview preparation is mock interview. One can ask their friends or colleagues to take them through a mock interview where an interview is simulated in preparation to the real one. This exercise can be an important phase pre interview. Your mock panelist or interviewers can provide very important feedback on the preparedness and other aspects. Also, there are numerous professionals who can do mock interviews for free or at a fee. Look for them and connect with them prior to your interviews.

During the interview, find the courage to articulate yourself well when asked a question. Note that there is nothing wrong with pausing for a moment to absorb a question and respond to it well. I have seen candidates who respond to a question momentarily, go off tangent and then ask for the question to be taken again. No one will beat you up for pausing to reflect on the question.

It is okay to say that you do not have an answer to certain questions too or do not have certain experiences when asked about them. You can however, provide theoretical responses where you have any in mind but nothing is wrong in saying ‘I do not have an answer to that question at this point Sir/Madam. I have not experienced such yet’

Finally, find the courage to call out harassment or bullying in an interview. Many interviewees share very uncomfortable experiences during these exercises. If you feel that the person interviewing, you is doing so with disrespect or bullying you then feel free to tell them so and ask to exit the process. Do not sit through abuse or attacks that are personal in nature and nothing to do with any job or known interview protocols. In so doing, we collectively change the interview experience and weed out such elements.

Interview preparation for employers:

As stated earlier, an interview is a chance for an interviewee to also evaluate the company or employer. As such, the employer needs to make conscious efforts to have the exercise as fruitful as possible. Some of the ways include;

1.       Having an inclusive panel of relevant and committed people. As far as possible, have some good gender representation in the panel composition. Further, the number of the panelist need to be practical and not intimidating. There is no need to have all seventeen departmental heads or 13 committee members interviewing a candidate and ask them six questions. The panelists need to be a committed team who will see through a positive experience. Do not have panelists reading newspapers, checking their phones or computers during the interview.

2.       Agree on the questions to ask candidates and keep off personal, irrelevant and inappropriate questions. Focus on questions that allow the panel evaluate suitability of a candidate and not those that get into area like their marital status, if they plan to have kids, where their partners live or if they have children. Such personal questions are largely reported to have been experienced by female applicants. The agency has a duty to create a comfortable interviewing environment as they need to in the work environment too.

3.       Do not bully job seekers. Be open to being asked questions too by the job seekers. The questions they can ask and should ask include how much salary the role has to offer. There is nothing wrong in the candidate asking you for that information which you should gladly provide.  Remember, the candidate is also interviewing the company through you. Where candidates opt to to provide answers to questions that they do not find appropriate, let it go. Remarks like “I need an answer to that question” are not supposed to me made to adults one wants to work with.

4.       Know questions that need not to be asked of candidates especially if they have no value to the process. If you have a good remuneration structure, do not demand that candidates disclose to you their current salary. Using their current salaries to measure where to place them in your structure is indicative of a broken system. A good salary structure places applicants in the right position regardless of their salaries in a different agency. Demanding current salary information is none of your business, is slowly becoming illegal in some parts of the world and financial information is private information. Tell them what range you have for the role including benefits and ask them if that is something they are happy to come work for. Makes the interview way better and positive for both parties.

5.       When interviews are running late, please have the courtesy of informing the candidates who are waiting for the call or at the reception. It is the least courteous thing an interviewer can do to a candidate.

6.       When candidates walk into interview spaces, provide them guidance on what they need to do. Where to sit, whom to hand over any documents that you need to inspect, introduce the panelists with their roles and the organization to them. There are numerous interviewees who derive some sadist excitement from the torture of candidates. Do not have them in the panels. They are bad for business.

We can all make a difference in the tough job hunting exercise in an already tough environment for many of us seeking opportunities.