Moving On Up – Candidate Tips
The Golden Ticket
The golden ticket that most employers are looking for when it comes to technical roles in corporate environments is a mixture of technical brilliance and natural soft skills. For example, if 5 people interview for the same role and one of those candidates stands out as being personable as well as technically credible, I would be surprised if that person didn’t get the job.
The Interview
When it comes to interviewing for any role, it’s important that we aim to build connections with the people conducting the interview. It’s also important to talk about your achievements to date without bragging, explaining in detail what your involvement was in each case whilst also carrying a level of humility and acknowledging that there is always more to learn. If there are specific areas that you excel in, that fire you up and utilise your strengths, talk about them! We all want to work with people who are genuinely excited by what they do and knowing what drives a potential future employee will empower the hiring manager to utilise your skills in the most productive way possible.
The CV
It’s important to set out a personal summary that injects life into who you are as a person, and use this summary to open up your CV. Include things like achievements and aspirations and use this as an opportunity to explain what motivates you to get up in the morning and roller-skate to work. Bear in mind that the hiring manager will be sifting through more than one application and you need to make sure you stand out at this point so that they select you for an interview. When it comes to your career history, use bullet points to explain clearly what you’ve done to date and what your level of involvement was.
Using phrases like “I work well on my own or as part of a team” are fairly vacuous and seem to appear on every CV that started its life as a dodgy internet template. Steer clear of anything that screams “internet template”. Also photos and QR codes are rarely a good idea – although do consider including the URL of your LinkedIn profile in place of a photo.