-
1 minute
Job applications - creating a better CV
Want to find out the differences between traditional academic, narrative academic (resume for researchers) and non-academic CVs? Or how to get headhunted by recruiters? These are the resources for you.
Assistant Professor Tina Persson shows you how to work through example job adverts to tailor your CV. Professor Persson also takes you through effective strategies to get noticed by recruiters.
Currently playing: Getting noticed by recruiters
Getting noticed by recruiters
You can navigate through the playlist using the arrows (bottom right) or jump to a specific item from the list below as you prefer.
Assistant Professor Tina Persson takes you through effective strategies so you get noticed by recruiters.
The title of the workshop is ‘How to Get Your Resume and LinkedIn Profile Noticed by Recruiters; Networking, Communication and Strategies to get an Interview.’ Shortly about me. I will not talk long about that. You can read it yourself, but I think it’s relevant for this workshop here is, I have an academic background and I have been working as a recruiter for different companies, both Manpower, Kelly Services. I have also worked for Randstad. In those days it was Proffice, as you can see here. I have fairly good insight into how the recruitment business is working. Number one that I like to share with you is that recruitment today compared to for ten years is that recruitment is a global business today. Many of the companies that recruit, they maybe are placed in London but they recruit people and placements to Barcelona, even to Stockholm, Sweden. You can also notice that more and more of the American companies are looking for prospects and talents on the European platform. I think this is something to have on mind, that with the digital development and with the globalisation, candidates are looking for jobs all over the world. It’s also so that companies can consider, because one fact has become extremely clear lately if you read the job ads, and that is companies say it’s okay to work remote. That means that the recruitment platform from which companies can recruit talent has increased enormously. To you as a candidate this is an opportunity, but it’s also so that you need to be prepared for, that these recruiters, whether they are recruitment companies or they are internal recruiters in companies, they can contact you from all over the world. They maybe don’t have the local knowledge. If you, for example, are living in London, the recruiters may be sitting in Stockholm or sitting in Berlin. They might not know how local it works where you are living, and therefore help the recruiter to understand your business. I just want to highlight this, because this is something that’s going to grow dramatically in the next years to come. When it talks about recruiters today, we’re going to look a little bit on how you can tailor your resume, what’s important for the LinkedIn. Of course, networking is something that comes into it. It’s no way that we can’t talk about networking and communication, how you can reach out, and how you can reach out on LinkedIn and take the first step to the recruiters, and connect with key people and try to get referrals. Recruiters love referrals. If they get a tip they love to call you up, and I’m going to tell you why a bit later on here. What recruiters are really looking for. They are looking for passion, that you show passion in the company, in the product and in the position. They look for motivation. Self-motivated people they love. If you take the action, they’re going to love that. Teamwork. Of course, today a single person is not stronger than a team. It’s always going to be the team that’s going to beat the individual, and companies today, they work very, very team based and that can be both on-site and remote. They of course check your competence, communication skills, how flexible you are, whether you are a problem-solver. They love problem-solvers. This is a wonderful PhD skill. Integrity, likeability, which means your personality, and your ability to understand other people, the ability of you to show empathy, your ability to show interpersonal skills written here. That means that you can work with people both being like you, but also people not being like you. It’s also feedback. There’s nothing harder for a manager to have people in a team that have a hard time to take feedback. That also goes into interpersonal skills. Of course, can they trust you? Are you reliable? Recruiters’ day-to-day work involves a lot. I would say, try to understand the business of the recruiter. I made a word cloud out of what I remember I was doing, and also called around and chatted with some of my recruiter friends. Their day is a lot. They are calling, they are prospecting, they are sitting in meetings with clients. They’re sitting in meetings with internal key account management departments. They are managing the lists. They are searching. They are searching on LinkedIn, looking for candidates, prospecting, tagging top talent, and they interview a lot. It’s a lot of emailing and calling, I tell you. A day for a recruiter moves very, very fast. When we are looking for a job, we can be very, very impatient if we don’t hear from them. Don’t worry. If you are a great candidate, they will come back. Also, they are grateful if you contact and get back to them. You know? I remember one of my clients sending a Christmas card, and the recruiter was so happy and called in for an interview. Help the recruiters to help you. That’s a very strong tip. Try to understand their business. It’s also to understand the role of the of the recruiter here. They are a mediator between you and the company, and they are paid by the company. That means that it is in the end the company, they’re going to pay the recruiter for a successful candidate. Don’t be angry on the recruiter. Instead, try to help the recruiter to understand, ‘Send me to the company for an interview because of…’ It’s again, help the recruiter to understand the skills you have. Also keep in mind that not all recruiters understand your proficiency in life sciences, or in social sciences, or humanities. They have maybe not the same background that you have. Here, your communication skills, your social skills, and your relationship skills come as a top, top skill when it comes to building a relationship with the recruiters. Remember, they have a lot to do. When you call and you say, ‘Do you remember me from two weeks ago?’ they might not remember you, but I promise you, if you continue to stay in contact with them, the question is rather, ‘What can you do?’ They remember you, so you stand out. I can tell you, when I worked as a recruiter, some candidates, they were brilliant on standing out. They could show themselves on LinkedIn, or they didn’t hesitate to actually write me an email or to call me, or reaching out in some way and say, ‘Hello,’ always in a very nice way, ‘I’m still available. I’m still interested. What’s going on at the moment?’ Not pushy at all. Just showing interest. Understand, rule number one, understand that the recruiter is a mediator paid by the company to find the perfect fit. Also important is that recruitment is a people business, which means there is not a right and a wrong. It’s a huge grey sign, because in the end, what is a perfect candidate? In the end, when they have candidates, going to fall back on some sort of fitting into the team, having skills that complements the team. Some of these skills are measurable, and some of them are not that easy to measure. In the end, I’d just like to say that recruitment is a people business, and it’s never about right and wrong. It’s more about building relationships with people, learning about the company, learning about what they like to have and how you can add value. That’s the key. Also respectfully, if you are declined, say, ‘Thank you for the interview. Thank you for showing interest here.’ You’re still open minded, and that you are looking forward to the next interview.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
Hello, Tina is back here and now it’s ready, I hope you’re ready for film number 2: how to be headhunted on LinkedIn. That is your LinkedIn profile and LinkedIn strategy. I will not go into depth about the algorithms; it’s too short of time to do that, but I will give you really $10 million tips here, and then also why you should be active on LinkedIn. I have some good tips to pop up and be recognised on LinkedIn. I can give you already now a little secret here. Several of my coachees, if I put it that way, placed in London started – even though she is very introverted – to be more active. She’s started to comment on things. She didn’t share anything on her own on LinkedIn but she started to comment. Only that led to an informal interview where she somehow showed herself. We start with the first slide here; that is about keywording, job titles and technical skills. I have talked about this here for Prosper both when I talked about deep learning CV and CV design. I just give it here now from a different perspective. LinkedIn is a super powerful platform if you want to be recruited. But you are not recruited automatically just having a LinkedIn profile. If you have a LinkedIn profile and you don’t use the skills, you don’t use the terminology the industry or the organisation is using, people will not really find you. We have to understand there are hugely many profiles on LinkedIn; I think there are up to 750 million profiles on LinkedIn. I would say that you can use LinkedIn – and you should use it – as an opportunity to be found. For that you need to keep LinkedIn as an agile approach. It’s never perfect and it doesn’t need to be perfect. You can constantly change by changing job titles and words until LinkedIn is kicking back both job ads and people to your profile. LinkedIn has many possibilities and I am summarising some of them here. Show your future career, show your passion, show your skills, show your personality. Interact with professionals, call for discovery calls, contacting and connecting. You can follow people. People want to be followed; that’s why they are there. Learn about new career paths; I think it’s super important. Super important in the way you should goose people, you should follow them and goose them and check them and open their profiles, and imitating is really good. Find raw models, people that you admire in companies and you check what they’ve done. Those people you can also reach out to, so LinkedIn is a lot. Recruiters, they are all over here because they also have big networks. Usually they have big networks. That is their job to have networks, so connect with recruiters. Click on the connect button, say, ‘Hello, I’d like to broaden my network in London, Liverpool or Manchester or UK’ – whatever. Or if you want to leave UK, you have of course to build a network where you are going. It doesn’t help that you have a huge network in UK when you’re going to Berlin, Germany. Then you need to connect with people on the German side. Calling up for discovery calls, yes, I’m going to give you some tips a little bit later here in the workshop, how you can do that. Starting with the easy thing here, it is: this is what I see. I see a picture of your profile, a background profile and under or below your photo you have a tagline that is the headliner. This headliner is super important. When I’m scrolling and I maybe have 120 candidates with skills that I am interested in, the only thing I see is your picture and the headline. The headline here is: bioinformation, data science, digital health, researcher at Science for Life Laboratory. That is what I see. You have to make an impression there so that needs to reflect both what you have and what you want. You can use these brackets to make it easier. What you use there could be your field, it could be skills, it can be job title. When you write that and I make a search as a recruiter and I tag that specific skill, that will end up very high up in the search. So, the impactful headline is strategy and very, very important. In order to write a very good and impactful headline you must really know what you want. You need to understand at least the job field where you are going into. Create a powerful headline, make it easy to click on your profile – and now I have clicked so now you see here this is what I see. If I am not interested here, if you don’t make an impression here I will not open up your profile. Having a profile doesn’t mean I find you. If you have an academic profile most likely you will not be found unless I have got a tip or a referral that you are a great candidate, or I know that your university and that specific department generates impactful candidates or top talent for the field I am looking to headhunt people or recruit people. Maybe to AstraZeneca or any other kind of company. That is the only reason that I maybe find it, so I want you to take another look here. This is what I see. If I don’t understand your headliner I will scroll further. Most likely that is what I will do. Use the keywords and the job titles. I get common questions around, ‘Yes, but I can’t lie. If I have never worked as a data scientist I can’t say I am.’ There is a big difference of saying, ‘I am’ and using the title. You can do that in a very nice way so recruiters and hiring managers in companies understand this is what you want. I think what he has done here, if you look on Michel’s profile – because that’s a former client of mine – you have researcher/data scientist. Then he declared that he is from academia, he has been using data scientist tools, and he expressed in what way. He is not lying here. He is not lying, but he needs to put data science somewhere in the job title so he increases the possibility to be found. My tip – and my strongest tip here – is: job titles need to be according to the job field you are interested in. You can use double job titles, you can use brackets; that is okay. Explain your experience in the summary or in bullet points in your achievements or in the work section. Help the recruiter to understand what you are looking for and the value you can offer – even though you are not a 100 per cent fit, because very few candidates are a 100 per cent fit. Write a short and concise summary. I have read many summaries and they are too long and too academic. It doesn’t help. We really don’t have the time to read your whole life story, so make it short and concise. Here is an example of where I say: experienced researcher, project manager and coordinator with a demonstrated history of working in environmental change on a global level. Passionate about stakeholder engagement and collaborative working. Skilled in sustainability, climate change, data analysing, biodiversity and project management. Professional with Master of Science degree from the University of Liverpool. You could add a PhD there, of course. Contact data very, very clearly and then you can list some of the skills selected for the future of your jobs. Select the important skills you want to use for the future, so you have to deselect. Make it easy to contact you. It’s unbelievable how many candidates I, in the past, have scrolled and there were no contact data. I send an email and they never checked the email so they actually missed an opportunity. Then they could be angry that I didn’t call them. I said, ‘I don’t know your phone number’, so please don’t do that small little mistake by hiding so we can’t reach out to you.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
Hi, again. Are you ready for film number three? Your CV is your marketing material. I talked earlier on Prosper about CV design and specific details. I also talked about deep learning and writing CVs. This film here will be very, very short, but this is from recruiter perspective. Though I want to be clear that all recruiters think differently, they are different and they might have different opinions but one thing recruiters have in common is that they don’t have much time. They commonly don’t have the time to spend on average from 7 to 30 seconds per resumé. If it’s too unclear, unstructured and they have no clear what you want, they most likely will put you in the reaction pile. So, whatever you do, spend time on your resumé, showing what you want in the future, not what you have done, so that you help the recruiters to understand where you are going. For that, you need to figure out at least the job field. The more you can help the recruiter, the better. Whatever you do, your resumé should be clear, concise and easy to catch the different headlines and sub-headings. I will show you one resumé or CV that is very, very clear. First of all, there is a very, very clear headline. This guy shows he has a PhD in life science and he wants to combine his life-science background with his business background. Then, below that he has, in the work experience, bullet points. In the bullet points, he writes in a way so he also clearly shows that – not probably go to the lab… He shows his transferrable skills, how he can apply his drive and motivation. This young man, he was interested in a sales job and, particularly, he wanted to be an application specialist or application specialist support or application scientist. In fact, that was also the job that he nailed. This was his first resumé, so it’s far from perfection but he shows very clearly some of the skills and his drives and motivation. Another way of showcasing is, of course, to have very clear bullet points with your skills so it’s easy to see if I’m looking for something very, very specific. It could be a programming language. It could be a CRM system. It could be – yes, well, whatever. Extremely important that I very easily can find it. By writing it in this way, you make it easy for me. It’s under a subheading and I know it’s very calm and you start to write all these words in the text. Remember, then it’s much, much harder for me to catch the eye. In both these resumés, it’s easy to find the skills/technical skills/interest area and what you want. That, recruiters like. If you, then, can show passion by writing a short summary about your passion in the product, you don’t have to write a whole pitch about that. It’s good enough to write an impactful summary in less than five sentences. You don’t need… If you want to know more about that you go for the deep learning film where I talk about CV and I’m digging into on how to write a summary in a nice way.[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
How to connect with recruiters, and you can include here key people or key professionals in companies. If they find a candidate, they usually contact the internal recruitment department in companies. It’s connecting strategies and how to write an InMail on LinkedIn. Connecting and asking questions. This is what we’re going to learn here. Effective questions to ask recruiters. An opportunity always is if you ask clever questions, it’s always an opportunity for a spontaneous interview. Questions you can ask is do you have time for five to ten minutes? I have three questions. That shows very clearly that you’re polite and you understand that they are busy. Thanks, they say. What competences are you looking for at the moment? What are companies looking after in this region where I’m looking for a job? Could be Liverpool, Manchester, or London. What advice would you give me if I’m interested in a particular company or organisation or governmental position? Considering my background, what could be my next step? Considering my background, what would your advice be? I’ve done that and that. You could be very curious, ask if you have a PhD like me, what usually is a step-in job? Any advice would help me. If I want to leave academia, what could be a good fit for me? The first step, entry job. These questions will, for sure, help you to get information from the recruiters because they have a lot of information. This is what they do. This is their job, this is their expertise. Taking advice from them about the labour market, what companies are looking for. Their advice about what you maybe should have in your resumé, what skills you should highlight, could be essential. Now remember that recruiters, there are many recruiters on the market, and they will all have opinions and ideas. The more you talk the more you learn, and finally you figure out a red thread in all of it. Ask questions and learn. Then, of course, if you start to ask questions to the recruiter, the recruiter will most likely start to ask you questions. It could be good to prepare the following. What do you want? What are you looking for? Why did you start the PhD and a postdoc? What are you interested in? What do you know about the market? What companies are you interested in? What jobs do you find interesting? How can I help you? By contacting recruiters, you will also learn what questions they ask to you. It’s okay in the beginning to say, ‘Do you know what? That is a very good question. I really don’t know. When I know, maybe I can come back to you’, or, ‘Do you have any ideas how I can figure out what I want?’ ‘Maybe you could explain for me what that job is about. That would help me a lot.’ This is the moment you should start to contact people in companies and say, ‘Do you know what? It seems you have a fantastic, interesting job. Could you help me to understand what the daily day looks like when you’re working? Why do you like your job?’ That will also help you to figure out things. Remember, there is only person that can help you in the end, and that is yourself. Asking questions is a wonderful way of learning. Finally, we’re going to talk about how to write LinkedIn InMail templates. The trick is to use templates. I’m looking to broaden my network in the life science industry in the UK. I hope to connect with you. All the best. A wonderful way just to send a short message when you contact them. You don’t need to know the people. This is an opening phrase, it’s very, very polite. Then if you want to follow up, and you want to get in contact with them, you can start, ‘I’m a researcher at Liverpool University, looking for new opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry. I can see that you successfully transitioned to a position.’ This number B here is for a person maybe working in a company, so you are interested in learning about a job. Before you start to figure out whether this is a job or not, you talk with that person. When you have a contact, then you can continue and ask questions, what positions they would advise you to take as an entry job. That you can use as a motivation later on when you talk and speak with recruiters. Fairly smart, isn’t it. This is how you get information, information and interviews. Then I have some more lines here that you can go through. Pleased that you’d like to chat further, thank you very much, and you can contact me on my email or we can plan a short chat in my calendar. If they are busy, be nice back. They say, ‘I don’t have the time’, ‘It’s really not up to me to answer these questions’, or whatever they come back with, always stay super-polite and write, ‘I completely understand and I hope to connect with you in the future maybe. In case you have the time, you can write something, I attach my resumé’, because it could be that when they realise what person you are, they still get interested and forward your resumé to someone else. Stay polite. Don’t be sad, don’t be irritated if they don’t have the time, just stay super-polite. Then if you are reaching out to someone there it could be noticed, your LinkedIn profile, that you are a recruiter at the best recruitment, and are looking for competences in data science. ‘You might find my background interesting, could we arrange a discovery call?’ If you have something relevant for data science, you can write that too. Don’t attach your resumé this time because you want to have a discovery call. If you attach your resumé there’s no need maybe for the recruiter to get back to you. Here, now try to get a call before you attach your resumé. The Must Go Plan is less is more on LinkedIn. If you don’t know where you are going, write less. Then after a while, when you learn where you are going, then you add information. Marketing your skills for the future, not the past. Select skills matching your future field. Figure out skills and job titles companies are looking for. You need to start to learn and understand the market you are going to. This is an investigator job. Add even the trendy ones, that means that they realise that you have been studying the field for a while. If you find this very difficult and you need help, ask professionals for help. I know that you at Prosper have fantastic help. Take the help, take the advice because you’re going to save a lot of time. Then finally I would say stay active on LinkedIn, please. You don’t have to share your own stuff, but you can like other posts and you can comment on things. You can start to like because in that way, you start to change the algorithm. LinkedIn is pushing back both blogs and articles and job ads that LinkedIn realise that you are interested in. That won’t happen if you don’t start to train down on it. It’s like Facebook nowadays. That was it. Thank you very much, and don’t hesitate to check and listen to the podcast PhD Career Stories or read my book. You’ll find a lot of valuable tips and tricks in that one. Thank you very much, this was it, and this was Tina Persson from Passage2pro, working with fantastic Prosper, which I’m very proud of. Good luck in your career in the future. Take care, bye-bye.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
33 minutes
4 video(s)
All ‘getting noticed by recruiters’ videos in one playlist.
39 minutes
2 video(s)
All ‘how to write the perfect CV’ videos in one playlist.
33 minutes
4 video(s)
All ‘getting noticed by recruiters’ videos in one playlist.
Associated resources
These resources are linked to the respective related videos above but are provided here too.
Understanding CVs
How to write the perfect CV 2: Working with the job advert
Getting noticed by recruiters 1: Introduction