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Is my application good enough to submit? 4 Questions to ask yourself before you hit send!

That horrible moment.

It’s something that, if you've ever applied to a job, you’ll have definitely felt. That horrible moment just before, during and just after you've submitted your online application form. It’s horrible for a few reasons;

1)      That’s it – it’s gone and there is nothing you can do about it, it’s out of your control now.

2)      What if there are mistakes you hadn't seen?!

3)      What if there were things you left out, or the way it comes across isn't quite right?

The really great thing about feeling these three things is that it shows you care. I’d be far more concerned about your chances of getting through to the next stage if you sent your application without reading it over and not still worrying about it being perfect. This blog is to help you self-evaluate your application form to help you being more comfortable, confident and composed when clicking the ‘submit’ button.

These four questions, as you’ll notice, exclude things like ‘is the spelling and grammar correct?’ These questions are things that you can do over and above the usual application health checks that should be done anyway. The idea behind these questions is to provide you with a check-list the next time you’re filling out an online application, so here goes:           

                   Question 1: Does it follow the structure of the question?

This seems obvious, but many application questions will have a number of components e.g. ‘Tell us about a time you demonstrated leadership, what role were you in, what did you do and how would you relate this experience to the role?’

Use the question as a guide! Identify the key components and pay them all attention, this provides you with the backbone of your answer, make sure you don’t forget anything. If you show a great example of leadership but don’t demonstrate how you’d apply it to the role specifically, you’re missing the point. They want you to realise how you can make that leadership ability a transferable skill, make sure that’s what you do by interpreting the question that way.

Question 2: Am I answering with honesty and integrity?

Shout about your achievements, but never include something that might not be 100% true. The only thing worse than submitting an application form that doesn't get through is getting an application accepted and then found out in the interview. If you achieved 20 attendees at an event, big that achievement up, don’t pretend you got 100.

Question 3: Are my answers in line with my personal brand?

You want to be consistent the whole way through a recruitment process and on your other public platforms. If you’re someone who says they’re really independent, confident and creative, then make sure your answers demonstrate this.

A great way to do this is to read out your answers aloud and ask yourself ‘Would I say that?’ If you would, great, it’s a reflection of your brand. If not, find words that sound more like you, then construct an answer that you’d be comfortable saying to an interviewer.

Question 4: Does my application invite people to look further?

This is an excellent differentiator, particularly when applying to smaller companies who require immediate impact. If you have public examples of your work, include links. This demonstrates that you’re not only proud of your work, but that you believe the company can get a taste of what you can do by looking at it. This includes your LinkedIn profile, make sure you include a link to that, if you think it’ll help you stand out from other candidates.

The final word …

I’ve submitted applications before, reread them and been disappointed at little things I’d missed or the tone of some of the answers. If I’d had these questions to use as a guide, I’d have been in a far better position to self-evaluate my applications before making the decision to submit, I hope you find these helpful!

Chris Milborrow

1st May 2014

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @chrismilborrow

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‘How to Get Hired, Live.’ Event 22nd April 2014– My Recap & Top Tips from the day.

                  Wow! Yesterday’s ‘How to Get Hired Live Event at Wembley Stadium, organised by Bright Futures and TARGETjobs, was incredible! I've decided to write a quick recap today, while all the thoughts are still fresh in my head and the buzz from the day still hasn't quite worn off. I could spend this post describing the sessions and the learnings from each, but I wanted to focus on some key takeaways I picked out and then summarise with a list of tips that are sure to help you land the graduate job you want.

On the day, we were treated to presentations by real influencers in different industries and from recruitment experts, with the key theme being, you guessed it, how to get hired through effectively navigating the recruitment process and standing out from the crowd.

What stood out to me?

During the first session, Eleanor Radbourne from Rolls Royce said something that really got me thinking. ‘What I’m going to say isn’t revolutionary.’ Eleanor explained. Now, what this certainly doesn't mean is that what Eleanor said wasn't valuable or helpful to those who came along. What it did mean, however, was that the things discussed yesterday are things you can easily access, as graduates and undergraduates. The fact that the information isn't revolutionary is a great thing! We’re not inventing something new here, students have been getting jobs for centuries, but never before has there been so much help, support and guidance for you to land the career you want, and never has it been more accessible, than it is today.  The reason this stuck with me, and acted as a thread throughout the way I viewed the rest of the day is because, although what was being said wasn’t necessarily new or original, the way in which it was delivered was, in my opinion, completely revolutionary. We had hundreds of students and over one hundred graduate employers in a room, discussing how to choose the right career, how to stand out in recruitment processes and how to land the job you want when you graduate. Bearing in mind, that these students all have exams looming, and travelled from across the UK to attend, as did the employers represented.

What does this say to me?

This tells me that we, my generation, are breaking down the walls that historically stood between potential employee and employer. The recruitment market is no longer employers saying ‘this is what we want.’ And students having to try to best interpret this, hoping they get it right. By using the information age we find ourselves in, we have become more comfortable with informing debate, engaging in two-way conversation to not only understand the job market, but to help co-create it. Some companies who presented yesterday are doing incredible things on social media, some run excellent internal initiatives and, by sharing this, both students and other recruiters can come together and collectively shape the changing graduate recruitment landscape.

Recruiters are now aiming to drive efficiencies in the way they recruit. LinkedIn is becoming a great, cost effective, tool to talent spot, as are interactions on Twitter. Gone are the days where there were a limited number of ways to get noticed, there are now loads, and this puts students at an advantage with endless opportunity.

Here are my top 7 tips from the day. Some you’ll maybe have already heard, some may be shown in a different way, and all I hope is that you’re able to use and implement these to help you in your future career search.

 Top Tips on how to Get Hired.

Learn positive self-talk. If you don’t think you’re going to get the job, then how are you planning to convince you’re interviewer you’re the person they should hire. Be confident in your ability, but humble in your approach. If you’re good enough, you know you’re good enough, demonstrate that with confidence, self-belief and integrity.

Employers see Volunteering as a magic word. If you knew there was one, just one, word that would make an employer immediately more likely to hire you, you’d use it, right?              Well here it is. Volunteering shows you’ve done something, not out of need for money, but because you’re passionate, cause-driven and truly dedicated to work hard on something you enjoy doing.

Interns get hired first! Rolls Royce recruit 80% of their interns into full time jobs. If you think this is uncommon, think again. If you get a summer internship, you’re far more likely to land a job. Save yourself the hassle and stress in final year of finding a job, and use your long summers to gain great experience.

It doesn’t matter how good you are, if no one knows about it. If you’re doing great things, shout about them. This applies to both when you’re applying for jobs and when you’re in the door. Network effectively to let people know what you’re up to. News travels, and you never know who might find out.

Be found and be great on LinkedIn. We’re all capable of having great profiles, but being found is a different story. When using LinkedIn, make sure you use key words in your profile that you want to be associated with so that when people search for a set of skills, you make sure you appear on that list.

Think about the future value of connections. I have friends who have graduated and become recruiters, and you will have to. Your mates in class might be just that at the moment, but you’ll all go on to have very different careers and networks, think of this before you discount anyone.

When networking, decide that you’re not going to hide, that you’re going to shine. If you’re not confident naturally, fake it until you make it. Make sure you ask for business cards and follow up with an email, LinkedIn message or Tweet!

As always, I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts and comments on my post. If you’d like more information about the event partners, Bright Futures and TARGETjobs, and how you can come along to events like ‘How to Get Hired, Live.’ you can find all the information you need at www.brightfutures.co.uk and www.targetjobs.co.uk.

Chris Milborrow

23rd April 2014

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @chrismilborrow

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Make Friends in the Foyer, some tips for Assessment Centre Success.

The day has arrived! You make your way to the assessment centre location, probably an office or hotel. You’re dressed sharp, with everything prepared in your mind about what you’re going to say in your interview, how you’ll approach the group exercise and you’re confident that you’ll be able to get through the psychometric tests after all those practices. You’re nervous, naturally, anxious about the long day ahead but excited about the prospect of the reward of a job at the end of your hard work. And then something you probably didn’t prepare for happens… You meet ANOTHER candidate!

Your Natural Reaction

Undoubtedly, you knew that there would be others at the assessment day, however, in all the mental preparation you’ve undergone the night before or maybe weeks leading up to today, you really hadn’t given them a second thought. So what is your reaction? They’re competition, right? You ask a few questions to find out which university they come from and what they study, and maybe a little about how they found the process etc. And then others come in, you follow the same awkward assessment centre protocol and you all sit, waiting for the assessor to arrive. By now, you’ve already forgotten all of the others’ names, have a blurred memory of what they all study and where, all caused by the shock of realising you’d now entered some kind of corporate rat race. By the time the recruiter enters the room to brief you all on the day, your nerves have doubled, and you’re already comparing yourself against the others in the room.

If this is something you’ve experienced, you’ll know how much it affects you on the day. If you haven’t been to an assessment centre before, or don’t want it happening at your next, here are three tips to help stop this from happening;

The stages before this (Phone Interview, Application Form etc.) were way of the employers screening to bring the best candidates to this assessment centre. The fact that you’re here means the company are interested in your skills, if they weren’t, you wouldn’t be here! Let the recruiters compare you against the others, doing it yourself will lead to you highlighting your flaws and your weaknesses, this is a great way to undermine and get you questioning any confidence you had going into the day.

The other candidates will be just as nervous as you, always remember this. If they come across as cagey or short, that’s probably their way of dealing with it.

Unless you’re told otherwise, there is usually more than one vacancy on offer. As a result, you might not even be directly competing with the others in this assessment centre.

It’s at this stage where I give one final piece of advice, referred to in the title of this blog. Before I do, I want to recognise that this might seem really daunting, especially if you haven’t been to an assessment centre before, or if you have and found it to be nerve-racking.

My final piece of advice when approaching an assessment centre is, make friends in the foyer!

          Imagine, instead of the same small talk, you had a real conversation with the other candidates on the day. It could be about anything, maybe they’ve been to other assessment centres and had funny stories, maybe it’s completely unrelated and you ask them about what else they do at university, any societies or sports they’re into.

Reading the book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ is a great way to begin to learn the value of friendship. The word I suggest you focus on in the title of this book is the word ‘and’. Some people try to make friends TO get something in return, in an assessment centre, focus on making friends without any other objective than making friends with them on the day and see what that brings. In my experience, the results were incredible. The main things I found were;

I was far more relaxed. It was almost like my conversations with the others had made me feel more like myself. I feel like I was more enthusiastic and genuinely excited during the interview as a result, having already come out of my shell before the assessment centre began properly.

We smashed the group exercise. Instead of having to spend time getting through the awkwardness at the beginning of the task, we were all comfortable working with one another, comfortable enough to listen to one another and challenge opinions. This made the task so much easier, we all knew that in order for any of us to get the job, we all had to work as a team.

I made connections. Believe it or not, assessment days are a great way to build your professional network. It’s not every day that you get to meet students from other unis across the UK.

You might be reading this and thinking ‘That’s easier said than done!’, and I totally agree! If you’d have asked me to make friends in the foyer in my first ever assessment centre, I’d have laughed nervously and probably done exactly what I did do, engage in awkward small talk, go into the interview nervous and sit bemused and frustrated during the group exercise and, you guessed it, not get the job offer.

The Final Word...

I’m not suggesting you walk away from the day best of mates with a competing candidate, but do yourself a favour, don’t walk out of there having not made an effort to at least make the experience that little bit more enjoyable and easier by going against your natural response and doing that little bit more than what most do (chances are, the other person will really appreciate the gesture, too!)

Chris Milborrow

21st April 2014

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @chrismilborrow

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A Blog about Blogging.

When I spoke to the team at Bright Futures about writing a blog for the HirEd EMagazine, I was struggling to find a topic that would be of use to those looking for jobs without repeating anything I’d written in my blog already.

And then they suggested writing a blog about, blogging.

Not only did I like the idea, it got me thinking about how much I’ve gained from first sitting down in front of a computer and writing a short piece on entrepreneurship about a year ago. Since then, I’ve written over 10,000 words, had guest blogs published on websites and been in the Bright Futures EMag a couple of times along with writing a joint piece with Salik Khan, another member of the Bright Futures Network.

Then I started to think about the job hunting benefits of writing a blog.

Now, what I don’t want this to turn into is a technical guide on how to write your blog posts, because every blog (and blogger) is different. Some people prefer blogging through photographs, some through micro-blogging on Twitter or posting quotes or funny messages. No one way of doing it is better than the other.

So, what I’m going to use this to do is to give you some reasons why blogging is such a great way of helping you become employable.

1. Increase your profile, for all the right reasons.

Employers are connected to the internet, right? That means they are also connected to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and so on. Does this worry you? Yes? Why?

The reason people are uncomfortable with employers being able to research you before they meet you is because they automatically think that it’ll affect their impression of you negatively.

This doesn’t have to be the case. Blogging is a great way to create a positive profile for you and add value to your own personal brand by articulating yourself in a positive way. Imagine an employer searched you (Which most will) and they found a link to some content you’d written. Would you still be concerned about them looking you up? Or would you actually be keen for them to?

Blogging is also a great way to make yourself interesting in interviews, when networking and in an application form. Make sure you include a link on your CV and direct people to have a read, it might be that one thing that makes you stand out from the rest

2. Blogging connects you with people you’d never have met before.

No matter what you blog about, people will respond to you. You’ll be able to see how many people are reading, see what they thought through comments and connect with people who are interested in your topic. Make sure you’re shouting about what you’re doing on social media and connecting with people and companies who might be interested in what you’re writing about.

And, as for negative comment? It’s a great way for you to ask why they disagree, what they would add, and a brilliant way to test your skills in dealing with criticism in a positive way and learning from it.

3. Blogging is and should be enjoyable!

Pick a topic you love, or at least enjoy! You shouldn’t be sitting down in the same way you would a paper for uni. If you pick something you thoroughly enjoy writing about, people will pick that up, they’ll respond positively to you, offer advice and you’ll be keen to publish more.

Uni presents enough work that in itself, so don’t create more, make sure that when you write, you’re writing because you want to, not because you have to.

The Final Word...

Hopefully these 3 points really show the value in blog writing. So, pick a topic you love, start writing and posting and share it with your friends, networks along with people you don’t know and watch it develop. And don’t be afraid to shout about it in interviews and when networking, it’s a really interesting thing and is an easy way to demonstrate your passion, commitment and ability to articulate.

Chris Milborrow

6th November 2013

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @chrismilborrow

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Be interestingly interested – the art of listening and learning your way to success!

A lesson from one of the greats.

In his book, ‘How to win friends and influence people.’ Dale Carnegie illustrates the need for active listening through using an example from a dinner party. To summarise, Carnegie takes the reader through an example where he is in a conversation with another guest, who has an interest in a subject Carnegie has no background knowledge in. Carnegie does something we all like to think we do and, as a result, the other guest praises Carnegie’s conversation skills. And what is it he does so well? He LISTENS!

What relevance does this dinner party story have to you? In your search for a graduate job? If you learn an important thing from it, it'll be more powerful than your booklet on how to write a good CV, or fill in applications, or approach assessment centres.

What this anecdote demonstrates is how being interested not only helps the other person feel important, but it also shows you in a positive light.

                                  An insight from industry.

I got the idea from this blog after speaking with Sandy Chow from the graduate recruitment team at Centrica. I interviewed Sandy on what made a good interview candidate, what she expected from interview questions and what made people stand out at networking events.

And there appeared to be 3 common themes in the answers Sandy gave me;

Asking questions about things you can easily find the answers to with some prior research shows you haven't really looked into what we do and what we offer.

Asking questions about your career prospects, the different roles and what you can be achieving in 3-5 years shows you're ambitious and determined and gets me thinking about how you'd fit in the business.

Some up to date knowledge about what’s going on in our industry and having some opinions on it creates the opportunity to show you can add value to current debates.

You can find the whole interview online @ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=428649017235727&set=a.428646620569300.1073741828.417557491678213&type=1&theatre

Translating this and using it ...

I started coming up with a few ideas about how this translated into advice to take into a recruitment process; do research, have an opinion, be ambitious and be interested in the company you’re going to apply for. 

And then I got thinking, what do all of these things say to an employer?

Let's be honest; anyone can read a website, anyone can watch the news, anyone can say they want a job in a company.

However, what doing all of these things effectively does is show that YOU ARE INTERESTED!

Ever done something you weren’t really enthusiastic about doing? We all have. Do you think it showed that you didn’t want to do it? Of course it did.

Well, the good news is, the opposite also applies.

If you show genuine enthusiasm and interest in something then it shows.

If you ask questions that required you to actually research a bit and actually have an interest, it shows.

If you want to work for a company and are genuinely excited about where a career with them can potentially take you, it shows.

And when you show an employer these things in an interview, then it’s what is going to make you memorable. By showing interest in them, what they do, what their company thinks about the latest developments in industry and by showing excitement about how you could develop as a part of their organisation – you quite quickly become interesting to them, too!

The final word...

You can show you’re interested in different ways. In Dale Carnegie’s example, it was through listening. Carnegie showed a passion, not for the specific subject (which he had no background knowledge on), but for learning from the person he was speaking to, making them feel important and by doing so, demonstrating his skill as a conversationalist. In your job hunt, it’s about showing the company how important what they do is to you, how excited you are about learning more about them, where you can go in their organisation and how GENUINELY INTERESTED you are about the prospect of working there.

Trust me... in an interview, just like in anything else you do, if you’re enthusiastic – it shows, and people are interested in you if you're interested in them!

Chris Milborrow

28th October 2013

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @chrismilborrow

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Replace failure with learning, and success becomes much more achievable!

 I've had a great summer. I've had the opportunity to work for 3 really different companies and learn from some incredible people. I've completed tasks which pushed me and helped me identify and create skills in myself and, more than anything, I've enjoyed doing it! 

So, what have I learned that's been so powerful this summer?  

1. The working world is an exciting place, filled with opportunities and more than ever, the choice to take your career where you want it to go. 

2. Being pro-active is probably the most important characteristics in the workplace. Whether it's as simple as getting to know people in your office, taking on extra tasks on top of your set workload or taking extra training, having a get-go attitude shows that you are not only capable of doing the technical work you're given, but that you have an interest to learn more.

The Third thing I learned this summer and, for me, the one that meant most and that 'I'll be taking the opportunity in this blog to write about, is in the value of feedback.    

                            'Feedback? You're in your final year of university, having done a countless number of exams, tests and essays and you're only just learning about feedback?!'

I admit, It seems strange. We grow through an education system that is so results driven, so hung up on test scores and exam results, that I think we sometimes forget that feedback is more than comments on paper. During my internships, I realised that feedback should not only be given on what we produce, for example, on project work. Surprisingly, in all the feedback I received, this made up a very small part.

I realised that the most valuable feedback is the feedback about what we do, and how we do it.

Feedback on how you interact with others, about the actions you show, the attitudes you demonstrate, about how you appear when presenting and your ability to capture the attention of the room, or not, is far more powerful, relevant and ultimately applicable than any other. This summer, in 16 weeks, I learned more about certain traits  have, negative and positive, that others see in me that I didn't realise before. As a result of feedback, I was able to adapt to my audiences, to change my approaches to certain situations, and continued to do and develop on what others considered strengths, all of which led to improved outcomes.

The best things about this type of feedback are that its immediate, it's easy to put into practice and it's makes an instant, tangible impact.

This got me thinking, in all the recruitment processes I've been in, both successful and unsuccessful, I haven't asked for feedback when I should. Yes, I've had a rough idea of what could've gone better and tried to learn and adapt from that but, now that I fully understand the benefit of learning through another set of eyes, I realise how valuable it would have been had I asked for more detailed comments from my interviewers and assessors.

As you begin applying for jobs, adopt an attitude of not seeing success or failure, instead adopt the attitude of success or learning towards success. It's not guaranteed that you'll get the first job you interview for. It's natural to have to learn before you get it right, like most things. If you don't get it right first time, second time, third time, 59th time, it doesn't matter, as long as each time you improve your chances.

To improve your chances, you have to actively learn and look for opportunities to improve, and who better than the people who looked in fine detail at your applications and interview performance to tell you where you can develop? 

It might seem like, because they rejected you, you don't want to ask for feedback. But see it like this; you put in a load of effort, practice and work to get to wherever you did in their process and if you don't get the job, see feedback as the product of that hard work. You deserve it, and the employer who interviews you and accepts you, which they will, deserves a candidate who has learned and can do justice to the skills and experience they have to offer, which you will!

  And when you are successful in a process, don't stop asking for feedback. Feedback from the company who choose to employ you is as, if not more, important as feedback from those who don't. Use it to build a platform for when you start work by knowing why they recruited you, what they identified you were good at and why you'd fit and, you guessed it, keep doing them!

  The final word... 

Feedback is more than an exam result, or a few lines scribbled on the front of an essay. Real feedback is more about you as a person, your traits, attributes and attitudes. Its a brilliant way to identify where you're effective, and where you can adapt and improve.

By taking everything you can from the feedback offered from recruitment processes you will always, no matter the outcome, get a reward for your hard work! And if you use it to prepare for your next process, or your next, or your next, then you'll make sure you make the decision easy for the company who do go on to employ you!

  Chris Milborrow 

27th September 2013

  I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; chrismilborrow

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Failure? Or Great Opportunity? You Decide!

To begin this blog post, I’m going to do something I’ve never really done before. I thought it would be a good idea to make most of this piece quite personal, because the topic of failure is one that is not only very subjective but also one that has an impact at a personal level. Everyone who reads this will have completely different experiences, but the principles that I hope to draw from my own are transferrable to all.

My experience of failure

In the summer of 2012, I participated in the Southwestern Advantage Internship in the USA. The programme sees University students from all across Europe and the states move over for the summer and sell educational books door-to-door, 13 hours a day, 6 days a week. The training is intensive, a one week programme in Nashville, Tennessee, where we were all given sales training along with motivating speeches from some of the programme alumni and managers. Some of the content went a little over my head, but I bought into a lot of it; the things that were spoken about positive mental attitude, enthusiasm and success were really inspiring and I wanted to go out there and have a tremendous experience.

Very quickly, however, I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy the summer. After 3 weeks I felt, for a number of reasons, that the programme wasn’t for me and as a result, I decided to quit. Because this job was built on success, on positivity, on resilience and on quitting not being an option, it made a tough decision all the more difficult. Regardless of how relieved I was at not having to knock another door and give the same pitch to some bemused American family still trying to figure out why they had a Scottish student sitting in their living room, I felt like a complete failure! I had gone out to the states having promised myself a great summer and told friends and family how much money I was going to earn etc. and when that hadn’t happened I felt not only embarrassed but like I’d let everyone down.

Taking the positives and using them.

What I don’t want this to be taken as is a condemning of Southwestern, because in many ways it wasn’t a bad experience; there are too many people who have made a lot of money and been very successful at it for me to begin to disregard the potential the programme offers. However, it just wasn’t for me, it wasn’t what I expected. However, one thing that I learned that I’ll never forget from the company and the people is a sort of resilience that was contagious. No matter what happens on the ‘Bookfield’, you make the most of it. My manager always told me to find ‘3 positives from every negative.’ One of my kindest and most enthusiastic customers’ dog bit me when I came to their door, but I still went in and made the sale. In two days I had one bike break and another stolen, I still managed to work on through it on foot. After selling nothing for 3 days straight and on the Saturday at 8:30 pm, I was so close to giving up but made a sale on my final house and could have skipped home. This experience instilled a kind of resolve in me, no matter what my selling capability, which made what I did after I quit the programme possible.

Turning it around

To cut a long story short, instead of going home after I left, which was really tempting for a number of reasons; I decided that, instead of finding 3 positives from the situation I was in, I was going to CREATE as many positives from it as I could. In the 8 weeks after, I got 2 jobs in retail having had no experience previously, I got involved with volunteering for 3 charities, met some incredible new people, met up with some friends I hadn’t seen in years, travelled to places I’d never seen before, rented a flat on the lake and lived like a local.

I didn’t just survive; I made the most of my experience out in the states.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

I learned lots of things in my experience over that summer. However, two things stood out above the rest, and I didn’t realise them until long after I got home.

1) Making a success from failure maximises the impact if you understand and articulate it properly.

When I quit Southwestern, I was thinking of ways to avoid writing and talking about it on my CV and in interviews. I didn’t want to let employers know I’d failed; it would make me seem like a liability, someone who quits and throws in the towel, would it not? And then I found myself in an interview when I was asked the question;

 ‘Give us a time when you were faced with a difficult situation to overcome, what did you do and how did you overcome it.’

And I realised, being in the states with no family or close friends around with no job and having to look for a place to live, is a pretty difficult situation. But the way the question was worded made me think, my interviewer isn’t looking at how or why I was in the difficult situation, they care about WHAT I did and HOW I overcame it. In interviews, especially when using the STAR approach, employers are looking for context and then your actions and the results of those actions; effectively, quitting Southwestern was nothing more than a very powerful context which maximised the impact of my actions. In this I realised that no matter how badly you feel you failed, it’s about how you recover that really helps identify your strength of character. I discovered that my experience that summer wasn’t something I should hide, but rather my recovery was something I should shout about.

After taking the risk and talking about southwestern, did I get the job? Yes.

Will I use that experience in interviews wherever it’s appropriate in the future? Yes.

Why?

That moves me onto point number two...

2) When faced with failure, our personality is tested to its limit and, to an employer; failure is a great way to see what we’re really like!

Interviewers often ask you to give them a time when you were faced with a difficult situation? Or ask you to tell them what you believe your main weaknesses are? Why?

Employers want to know, HONESTLY, about your personality. Skills are one thing, those can be developed, but raw personality traits are much more difficult to instil in someone. By asking these questions, an employer can best understand your natural strengths like resilience, positive outlook, determination, drive, creative thinking, humility, ethical values, and self starting, to mention a few. These are things much more difficult to train someone to develop; they’re more natural and actually go a long way in helping define someone. This is becoming increasingly important as employers are now looking for people who will fit in an organisational culture just as much as they’re looking for technical ability.

At this stage of writing, I’m very aware that this blog doesn’t follow a really set structure, and doesn’t have many obvious outcomes. But please take a few minutes to read it again and this time, while reading, think of a time when you’ve failed, at anything. No matter what it was, try and draw parallels, not in the details, but in the feelings and the reactions.

Think about the following;

1. Why you felt like you’d failed.

2. The consequences of this failure.

3. The actions you took afterwards and what you learned from the experience.

4. The result of your actions and how you either

a) Recovered the situation.

Or

b) Learned and developed from it.

NOW, take a second to ask yourself this;

Would you rather have chosen to do something easy and succeeded than have pushed yourself and failed?

No? Then I don’t consider it a complete failure, do you?

The Final Word

The ability to learn from failure is invaluable. Going out with our comfort zone is the most effective way to learn new things, test our natural strengths and really broaden our skill set. Failure doesn’t have to be negative, it’s your outlook, your reactions and you’re ACTIONS that make of failure what you want to.

Not all failures are directly recoverable, if you lose a cup final, for example, it’s out with your control to change the outcome, but you can train harder to make sure you win it next time. Like Bayern Munich did with the Champions League at the 3rd attempt this year; do you think winning the trophy after having lost 2 finals in the last 3 years was that bit sweeter, you bet it was!   

Chris Milborrow 

29th July 2013

  I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrowre

[chrismilborrow-blog]

STAR Continued – The Key to a glistening CV!

                                                   This post can definitely be read on its own but is probably more effective as an add-on to my blog on the STAR approach which you can find below or at http://chrismilborrow.tumblr.com/post/47011483693/the-star-approach-be-the-candidate-who-shines 

What is STAR?

To quickly recap, that aim of the blog on STAR was to introduce you to the approach and how to use it in interviews by outlining a Situation you faced, the Task you had, the Actions you took and the Results of those actions. The STAR method is not only a great way to structure your answer to keep you clear and focussed when nerves begin to kick-in, but it’s also making sure that you’re ticking the boxes for the recruiter by answering the questions in a way that they’d ideally want you to answer them.

Does it work for CV writing?

Now, this method works for interviews, but this got me thinking about my CV and how STAR can help articulate skills and experiences on paper. It might seem a little strange; STAR, after all, is a method of answering questions whereas a CV isn’t designed entirely for that. So it got me thinking about why we write a CV.

For me, the aim of a CV is simple; it’s used to convey what your strengths are through experiences that you’ve had and to prove that you have the academic record employers are looking for. For now, assuming we have the academic qualifications, the important word in there is, maybe surprisingly, ‘through’.

Why? Well, how many times have you written on your own CV or read someone’s CV that had either;

a) Skills with no context. E.g. ‘I’m a leader and organiser.’

Or

b) Experiences with no skills. (Listing Duties) E.g. ‘I was the committee member at my society for x number of years and was responsible for this, this and this.’

In an interview, if you’re vague or provide context but not much impact, the interviewer can ask you questions like ‘And how did that experience benefit you?’ or ‘How did you build your communications skills to be at the level you’re at now?’ However, when reading your CV, they can’t! This result in potentially excellent candidates not even making the interview stage and with a change of approach, this risk doesn’t even have to exist.

Bridging the skills/experiences gap.

The STAR does something else very effectively, something which wasn’t really touched on in my previous blog; it bridges the gap between skills and experiences. The STAR approach is a really effective way of saying to an employer ‘I have these skills and can show you because of this.’

Using the STAR approach is slightly different in written format for a few reasons;

1) You have limited space to answer therefore you have to be more concise.

2) There is more of an emphasis on implying your skills because the one they’re looking for isn’t explicitly asked for by a question.

3) You can really highlight areas of importance. If you have an area you want to jump out, then you can draw attention to it through different font techniques.

Looking at your CV and how STAR can be applied.

Now look at your CV, particularly your experiences section. Do you have a section in there that could benefit from using this approach? If so, take a look at the following format and compare it to what you’ve written;

I’m going to use a common example, a part-time retail assistant role, to demonstrate this method. However, this can be used for anything, so if you’ve got something else you want to use, go for it!

Part 1; Situation and Task

This is the part that outlines your role and task and should be no more than 2-3 sentences. This gives the recruiter some context and basically gives them the ‘Why?’ behind what you did.

‘In my part time role as a sales assistant, I was tasked to tidy the men’s apparel area of the store in order to make it more appealing to consumers. I noticed the product was good and had potential but the way it was organised didn’t justify this.’

Part 2; Your Actions

This is where you have identified an area that you can have an impact on and have taken steps to do so. Your actions should be justified to demonstrate your reasoning and thought process.

‘I reorganised the section, making sure there were clearly distinguished places for the different apparel products, rearranged them by colour order and freed up floor space for customers to actually enjoy shopping in the area.’

Part 3; Result

The result is the stamp of approval. No matter what you did, if you can provide tangible benefits to your actions, you’re showing an employer that you can create successful outcomes.

‘As a result, that day alone we saw more interest in the apparel section and I was given the opportunity by management to share what I had done with colleagues and briefed them on the new organisation of this section.’

Look at this  example from an employer perspective. Tick the boxes!

This isn’t just the story of how this person made a store section better. Go through this again and think like an employer would.

ü  This person noticed a problem

ü  They were pro-active and sought to come up with a common sense solution to this problem.

ü  The person was organised and understood what consumers would respond to.

ü  This affected interest (and sales) positively.

ü  The person was then given leadership opportunities to help colleagues adopt the same understanding.

Compare and contrast.

I’d like you to compare the example, above, to the one below.

Retail Assistant;

         Responsible for organising areas of the store.

         Serving customers and recommending products.

         Teaching other staff on aspects of store organisation.

         Increasing sales in apparel section.

         100% time-keeping.

Ask yourself...

If you were recruiting for a job, who would you rather speak to based on their retail experience?

The Final Word

The STAR approach is a technique that, with some slight alterations, can be adapted to make your experiences stand out on your CV. No matter what you’ve done and achieved, by using this format you can effectively communicate and prove to an employer that you can make an impact based on your skills. The format also helps you steer clear of listing skills and not showing that you actually do have them and also makes sure you don’t fall into the trap of listing duties without really articulating what skills you developed through your experiences.

Chris Milborrow 

18th June 2013

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow 

[chrismilborrow-blog]

If you're the product; know what you're selling!

Before I sat down to write, I was listening to a marketing podcast about believing in your product and knowing what you’re selling can lead to sales growth. 

And then it hit me; if we view ourselves or, more accurately, our set of skills, as the ‘Product’ we are selling, then surely the same logic applies.

Start by asking yourself; what makes a great sales person great?

You’ll usually come up with words like enthusiasm, charisma, good communication of the product, passion and drive. Do you think, however, that any of these attributes that make a good sales person would be possible unless they understood and knew everything there was to know about their product? The answer is probably not! We’ve all been approached by someone who either doesn't really know what they’re talking about or doesn't believe in what they’re selling, and it’s usually pretty obvious when they don’t. I’ll admit that yes, anyone can try and blag a sale, but it becomes apparent after a short while that they don’t know everything they should about what they’re trying to sell, especially if the buyer has any prior information and knows specifics about what they’re looking for. By calling their staff ‘Geniuses’, Apple project their level of expertise, whether justifiably or more perceived in the consumers’ mind, to a higher level than that of a sales assistant. The word itself conveys a superior level of knowledge and gives the consumer confidence in approaching the staff and believing in what they say. Their level of knowledge also allows the staff to be passionate and enthusiastic about the product because they not only believe in, but are clued up on it.

Have you ever been interested in something? It could be something you study, a hobby, a brand, a type of food, whatever. Compare how you talk about that thing against when you talk about something you don’t really know anything about. By knowing about and believing in a topic, just like a product, you can be naturally positive about it.

So if you’re the salesperson, trying to sell your skills and experiences, then who are you selling to? 

It's the recruiters. And, unfortunately for you, recruiters are trained and experienced consumers. They can not only identify when you’re not quite sure of what you’re selling, but it’s actually their job to make sure that you are selling something that they want and that will add value for them and to point out areas where you don’t quite make it.

                     The benefits that come from understanding your product.

There is a lot of text out there about developing your skills, and by looking at your skill set as the product you’re offering, you can begin to realise that you are responsible for R&D, marketing, branding and sales. What makes it easier for you to do all of this and create a justifiable and attractive value proposition for employers is by understanding yourself. It seems quite cheesy but you know best about where you excel and know what you are aiming for. It might seem like going back to basics but by understanding your strengths and weaknesses, you can best determine how you can develop your skill-set, how you can continue to grow in your areas of strength and to help you learn to counter areas of weakness. By understanding your individual value proposition, you come across as far more confident in what you’re offering, you have more examples of how to demonstrate those attributes and, most importantly, employers believe you because they can see that you believe in yourself. By learning what you’re good at, you don’t have to worry about not knowing what your skills are and you can focus on practicing to articulate them to employers in a way which makes them want to hire you!

But sometimes, it  isn't only our skills we’re expected to understand.

A common question that is asked in interview situations is ‘what is your biggest weakness?’ Continuing with our sales example, this question is designed to test your honesty in realising how your product could improve.  As much as it’s important to sell a product on its benefits, it’s also important for consumers to know that they aren't being misled in their choice and are being giving enough information to make an informed decision. Just like a customer knows that a product can’t do absolutely everything, a recruiter knows before you walk into an interview that no one is perfect and that we all have areas to develop, they ask this question to ensure that you realise this, too, and have the self awareness to acknowledge it.

The Final Word

Knowing what your selling makes your job easier, it makes you more genuine and it allows you to focus on areas for improvement and take opportunities to do so. Recruiters, like consumers, can see through someone trying to blag it and if they feel misled, more often than not, won’t buy. By knowing both the strengths and weaknesses that make up your value proposition to a role, you can be open and honest, while demonstrating and articulating key competencies effectively. 

Chris Milborrow 

10th June 2013

  I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

 You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow 

[chrismilborrow-blog]

The power of follow up; master the art of building on connections.

                        Networking is invaluable, not only when you’re a professional at work but also when you’re an undergraduate or graduate trying to start a career. There are a few main reasons why employers hold networking events and spend money and put time into creating and attending platforms to speak to students.

1. They can promote their brand. Some employers need to be loud on campus in order to attract the best talent to ensure that they’re competitive.

2. It allows you the opportunity to meet the people in the organisation in order for you to understand how they work and the type of skills they’re after.

3. The organisation can use it to talent spot! Networking sessions are a great way to meet you, as a prospective employee, face to face in order to see whether you fit and get your details and persuade you to join them.

For this blog, points one and two are most important and interesting. Employers want you to meet their people so you can understand the organisation but also want to get to know you in order to help attract great talent.

With this in mind, I have a question; have you ever gone to a networking event and been given a business card? If so, this is effectively the representative from that Organisations saying to you;

 ‘You really seem to understand and would fit in the organisation (Box 2 ticked!) and you seem to have the skills and experiences we’re looking for when hiring talent (Box 3 Ticked!).I would like to speak to you further to make sure you apply to us and help you with any questions you might have about the process.’

This is a great position to find yourself in, you’ve been handed a card that has the details of someone who can genuinely help you get a job and provide you with first hand insight of the company. So you email, right? Unfortunately, too often, we don’t! I’ve done it, too – taken a business card with the intention of emailing and ended up either forgetting or losing the card. For an employer, there is nothing more frustrating than meeting a genuine prospective hire, giving them an invitation to contact, and there isn’t any.

The value of following up also extends further than showing courtesy; by doing it, you are able to easily demonstrate the following;

a)  That you're interested -there's nothing more important to a recruiter than knowing that the applicant is genuinely enthusiastic about the company and the job. Following up allows you to demonstrate this before you even submit a formal application.

b) You can build networks and create valuable relationships - regardless of what you study or how you see your career developing, every employer looks for the ability to create value by interacting with people. The skill is easily transferrable to any workplace. Whether applying it to internal relationships with colleagues or external communication with important clients, showing you can deal with people is invaluable.

c) You can conduct yourself professionally – skills we take for granted like sending an email properly are also powerful tools for helping employers envision us in their organisation.

d) You have respect for them - Dale Carnegie famously wrote in his book, 'How to win friends and influence people.’ about the value of making people feel important. We are all victims of a desire to feel important and by following up with someone you are explicitly realising that they they're useful and valuable. You'd be surprised at how much effort someone will put in if you instil a feeling of importance in their role. by identifying them as someone who can help you.

‘All of these demonstrated in one simple email? I understand it might seem farfetched. You’re probably asking what the catch is.

The easy answer is that there doesn’t necessarily have to be a catch. Well maybe one. That is that not any email can help you demonstrate these things, but the right one can!

Yes, by following up you’re already steps ahead, but make sure you maximise the value by doing the following;

1. Re-introduce yourself:  Chances are they won't remember you or at least not everything about you. Use this opportunity to show yourself in the best light, mention your university and area of study, something that makes you interesting firstly to help them remember your first meeting also to help you start creating interest in you.

2. Be courteous: Thank them for their card and for taking the time to speak to you previously, acknowledge that they’re busy and that you appreciate them taking the time to read your email – manners go a long way

3. Outline why you're emailing: This is, no doubt, the most important part of the email. Be Crystal clear about what your aims are - if you're looking to apply for an internship or grad scheme, tell them, they’re clever enough to know that you aren't just emailing to be friends and say hi.

4. Ask questions: Increase the likelihood of a response by asking insightful and, most importantly, genuine questions, preferable that they can answer personally. 'How did you find the internship?', ‘What does your role involve?', 'I'd be very interested in learning from your experience in ...'.

5. Sign-off professionally: Sign off using a positive message, ‘I look forward to hearing from you.’ ‘Kindest Regards,’ Introduce a short signature to your email, highlighting your university year and study topic.

The Final Word.

Effective networking goes beyond physically meeting someone; that’s actually the easy part! In order to show that you’re really interested and to demonstrate that you can add value to a professional relationship. If someone invites you to email them, take them up on it, Not just any email will help you impress; make sure you re-introduce yourself effectively, are clear on what you would like to achieve and ask questions to highlight your areas of genuine interest. Make the other person feel that you are interested in them, their company and that you feel they have a lot of value in helping you achieve your goals, and they'll be happy to do what they can, Besides, what's the worst that could happen? 

Chris Milborrow 

2nd June 2013

  I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow 

[chrismilborrow-blog]

Internationalising your degree; adding an extra dimension.

Find this post @ Target Jobs bloggers; http://tjbloggers.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=T3RjkD4BAAA.A2j3Olgqaqdhch_auV0jEA.pbHEKBOp9ZGxAPKYlwU2qg&postId=6671021255376075600&type=POST

                           Times have changed. Our world is getting smaller and a journey that would've taken almost a week by transatlantic cruise liner not so many years ago can now be referred to as ‘Crossing the pond’ and have the traveller home in time for dinner.

It is in this landscape, in a world where we can communicate to a friend or colleague from thousands of miles away with the click of a button, where we as current and future graduates, find ourselves taking our degrees, our skills and our talent out into.

Since beginning university in 2009, I have realised that the whole ‘University Experience’ goes far beyond what we do inside of the classroom. Indeed, what I’ve learned is that your whole experience and what to gain from university not only goes out with the classroom, but can go out with the city, country, or continent you study in.

When coming to the end of my first year, I discovered the opportunity to go to America and work at a summer camp. I was 18, had never been further than other countries in Europe and had certainly never travelled independently. Since then I have participated in the Study China programme run by the University of Manchester and have been to the states to not only work in retail and for charities, but have met up with friends I still keep in touch with in my very first summer at camp.

This blog won’t turn into a trip advisor account of my experiences – promise.

Now what I don’t want this blog to be is a travel log of everywhere I’ve been and everything I’ve learned from it, because that’s really not going to have any impact for you. The aim is to share with you not only how easy it is when you have the confidence to, but also how much of a benefit is, to add an international dimension to your time at university.

The opportunity to travel and experience new cultures, new ways of thinking, new languages and ultimately meet new people is becoming more and more available to students for what I believe are two reasons;

1) Agencies now specialise in providing opportunities aimed towards students that are affordable, supported and tailored to provide the best overall experience.

2) The famous long university summers. Now, these aren’t really that new, however, there is now more emphasis than ever on making the most of our summers at university. Summer provides us with countless opportunities; the increased offerings of summer internships for penultimate year and graduating students are testament to employers buying into the value of you making the most of your summer.

The benefits for YOU.

For me, there are four key personal benefits to going abroad and they might be obvious but it’s worth pointing them out;

Having cool stories to tell about your travels can make you seem very interesting to an employer, either at networking stage or at an interview. (Your work in class on financial spreadsheets may be important when it comes to your degree but that summer you spent backpacking around Asia on a shoestring budget is far more interesting, sorry!)

You meet people you would never have met before. We like to throw the term ‘Network’ around a lot with advancements in social media but travelling is one very effective way of building a real network of friends (possibly futures colleagues) around the globe.

You’ll be tested, and that’s a good thing! Without a doubt, when travelling without supervision or support from parents or a large group, things will go wrong! The term ‘Outside your comfort zone.’ Is never more apparent when you realise that the Chinese metro system also runs on a Sunday service and you have to sell a pair of earphones in the street to pay the taxi fair to the airport, making it on time for your flight with no time to spare. Sounds nuts, but I use it in an interview whenever I can!

Independence!  Internationalising your student experience; whether it’s an academic exchange, a summer programme or simply travelling, will give you the independence to make decisions, to conduct yourself and to live the way you want to live. This may sound strange but being acting independently allows you to think independently; to gather new knowledge about new cultures and people and interpret it. Independence allows you to become the unique person you want to be.

 Now, being interesting, connected, hardened and more independent  are great characteristics to develop and should begin to or have already sold a lot of you internationalising your degree.

What industry wants!

However, I haven’t outlined the main benefit of doing this throughout your time in academia. The world isn’t only getting smaller for us as ‘world citizens’, it’s also getting smaller for organisations. More and more of the employers we are applying to are already or are becoming world players, they are expanding and operating in new cultures, with new languages and with completely different ways of working.

As a result, although not yet a necessity, employers are now looking for students who have an understanding of different cultures, who have immersed and understood other ways of living and interacting and have proven, through either travelling or work experience, that they are willing to learn and develop in a whole new, probably daunting environment.  Only by being in a country can you get a true, real-life, understanding of how the people interact, what etiquette exists, maybe even the language.

Employers aren’t looking for you to have work extensively in these countries or developed business opportunities in emerging markets – YET! By showing and proving you are confident and competent enough to immerse and comfortably identify differences and embrace those, employers will see you as adaptable and that’s only going to become a more desirable attribute.

The Final Word.

Adding an international dimension to your degree not only helps you get a job in what is quickly becoming a world economy but it provides you with additional life skills, the ability to take yourself out with your comfort zone and to adapt in unfamiliar environments. Also, if you've added an international experience to your CV, it really stands out and you’ll no doubt talk about it in an interview or when networking. Yes, there are other ways to become employable; but for me, getting the chance to go abroad is the most fun and exciting way to do it and the opportunities are available more than ever when you’re studying!

Chris Milborrow 

10th May 2013

I appreciate you taking the time to read this blog entry and I welcome your feedback.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow

[chrismilborrow-blog]

Student Work Ethic; Daytime TV Generation? Or More than that?

This blog post is exclusively for the Employability HUB and can be found at; https://dash.bloomfire.com/posts/597241-work-ethic-a-student-s-perspective/public 

                      The stereotype

One of the perceived criticisms by employers of my generation is we don’t understand the work ethic expected in today’s workplace. As a Generation Y student, it would be a natural reaction for me to defend myself and my peers from those who say that degrees have become too easy and who consider today’s students to be lazy. This article is about exploring work ethic from a student perspective.

At the outset, let me say that no two students are the same. The truth is, I know students who have lazy days, sometimes I’m a lazy student and yes, I have watched daytime TV a few times since in my last 3 years at University. Does this mean I have no understanding of or a bad work ethic? That my degree is easy? Or that because I have a couple of days off and miss a few lectures I’m not equipped to, or don’t deserve to, enter the workplace? I don’t think so, and I’ve decided to spend the next few hundred words telling you why...

 What is work ethic?

A dictionary definition;

 ‘Belief in the moral benefit and importance of work and its inherent ability to strengthen character.’

 I also concluded when discussing it with others that work ethic is less a scientific response than it is a sentiment. We are very good at knowing work ethic when we see it, but find it more difficult to define with words.

What I found to be a common theme surrounding the definition, however, is the ability not only to work hard but to get results, along with doing the right thing and it’s these attributes I’ll be considering throughout.

 The changing context

There are four times as many graduates today as in the 1980s. Graduate unemployment is seeing more publicity than ever as young people struggle to build careers in a difficult local and world economy. This year’s graduates are set to be competing against graduates from not only their own year group but against those who graduated multiple years before them.

There are positives, too; we are in a technological age where learning is becoming more than academic reading and the world is shrinking through instant global communication and the wonders of social media. As a result, university is changing. Lectures can now be found online as, not only education, but information more generally becomes more accessible than ever before. Learning can be done in ways unavailable to past generations of students. As a result, institutions who are adapting, like the Open University, are capitalising with unrivalled growth.

Students are changing too; career prospects are now considered more important than ever when deciding which courses to do and which university to study at. The often discussed ‘Student Experience’ now has departments dedicated to it at Universities, as institutions realise the emphasis on providing a whole educational package. Students are now developing not only nationwide but global networks throughout their time at University.

Industry has changed to accommodate the changing level of talent coming through Higher Education, placing emphasis on extra-curricular activity and the ability to demonstrate transferrable skills equally, if not more so, with academic excellence when considering applicants. Companies are looking for leaders, team-workers, proven performers and are no longer impressed by a high degree score on its own. Students are expected to demonstrate skills through practical experience. As a result, the variety of roles and responsibilities taken on by young people today exceeds any before them in reaction to expectations.

 Expectations are changing, so is work ethic!

With this being the backdrop for any university career in the 21st century, there are added expectations on students. What would make a student stand out to an employer 20 to 30years ago no longer does; a degree is no longer your ‘Employability’ because over 70 graduates on average are going for each job, all with degrees too.

Going above and beyond is now considered a pre-requisite if you are to stand a chance of getting a job at the end of your degree. The vast majority of companies will only ask about your degree in your application. Throughout the rest of the recruitment process, as long as you are on course for a ‘good degree’, it very much takes a back seat.

An emphasis on creating a personal brand has resulted in more and more companies recruiting the person, not the test score. We are now seeing a generation of graduates who are shaping company cultures as opposed to 'fitting in'. Work ethic now consists of far more than having the ability to get your head down and work; it's about your moral values, about your image, your skills and your passion for learning and developing; all of these now create a whole new value proposition for employers.

Everything you do during your time at university now has implications on your ability to be employable. Students are now being encouraged to do more than just a degree in order to excite employers. Organisations are now being presented with more high quality students and are aiming to recruit more work-ready students with real life experiences.

 What’s your view?

1. Do you think degrees are getting easier or are we actually witnessing a student population who are transitioning to a different kind of work ethic in our new economy?

2. Are we seeing students who now realise that a 2:1 is the benchmark for a good job, but that they have to go above and beyond their peers in terms of experience in order to be competitive?

3. Is that ‘lazy’ student who has a part-time job, volunteers, keeps up to date with technology and has mastered the art of social networking, while still attaining a good degree qualification really lazy? Or is ‘working hard’ at university being replaced by ‘working smart’ in order to accommodate all the other things that before were options and are now becoming more of a necessity?

4. If you’re an undergraduate of the past, do you think you’d be employable today based on what you did at university?

How will this transfer to working life?

I believe this change in work ethic will have implications in the work place. Corporate cultures are all different, but as undergraduates we expect that when entering the workplace we will be given opportunities to lead, to make big decisions and are likely to clash with senior members of staff! Graduate schemes are definitely aimed towardsproviding greater responsibility at a more junior level than ever before.

This results in a fusion of employees from different generations, with different experience and with different ideas surrounding what work ethic means. The image of the lazy student isn't a stereotype we're going to get rid of. In response, I'd say that university is becoming less about the time you spend hitting the books and more about prioritising so you get a good degree score as well as develop the skills to stand out to employers. Like it or not, on its own, memorizing a book no longer gets you a job!

 Leading the workplace transformation

All the talk about good degrees getting easier to achieve, whether you believe it or not, doesn't matter to the art student who landed a job in business based on their volunteer work at a children's hospital. It certainly won’t comfort the accounting grad who got a first class honours but failed to interest employers because they had no real life experience.

The Final Word.

Times are changing, working hard in the traditional sense is being replaced by working smart, working long on one thing is being replaced by working efficiently on multiple things, University is now about more than how many hours you put in and by my count, the workplace isn't far behind seeing a transformation led by my generation – and, personally, I think it’s refreshing and I’m very proud to be a part of it!

Find this post @ https://dash.bloomfire.com/posts/597241-work-ethic-a-student-s-perspective/public and follow @EmployHUB for more articles on Employability and #Graduate Employment.

Chris Milborrow 

8th May 2013

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow 

You can now also email me directly at c.attributesattitudes@gmail.com 

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The STAR approach - Be the candidate who shines brightest!

This blog post is aimed at sharing a very effective interview technique, explaining it’s benefits and showing how you can not only learn it, but make it work for you in an interview. Some readers may already have heard of and even used this technique (it isn’t a secret) but I’d first like to give a short introduction to it and explain what it is.

Describing the STAR

The STAR approach is becoming  increasingly popular – some of us may have received emails from employers inviting us to an interview suggesting we use the STAR approach in our answers, more on that later. So what does STAR mean?

STAR

Situation

Task

Action

Result

The STAR helps us begin to shape our interview answers for competency based questions by providing a format where we are outlining the overall situation and your task within that (Context), the action we took (What you did to accomplish your task) and what the result was (Impact of what you did).

Why use the STAR?

If you look at your interview answers; have you ever come out of an interview wishing you’d included something in an answer? Or have you ever thought that you rambled on in a tangent?

What the STAR approach allows you to do is to be precise, to the point but also cover all the points you want to, without the waffle. What it allows you to do is speak to an employer the way they want to hear you.

One way to view an interview is to look at it like an exam. Think about how you would prepare;

Most of you will be able to relate to trying to prepare for an exam by writing essay plans for the topics you think will come up and, even when they don’t, you have an idea of how to answer them in a structure that’ll pick us up marks.

The brilliant thing about the STAR is that it works just like this but with interviews. The approach allows us to prepare answers in a structured way before and even during interviews.

Speak to employers in the way they want you to!

Think back to the classes before an exam, our teachers or lecturers give us a format they recommend we answer in. We follow this advice for 2 reasons;

1.       It’s probably the easiest way to answer the question.

2.       Most importantly, they’re the ones who score your exam or know what those who are scoring your paper are looking for.

When you’re asked to follow a certain format when answering a question, the lecturer is basically saying;

‘This is how you will get great marks.’

It’s exactly the same in an interview! If an employer sends you an email asking you to answer using the STAR format they are basically saying;

‘This is how you get the job.’

If you can, give a result that is quantifiable (E.g. I won a contract for £10,000 or I increased my society membership by over 100% to 50). This really highlights the impact in terms that employers can visualise. The more your results are relevant to the employer, the better - it lets them imagine your impact in the role you’re applying for.

An interview is about you, no one else.

The reason they are asking for this format is because it helps them evaluate you as a candidate. Take a generic competency interview question;

‘Tell us about a time when you worked well as part of a team?’

Some of us get caught up in what the team did, what the team achieved and, although we might answer very confidently and manage to communicate the incredible things the team did, we fall into the trap of being very descriptive but also we fail to tell the story of what we, as individuals, did.

Look at it from an employer’s perspective; they are potentially hiring you – not the team! They want to know what your task was what you did and the impact that you had, because they’re hopefully going to be integrating you into one of their teams when you start in your role.

With this in mind, we turn back to Task in the STAR approach. This stage switches from the overall context and turns the spotlight on you. The most important word to use from now on in the interview is ‘I’.

‘I took on the task of.’

‘The actions I took.’

‘The impact I made was.’

It’s not a secret – let them see you use it!

A good point to remember is that STAR isn't something secret that we can’t let employers know we’re using.

Don’t be afraid to use the terms, too! By saying the words in the STAR in your answer, you can not only give yourself prompts throughout, but it gives the interviewer an indication of where you are in your answer. Interviewers take notes; make sure their notes on you follow a structure; it’ll impress them not only during but after the interview when they review your performance.

Practice makes perfect – Try it for yourself.

Sometimes it seems difficult to practice for an interview. It’s true; you don’t know exactly which questions they will ask you on the day. What you can do, however, is be as prepared as possible by becoming comfortable with the STAR and by thinking about the types of questions you might be assessed on.

Think about competency questions;

A time when you worked well in a team?

A time when you solved a difficult problem?

I time when you were a leader?

A scenario where something didn't go to plan?

Write them down and, using the STAR, begin to answer them. Familiarise yourself with not only your answers but with the way they come together and how they flow from point to point.

By doing this, you become confident using the STAR format and when you get a question in an interview, even if you haven't prepared for it specifically, you can tailor your answer while keeping a structure you know how to follow.

Time to be creative!

Have a bit of fun while learning and answer questions which have no relevance to job hunting.

Choose one of the following questions and create your own 100 word answer, using the STAR to really communicate what you did and what the result was;

1.       Give us a time when you were confronted by a bear?

2.       Give us a time when you and your friends were stranded on a desert island?

3.       Give us a time when you got lost in a foreign country with no knowledge of the local language?

Send your answers to c.attributesattitudes@gmail.com – the top 3 will be published next week!

The final word

 Interviews are tough – fact! Going into an interview unprepared is even tougher. Give yourself a head start by going into an interview equipped with the STAR. The technique will help you structure your answers in a way that employers appreciate. Using this will also help settle your nerves, giving you prompts and allowing you to keep on track and not ramble about irrelevant information. Say the words in your answer and practice, practice, practice - Shine brighter than the rest!

  Chris Milborrow 

3rd April 2013

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow 

You can now also email me directly at c.attributesattitudes@gmail.com 

[chrismilborrow-blog]

Do social with style – ‘The social style matrix.’

It’s no secret; success or failure in business boils down to one main thing; how we manage relationships.

Deals are done based on facts and figures, yes, but the vast majority of decisions are made based on the delivery of this data, rather than based entirely on the data itself. And to think about it, it’s true in recruitment processes too.

If organisations based hiring decisions entirely on data, there would be no interview process; a candidate would be selected based solely on their CV and online test results.

There are two reasons why employers use interviews.

We all have a tendency of coming across very confidently on a CV.  If we didn’t, then we wouldn’t even get to interview stage. As a result, we may over exaggerate our skills and experiences and, let’s face it, going on CV content almost everyone I know describes themselves as an ‘Ambitious leaders with the ability to work well on their own and in a team.’

And, you know what, we all probably do demonstrate skills similar to one another, it’s very public knowledge that organisations are looking for a certain skill set and I’m not disputing that a large number of applicants have, and can demonstrate, these skills in some context or another.

This brings me nicely onto reason number two.

The main reason why recruiters use interviews is because a huge part of any professional role is based on interpersonal relationships and how we interact with others.

A company could cut costs by recruiting at application stage but the problem is that they’re looking for people who can communicate well not only on paper, but face to face and under pressure.

Employers don’t want CV writers; they want driven, impactful individuals who are going to add value to the organisation.

This being the case, knowing who you are communicating with and, importantly, what kind of person you are and how you communicate, is vitally important in being successful in both interviews and eventually when you are in a job.

So how can we begin to tell what kind of person we are, and how to recognise, embrace and use to our advantage, our personalities?

Look below at the ‘Social style matrix’

What the social style matrix can be used for is to begin to understand your attributes and your personality traits. Have a look at the grid and ask yourself, ‘Where do I fit? Am I assertive? Am I responsive?’  

Become self-aware and tailor how you interact with others.

Now it’s very difficult, sometimes, to decide where you place yourself on this matrix and sometimes we even perceive ourselves very differently to the way others see us and the way we actually are. So ask a friend to help, ask someone who knows you or has worked with you; gain a different perspective.

When we begin to understand the kind or people we are, the easier it is to begin to identify things in other people. We are all different, have different skills, we respond to different things. By knowing your audience, by knowing how they act, how they generally think and how they respond, you can begin to tailor the way you work and communicate to achieve and to avoid conflict.

The final Word

The real world is not only based on data but also on how we interact and communicate with others. Employers use interviews to test your abilities under pressure and to test your skills at interacting with other.

Start to recognise styles in yourself and other people and practice at it. The more you know about you and the more you know about others, the easier it becomes to interact in a way which leads to success.

 Chris Milborrow 

4th February 2013

I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow

[chrismilborrow-blog]

Start as you mean to go on. The value in becoming employable early!

Our degree doesn't tell the full picture.

The attributes that we all leave our university careers with are what stands us apart. Two people with exactly the same degree can be entirely different people, offer entirely different things and be suited for entirely different jobs.

Universities ultimately present opportunities to do 2 main things. The first is to gain further qualifications and to enhance our knowledge. The other is to grow and develop as people; this can be done in a number of different ways.

The thing about university is that we are all, if we are willing put in the hard work and a few pro plus fueled all-nighters, led on a path which should see us leave with a qualification; it’s what academic staff, tutors and university administrators are there to help us do. In that sense we could say that two people studying in the same class experience the same university life, in academic terms, anyway.

If this is the case, then what separates us from one another? What separates one graduate from another?

Going the extra-curricular mile counts!

What separates us, and what makes some people more employable than others, is not necessarily what we have learned in class, but what we have done and learned out with the curriculum we are set.

The great thing about extra-curricular activity is that, unlike a degree, we don’t have to wait until we are tested or examined to do it, we aren't held back and told which activities we can do and which we can’t and, most importantly, we can all do very different things and gain very different skills as a result.

Self-development and becoming employable can only happen as fast as we are prepared to allow it to happen.

If we embrace opportunities which allow us to learn new skills and take us out-with our comfort zone, we become far more interesting, certainly to employers. And where better a place than university to become the people we want to be; with the skills we want to have, which leads us to the careers we want to enter.

So when should we start? When should we begin seeking out and taking opportunities to help us become employable, and to become more interesting to employers?

Why go for any job, when you could get your perfect job?

My answer, the sooner the better!

Developing as a person is as important and as necessary as achieving a good degree, and like most things, the sooner you start and the more practice and experience you get the better.

The benefits of starting early go far beyond heightening your chance of just getting a job. Volunteer, run a club, join a committee, become a class representative; fully use your time at university to develop your skill-set.

Learn more about yourself and increase your chances of not only getting any job, but getting the perfect job for you with the perfect company.

Only by challenging yourself in real life situations are you testing your abilities and learning what you’re good at and are able to pinpoint and improve on any of your weaknesses. By starting your career development early you can identify and tailor your job search to what you enjoy doing rather than rushing to tailor your skills for the job you’re applying for. Instead of frantically rushing around at the start of final year taking any opportunity to fill your CV, have too much to fit on your CV and select the experiences which you most enjoyed and succeeded at. Getting ahead not only allows you to learn more than others, but also shows employers that you have the initiative, drive and determination to look for opportunities and take them.

Recruitment processes are aimed to find out about you; not about your degree, not about what modules you did in class. Employers want to know that you are going to make an impact for them, that you have the raw skills to become a success in their organisation and they also want to know that you want to work for them and why.

By knowing what you’re good at, by knowing what you’re passionate about and by choosing your future career based on that, you are more likely to find a cultural fit; a company who employ people like you, a company where you will excel and a company where you will be a success.

The final word

Use university to get a degree, but also use it to become interesting. Use the experience to develop the skills you want to have by doing things that challenge you. Get comfortable with going out with your comfort zone and start as you mean to go on; the earlier you focus and start to look for and take opportunities, the more that you can learn, the more strengths in yourself you can identify and the more employable you’ll become! 

Chris Milborrow 

28th January 2013

  I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow

[chrismilborrow-blog]

The power is in the people!

I’ll start this blog by asking a quick question.

What makes one organisation in the same industry offering the same services different from another?

The answer is simple, its the people.

Organisation after organisation recruit year on year and the general messaging is based on the type of people they’re after. Some will be looking for team-player, some leaders, others will be looking for analytics who can process vast amounts of data. It really doesn’t matter! What matters is the common theme that people, above all else, make the majority of organisations successful, or not; no matter whether Multinationals, Charities, Public Services or Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs).

With this in mind, it is no coincidence that there is increasing pressure on applicants to demonstrate different attributes and strengths and that competition to secure jobs is higher than ever. If an organisation bases the success or failure of its operations on the people it employs, then it would make sense to employ the strongest, most capable but also must suitable  people to do the job.

This is also important to remember when applying for job. ‘Obviously’ I hear you say. And it’s true, It's already common knowledge among applicants; everyone knows that companies employ you based on your skills and experiences, right?! I totally agree, however, there is, as a result, an existing mindset that strikes me as very odd. And it’s this;

We, the people applying to work in these organisations, potentially making them money and being integral to their success, seem to have the general mindset that we really need the job and don’t tend to consider the point of view of the recruiter. Thousands of students per year apply to jobs in all different industries in the hope that they get a good job upon graduation. It’s easy, when this is the case, to see the recruiter/applicant relationship being a very one-sided one.

The point of this post is to begin to realise earlier that we, the potential and future drivers within these organisations, are as important and sought after to them (if not more so) than the job is to us.

Now what I’m definitely not suggesting  is that you stroll into your next interview with an attitude that says you’re more important than the company and that they need you and you should, therefore, expect the job. Because quite frankly, that’s a sure fire way of guaranteeing that you won’t get the job.

What I am suggesting, however, is that you treat any recruitment process as a two way process. Yes, we all know the company is asking you ‘Why should we employ you?!’ On the flip side, we very rarely ask the  question, ‘Why should I come and work for you?!’.

In the end, you have one career, one graduate scheme to choose, one future and making that decision is a tough and ultimately life-changing one. By asking those employers why you should work for them, above all other options, you’re asking the questions that will ensure that you are best placed to make as well-informed a decision as possible for YOU.  If you’re not a selfish person, be selfish this once and ask yourself

'Is this job, with this company, right for ME!'

You know something, why not ask the employers too. I dare you, in your next interview, to ask the person opposite you ‘Why do you work here?’ or ‘What do you enjoy about your job?’. If they like you and you’re satisfied by their answer, YOU choose to continue in their recruitment process.

The Final Word

Recruitment is a two-way process. By realising this, we can adopt a mindset that not only allows us to make the best decision for us but also allows us to ask impressive, mature questions which show we really care about our own future.

Chris Milborrow 

8th January 2013

  I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow 

[chrismilborrow-blog]

Thinking beyond the beer money! See the career value in your part-time work.

It's a familiar dilemma hundreds if not thousands of students are faced with every year...

You've reached that part in your CV, the part where you've told your prospective future employer about yourself. You're no doubt ambitious, a great leader and work brilliantly with others in a team. No employer has reason to doubt any of this, at this stage anyway. However, you can effectively view the next section, the dreaded one titled 'Work Experience', as the employer saying 'prove it';

Prove to us that your leadership capabilities are better than those of Richard Branson and you're more confident at public speaking than Ant and Dec combined.

It's this part of the CV which, whether we like it or not, can make or break our chances of getting a graduate job or intern-ship before we've even handed in the application form. 

What do you need to do to sell yourself on a CV? 

To put it simply, CVs and application forms are sales documents. They exist to differentiate competing candidates and the easiest way to choose between two candidates performing similarly in education is through skills and experience.

What employers really want to know is that you are who you say you are, have the skills you say you've got and that you have evidence to show that you've used and developed these skills through real life experiences. 

There are three points to remember when writing this part;

1) Describe your achievements, don't list your duties!

No-one wants to hear about your duties. Employers want to hear about the impact you made by using your skills. (We'll come back to this later.)

2) Sell, sell, sell.

Don't be afraid of being confident. If you achieved something SHOUT ABOUT IT! 

3) Know your audience! 

Some companies list specific skills they want to see. Research the company and know these before you start writing.

Skills are important, duties aren't.

Generally, the main form of work experience for an undergraduate student is some form of part-time work. However, there seems to be an attitude that leads to Part-Time work experience being under-valued, when it comes to writing a CV or filling out an application form. It's not uncommon to hear something like 'I don't have any relevant experience from my part-time work, because none of it related to my degree.'

Relevance is based on perception.

I highlighted the word 'relevant' because impressions of what this word means can create the wrong attitude and can trip people up. 

The secret is to view the word 'relevant' loosely when it comes to describing your skills and experiences.

Let’s take a standard example. A student working in a leading supermarket is applying for a role with a multinational company who expect their applicants to be problem solvers, leaders and team-players. 

It would be easy to ask 'Why does working on a check-out and stacking shelves have any value here?' And in some ways, it's a valid question; you probably aren't going to be asked to scan through items or stack shelves in your graduate role. So where is the value?

This is where we begin to think about 'Transferrable skills'; skills which are developed in one context (our part-time job for example) but can be used elsewhere. There's a high probability that throughout the time working in this supermarket, this student has developed relevant skills and attributes which make them employable. The trick is to identify these, and articulate them better than anyone else.

                    If you were an employer, who would you rather interview?!

Looking at a common example; working with difficult customers. This could be described in different ways;

'I am composed under pressure and effectively communicate with customers who are experiencing problems. I build a relationship with the customer to help understand their issues and use my knowledge to produce solutions and ensure they are satisfied with the outcomes.'

This can also be listed on a CV as 'I process customer transactions and help out those with problems'.

This is just one example of how a seemingly trivial task can be expanded and articulated in a way which demonstrated key skills and sells the individual.

Take another example. 

How about that day you helped the new kid settle in and showed them the ropes?

'I was assigned the task of integrating a new member of staff into our existing team. I used my knowledge to thoroughly demonstrate our systems, to introduce them to other staff members, to explain our processes and to answer any initial questions while providing support in overseeing them learn the role in practice. Me leading their induction process resulted in them being able to work effectively with the rest of the team from day 1.' 

This demonstrated leadership capabilities and being able to effectively communicate information, far better than listing how you showed the new person around the cash desk and tell them about the day to day tasks.

The Final Word

Every individual has their own experiences, but when it comes to demonstrating skills from part-time work experience, the theory remains the same.

Look beyond the practical tasks and identify where skills are being developed.

And remember, when you're working a 13 hour shift over the Christmas period, just because you won't be expected to stack shelves in your graduate role, you can be certain that you'll be expected to manage relationships, to lead, to work in teams and to communicate effectively; things that, if you think about it, you can demonstrate through your experiences in part-time work.

Relevance is based on perception!

Chris Milborrow 

20th December 2012

  I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I welcome your feedback on any of my entries so far.

You can connect with me on Facebook and LinkedIn; ‘Chris Milborrow’ or on Twitter; @ChrisMilborrow