Jobseeker webinar – Increase credibility in your job search: Curate your online presence

0:02 Zoe Raymond So, welcome to the CIPD Trust Session on increasing credibility in your job search and curating your online presence. My name is Zoe, I’m the Programme Design Manager at the CIPD Trust. You can find out about the CIPD Trust and what we do on our website, which is cipdtrust.org. But basically, the thing you need to know is that we are really committed to, our big thing is about taking the amazing knowledge and skills and expertise that exist within the people profession, from people working in HR and recruitment and sharing that with people who are at a point in their career where they’re a little bit stuck. So, that’s people like you who are maybe looking for a job and just need that little bit of expertise or that little bit of help on building your online presence, for example. So, it’s really just about sharing that knowledge and expertise so that people like you can really know that you’re getting really high-quality information from people who really know their stuff. And that you can use that just to help you to overcome these little roadblocks that you might be hitting. So, that’s who we are. And we’re running this session today to help you to build your online presence, specifically around the job search, but also just in in terms of everything else, and anything else you might be doing. So, I think we’ll start by introducing our panel, we always like to start these things off by making people seem a little bit human. So, I’m going to ask all of you to introduce yourselves and also just share a little bit about maybe a challenge that you’ve had when you’ve been job searching. So, I think we’ll go alphabetically and start with you, Andy, if that’s all right? 01:44 Andy So, yeah, can you hear me, OK? 01:45 ZR Yep. 01:46 Andy Yeah. Cool. So, I’m delighted to be here. So, thank you very much for the CIPD Trust for inviting me. So, my name is Andy, everyone, and I’m based in London, and I lead the Employee Relations team at TikTok. I’ve been with the company since February. So, it’s, I’m still so within my first six months, but before then I worked for Amazon, as well. And you’ll find all this on LinkedIn, by the way, sort of big, little plug there for social media, I think in terms of one of the challenges that I’ve had with using social media from a professional perspective. So, first of all, there’s loads of platforms out there. And I think finding the platform that’s right for you, or do you use more than one is sometimes a challenge that you have to navigate and then I think the other thing that sort of jumps out to me is, I think, like, so I’ve got quite a good presence on LinkedIn. But I actually think there’s still elements of Imposter Syndrome that sort of kick in every now and then. And so, “does my voice want to be heard”, “does my view want to be heard?” Is it something that maybe followers and other people that, sort of, I know and engage with are going to be interested in what I have to say, and so I think navigating that kind of Impostor Syndrome piece has been something that I’ve had to contend with over, sort of, the years as I’ve kind of built up my presence and my confidence, so little bit about me and sort of challenge there. 03:06 Zoe Great. And Maria, do you want to go next? 03:09 Maria O’Brien Hi, yeah. Hi, can you hear me, OK? Oh, good stuff, OK. So, yeah, I’m, I own a recruitment business. We recruit accountants and HR professionals. I’ve done that now for 17 years, used to work in quite a large business in Manchester before that. I’m originally from Liverpool, I’m a busy working mum, with three children, a couple of them are teenagers, one’s at university, and one’s a little bit younger. So, I’ve got lots of juggling, lots of balls, I’m juggling. And it’s quite interesting, actually, social media, because I’ve always been a little bit scared of it, particularly Facebook, I mean, I’m (inaudible) on Facebook personally. But I don’t really particularly like oversharing everything about my life. And I know in order, to sort, of get up your clicks or your likes, or to try and feed into the algorithms, it is important to try and maybe give something of yourself back onto social media. But from a business perspective, if anybody’s following me on that, it is Maria O’Brien, by the way, not Dickson O’Brien, that is my business. And I do, instead of actually sharing things, I do tend to like posts, or I’ll pick something which resonates with me. And that probably gives a little bit back about, bit more about my personality. I’m a little bit choosy about what I do with that. And then I’ll post things which is specific to the business so or anything maybe economic, because that’s quite important. I did history and politics at university, so that sort of resonates with me as well, but I’m always a bit worried about like you said, Andy, what should I post? Will that be confrontational? Will people think that’s wrong? And so, I’m still in the camp of I don’t do masses of that, but I will like posts, and I will often comment on posts, certainly if I know people personally. So, I suppose that’s a little a bit about me as well and my LinkedIn life. 5:00 ZR Great. And Paula? 5:05 Paula Grayson Thank you, and I was sitting here thinking, “Oh God, I’m so old, old and out of date”. I used to work for Unilever and then I was University of Luton, Head of Personnel and I’ve been self-employed, running my own business for a long time now. And I keep people out of employment tribunal. So, it’s really lovely to talk to people who are job hunting, because normally I’m looking at disciplines and grievances and settling with ACAS. So, this is total bliss today and I’m enjoying it. And then because I’ve always been in good paid work, I also do a lot of voluntary work. So, I’m a Public Governor for a Mental Health Trust over in Essex, and I’m a Chair of a charity here in Bedfordshire, which is where I live. And I thought the sun was coming out, but it’s gone back in again. And my social media is only one because I looked at it and thought all of it’s too much like hard work. I don’t have time. So, I love information. It’s, I gather information, and I ask questions. So, I use LinkedIn, but you’ll frown at me, Andy and Maria, because I don’t ever post anything, ever. And I only ever connect with someone who’s asked to connect with me. So, I’ve never reached out to anybody, and I’ve never commented. But I love the fact that people want to tell me things. So, everybody who I’ve ever met, who’s ever asked to link with me, I can keep hold of them. So, all my old students from when I was a lecturer, I know what they’re doing in their life now. I love that. There’s one rising and rising in National Health Service, I love it. I just hear about him from time to time. There’s another that’s become an academic in early years care. And it’s just so beautiful, keeping track of people that I cared about a long time ago. 6:51 ZR Great. So, quite a range of different approaches and experiences there, which I think is going to be really good. So, let’s dive straight into our first question, which is, “how do employers research candidates online?” and “is the main online search that recruiters use LinkedIn?” So, Maria, do you want to take that to start with? 07:14 MO Yeah, yeah, sure. So, the first thing to say is, I think, as I’ve just sort of outlined, I use LinkedIn quite extensively as a recruiter, and actually, as an owner of a business. And I think it’s quite important to have an up-to-date and a strong LinkedIn profile. So, the things we do have on there, you’ll have a picture of yourself on your “About us” page. And then it’s quite important to have your career history on there. Now, my big tip on that is to make sure that marries up with the CV which you send out to employment agencies or indeed that’s directed to clients. Because often I will check those and make sure everything is akin with regards to that. So, the big thing, I think, from that perspective is to is to link into recruiters who maybe you’ve had recommended to you, maybe people know them, or maybe do your research around that in your specialist area. And then I’m always happy to receive LinkedIn invites. I will then have a little look and just make sure that you know, the reason you’re connecting with me is you wanting to do, to work, etc, etc, or even business development. So, that’s fine. So, I think LinkedIn is very, very important. But have you career history on there, have your education up to date, have a strong LinkedIn profile on there with a little bit about your background and what you do. You’ll see I’ve got my qualification on there, how long I’ve owned the business, but you will actually also see I don’t put masses about myself personally either, but that is just a personal choice. And other recruiters believe strongly that you should share more, and that is also fine, too. That’s just a personal choice of mine really. 9:01 ZR Yeah, great. It’s so interesting that like, sort of basic things like making sure that your CV matches what you’ve got on LinkedIn, I guess it’s so easy, isn’t it to maybe just fudge dates somewhere and then realise it doesn’t quite link up? Paula did you have anything that you’ve had from your kind of extensive professional experience? 09:24 PG (inaudible) don’t fudge dates, it’s really interesting. There was a really good article at the CIPD published. It was probably, people mentioned Daily Update, and it said we’ve all got to become more grown up as recruiters about people taking career breaks, and just helping a local person with her CV. She wants to become a (inaudible) and she should have done it 11 years ago, but she didn’t when she was in a really good job. And she took six years out running her own business, but the business was dog walking. Now I looked at her CV and thought all the employers have been told to take gaps. Absolutely, it’s OK to have a gap to go traveling to studying for your level five to do an MBA, whatever. But explain it and be honest to people. And so, I looked at it and my first kick in, because I used to recruit people a long time ago for Unilever. My first kick in was, “Oh God, how do I, how do I massage dog walking into something that looks good?” But of course, she was an entrepreneur, she had three staff, she actually managed the accounts, she managed the payroll, she took on tasks that you don’t do as an HR person. So, her, I haven’t checked her LinkedIn profile. But if it does, if she uses the phrases that I have gently nudged her to use, it looks really positive. Now there is, to help all of you all of you people on the call, there is guidance from the CIPD. And Karine can probably put or Ressina can put in the chat box, a quick link to the guide to employers as to how they should do pre-employment checks. And notice I say, pre-employment because just, earlier this week, there was a People Management Daily Update, where a woman was, a man was directly discriminated against, because after he’d had the job offer, he was withdrawn because of a Google search. Now, the good news for people is, what Maria might have also said is, make sure your references are really good when you do that CV, because the only reason they did the Google search is because the references were very feeble, quite lukewarm. And one of the references was from a close friend. So, they would never have Google searched without that reference being feeble. So, providing your LinkedIn profile is clear with explanations, providing your references good, it won’t happen. What the CIPD say to employers is, “please, if you do any social media checks, whatever comes up, if it gives you any reasons for anxiety, pre-employment, before the job offer, then ring up that person and talk to them about it. Give them a chance to explain, because anything else is not ethical”. I’ve gone on a bit, but I thought it’s neat because I’ve been able to pick up what you were asking Zoe, with what Maria was advising. 12:27 ZR Yeah, so our advice is always that people, employers should, you know, discuss any concerns that they have with candidates, I think we know that that probably doesn’t always happen and that sometimes people look at something and think, “not great, oh, I’ll pass on this CV” without going any further. So, I think it’s always a bit of a mix, those things about, you know, best practice and what actually happens. So, I’m told that we’re having some issues with our polls. So, we’re going to ask that, instead of entering this into a poll, you just put it in the chat, we always like to start off on a relatively positive note. So, just thinking about what Maria was saying about kind of showcasing yourself on LinkedIn, please share with us kind of what do you think your best professional strength is that you would like to showcase on social media. And hopefully, we can kind of weave some of these into our discussion and see if we can kind of come up with any sparky ideas about how to get those through. So, if you guys just want to put something in the chat around that, that’d be great. I can see some things are already starting to come through. So that’s fabulous. So, while these are all coming through, I think we’ll go on to our next question, which is, “how do you build credibility online when you don’t currently have an online presence? And what practical tips would you recommend?” How can we balance showcasing our professional achievements with maintaining authenticity and personality on platforms like LinkedIn? So, I think we’ve heard quite a bit from Maria about, you know, not sharing things, what, I guess what do you share? And how do you do it in a way that is professional and looks good. Andy, do you want to take that one to start off with? 14:05 Andy Yeah, sure. Happy to. So, if I think about credibility online. And kind of, if you have, if you’re just starting off. I think one of the things that I did when I first started out on LinkedIn anew into life as a professional is, I didn’t really have like a professional network. So, it’s how do you connect with maybe, sort of school, school friends or sort of like think about sort of other people that you can connect with to build out your network and start to sort of interact in that way and just get familiar with the platform, because it’s not just your posting, it’s how you use the platform and kind of getting comfortable with the technology. I think the other thing that certainly I’ve done as well in time is start to follow kind of notable leaders as well because they post quite regularly and you can kind of get some insights of kind of what’s going out there in kind of like the market from that side of things. So, like, think of like your Barack Obamas your Bill Gates, etc. And kind of those kind of notable leaders, and you’ll be really surprised if you, kind of, do a like or you do a comment in one of those kinds of posts, millions of people are going to see that post, your name just goes “bang” straight out there from kind of the algorithm perspective. So, start to comment on those sorts of posts as well. And what you’ll start to see is you’ll start to see people kind of reaching out, wanting to connect with you, because maybe even though you haven’t done your own post, you’ve commented on someone else’s post. And so, this was, this was the thing that I sort of how I got into it, I was like, I don’t really have anything to say myself, but I’ve got something to say about what this other person has said. And you can kind of, sort of, like piggyback off them a little bit to some extent, and you’ll find that your presence will grow. And over time, you’ll start to see like, your network grows and expands. And so, like I, that was my strategy that I did. And I’ve kind of stuck to it and I’m actually a LinkedIn Top Voice now for employer relations, which I’m particularly proud of that little banner that I have, I had to work pretty hard to get it. But it came through, kind of just that sort of like thinking outside the box of what to kind of, sort of like build the presence on there. And I think the other thing as well, I don’t post anything personally. So, similar to kind of the other the other Chairs, I talk very much about kind of like what’s going on kind of maybe in the kind of the legal landscape or that sort of side of things. But I think you can have a really strong presence without sharing too much of yourself personally. And I think there’s other platforms for that personal presence. But I think LinkedIn is quite a professional presence and so I try to make sure I’m commenting on a professional nature. I do comment about Gareth Southgate’s leadership at the weekend, though. So, we’ll pause on that. 16:38 ZR And he’s resigned. This is breaking news this morning. 16:45 Andy Yeah, I just got a breaking news from the BBC while we’re here. Yeah, yeah. 16:46 ZR So, you know, very apposite comment. 16:51 MO It is quite interesting there, actually, I think I was just reading some of the comments, actually. I think Alan’s actually posted that it’s good to add hashtags into your profile as well. Which is a really good comment, actually, so if you hashtag. So, for instance, with me, it’s hashtag finance professionals or HR professionals. And just following in from what Andy said with regards to that, sort of, if you’re a member of any professional body, just make sure you follow them. Again, that will then, by following them, liking some of their posts, then the algorithms will naturally send you more posts to like potentially, and then maybe think, my biggest tip actually is, maybe think about who you’ve worked with before. And when I used to do a lot with Department of Work and Pensions, actually, with people who’d been out of work for up to two years. And that was one of my biggest tips, actually, who have you worked with before and try and find them on LinkedIn, it’s a very unobtrusive way of doing a very soft business development, quick catch up. And they can either choose to respond or not and have broad shoulders with that if they don’t respond, I’m fine with that, too. And then maybe think, well, actually, where have they then worked by looking on their profile, you’ll be able to see maybe Janet, for instance, who you’ve lost touch with. And if you’re on now, Janet, I’ll say hello, because we met at a networking event recently the other day. And so those type of tips are quite quick wins to build up your network very, very quickly and efficiently without oversharing, or being very dramatic about your entrance to LinkedIn, I think. 18:20 ZR Great. That’s excellent. So, I guess this, this leads on to our next question, which is, “how do you go about building that online professional network?” So, how do you kind of when do you connect with someone on LinkedIn? I guess, and like when, you know, how, how does that work? So, I can see, obviously, we’ve spoken a bit about connecting with people you used to work with and like people that you used to know, but how do you go beyond that? And when is it appropriate? And when is it not? Andy, do you want to just kind of kick us off on that one? 18:52 Andy Yeah, yeah. Happy to. So, I think one of the so as a reference, so in order to get the LinkedIn Top Voice banner, you have to have a certain level of activity, and you have to build your network. And so, in order to how, in terms of how that’s provided, there are there are lots of kind of like forums out there. So, there’s like an employee relations forum, there’s a there’s a forum around recruitment, and joining in those communities. And they have kind of like articles of “what’s your view?”, “what’s your opinion of? “there’s conflict in the workplace, how, what’s your recommendations?”, and there’s like a series of kind of questions that you can answer and respond. And I found that kind of by proactively trying to and you’re not, it’s not a post that goes on your main feed, but there are other kind of like sub-areas of LinkedIn of how you can build your online profile and how you can connect with other people outside of the main feed. And I found that like, through kind of posting and commenting on sort of like answering a question has really helped me because you build up a network with fellow professionals but at the same time, you’re not trying to think of something super creative from a posting perspective, you’re just answering a question in terms of your view and your opinion. And sometimes that’s the easier path into kind of building up a presence in LinkedIn as well. In order to build your presence, though it does require an element of like regularity. Like, if you want to build, sort of a noticeable presence and sort of like, follow a presence and that side of things, you do. The way the algorithms work, if you want to kind of come up near the top of someone’s feed and get noticed a little bit, you do have to have an element of regularity about it. So, I mean, I probably post at least once a week, as a post, but I would probably comment on like two to three articles. And I kind of do that just while I’m on the train on the way in. So, it’s not kind of like eating into my day necessarily. So, it’s kind of thinking about how you kind of use some of the other sort of sub-parts of, that are existing on these platforms. 20:59 ZR Great. And Maria, did you have anything to add on that? I know, you spoke earlier about people kind of reaching out to you to connect in your role as a recruiter and like how that works. Is that like, how can people do that in a way that makes them stand out or that you know, kind of will enhance their chances? 21:19 MO I think the most important thing, actually there is not just to send a request, it’s to try and personalise it a little bit. And I know you don’t necessarily have to pay for LinkedIn Premium to do that. We don’t as business actually. But you know, you can still put a little bit on there, you do have to be careful actually because there will be they’ll only allow you so many rejections on that. So, you do have to be mindful on that. But I think if you’ve targeted something, most recruiters would accept a LinkedIn invite, you know, I’m a Financial Controller, I’m a HR professional, I’m looking for my next job move. Most of us should be responding to those types of things, actually. So, I think it’s just make it, just put a little bit of commentary on there would probably be my tip and then, exactly like Andy said, I personally follow people. I quite enjoy you know, my big one at the moment’s Stephen Bartlett [phonetic]. I like watching “Dragon’s Den”, I, you know, do stuff like that voluntary actually in a school in Salford, which is where I live. So, I will like those posts, no comments on those. By default, you’re almost getting other or the other people commenting or wanting to link back into you. And actually, it’s just something I personally enjoy doing and reading about. So, everything Andy was saying there, I concur with that, concur with that really. 22:40 ZR Great. Excellent. So, I think we’ve got time for our kind of second question for the audience, which is: 22:46 PG Zoe, Zoe, can I just join in quickly? 22:48 ZR Oh, yeah, Paula, of course, go ahead. 22:49 PG Andy and Maria hadn’t mentioned the CIPD! Because you’re a CIPD member. Some of you are students and apprentices and that’s wonderful. And you have a local and a national way of really building up a really, really good professional network. So, I’m on the Branch Committee for Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes. So, I love you coming to meetings. I was introduced to somebody yesterday afternoon, who lives two miles from me, and she’s never made it to a single one of the local branch and group meetings. So, she’s very naughty. She actually said, “I thought they were all face-to-face”, no half of them are online. So, you can make it to a meeting no matter how tremendously wonderfully busy you are. So, you have your local branch, so find out who your local branch is, make sure you’re getting the branch e-flyers and newsletters, so you know what the events are coming up. And it’s quite, over the summer it can get busy in September through to next June. So that’s my first one. I have found so many connections for people who said, “I’m redundant. I’m looking for a job.” The recruitment agencies, like Iryna says, recruitment agencies ghosting them. So, I put them directly in touch with someone, introduced them at a face-to-face or virtually in the networking session before a virtual session. So, your local branch will help you absolutely 100%. Now nationally, as I’m sure everybody who works with CIPD would recommend, there are community forums, and exactly Andy’s point and Maria’s point, if you comment upon somebody else’s question or view, then you become known as an authority. So, for example, on LinkedIn, I was noticing somebody whose name came up a lot because she was commenting in a very mature and professional way about some points that people were making. So, when her same name, because that’s on LinkedIn, when her same name popped up on one of our CPD sessions one evening, virtually, I said, ah, “I read your comments on LinkedIn.” And she does interim work. So, she’s currently in work, but she’ll be out of work shortly. So, I said, “I really liked your comments on LinkedIn. I don’t suppose you’d be prepared to help with the branch LinkedIn group, would you?” She said, “yes.” So, I put her in touch with the Branch Chair. And now the two of them, the Branch Chair is Director of HR for a university, so she’s got lots of jobs and this woman is an interim, as I say. So, so already, two people’s networks have been enhanced, because I joined up LinkedIn with the CIPD local. And there are other networks you can do as well locally. If anybody’s become an Enterprise Advisor, and forgive me, this is very naughty of me, Zoe, but I’m bound to say CIPD have asked every HR person in the United Kingdom to become an Enterprise Advisor for a school. So, Maria’s already doing something for schools, thank you, but if you join as an Enterprise Advisor, you don’t just help a school with careers fairs, you help at a strategic level. And CIPD, Peter Cheese, the Chief Exec said, “please become Enterprise Advisors”. Now, when we network as Enterprise Advisors, that’s a lovely professional network, because we’re trying to get the next generation ready for jobs. 26:00 ZR Great, thank you, Paula. Yeah, I think that’s a great example of how some of that networking stuff can work in action, and that people will see you and remember you and then put you forward for things that might then lead on to other things, I think that’s really great. Just to say, obviously, we know that not everyone here is a CIPD member or looking for work in HR. But I would encourage you to think about what other bodies there are in the profession you want to get into or what other networking opportunities there are, because there are definitely things out there. I think Andy mentioned, just having a look for online groups and things like that, that you could maybe join and see if there are, if those exist, and if you can get into them. Whether or not there are kind of opportunities to start making some of those connections. And like Paula said, just getting your name out there and people remembering it, I think is really useful. Great. So, we’re going to go to our second kind of audience question. Now. I think Karine is going to pop it in the chat. So, we just wanted to know from all of you, “what’s one thing that you’re going to go away from today and use to improve your online presence?” So, is there something you’ve heard? Or is there something that has just kind of kickstarted in your mind? Or that you want to share with others, maybe? Do just pop it in the chat and yeah, we’ll pick up some of those as we go. Oh, someone’s got, put “review my LinkedIn”, which is great, yes, following more notable leaders, that’s also really useful and engage more on posts. Yeah, I think that’s what I’m going to be doing a bit more of, I think I’m probably not as good as I could be at commenting and things. That’s really great. I can see we’ve got some really good answers coming through. So, we’ll go over to our next question now, which is, “how do you build up your online presence when you’ve had a significant career break?” And the person who asked this had a career break of over 10 years, so we’re kind of talking really quite a long time out of work. Paula, do you want to start off with this one because I know you were talking about someone who’d had a career break to do a different career, I wonder if you have any thoughts about someone who’s maybe been completely out of work for a significant amount of time and how they can talk about that in a positive way? 28:02 PG I started to put a bit in the chat box, because she was, you were very discreet, chat box person, because you said it was bits and pieces of jobs. And having read a lot of CVs in my time, I help people with upgrading quite a lot in the CIPD. But generally speaking, CVs, yes, as was in the chat box, be honest but then think about it. And ages ago, there was some advice from the CIPD, which I took very much to heart. And it was, of course, this whole issue about bringing up children, it can take seven years, on average, to take your career break for bringing up children. And in that time, you say, “Oh, I’ve lost my skills.” And some silly employers also agree with that. But what the article reminded me of is that if you have taken off seven years, my goodness me, haven’t you done some amazing learning? You’ve learned to budget, you’ve learned to do time management, you’ve learned to multi-skill, multi-task and so what you do in that, for that long career break, especially if it’s as long as 10 years, is you say why you did it, a little bit of the motivation. One of the CVs I saw was lovely, because somebody had gone away and done voluntary work, they’d absolutely, they’d wanted a gap year and voluntary work to find themselves. So, we twisted it to say this was about embracing my wider skills, I’d got trapped in a particular job. So, this is me thinking through what else do I have by way of transferable skills. So, what we came up with was all the various learning. So the person had learned to take time to, think carefully, to look at all angles of a particular problem, which meant that their next job they were going for, they found the right job, because instead of going back to where they were, they went back to something right for the personality they’d become, and I can’t stress more than ever, nowadays, you can so easily get trapped in a career that your parents wanted, or that you thought you wanted and you suddenly realise you wake up at 36, 46, 56 and say, “Why am I doing this?”. And at that point, you need to think about what motivates you. So, then those lovely networks that Andy mentioned, people will just chat to you and say, “Oh, I’m very interested in, oh design”. I met a lovely woman who gave up paid work to draw, because she suddenly realised that she was drawing pets. And she’s made a career out of drawing pets, because people will pay for a portrait of their beautiful dog or cat. And so, you can find your inner entrepreneur, you can find your inner care person, again, in the charity that I chair, we’ve got some social prescribers who are on their second or third careers, because their first careers didn’t give anything back. But now they’ll sit with someone for an hour and get to the bottom of why they’re feeling isolated, disconnected from family, disconnected from the world, and they have found a new life for themselves. And so, I’ve watched the development of our social prescribers with as much happiness as the case studies of the people who they help. So, don’t just always think you’ve got to keep doing what you’ve always done, because there’s probably another person in there. 31:31 ZR Great. That’s great. And Maria, I wonder if you have any thoughts about how people can kind of bring those things out in their online presence? And what you might see as a recruiter, when someone does have that big career gap and is looking to return to work? 31:47 MO Well, I think we’ve covered a little bit of it before but practically, you know, you do need to put sort of practical measures in place really sort of having a good strong CV, and a personal profile at the top. I’m not a massive fan of the AI generated CVs, I think they take out the personality in there. Oh, there you go, getting a “thumbs up” with that. So, that’s my personal take on that. But then it’s actually asking around those two, for instance, I’m a working mum myself, in fact, kids go to school, you know, if you’re talking in the playground, talk to somebody, “where do you work?” you know, those types of things, try and find out some professional relationships you could then maybe hook onto the back of. Certainly, with recruiters, who have you used before? That type of thing. And then little tips on writing your CV would be, for instance, make sure the title of your role is indicative of a past role you’ve done. So, I had one recently, and they’ve done, they were a Programme Manager but in reality, they were actually a Financial Controller. Now, the algorithm, when they’re searching and applying for roles won’t pull up Programme Managers, but what they were actually to, they were missing a trick, really. So, it’s actually use job titles, and then use them a little bit repeatedly in your CV so that those algorithms get pulled up, especially if you’re applying to very large businesses, with big AI systems, they need to see certain things repeated on loop for that to then hit the internal recruiter. Us in the recruitment-owning business are a little bit more bespoke than that. So, that tends to be a bit of a different approach. But those are practical tips, really. Try and find network or contacts in any way you can. Don’t be frightened to reach out to people on LinkedIn, send a nice little personal touch. If they say “no”, that’s fine. Just leave them be and then move on to the next one. And then have a really strong CV, ask a partner, ask a friend to look at it again. And those would be and then upload some of that into your profile on LinkedIn. Those are just some practical tips, really, as a working mum myself, I do know how hard it is. So, you know, and I’ve had a gap myself, so you know, I understand that as well. 34:06 ZR That’s great. 34:08 Andy Sorry, can I just ask one on that as well. 34:10 ZR Yeah, go ahead. 34:11 Andy I think the kind of like, getting the job title, and the repetition is really super critical. So, like, as a data point, when I was at Amazon, we received four applications per minute globally, as a company. When you think about that, over the course of just one day, we have to rely on tech, we had to rely on technology to filter through the applications. We had to rely on technology to filter through and so there’s elements of AI, which was referenced. So, I think it’s really important that you kind of you get those buzzwords popping out in terms of kind of your experience because these big tech companies or these other big organisations don’t offer that one-to-one of recruiters looking at a resume just they can’t from the scale. Four applications per minute, it’s impossible. You’d had to have, you’d have a country of recruiters in order to be able to fulfil against that. So, you have, they have to rely on technology. So I think it’s really important that you, when you think about kind of like, “does this match what I’m applying for?” and kind of the buzz, like making sure there’s a commonality, like, if you’re, if you’re a project manager, but there’s no reference to the word “project” on your LinkedIn, or there’s a reference the “project” on your resume, it is going to kick you out just because of the way the algorithms work. 35:24 ZR Great. Yeah. I think that’s, we always get questions about how those systems work. And I think often the answer is, just use common sense and try and think about, yeah, do you have the right words in there that are also the words on the CV on the job, job advert and things like that? I guess that brings us around to our next question, which is, “how can people use AI for their social media?” I guess, particularly LinkedIn, I know, Maria, you’ve touched on how you feel about using it on for like CVs, I suppose, Andy, are you a proponent of AI, I feel like you might be? 36:03 Andy So, yes and no. So, I mean, we’re, this whole session is talking about kind of, like credibility. And I think, there’s a very kind of like, fine line between using things such as ChatGPT, and kind of, it’s very easy that it stops becoming your voice, it’s very easy that it stops becoming your view. And if we’re talking about authenticity, and credibility, I think I see examples quite often of it being overused and you then kind of ceased to have kind of an understanding of that, what that person really thinks or what that person really feels. So, I think it is advantageous, but I think you need to use it with some caution. Some areas where I think it is really beneficial and it’s not necessarily AI, it’s more of a technology side of things. Like I think there’s like, don’t put in a post with spelling mistakes, think about Grammarly, think about kind of like, so think about kind of other technology opportunities that you can use to kind of, I guess, demonstrate high standards from that side of things. There are other AI solutions that are out there that you can use to build your profile. So, one example that I have used historically, is something called PhantomBuster. If anyone’s not aware of that, what that does is. LinkedIn is like the one of the biggest databases out there in terms of employee, in terms of candidates. What you can do with PhantomBuster is it can pull the data into kind of a spreadsheet. So, as an example, I’d go, “I’m looking for recruiters in tech in London”, and it will go and then it does the whole search history, and you can download that search history. And then you can then target your, who you want to go and connect with. But it takes off some of that work and that that sort of piece. It is a paid service, but it does have some free, some free things, and I’m not affiliated in any way, but it’s just one I’ve used in the past. 37:57 ZR Great and Maria did you want to expand a bit more on your kind of feelings about AI and where people maybe shouldn’t use it, or maybe where it could be useful? 38:08 MO What I think is, certainly as a recruit it’s also useful in generating very useful job adverts. So, the same can be said for your CV, you know, it will pull something together, which actually looks and is fit for purpose. So, but I was thinking you know, you do it yourself and then maybe get an AI or ChatGPT to look at it. I think recruiters can tell actually, if it’s just been ChatGPT’d it in all honesty, so it’s always, do a bit of it yourself. But things like, make sure you’ve got your qualifications on your CV, repeat that again, you know, the biggest thing we see is people forgetting to put their qualifications on the top of a CV, repeat it again, repeat it again in the next bit. And that’s where AI is very good, because the big companies do use that to actually shortlist and select candidates, so you do need to be embracing it to a degree. So again, just make sure your profile is succinct, nothing’s ambiguous. Just because you’re called something internally, don’t assume somebody externally knows that that’s what that means. So actually, make sure that’s not ambiguous. Any hobbies, I’d look at them, you know, may have a hook in there, you know, if I’ve enjoyed doing it myself, you know, put them on your CV, any societies that you belong to again, and again, sort of make that personal profile, quite punchy, I think. And but yeah, so, AI can help, and it helps us recruiters, but I’m not personally a big fan of just relying on it’s completely. It’s great at writing job adverts, but again I think you can tell when that job advert’s been AI-written as well. And we want personality, I think as well to come across. 39:55 ZR Yeah. Which I guess comes down to our next question which is, “what are the most important skills and experience to highlight when you’re kind of thinking about your online presence?” So, we’ve kind of talked a bit about how to do it. But I guess what are the things that people should be thinking about bringing out? I see that, in our first question at the very top of the webinar that some people were talking about how much, how good their communication skills were and how much varied experience they had. So, how, what are the things that they can bring out through those interactions online? Andy, do you want to take that one to start with? 40:28 Andy Yes, certainly. So, one area that we haven’t really touched upon, but I am a real advocate for it is in LinkedIn, generally it’s at the foot of the page. And I think it deserves a much more kind of a higher presence. There’s a recommendation section where you can get recommendations from people that you’ve interacted with in the past. And so, it’s, it’s almost like an online reference. If you think about your resume, it’s like an online reference. And so, you can go and ask people for a reference via this recommendation, people can give it to give them to you as well. And it’s been something that I’ve used quite extensively, because it’s all very well, me having my voice. But if other people have some advocacy for me, and some other people have a voice for me, I feel it just kind of maybe pushes your profile to that next, that next level, plus one on every what everyone has said in terms of like qualifications, kind of any sort of like volunteering experiences, and all of those sorts of side of things. But I think the recommendations part of LinkedIn is underutilised. And it’s certainly something that I look at. So, I didn’t answer the first question where we’re kind of like, “what do you do for like, when you kind of have a candidate come through?”, but I extensively look at someone’s LinkedIn profile before I interview them. Because I’m a believer that the candidates prepare, spend a lot of time preparing for their interview, I should prepare some time for that as well. I think it’s a two-way dialogue and it’s a two-way preparation. So, I made sure I invest in time to kind of understand the candidate. So, it’s going to help frame some of the questions I ask going into that interview. And I do look at the recommendations like “what’s this person like to potentially work with?” And sort of like, is it a full profile or a partial profile? 42:10 ZR Great and Paula, I wonder if you had any thoughts about that, in terms of what kind of skills and experience people might want to highlight when they’re looking for work? What are the things that really draw you to someone? 42:21 PG I’m so glad you asked that question, Zoe, and I’m not going to answer the straight question. I’m going to do the politician trick of answering the question I want, I wanted you to ask, and it’s because the last three CVs that people have sent me, I’ve, they’ve picked up a CV template, and they’ve put right at the top “I am skilled in” and then for each job they put “I am skilled in” and I’ve said, because I’ve done a lot of recruiting in my time for Unilever and University of Luton, “Don’t do that, because the skills are meaningless until you see the context.” So, I’ve said, “incorporate those skills in your job.” So, the most recent one I was looking at, she’d put key responsibilities, then key achievements, so I merged them. So, I said, “don’t talk skills”, say, “when I was”. Oh, the question about the CT, I’m going to use the CCTV chappie whose name keeps disappearing when I look for it. But if you worked in CCTV, apply to every police organisation and council that runs CCTV, because they can’t get people who will look at CCTV or manage the people who look at it. So, talk about your achievements within your CV. So, for example, what I care about are people who’ve made a difference. So, whether the difference you’ve made is engaging with vulnerable people, whether the difference you’ve made is solving a particular business problem. It’s about achieving and when Andy said four CVs a minute, OK, I’ve never had that volume, but what I have had people that tell me what their job description said they should do. And that’s boring, and it doesn’t tell me anything. Then there are people who’ve said, “in my two years at this organisation, I revisited our whole office process and what I found was we were inefficient, and I made it efficient.” I think back to one of my students, she worked, she wasn’t in HR, she was in quality assurance. And what she told me about quality assurance was the most amazing transferable skills. She could go into any job that required greater efficiency, greater effectiveness, greater outcomes, greater productivity, and she in her mind, and her skills base could do that. So, it’s about explaining the real life of what you have managed to do, because then the employee looks at it and says, “this person will fix that problem that I’ve got in the office, they’ll fix that problem I’ve got in the warehouse, they’ll fix that problem I’ve got in HR.” 45:06 ZR Great, thank you. That’s yeah, really useful about just bringing out that relevant achievements, I suppose as opposed to responsibilities, which I know is a bit of a trap that people fall into in their CVs, of just saying, “Oh, I had to do this and I had to do that.” Great. So, we’ve had a question come in from the chat, which is, “I had a job that was relevant to my future career then gap of a bunch of unrelated jobs, then my more recent and relevant job history. So, when creating my career history, how do I highlight my historical job without making my career history look wonky and irrelevant?” So, I guess this is a question that comes up for us fairly often, which is just that some of you might have done something that was kind of part of your career path and then you’ve done some other things that maybe weren’t part of your career path and then you kind of want to get back into that original career. How do you highlight that without sort of looking like, I guess, like you’re being deceptive or like something’s very uneven? Maria, do you want to take that one to start with? 46:07 MO Yeah, so I see that quite frequently. Actually, I see that with people who’ve come over to the country, certainly from the likes of Ukraine, for instance, they may be changing careers or trying to get back to their old career. And I see that with certainly working men and women who’ve got that gap on their CV. And what I tend to say with things like that is, “group things together”. So, I would so, for instance, if for two years, two years ago, you did six roles, I wouldn’t necessarily put all six roles on and two pages of commentary about each role, I would boost them all together and put them in date order 22, to say 24, number of interim assignments which included and I’d probably only do four or five bullet points. And that would stay on the CV and then the most. I would put, for me personally, I would put your most recent employment first and make that the one that you talk more fluidly and extensively about. So, my advice on that is just: group them together as one, and don’t sort of draw your attention. What you need to be trying to do, I think is drawing people’s attention away from it and towards something else. And then when you’re talking to a recruiter about that do equally the same, two years ago, I had a number of roles, it was COVID and I did this or this or this or this but now I’m looking to do this, and I’ve just started an interim role. And then I would then focus on the interim role, which could be a HR manager or Financial Controller, and we’ve moved past that gap, which they’re wanting to try and get away from, so to speak. And that is probably my biggest tip and that follows through to your interview, if you have a CV, which, and always try and make your CV fit for purpose for the role you’re applying for as well. I see a lot of generic CVs being thrown at me. Try and make something fit for purpose if you can, and then be able to talk through that CV coherently if you’ve got a good CV as well, you can talk about it, don’t literally have it in front of you. I personally don’t particularly like that. But a good CV, read well and done well, you can use it almost as a talking point yourself. 48:22 ZR Great. Andy, I wonder if you’ve got any thoughts about that, particularly when it comes to kind of using LinkedIn or other social media to kind of highlight those bits of your uneven CV and how you can kind of bring that together coherently? 48:36 Andy Yeah. So, I mean, like, first of all, don’t try and hide it. I thinks that’s the first thing I think, like, what certainly when I’m looking for candidates, I think and like even in terms of working relationships, trust is the most important thing to me always and everything and I think it’s happened and I don’t think you should kind of just not have it. I echo kind of what was said in terms of kind of like pooling things together. And I think one of the other things that, like, we had a really, so again, I’m going to refer back to Amazon just because I was, I’ve not been at TikTok very long. But at Amazon, we talked about, like candidate fungibility, and I love the word. But the idea is, what fungible skills has this person got to go and do other things? Or how does it transfer? And I think you can talk about, OK, it might have been a different sector, but like, what were the “fungible” skills like, oh, I had to do negotiations, I had to do presentations, I had to focus on and really pull out some of the things that would be applicable to where you’re going. Because I think quite often there will be pieces that you can pool upon it. But other than that, I think like everything that’s already been said by the other speaker, 49:46 ZR Great, yeah. Thank you. So, I think we’re just about coming towards the end of our time. So, I thought that we would just finish off by everyone going round and sharing one thing that you would take away from today, or one thing that you want people to take away in terms of our panellists. So, if anyone wants to share anything in the chat, that’d be great. But I guess, for all of you, let’s just go round and talk about what’s the one kind of takeaway that you want people to leave with? Paula, shall we start with you? 50:18 PG Thank you. And I forgot to say, in the CVs I’ve been looking at the habit and somebody said, it’s such a hard job to alter the CV for each and every job. This is an intellectual exercise and whenever I’ve been applying for jobs, I’ve thought, “I’m going to really impress the person who’s going to read this,” I will read the job description and the person spec, and I will be that person that they want. So, for me, there’s this fun, it isn’t a chore, it’s fun, because I’m interpreting what they’ve put and making it happen for them. I am your very best applicant, see me, see me now! So, there’s an intellectual joy out of it, it’s not a slog. Secondly, the CVs I look at, people have forgotten to change present tense to past tense, and it’s such a silly little thing. Maria, dead right, current job present tense, I have just use reduced accidents, I have just improved efficiency. But then the job you did before, and I love Maria’s point about clustering them. And oh, she’s put temporary, no, don’t write temporary, write interim. Interim’s posh, temporary isn’t. And so, it’s just silly little semantics, but make all the past jobs in the past tense. So, when I worked at such and such a legal firm, I worked, I managed three staff, appraised them, made them do a better service to the internal managers who needed their advice and help. So, it’s about really using your gift of language to sell yourself. So, you might never be a salesperson, but you can sell yourself because you’re the person who knows you. You know how brilliant you are, you know how good you are at the job that’s right for you. And so, you can do that with your language. 52:09 ZR Great. Excellent. And what about you, Maria? Do you have one thing that you kind of want people to take away? 52:16 MO Well, I think because we’re focusing fundamentally on sort of on LinkedIn and sort of advice and guidance and credibility on that. It is actually just start by building up a really coherent, strong LinkedIn profile. You know, everything we’ve said up front, content on their career history on their, some hobbies, some interest, and then show, then like posts, which will maybe resonate with you. And then you will automatically get more posts directed to your account anyway. And then just decide to either comment on them or not, or just stay in the background too. Don’t be frightened to reach out to people as well and worried if you get a no reply, just keep going. And I think as an entrepreneur, as an owner of the business, I’ve learned first-hand how you have just got sometimes to try and keep going in adversity. And I think that’s probably my main takeaway, especially in recruitment and how bad COVID was. So, you do just have to sort of keep going if you can. But try and have a strong LinkedIn presence as much as you can. 53:21 ZR Great and Andy, how about you? 53:24 Andy So, I mean, I love what Maria said around kind of clustering. I think, I actually I’m a bit guilty, I need to probably look at it. I’ve got probably too many sort of roles referenced near the kind of the, earlier on in my career, and I probably need to cluster that because the profile can become a bit clunky otherwise, and you want it, you want to make it nice and easy. So, I’m actually going to take that one away. And then I think Paula talked about kind of like, past and present tense. Again, it’s just going in with a bit more of a guess a bit more of a higher standard. I think my, I think my profile probably talks about, the tense is probably a bit wrong from my like, my previous roles and my current role and things like that. So, I think there’s some takeaways there from that side of things. I think, also what’s been talked about in terms of like, just being kind of talking quite regularly on types of like other forums and things like that. I think that that would be sort of something I think the listeners should probably take away as well. 54:20 ZR Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. So, I’m going to ask you all to fill out our evaluation form, which I think my colleague will be sharing in the chat very shortly. Thank you very much, Karine. So, if you could just let us know how you found this webinar and if there’s anything we can cover in future webinars, that would be super helpful for us. Hopefully, you found it useful. I think I’ve learned an awful lot about just those small things you can do on LinkedIn, interacting with people and how you can use that to really boost your profile and maybe not being so afraid to connect with people and sending them a nice personal message. I think that’s also something that I can definitely do with. So, yeah, thank you everyone. It’s been really great discussion today and thanks for everyone for, on our panel, it’s been really great to hear lots of different thoughts on how we can all use social media better in terms of our professional lives. And please do sign up for our next webinar which is happening in September. I think one of my colleagues will share a link in the chat and if not, then we will send an e-mail round with a link to it so yeah, thank you all and yeah, see you next time, bye.