Related posts:

1. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 5: Get the Best out of Agencies
2. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 4: Understanding Agencies
3. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 6: A Regional Recruiter’s View

This is a guest blog from Paula Jones of 6th level training. We are delighted to join forces with 6th level training to deliver three events for small business owners to help them achieve more with their presentation skills.

I often hear this said about presentations and I’m not entirely sure I believe this statement. At least, not about successful presentations.

As for those who are clearly flailing, then perhaps all preparation has been forgotten in favour of nerves. But only the supremely confident will make the statement above, and even then there must have been some elements of preparation, if only being sure that prior experience combined with good industry and audience knowledge are enough.

How do you prepare?

Do you panic?

Do you rehash your last presentation? What if it didn’t work the last time? Is it simply a case of fingers crossed and hope for the best?

Do you write some PowerPoint slides around your subject and then plan out what you’ll say afterwards?

These methods are a bit like playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey. You might hit the spot, but you might not. Your audience will certainly let you know that you haven’t if you fail to prepare properly. It’s also unfair to lead them on a mystery tour if you’re rambling through PowerPoint slides with no clear path.

The key to preparation is to know beforehand what you want to achieve from your presentation.

What do you want your final outcome to be? More signups to courses? Knowledge transfer? Whatever this goal is, write it in big letters, stick it on a wall where you can easily see it and ensure every aspect of your presentation can be justified by that goal. Just as all projects need a business case, so do your presentations.

You also need to be able to gauge your success criteria for your presentation and this also requires preparation. Do you want quantifiable or qualified results? How will you measure your success? Can you relate it all to your desired results easily?

If you prepare carefully for a presentation and think carefully about the results you want to achieve with the audience you have then your presentation should be successful and fun. If you simply wing it; then prepare for your credibility to fly out of the window…

If you have found this blog post useful, you will probably be interested in the following events which we are running with 6th level training:

These are

• a teleseminar on 6th June on delivering the perfect 60 seconds,
• a teleseminar on 5th July how to win business as a guest speaker,
• a full days workshop in Harrogate on 15th september, designed to help business owners win work by improving their ability to present

Related posts:

1. How NOT to be David Brent when presenting!
2. 9 classic mistakes guest speakers make
3. How to deliver an after dinner speech which gets you invited back again

This is a guest blog from Paula Jones of 6th level training. We are delighted to join forces with 6th level training to deliver three events for small business owners to help them achieve more with their presentation skills.

Have you ever had one of those tumbleweed moments in a presentation you’ve given when you’ve told a joke, and nobody laughed? Or have you been in the audience and shuffled uncomfortably, acutely embarrassed for the presenter who is desperately trying to recover the situation?

I learned early on in presentations to be careful with telling jokes. I sat through an extremely difficult session at a conference and watched in agony as the presenter dug deeper and deeper comedic holes for himself. He just wasn’t funny. You remember that episode of “The Office” with David Brent making his motivational speaker debut? Imagine that but ten times worse. Two things kept me rooted to my seat while people walked out. Deep pity for the presenter along with curiosity as to how much worse it could get.

Don’t tell jokes. There is too much risk that they will either be found deeply unfunny or will offend someone. And we don’t want that.

There is good news however.

If you’re funny, then be funny. You know if you are. I’m able to raise plenty of laughs while presenting and training, but I don’t do it through joke telling. Observation, story telling, one liners; they can all hit the spot. Notice the difference between telling jokes and telling stories. Stories can have humour woven all the way through and they help to keep the attention of the audience. There’s no punchline to worry about falling flat. The momentum is maintained throughout the tale. A wryly observed one liner is a punchline in its own right. An audience can be taken along on a journey with us that raises smiles, giggles and guffaws and will, importantly, have them remember you and that great session you did.

I’m sure there will be some who disagree and swear by joke telling. I’m not often one for playing things safe, but I do believe in presentation situations you need to ensure you don’t fall flat on your face, figuratively or literally. Dig those stories and anecdotes out, adapt them, be funny. It’s good for the soul.

Now then, did you hear the one about the…

If you have found this blog post useful, you will probably be interested in the following events which we are running with 6th level training:

These are

• a teleseminar on 6th June on delivering the perfect 60 seconds,
• a teleseminar on 5th July how to win business as a guest speaker,
• a full days workshop in Harrogate on 15th september, designed to help business owners win work by improving their ability to present

Related posts:

1. “I never prepare for presentations, I just wing it.”
2. 9 classic mistakes guest speakers make
3. How to deliver an after dinner speech which gets you invited back again

So far, this blog series has explored how to find a job through agencies. I am conscious that everything I have posted so far comes from my own personal point of view. Because I work on  a national basis, my approach is also pretty broad.

To make sure that the blog series remains objective, I have asked another independent recruiter from a different specialist area to provide his point of view.

Richard Johnson is the MD of a Regional recruitment agency, BA Recruitment in Derbyshire. They specialise in financial recruitment:

“ I am often asked about how many applications I receive and the quality of those applications. If the following can be taken on board by just a few candidates, it will make the life of job seekers easier when working with their local Recruitment agency.

• Research local Recruitment agencies websites. Type in the search “ Recruitment Agencies and the location. You will first of all notice that there are a lot of aggregator sites, then jobboards, then Recruitment Agency directories and the like. Keep looking and the Recruitment Agencies will start appearing. (They don’t spend as much time and money on getting the main search engines to find them) Check the website. Do they have jobs? Do they have a testimonial page? How often is it updated? Is there a contact page?
• Prepare your CV well. There is no excuse nowadays not to have a well laid out informative and eye catching CV. Look on the internet, it’s all there, free of charge.
• Contact the Recruitment agencies and listen carefully to their responses to you. Are they professional and knowledgeable? Do they listen to what you are looking for? Would you want them to work on your behalf? If the answer is yes, let them know that you will be sending in your CV and get a contact name for future reference.
• Send your CV when you say you will. Include a short cover note explaining who you have spoken to and a brief idea of the job that you are looking for. Where and approx what sort of salary you will be looking for. Follow up with a phone call (24 hours after sending it) ask about going in to see them and get registered. Be prepared to go in and see the various agencies.
• Arrive 5-10 minutes early. Dressed for an interview.
• Be prepared to answer questions, fill in forms, complete psychometric tests. Allow around 1 to 2 hours per visit. Some Recruitment agencies may ask you to make a short video of your interview with them.
• Have an idea of what you want to do in the future or with your career and tell your consultant. I meet many people that say “I don’t mind” What we as recruiters hear is “I don’t care”.
• Ask how they market their candidates. It’ll give you an idea of what to expect.
• Follow up call after one week and weekly thereafter. Ask what the market place is doing, more jobs less jobs. At this point Recruitment Consultants may want to get you off the phone – PERSEVERE!! You deserve to be listened too.
• If you can, pick up to 3 local recruitment agencies that you feel that you can work with and keep contact with them (weekly)
  Send Recruitment agencies an up to date CV (if you have changed it)
• Don’t ever be rude. Plain good manners are expected from you as well as your recruitment consultant.
• Working with Recruitment agencies in the United Kingdom is totally free of charge for Job Seekers. Make us work for you!”

I am very grateful for Richard’s practical and specific contribution. Access BA Recruitment’s website on www.barecruitment.co.uk

Related posts:

1. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 5: Get the Best out of Agencies
2. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 7 – Where you fit in
3. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 4: Understanding Agencies

HOW TO ENGAGE WITH AGENCIES

You never know what you are going to find when you set out on a path to find a new job. Allow the agencies to work with your data to give you the widest possible exposure but don’t expect individual treatment until you embark on a recruitment process (I.e. go for interview). Until then, your CV is purely a number in a huge pool of candidates and it’s the agency’s task to match it to potential opportunities.

1.         The Employment Agencies Act

More than one agency might be working on the same brief, so you might be matched to the same job more than once. Always go with the agency who tells you about the job first. According to the Employment Agencies Act, your CV should only be put forward to jobs that you are told about. In effect, you have to give your permission for your CV to be submitted. You must be told about the job first. Often, because it’s competitive, Agencies will take a flyer at sending your CV in without speaking to you first. If this submission turns into an interview in competition with an agency that actually played the game properly and spoke to you first, thereby losing out time wise to the more aggressive agency, your judgement will be crucial to how the agencies will deal with you in future. If you know what your rights are, you can protect your own position whilst keeping both agencies on side.

2. Don’t carpet bomb your CV

Because of the high unemployment rates, agencies literally get thousands of online job applications every day. It takes a lot of time to sift through these, and the associated cost of registering new CV’s and posting them to databases can become very high. For the recruiter, it can be desperately frustrating to get the same CV day after day after day; applying to every totally unsuitable role on the Internet and creating spam in already overfull Inboxes. You can help by reading the ads before you apply, making sure the job is suitable for you first. Bear in mind that agencies will readvertise jobs until an offer is made. Keep a record for yourself: If you have already applied to a particular job, don’t send your CV in again. If you do, it creates an impression of desperation that might keep you out of the selected shortlist.

3. Engage personally

If an agency to which you have already applied is advertising a job that interests you, why not give them a call? Your CV is already on file; they can look it up quickly and give you feedback there and then. You save them having to look at yet another ad response, you get the opportunity to talk to a human being and create a positive impression for yourself, and you might even be reinforcing your suitability for the role.

4. But don’t pester

Rest assured: Because an agency will get a fee if they place you, they are unlikely to forget about you. Once your CV is on their database it will be exposed to every single search they do. If you are remotely suitable, they will be in contact to talk to you about the job. If you follow-up daily or weekly, you become the “candidate from hell”, to be avoided at all cost because too many pointless phone calls waste time. Of course you are urgently looking for a job, but remember that the agency only has limited control over the process and they don’t get access to every job in the country. Use the time you spend on making these calls more productively: Engage with a range of agencies.

5. Choose your representatives carefully

It is good for every job seeker to be registered with as many agencies as possible to give you the broadest exposure. However, it is also a good idea to choose 4 or 5 specialist agencies that operate in your specific field. They are likely to get more exclusive opportunities specific to your search. Develop relationships by engaging in intelligent, quick phone calls and e-mails.  These are the agencies that are likely to work with your details if they believe you are a strong candidate, utilising their networks to create opportunities were other agencies will only respond to existing requirements. But remember: Because they work in the same sector, these agencies are in competition with each other. Be careful about giving blanket permission about submissions to avoid conflicts of interest.

6. Return agency calls!

A recruiter will call you if there is something immediate and specific on offer. If you don’t return the call, or take weeks to do so, you rob yourself of an opportunity. You also create the impression that you are not interested. The same goes for e-mails asking you to make contact about specific jobs. Even if it is just to say ” No thanks”, the opportunity to engage gives you a chance to further establish your credibility as a top calibre candidate. Make sure the phone numbers on your CV or agency record is up to date so that you can respond to urgent messages quickly.

Related posts:

1. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 7 – Where you fit in
2. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 4: Understanding Agencies
3. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 6: A Regional Recruiter’s View

This post has been written for us by our newest career coach, Martin Haworth

You’ve finally woken up to the realization that you might need to change tack with the career you thought was the right one for you.

That’s a bold step and a brave place to be, so there’s nothing like keeping the momentum going and while you are hot, it’s about pulling together a simple strategy that will start along the road you need to take.

When you find that you really aren’t cut out for the work you do, it’s important to resist the urge to panic and feel disappointed in yourself.

We are all subject to the inputs of many interested parties. There will be others who you have crossed in your life who will have given you advice that was the best they could do – and yet it might not have served you as fully as you might now feel it could have.

They did not behave badly. Your family, friends, teachers and other stakeholders in your life, would pretty well all have had your best interests at heart, yet they were advising from where they stood and the shoes they were wearing were theirs, not yours.

So, it’s time to take a deep breath and start to get to know yourself a bit better, by appreciating what it is that you do want, by taking a look at the things in your life that turn you on.

By becoming closer to the values that deep down, are who you are, you will quickly start to align yourself with roles that might appeal much more in your gut than where you have reached so far.

This appreciation of what’s right can be shown by simply picking up a good newspaper and taking a look at the roles that are on offer. By simply reading the job descriptions and sensing in yourself what fits and what doesn’t, you will be starting to get an appreciation of who you are and where your career glove really does fit.

This might seem a rather fanciful activity – especially where the jobs on offer might seem to be way out of your league right now.

That’s OK.

Striving for what might seem an impossible dream is actually not the goal in this first step of your strategy. What is important is to get comfortable with the ‘possibilities’ that fit – not the ‘how’ you are going to get there.

There’s much more time for your career strategic plan, once you have begun to shape what ‘good looks like’ in the career outcomes that fit better what you want, rather than what you have at the moment.

The key here is to build your enthusiasm and energy to get you up and running for the moment, with actions that give you progress. Once you start to build a head of steam and move along, there may well be other steps that arrive – unexpectedly even – that you will be able to take advantage of.

By developing your self-awareness, it’s almost inevitable that you will attract options that will serve you well.

And if the self-awareness thing is a challenge, find some trusted friend, colleague or other supporter who will be the mirror you need, without pushing you where they think you ’should’ be.

An opinion-free and objective helper who is right there on your side and prepared to listen and ask you the questions that you simply can’t – or won’t – ask yourself, that’s what you want.

About Martin:

The experience of working hands-on with literally thousands of employees during a 20+ year career enabled Martin to write both “How To Land Your Dream Job” and “How to Win at Assessment Centers”, both of which have helped many individuals seek and obtain the career they really want. An ICF accredited coach, Martin works usually by phone with clients, making for efficient and effective growth opportunities for those with a will to move forward with objective help, plenty of encouragement and lots of fun along the way.

Related posts:

1. 7 great tips to help you change career successfully
2. At work, do you wish you were doing something different?
3. Four questions you need to answer to get your job search up and running efficiently

It’s been a very busy month here at The Efficiency Coach. About six months ago I wrote a series of blog posts about the difference between interim, freelance and business ownership. At that point in time I was (with the benefit of hindsight) predominantly a freelancer. In the last eight weeks, my business has come of age and I have had to step up to lead my business.

It’s interesting, that as a Business Coach I have seemed to have developed a specialism in helping freelancers transition to business ownership. In my view this is achieved when 80%, rather than 20%, of your business revenue is delivered by someone else or by product sales. After ‘start-up’, in my view, the most painful period in a business’s life is when the business owner makes the transition from working in the business to ‘on the business’. (And yes, I’m feeling that pain right at this very moment.) I am helping many of my clients make this transition – and from their experiences and my own experiences, I have compiled a list of signs or symptoms that may indicate that you are ready to take to take the plunge and move from being a freelancer to leading your business.

1. Your diary is permanently full for the next few weeks

2. You feel relieved when a new client decides not to work with you

3. You permanently feel like you need a holiday but know you don’t have the time to take it

4. You’ve stopped enjoying your work

5. You are already routinely feeding work to another person

6. You mentally know you are ready for a new challenge

7. You look at your pipeline of work and are worried if everyone says ‘yes’

8. You are able to be very choosy about who you work with

9. You are getting bored with ‘doing’ the actual work

10. A new client signing up doesn’t give you the same buzz of excitement as it once used to do.

11. Your e-mail inbox is over-flowing

12. You feel like you are juggling one too many balls all the time

13. Your body is showing signs of stress and fatigue

14. You are constantly prioritising who you will or will not meet, phone or e-mail

15. You find that working long days and into the weekend has become the norm

16. You’ve structured your working week so you are working to a ‘default’ weekly calendar, but there is still no more time available for all the people you need to meet.

17. You don’t seem to actively look for work, it comes to you now.

18. You often wake up in the middle of the night, or early in the morning and can’t get back to sleep because you have too many work things going on in your head

Related posts:

1. Freelancer OR Interim OR Business Owner? Part 1
2. Freelance or Interim or Business Owner – Part 3
3. Freelancer OR Interim OR Business Owner? Part 2

This post is written by our newest career coach addition to the team, Martin Haworth

Many times each day, many millions of people wish they were doing something different.

In the work we do, we are truly the blessed ones when we find ourselves doing what we love each and every day we show up.

For the rest of us, it’s that gnawing sensation deep inside that causes us an underlying stress level that, if we aren’t careful, we suffer for most if not all of our careers.

To check this out, there are some steps you can take to help you understand whether you are feeling good about your place of work. So do any of these sound like you?

1. I feel frustrated more of the time than I would like
2. I sometimes don’t feel like going in
3. My sickness level is higher than others
4. Work is hard
5. What I value in life is not the work I do
6. Sometimes I sabotage
7. I envy others in their work
8. I miss things I did when I was a kid
9. I made a mistake with my choice of career
10. I get bored at work

If any – or all – of these sound a little like you, be very aware of this as a wake-up call, because you are fortunate to have noticed.

Over 55% of people on their retirement admit that they wish they had taken a different career path. So working on redirecting your career now – however impossible or unlikely it might seem right at the moment – is absolutely the best time.

Think about this. The noticing your own unease is the biggest step – once you have that, you can work on the next steps of how to move your career forward.

What might seem an unlikely place of discomfort to start from is perfect. You can plot, scheme and plan from where you are right now and leverage the experiences you are having today to benefit your path from tomorrow.

By having a game plan that clarifies – even a little – of what you want for your career and roughly when you might feel a good time to achieve that, is the controlled way forward that will lead to success.

You have choices you can make right now today, to create the career you want without walking out in temper and feeling discomfort. Or worse still, sticking with what you have an humouring it for what can end up as a lifetime.

With career planning there is simply no need for the ‘No pain. No Game’ way of thinking. It’s much easier than that.

Getting the support of someone who will help you with finding out where you want to get to and then challenge you to identify and then achieve take the steps – one at a time – will help you be accountable for your own actions.

Often – and for the enlightened it’s possible to know what you want all on your own – some trusted external support have great value in being very objective and focused on your side.

Wherever you seek that person is wide-open, so when you take the time to seek help, make sure that you are alert enough to find someone you trust and who is fully capable of being the person you need.

Because the innocent words of someone – perhaps several people even – may well be what got you where you are right now. Those well-meaning individuals who were simply so unqualified to give advice to reveal the hidden ambitions of someone so fragile and easily impressed.

You deserve better. You deserve the opportunity to seek out who you are in a career that befits your capabilities and values.

So find the right person who can objectively and dynamically give you the support and encouragement you need. Someone on your team, not their own, will make this work far, far easier.

About Martin:

The experience of working hands-on with literally thousands of employees during a 20+ year career enabled Martin to write both “How To Land Your Dream Job” and “How to Win at Assessment Centers”, both of which have helped many individuals seek and obtain the career they really want. An ICF accredited coach, Martin works usually by phone with clients, making for efficient and effective growth opportunities for those with a will to move forward with objective help, plenty of encouragement and lots of fun along the way.

Related posts:

1. Taking the First Step Towards Your New Career Path
2. 8 ways to successfully work from home
3. 16 ways to improve your work life balance – part 2

Time is precious for a consultant, accountant or lawyer. Your time really does equal money – so how do you use time saving devices to get more out of your time?

1. Invest in sync’ed and mobile devices

Unless you are going to be driving everywhere, I expect that you will be carrying your laptop bag around with you. Add in a few files, bottle of water and before you know it you have carrying what feels like everything BUT the kitchen sink. Investing in mobile gadgets which will let you get to your up-to-date e-mail and calendar while on the move, are great time savers – but also help you leave the laptop at home every once in a while. Make sure that all you devices automatically sync between each other, so that you don’t have to physically sync every device every time you use it.

2. Get a sat nav

My husband got me a sat nav for my birthday at Christmas. Now, I always thought I would never need one of these devices. However, it is great to just be able to type in my destination and be taken to where I need to go, and know how long it is going to take me, plus calculate alternative routes when there are delays on route. No more checking the AA route finder and printing out maps before a trip. Luckily I’ve not been delayed by traffic for a client meeting yet, but I now know I can call up the client and give them a reliable ETA if I am running late.

3. Get a handsfree kit in the car

I mostly take the train everywhere, however, there are times that I will be in the car for a couple of hours. I like to make the most of this time, but often this is the only time I can take calls. This calls for a decent handsfree kit.

4. Make sure you can get access to the internet when you are on the move

There is many a time when I have arrived early for a client meeting, and wiled away the odd 30 mins in a coffee shop near to the client’s offices. This is a useful time to be checking and clearing down e-mail. To do that you need to have mobile broadband access. My phone acts as a modem for my PC, but a broadband dongle is just as good.

5. Have a portable scanner, to use with receipt angel, which will fit in your lap top bag

I have a small portable scanner, which I use when on the move to scan my receipts and business cards into, and then upload these to receipt angel. My virtual assistant then processes my business cards for me, and pops them into my CRM system. My book-keeper is able to download all my receipts at the end of the month and process them – without me needing to put all my receipts together for him and drop them off.

6. Invest in a livescribe pen

I was finding that I was spending literally hours writing up notes from my coaching sessions. Now I use my Livescribe pen and notepads to write all my notes from coaching sessions with clients and meetings with my associates. The Livescribe pen literally takes a picture of what I am writing, and can also record audio when I am writing. I then send the scan of my notes (produced automatically by the pen) to the other people in the meeting – whilst remembering to send the e-mail from my CRM system so I have a record in my CRM system of all my communications with clients and associates.

What are your time-saving devices?

Related posts:

1. 6 tips to help you minimise interruptions
2. Ten tips to get your heaving inbox under control and save time in the process
3. How focused are you?

It is true that a large proportion of jobs never get on the open market. Organisations will normally explore many internal sources first, before placing jobs with agencies. Using a recruitment consultant to fill a job is an expensive strategy for any hiring operation.

However, the recruitment industry operates on a hugely diversified scale and the range of services on offer to employers means that it is quicker and easier to get a vacancy filled rather than do it internally. Many large corporate employers, who have high staff numbers and many vacancies, have in some cases outsourced ALL their recruitment process to external agencies.

According to the REC, the recruitment industry was worth over £22bn in 2008/9 (http://www.rec.uk.com/about-recruitment). Even though this indicates a drop from previous years, it is still a substantial and robust contributor to the UK economy. Realistically, every job seeker is likely to engage with a recruitment consultant during a job search. £22bn in fees represents a huge number of temporary, contract and permanent jobs being placed through agencies. Knowing how to deal with them, and what to expect from them, is crucial to reduce frustration and increase the likelihood of finding that desired job offer.

1. Who pays the fee?

In the UK, it is illegal to charge job seekers for finding jobs. Recruitment agencies, as all businesses, are commercial enterprises and require turnover to be continually successful. The fee is paid by the recruiting employer.

This focuses the relationship between recruiter and client (Fee payer). A different dynamic exists between recruiter and candidate (Job applicant).

The agency must always have the best interest of the client in mind, because that is were the transactional value is.

The candidate’s best interest is represented by the fact that ultimately, there is a job for everyone and the agency, through their relationship with the fee paying employer, is a catalyst to achieve this objective.

2. What is the client paying for?

Selling people is tantamount to slavery. The agency does not own the skills and experience of the candidate, and for this reason has no business offering it for sale. In fact, this is a fact that many recruitment agencies themselves don’t always understand! This is why the Gangmasters Act was brought to life a few years ago – To protect workers from abusive agency practises.

During a recruitment process, the recruiting employer pays for a service that provides them with a candidate pool. Sometimes, the candidate pool is provided by only one agency, but more commonly the service is divided between several agencies and the fee is only paid when a successful introduction is made, and the introducing agency walks away with the spoils.

3. It is a highly competitive business environment

The open agency market is highly competitive because in a “No solution, no fee” environment, it is crucial to win the fee for obvious commercial reasons.

This has developed a high focus on volumes in recruitment, and in most agencies consultants are targeted on a daily basis to deliver KPI’s related to volume. The fact is that, the more activity that is put out, the higher the likelihood of achieving a win.

I don’t personally agree with this form of recruitment, as I believe it to be detrimental to all parties involved. However, regardless of the seniority of the position being recruited or whether it is for a contract or permanent placement: The current recruitment market is driven mostly by volume.

For candidates, the unfortunate fact is that their CV often becomes a means to an end. The end is most certainly to the candidate’s interest: After all, getting the job is the primary objective. But expecting an agency to work solely on a single candidate’s behalf is unrealistic.

4. But its not all about numbers

At the risk of painting a very negative picture, I have to point out that not all recruiter / client relationships are based on volumes and competition. The industry has evolved to a point where recruiting clients have a wide range of choice. People are very important in the recruitment process, and many clients prefer to use the same agency or consultant over and over again because they have established a communicative business relationship. Many long standing business relationships exist where the consultant develops a deep and detailed knowledge of the recruiting business, and is in a position to offer a truly consultative service to both client and candidate.

Sometimes, for difficult to fill or senior roles, clients will retain the services of a recruitment specialist by paying a proportion of the fee upfront. In this case there is no competition from external sources, and the agency will actively search the market to find the most appropriate skills for the client.

These two scenarios are far more constructive for the candidate as information passes freely due to the limited volumes involved.

5. So what about the job applicant?

Finding a new job is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Regard agencies as the magnets that would attract the needle. After all, this is what potential employers do when the engage agencies. The more magnets you have working on your behalf, the more needles you will find.

Of course, not every job you are offered will be appropriate and you should be entirely in control of the process. Remember, you own your skills, experience and personal information. You should never be placed under any obligation, asked to pay a fee for job seeking services in the UK, or have your details sent anywhere without your express permission.

Without candidates, recruitment agencies can not exist. Without agencies, it will take a lot longer to find a job. It is in a candidate’s interest to develop good relationships with recruitment agencies but is equally important to understand what to expect.

Ask the agency how competitive a particular process is: If you know how many other agencies are involved, you know what to expect. If it is a widely assigned role, the likelihood of success decreases. If it is a retained or exclusive arrangement, then you know you will have better communication and a more controlled process.

Use this understanding to your advantage, and you will have a far more positive job seeking experience. Expecting anything different will leave you feeling frustrated.

Related posts:

1. Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 3: Get your CV spotted
2. The Definitive Guide to Job Hunting 5: Get the Best out of Agencies
3. Definitive Guide to Job Hunting Chapter 1 : Get a plan