In a competitive job market your CV has to stand out. The facts in the recruitment industry are:
1. Recruiters spend less than 10 seconds on an initial scan of CVs.
2. Recruiters deselecting CV received from adverts or job boards to reach a manageable short list – they often spot flaws and use these to deselect.
3. The job market is unstructured. Jobs arise following a resignation, an acquisition, an investment, etc. All difficult to predict.
Your CV has to be well structured, inviting to read and tell a story. Today 99% of CVs are delivered by email and this is a key to making your CV stand out – use the technology available. A CV can be enhanced by the addition of a link to a short video of you – 30 to 60 seconds taken on your webcam, and securely hosted on a career website.
What recruiter can resist clicking on a link on a CV? As soon as he/she does the time they spend on your CV increases fourfold. A small video opens in a separate window and the recruiting manager can see and hear you while he reads your CV. This does more than enhance your CV; it manages the all important first impression. By taking time over your brief video, recording it multiple times, using a free to download teleprompter to make you appear totally fluent you define the first impression the viewer has. You can check this with friends. First impressions last, and will carry you well into the actual interview. It avoids the dreadful situation of a bad start to the interview, such as the misunderstood remark, failing to introduce yourself properly, etc – and all the other things that can go wrong at an initial meeting. The video enhanced CV demonstrates that you are serious about your career.

Used widely amongst the media professionals to demonstrate their work, the short video is rapidly taking its place in the wider job market. Have a look at the support package available at AccendoCV.

Jobseekers fall into three main categories:
1. School leavers and undergraduates
2. The unemployed
3. People in employment who are seeking a new position

The good news for the undergraduates is that the number of entry-level vacancies available at the country’s leading employers is expected to rise by 11.8 per cent this year. The improving economic outlook means that employers in at least ten key industries and business sectors, including those of banking and accountancy that were hit hard by the recession, are stepping up their graduate recruitment for 2010. The bad news is that undergraduates may find themselves competing for such posts with graduates from the past two years who are still unemployed.
The good news for the unemployed is that the UK is climbing out of recession and this should result in an upturn in the jobs market. The bad news is that there are 2.3 million people listed as unemployed, and most of them will be competing for the new jobs as they come on line.

The good news for the employed is obvious, they have a job! The bad news is that, if they wish to move on, they are in competition with 2.3.million others.

People in all three categories can give themselves a head start in the race for jobs, but fail to do so for a number of reasons:

Failure to use expert support. They ignore the support, advice and service that is available from experts in the field of Career Management!

Failure to market effectively. They do not ensure that their CV targets the position for which they are applying!

Failure to be proactive. They spend hours searching job boards and agency sites and virtually no time proactively networking and making direct approaches to potential employers!

Failure to be innovative. There are some new and exciting tools that can help place applicants head and shoulders above the competition, but only an innovative minority has realised their potential!

How can these shortcomings be addressed?
1. Register with a reputable Career Management Services provider who will review your existing CV and make recommendations (normally free of charge)
2. If necessary, spend an incredibly small percentage of your target income and get your CV written by a professional, who knows what HR Managers are looking for.
3. Take advice from the professionals on how to market yourself; which job boards to attack and what type of cover letter to use.
4. Adopt a forward thinking approach and look at the new tools that are available to help in your search for the right job. CREATE YOUR OWN BRAND!

You should differentiate yourself and manage your brand effectively with the following:

1. A good written CV. This remains a most important tool.

2. By having your personal Career Website (Your Brand), as well structured and presented as your CV and hosted securely on a career management site. With clever design and URL this will be readily found by Google. Social networking has its place, but is open to abuse and can do great harm to the individual’s reputation; far better if you can ensure that what the inquisitive HR people find, is a potential employee presenting him or herself in a professional manner to the market.

3. Place a link on your written CV to a short video of yourself, up to a minute in length, saying what you are and what you are trying to do. This entirely novel use of the video resume has developed because the interview process itself is influenced by many factors; one major aspect is the ‘first impression’. Those first few nervous seconds create a lasting impression – indecision, getting the name wrong, not making eye contact, etc. These can be dealt with by delivering that first impression before the meeting via a well rehearsed video, and placing the impression in the interviewers mind before the meeting. It gives the interviewee a significant advantage. Additionally, Professor Cialdini tells us that liking is the strongest and most effective of his ‘six laws of persuasion’. People like to work with people they like, prefer to do business with people or brands that they like. The short video gives the applicant the opportunity to smile. It works.

Accendo Career management Services have developed a package that can provide you with all of the above, ensure that you market yourself perfectly and place you at the head of the pack.
Please visit Accendocv.co.uk for full details of our services.

On the 15th April AccendoCV made a presentation to students at Portsmouth University

Two speakers from AccendoCV made a presentation to students and staff at Portsmouth University Careers Service (Purple Door). The presentation focussed on personal marketing when job seeking and starting a career. It went on to describe in detail the tools available on the web to do this, why they are superior to traditional methods, and described in detail the fact that the internet is not a passive medium.                                                                
The dangers of the internet attract the press when they affect children and human rights. Dreadful though these are, they remain relatively rare. Much more common are issues flowing from the branding that the web does on us all. That jolly and inebriated photo uploaded to Facebook, those clumsy and rushed profiles placed on LinkedIn, Bebo, etc., can be and are found by employers. Microsoft published a survey stating that 7 out of 10 employers/recruitment agents research candidates on line prior to meeting. The damage can be done without our knowledge with a wrong/poor/bad impression being transmitted.                                                                                          
The solution is not to stop Facebook or other entries, but to put them in context by having a personal Career Website that is found first by such covert research and shows a rehearsed and positive image.
The questions at the end of the presentation were searching and lively, with the University inviting AccendoCV to return.