job hunting in australia part i cv and interview

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Job Hunting in Australia

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Page 1: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Job Hunting in Australia

Page 2: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Content• Job Search Strategies - Getting ready ………………………………………….3CV Essentials• Structure …………………………………………………………………………………….4-5• General Principles ……………………………………………………………………….6• Hints on Editing……………………………………………………………………………7• Professional Experience. Do’s and Don’ts ……………………………………8-10 • Matching your CV to Job description/Job Ads………………………………11• Key Words in Job descriptions/Job Ads………………………………………..12• Adjusting your CV/CL to the Company Profile………………………………13• Cover Letter Structure …………………………………………………………………14-15Interview• Before an Interview …………………………………………………………………….16• STAR System………………………………………………………………………………….17• Telephone Interview……………………………………………………………………..18• Face to Face Interview………………………………………………………………….19-20 • Self-presentation. Making a Good Impression………………………………21• Your Interviewers. Their Roles, Agendas and Concerns…………………22• Small Talk & Slang…………………………………………………………………………23• Questions to ask/not to ask/should not answer……………………24-26• Chosen Interview Questions and Answers ……………………………27-30

Page 3: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Job Search Strategies - Getting Ready

• Targeting - industries, companies, job profiles

• Pick up on what’s missing - education, volunteer experience

• Getting prepared - criteria, key words library, CV, LinkedIn

• Getting your foot in the door - networking: key people, recruiters/agencies, professional groups, events

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Page 4: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

CV Essentials - Structure

Name Surname

Address, email, telephone

Profile

Summary

Professional experience

Job title Dates

Company City, Country

About company, website

Your main role (1 -2 lines)

Responsibilities

Education and training

Professional memberships

Computer skills

Language Skills

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Page 5: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

CV Essentials - Structure

• Profile - State your area of occupation, years in profession, 3 main expertise fields, scale of companies and countries you worked in

• Summary of your skills - should reflect 1. Key words from job descriptions/job ads 2. Your main expertise, supported with achievements or/and volume of work done in particular direction/industry

• Professional experience - The list of actual roles you've undertaken, which provides evidence of your skills. List jobs in reverse order and ensure that the most recent and relevant roles fit onto the first page

• Qualifications - highest first and work-based qualifications before academic ones. Add any courses which are relevant to the job role

• Computer Skills (professional software)

• Language Skills (state IELTS band if applicable)

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Page 6: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

CV Essentials - General Principles

• Types of Information: sales, factual, fluff

• Parts of speech usage

• Distribution of key words

• Sufficient utilization of space

• Types of expertise – hard skills, transferrable skills, extract of qualifications

• Supporting transferrable skills

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Page 7: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

CV Essentials - Hints on Editing• Don't rely on spellcheckers (homophones – two and too, there

and their)

• Don't over-use capital letters

• Get your apostrophes right

• Use the singular for individual organisations

• Keep it in the first person

• Get your tenses right

• If in doubt, avoid semicolons

• Don’t use more than 1 font

• Don’t use more than 1 colour

• Don’t use bold, italic and underlined at once

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Page 8: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

CV Essentials - Professional ExperienceDo’s and Don’ts

2 General rules:

1. CV is NOT a Job Description

2. Every line should contain unique information about yourself

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Page 9: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

CV Essentials - Professional ExperienceDo’s and Don’ts

• DO put your Job title FIRST

• DO insert 1 line of description per each previous employer + websites

• DO support description of your duties with details: scale, purpose, other colleagues involved, tools used, results accomplished

• DO ensure the business processes/expertise you mention in your Professional Experience reflect those which are in your Summary

• DO put information about your role in the company

• DON’T use vague words and phrases

• DO use and start every sentence with strong verbs

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Page 10: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

CV Essentials - Professional ExperienceDo’s and Don’ts

• DON’T list your regular job functions as achievements as achievements reflect something BEYOND job description

• DON’T use abbreviations unless they are recognised internationally. And even then decipher them

• DON’T put information which is not required

• DON’T put fluff - personal qualities not required in job description and not supported with examples

• DON’T state obvious, words like - resume, CV, responsibilities, job title

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Page 11: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Matching your CV to Job description• Get the job description (JD) or a Job ad (JA)

• Circle the key skills & experience

• Make a list of all the things that make you a good fit

• Think about transferrable skills (customer service, etc)

• Check your resume to see experiences matching with elements in JD/JA

• Circle those matching experiences

• Think about things (volunteer, special projects, freelance) that are NOT yet on your resume

• Go through your resume to give more weight to your strongest matching items including key words and phrases

• Use a Summary of Qualifications to emphasize your strongest skills that match the job’s key requirements

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Page 12: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Key Words in Job Ads• Seek for Key Words in the role description, job responsibilities, job

requirements

• Search for nouns, numeric or job specific information

• Precise "hard" skills:

– job-specific,

– profession- specific,

– industry-specific skills,

– technological terms.

• Descriptions of technical expertise

• Repeatedly mentioned in association with a given job title

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Page 13: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Adjusting your CV/CL to the Company ProfileHow to use key words

• Use keywords throughout the Profile and Summary, present keywords in context, tied to accomplishments rather than job duties

• Weighting your CV. Applicant-search software uses keywords ranking. Mandatory and desirable key words

• Use synonyms, various forms of your keywords, and both the spelled-out and acronym versions of common terms. (CRM and Customer Relationship Management)

• Determine the keyword health of your CV, target to 25-35 keywords

• Internet job boards - avoid keywords that relate to jobs you don't want

• Screen your statistics on job boards

• Keep running lists of keywords

• Use keywords in your cover letters for attracting the "human scanner"

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Page 14: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Cover Letter Structure

• Address the letter to a particular person in an organisation ( with Company/LinkedIn. Don’t forget the VRN

First Paragraph• Why you? - Your current position and/or studies and why they

should want you to work there• Why them? – Talk about the company and why you want to work

there Middle Paragraph (change with each application)• Indicate that you understand what the job involves and your

relevant skills, qualifications and experience• Refer to the attached resume • Indicate that you know something about the organisations

products and/or services.

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Page 15: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Cover Letter Structure

Last Paragraph

• Reconfirm your interest in the job, and your availability for an interview

• Your residency status if applicable and start date availability

E-mailing Cover Letters

• State the position you apply for in the ‘Subject’, refer to your attached CL/CV

Letter of Interest

• If there is no job vacancy in the particular Company, use your key words library to address future openings

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Page 16: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Before an Interview

Research on

• Job position

• Company

Prepare

• Anticipate questions

• Structure you answers

• Bullet point your information verbally

• Record and listen

• Get ready (dress up, stand up, smile)

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Page 17: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

STAR System• S – Situation, background set the scene• T – Task or Target, specifics of what’s required, when, where, who• A – Action, what you did, skills used, behaviours, characteristics• R – Result – Outcome, what happened

Example:• • Situation: "A customer rang up complaining that they'd waited more

than two weeks for a reply from our sales team regarding a product query."

• • Task: "I needed to address the client's immediate query and find out what went wrong in the normal process."

• • Activity: "I apologised, got the details and passed them to our head salesperson, who contacted the client within the hour. I investigated why the query hadn't been answered. I discovered that it was a combination of a wrong mobile number and a generic email address that wasn't being checked. I let the client know and we offered a goodwill discount on her next order."

• • Result: "The client not only continued to order from us but posted a positive customer service tweet."

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Page 18: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Telephone Interview

• Know the reason for the call

• Schedule

• Structured answers

• Bullet point your information verbally

• Situational questions

• What if you can’t understand an interviewer

• Pauses and silences

• Keeping an interviewer engaged

• Ending the call

• After the call

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Page 19: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Face to Face Interview

Before an Interview

• Do your homework on the Company and Interviewers (investor minutes, industry news, LinkedIn)

• Find out about Interviewers business roles (HR, Line Manager, Subject Matter Expert, Business Manager)

• How to ‘click’ with your Interviewers

• How to use your CV when anticipating questions

• Typical mistakes: Structure, Grammar, Intonation

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Page 20: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Face to Face Interview

At the Interview• Small talk• Business Slang• Types of Q• Tell us about yourself Q• Hard skills Q. Structure, SMART answers• Soft skills Q• Questions to ask and never to askHow to behave at Panel Interviews

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Page 21: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Self-presentation - Making a Good Impression

• Be on time or earlier

• Be relaxed and focused, smile and look them in the eye when you give a handshake

• Don't talk unless you need to, give careful consideration to your words

• Don't talk rushed and fast whatever comes into your head

• Don't use slang or swear words

• Don't talk about anything negative

• Make sure you've done your homework on the company and know about them from their website/industry news

• Your clothes and physical appearance must be neat and clean and look like you've made an effort

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Page 22: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Your Interviewers - Their Roles, Agendas and Concerns

• Recruiter - Motivation, capability, social adequacy, compliance with the role

• Line Manager - Right match in terms of qualification and experience, manner of communication, reliability

• Subject Matter Expert - Right match of qualification and experience, no major disagreements on tools, methods and procedures

• Business Manager - Understanding of how your role influences the business in whole, business environment, industry knowledge

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Page 23: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Small Talk & Slang

Small talk in Australia is supposed to be very superficial

Only 'safe' and happy topics

• Surroundings/building, any connections you have with the company, the weather, basic family info

• Local events that are happening

• You can ask basic questions about anything that the host brings up

• Nothing negative, political or controversial and showing no passionate feelings

• Sports’ topic is ALWAYS appropriate

• Small talk should be cut off after a few minutes 5 minutes is the absolute maximum

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Page 24: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Questions to ask• Can you please show me some examples of projects that I’d be

working on?

• Is this a new position, or did someone leave? If someone left, why?

• What is the typical career trajectory for a person in this position?

• What are the three most important skills to excel in this position?

• Who would be my manager, and will I have the opportunity to meet him or her?

• What does a typical day or week look like for the person in this position? Is there travel, flextime, etc?

• Does the company offer continued education and professional training?

• What is the next step? When do you think you will be making a decision?

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Page 25: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Questions NEVER to ask

• For information you could have easily found on Google

• If you can change the job details, the schedule, or the salary.

• About pay, time off, benefits, etc. (Wait until later in the process to inquire about these things)

• “What does your company do?”

• How quickly you can be promoted

• “Do you do background checks?”

• About gossip you’ve heard

• If the company monitors e-mail or Internet usage

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Page 26: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Questions you should not answer

• Have you got children?• What is your age?• What is your citizen status?• What is your weight?• What is your financial status or credit rating?• What is your family status?• Do you believe in God?• Do you drink alcohol?• What do you do at the weekends?• What religious holidays do you observe?• What is your race?• Have you ever been arrested?

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Page 27: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Chosen Interview Questions and AnswersWhat to Do When You're Labelled 'Overqualified'

• Take salary off the table• Put the issue out there• Use your accomplishments• Distance yourself from your higher qualifications• You want to learn• Make a commitment

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Page 28: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Chosen Interview Questions and AnswersWhat to do when you're labelled 'Overqualified'

Thank them:• I can appreciate your concern.• Oh, I'd hate to think you felt my experience would work against me.• Thank you for your honesty.• I’m so glad you shared your concerns about my experience.

Ask them• Can you share with me what makes you feel that way?• What concerns you about my qualifications being too much for the role?• May I ask, are you worried that my qualifications will work against me in this job? If so, how?• What would it take to make you feel comfortable hiring me at my skill level?

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Page 29: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Chosen Interview Questions and Answers What's your greatest weakness' interview questionYour purpose is to convince a recruiter that though you might have some weaknesses there is NOTHING which might be an obstacle for you to be successful at this job.1. Give them a choice between a skill crucial for the job and another one, which insufficient. Claim that the later one is your weakness.2. Other people say…Never assume that it’s your interviewer who points out to your weaknesses.3. Be honestYou can say: I'm never quite sure how to respond to the weaknesses question. I don't want to avoid it, because I think it's a fair question, and I think any candidate should be self-aware enough not to think they're perfect. Having said all that, let me say I don't think there are any fundamental issues or problems we have to be concerned about. That's why I'm so excited about this job.4. Respect your interviewerDon’t say any fluff like: I am too hard-working or I am such a perfectionist.

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Page 30: Job Hunting in Australia Part I CV and Interview

Chosen Interview Questions and AnswersWhere do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?

‘Plans are nothing; planning is everything’. - D.D. Eisenhower

• Why do they ask this question? Red flags

• Keep your answer fairly general but related to a long-term career in the Company

• Talk about expansion of your functions

• When to talk about your intentions to continue your education?

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