People spend a lot of time and sometimes money on creating the perfect CV, and why not? After all it is a very important document – it is your advert! It showcases your skills, experience and career history to date, which are all vital pieces of information to a prospective employer. It creates the initial impression of you and your suitability. It also helps the recruiter decide if they want to invite you into an interview to find out more about you, so it has to be right.
The fact is that you can have a fantastic CV, but it is a dead document if you just put it into a drawer or leave it on your hard drive and forget about it. You have to make it work for you. Here are some tops tips on how to put your CV to work:
Post it on a few reputable recruitment websites: There are a number of recruitment websites such as Working Lives, that allow you to post your CV online. This means that recruiters are able to see your CV live and headhunt you for positions in which they think you may be interested. Employers and recruitment agencies pay a lot of money to these recruitment websites to be able to view the CVs which have been posted online as they sometimes recruit for unadvertised positions. So you should post yours straight away; you could be missing out!
Contact recruitment agencies: There are many agencies who are crying out for candidates to help them fill vacancies given to them by their clients. If you sign up to a few (not too many as you will be bombarded!), you can explain to them in more depth what type of position you are looking for and provide them with a copy of your CV. Armed with this knowledge and that all important document, they are able to identify those jobs which are best suited to you and contact you as and when something new comes in.
Popular recruitment agencies include HAYS and ADECCO.
Set up job alerts: Most recruitment websites allow you to set up a criterion of your ideal position i.e. job title, location, salary range, permanent or temporary etc. New jobs are added to these websites each day and when there is one that matches your criteria, the website will email you a job alert. You are then able to review the job details and if you like the sound of it, apply immediate via that website. It is even easier if you have already posted your CV online with them, because you can simply hit “Apply” button and your stored CV is sent straight to the recruiter. It is that easy!
TRY LinkedIn for job alerts here.
Apply for jobs directly: You also have to put in some work and to get your CV out there. The traditional methods of job searching are just as effective in this age of the internet. So why not contact companies whom you would like to work for directly to see if there are any current or future vacancies. Also have a look in reputable news papers such as the Guardian, Evening Standard and even your local newspapers. Once you have your CV to hand, you can submit it via post or email. The beauty is that there will be no need for you to miss out on a vacancy you are interested in because your document is ready. A common mistake that people make is to search for positions without having their CV ready for submission, find one they really like and then discover that a CV is required. It is then a mad rush to cobble something together just to apply before the deadline which is more than likely going to end up being a poorly written CV, which undersells the individual.
If you put these four points into action, you will definitely be putting that CV to work! It is up to you to keep the document up to date and to put it out there if you want to secure your ideal job. It will better your chances of finding something as not all jobs are advertised in the same place so it is vital that you spread your searching pool as wide as you can.
They say that knowledge if power, so if you know about a job, you will have the power to apply for it!