As soon as you have sent your CV off, you need to start preparing for the next stage – the call for interviews. You may be asked to attend interviews at short notice (particularly if you are looking for contract work) so it pays to be ready.

ARRANGING YOUR ANSWERING SERVICE

You want to give a professional impression if the recruiter calls you at home or on your mobile. Make sure that your answerphone message is appropriately businesslike. If you have children who may answer the phone, make sure that they understand the importance of taking down messages accurately and then passing them on.

Check your answerphone and ‘calls missed’ messages at least once a day. There is nothing more frustrating for a recruiter than being unable to track someone down. Similarly, if you have given out your email address, make sure that you check your inbox daily.

GETTING YOUR PAPERWORK IN ORDER

Make sure that you have all the documents that you will need to show the recruiter if you are offered the job. You will not convey the right impression if you realise at the last minute that you have lost a vital certificate and have to wait for the issuing body to send a new copy through. Information that you are likely to have to show the employer includes:

• copies of your qualification certificates
• proof that you have the right to live and work in this country (note: current UK Home Office guidelines mean that many companies ask all new recruits to prove they have the right to work in Britain – not just foreign nationals)
• if you are looking for work abroad or applying for a post in an industry where security is crucial, your birth certificate and an up-to-date passport
• proof that you have completed any safety training mandatory in your industry
• for those working in the creative professions, samples of previous work (make sure that you don’t show the recruiter something which should be kept confidential).

Take two copies of your CV to the interview. One is for yourself, and the other for the interviewer just in case their copy has gone astray.

ARRANGING YOUR REFERENCES

Decide at this point who you will ask to give you a reference, and whether this might give rise to any problems that you could resolve now.

Choosing your referees

You will need references from at least two people. References for senior posts should always be from people who have known you at work and should include your last manager. Wherever possible, check beforehand that the person you have named is happy to provide you with a reference – although for obvious reasons it will not be possible to do this where the referee is your current manager. Recruiters will only contact your referees when they have made or are on the point of making you a firm job offer, and will let you know before they do so. This gives you a chance to give some advance warning to your referee. Give your referees a copy of your CV to assist them when the time comes for them to provide the reference.

Possible problems

If you are asked to provide names of referees and do not give the name of a manager from your last job, you will arouse the suspicions of the recruiter. If you did not leave your last employer on good terms, it is still worth speaking to them to see if they would be prepared to give you an acceptable reference. Firms are often unwilling to give a bad reference and most will be prepared at least to give a new employer a carefully noncommittal account of you. If you are in the process of negotiating your departure from the firm, provision of a reference is an essential point in the discussions.

If your employer refuses to give you an acceptable reference, you will need to explain to the recruiter that you had a problem with your last employer and would therefore like to offer alternative references. In this situation you should make every effort to ensure that your alternative references are really good ones.

PREPARING YOURSELF PERSONALLY

Job hunting is a stressful business, especially if you do not have the security of an ongoing permanent job to fall back on. You will inevitably encounter rejections along the way, and this will stir up insecurities. Rationally, you know that you have the skills and experience that you need. Even so, after a few rejections you may start to worry about whether you are goodenough.

Be prepared for this. Eliminate as many other sources of stress from your life as possible, and plan time out to relax. Find sources of support to help you in your search for work. These could be:

• family
• friends
• other job seekers.

An informal support group of other job seekers can be very helpful in maintaining your morale.

Plan a schedule of what actions you are going to take and when in your search for work. For example, you may decide to set target dates for completing your CV, calling up a certain number of your contacts, and registering with agencies. If you are currently working, you will need to set aside specific times in which to conduct your jobsearch. It is also crucial to plan and set yourself targets if you are not working. Otherwise you may quickly be diverted onto other tasks: looking for a new senior role is a full-time job.

PREPARING FOR YOUR INTERVIEW

Putting together a CV is a great first step in this preparation process. While you have been creating your CV you have:

• researched your target employer/industry
• identified your strongest points
• practised the art of talking positively about yourself and your achievements
• taken a realistic look at what your weaker points are.

Completing your research

At a senior level you are expected to demonstrate at your interview a real understanding of the company and industry in which you are applying to work. You will usually have done some research into the organisation before you compile your CV. However, some job advertisements do not give the name of the recruiting company. You will only be told this if and when you are called for interview, and will then need to do your research at this stage. If you are applying for a position in a commercial organisation, make sure that you can talk knowledgeably about the company’s:

• financial position
• products and services
• culture
• likely future direction
• strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
• competitors.

If you are a professional applying to work in a partnership, you will need to be able to discuss:

• current and expected developments in your specialist field
• how your skills could help the partnership move forward.

Revisiting your strong points

Take another look at your key selling points. These are the areas that you will want your interview to concentrate on. Decide:

• how you are going to ensure that each point is covered in the discussion
• what you want to tell the interviewer about each point
• the most positive way in which to sell each of your key skills.

The interview is your chance to expand on your achievements in the detail that you had to leave out of the CV. Remember that the interviewer will often want to probe not just what you have achieved but how you achieved it. For example, if your CV shows that you doubled sales in your area within three years, the interviewer will want to know how you went about this. Did you reach these figures through developing positive and sustainable relationships with customers or through aggressive hard sell to people who will never order again? Did you manage to maintain harmonious relations with the production department throughout or did you land them with orders that they couldn’t fill?

Revisit your strong points just before the interview. This will remind you of the points that you want to talk about in the interview and looking at all your past achievements will be a great confidence booster.

Taking a look at your weaker areas

It is a lot harder to hide weaknesses in an interview than it is in a CV. Think through how you will answer questions on any areas that an interviewer might see as a weakness. For each of these areas you will need to be able to show how:

• an apparent weakness could be turned to an advantage, and/or
• you have compensating strengths, and/or
• you will overcome the weakness, and/or
• you will minimise the effect that the weakness has on the organisation.

For example:

Possible problem – you have only ever worked for one company. Response – sell the fact that you are steady and reliable, and have built up a real depth of knowledge that can be transferred to the recruiting firm.

Possible problem – you are applying for an overseas assignment but have never worked abroad before.

Response – tell the interviewer about the year you spent studying abroad as part of your degree course and how well you adapted to life overseas. Build on this by talking about the many short business trips abroad that you have made.

Possible problem – although you have many years of experience in finance, you never finished your accountancy qualifications. You know that the recruiter would prefer someone who is fully qualified.

Response – sell your experience and the fact that you are

committed to gaining professional accreditation in the near future.

Possible problem – although you have many years of retail experience, this has all been in stores selling clothing and footwear. You have never managed a supermarket before. Response – talk about your transferable skills and how interested you are in the fresh challenge of food retailing.

You might decide to talk about your solution before the manager raises the fact that there might be a problem or in case they do not even raise the issue. This is a valuable tactic where you know that an employer may make unfounded assumptions about you. For example:

Possible problem – You are a 35-year-old woman applying for a job which will involve relocating to the other end of the country. You know that if you were a man, they would simply assume that your partner would move to follow your career. Because you are a woman, they may assume that there will be a problem but not ask you about the issue outright.

Response – You have two options here:

• You may decide that as you are a mature professional, the recruiter can take it for granted that the issue of relocation is one that you will have addressed before you even applied for the job. This is a perfectly legitimate stance to take.
• You may accept that the recruiter is likely (perhaps quite unconsciously) to be making discriminatory assumptions about your ability to relocate. You therefore decide to talk during the interview about the fact that both you and your husband would enjoy moving to Scotland and that his home-based job means that you could do this at short notice.

Building up your interview skills

Take a realistic look at how good your interview skills are and whether these could be improved. You could increase your chances of success through:

• Practising interviews with a friend who can be trusted to give useful feedback, or better still a career consultant.
• Reading one of the excellent books on the market on improving interview skills. If you are applying for a job in the UK, make sure that you buy a book produced for British rather than American readers.

Preparing to create the right impression

Most interviewers make up their mind about the suitability of a candidate within the first few minutes of the interview, and much of this is based on the appearance of the candidate. Make sure that your clothes, briefcase, accessories and haircut are all smart and professional and project the right image.

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR MARKETING DOCUMENT

Once you have won the post that you want, don’t throw your CV away or put it in the bottom of a drawer and forget about it.Developing your career is an ongoing process. Think about whether there is anything that you could do now that would be a real addition to your CV the next time you are looking for work.

• Is there a strong point that you could develop further?
• Is there a weakness that you should work on?
• Do you need to build up a better network of contacts?

Revisit your CV every six months or so (more if you work on short-term contracts) to update it. As you have just found out, putting together a winning CV is a time-consuming business. There is nothing more frustrating than finding out about a great new position and not having the time to apply for it. Keep your CV up to date. The next time that you find out about a promising new career opportunity, you’ll be ready to meet it.

CASE STUDIES

Steve prepares himself

As a contractor, Steve knows the importance of being able to provide hiring companies with all the information they ask for at short notice. He keeps everything that he is likely to need together in one file. When he moves from his rented flat in London to his new house in Yorkshire, he makes sure that he keeps this file with him instead of leaving it with the rest of his belongings for the removals firm to transport. Steve contacts all the agencies that he works with in advance, to let them know the date of the move and his new address and phone number. He makes sure that his phone, fax and internet connection are working as soon as he moves in and on the day of the move he keeps his mobile switched on all day, just in case!

Sue gets ready for the interview

Sue is a confident communicator in normal working situations, but feels slightly nervous about her forthcoming interview with Pizza Place. She therefore spends some time thinking about all the awkward questions that she could be asked and rehearsing great answers. Because she does not normally dress smartly for work (her job is too hands-on to make this practical) Sue also invests in a new suit for the occasion.

CHECKLIST

• Do your family know that you may get calls from future employers at home?
• Are you checking your answerphone and emails regularly?
• Have you got all the paperwork you will need to show an employer?
• Have you decided who you will ask for references?
• Are you prepared to deal with the stress of job hunting?
• Have you researched the employer thoroughly?
• Have you decided how to talk about your strengths and weaknesses at interviews?

POINTS TO CONSIDER

• 1.What could you do to improve your interview skills?
• 2.How will you make sure that you project the right image at your interview?