From application to offer

0:18 Zoe Raymond So today, we’re talking about job offers and how and when to negotiate them. I think that this can be one of the most, opaque parts of the job search process, and if you’ve had like, a long journey to even get the offer, you might be so grateful that you’ve got to that offer stage that you forget to think about what you might want to ask for, or maybe things that you need more clarification on. Asking for a higher salary can feel really daunting, and it’s easy to feel that you don’t know how someone will react, or that you don’t deserve it. But it’s not just about the money. There might be all sorts of things that you need to know at this stage, from kind of working patterns, hybrid working options, flexible hours, additional benefits, understanding how annual salary increases work. Anyway, luckily, we’ve got two really great speakers here today to talk you through how you might approach this stage of your job search. So, let’s hear from them now. Elizabeth, do you want to just introduce yourself and tell us a bit about who you are? Elizabeth Harvey Thanks Zoe. Afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining a really good way for you to spend your lunchtime. I’m Elizabeth Harvey. I’m currently the Head of HR at HSBC for our UK functions. I support STEM functions and their OPCO members or Operating Committee. And I suppose, relevant for today’s topic, you know, I spend a lot of time working with our Talent Acquisition Team, partnering with them to make sure that we have the talent that we need in the organisation, and also I’m usually part of kind of final stage interviews to help make sure we’ve done the kind of fair and consistent selection process. Prior to HSBC, I was at Nestlé and Espresso for just under eight years, supporting a variety of the parts of the business. And outside of that, very much about my family, but also focusing on my fitness at the moment. Well, trying, trying very hard. ZR Good for you. That’s a good ambition. Shantel, how about you? Shantel Earle Hi, really pleased to be here. So, I’m Shantel. I currently work as a HR partner. I started working in HR whilst I was at university, I studied Human Resource Management at university. I’ve done a four-year degree, and what that meant is that my one of my years of the degree, I’ve done work experience. I’d done that work experience in the NHS as part of my placement. When that work experience came to an end, I stayed with the same organisation whilst I was working, working part-time, whilst I was part-time studying, sorry. And then, once I graduated, I stayed with the same organisation. I stayed in the NHS for roughly a decade, since I started there, but I have worked at numerous different organisations within the NHS. So, I’ve worked at roughly five different NHS organisations in a variety of different roles. I’ve worked in recruitment. I’ve seen the whole recruitment life cycle from start to end. I’ve worked as an Employee Relations Specialist, Change Management in various roles. I recently left the NHS, and I now work in higher education. So, I’ve been a partner for about six or seven years, and that is a very generic role. We touch on all aspects of the employee life cycle. Specifically, I get involved with any complex negotiations, if they’re complex or tricky. So, I’ve seen it from the internal side of the HR department and the decision-makers and organisation, and also in the various roles I’ve had throughout my career, I’ve had to negotiate myself, negotiate an offer for myself as well. So, I’ve seen it from both sides. ZR Wow, brilliant. So, we’ve got a big range of experience here, and great to hear Shantel that you’ve been negotiating your own job offers. Always a positive way to start. So, we’re going to start off with our first kind of poll question that we’ve got for you guys in the chat. So, this should be appearing on your screen any minute. And the question is, “What’s the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word negotiation?” 5:00 ZR So yeah, just type in your answer there. And how about you guys? Chantal and Elizabeth, what are the words that you think of when you hear the word “negotiation”? Elizabeth, why don’t you go first? EH Really hard to pick one word. I’d probably start with “communication”, but I suppose the other words that come to mind are “deliberation” and “agreement”. ZR Oh, good. Very good. What about you, Shantel? SE So, I don’t know if it’s one word, but I think it’s “two-way”. I think it’s like, definitely a two-way dialog. So, negotiation is, you know, it involves both parties, and they’re both important in the process. So, I think that’s the main thing to consider. ZR Great. I feel like you two have very mature responses, because when I hear the word “negotiation”, what I think of is “blind panic”, just the sort of thing that really, I’m like, “Oh my God, that just scares me a lot”. And I think we’ve got some similar responses to yours in the chat, I can see “communication” coming off a lot. We’ve got “agreement” is one, “discussion”, “compromise”, “open-minded”, “dialog”. So, that’s really good that people are kind of starting off with that, that sense that it’s like a two-way conversation. I think that’s a really good place to start. So, let’s go to our first kind of question. So, the first question that we have that was submitted is, “Some people say that all salaries are up for negotiation and that you should always negotiate so as not to lose out on any money or value that you could have received. Would you agree with this?” Now, Shantel, I’m going to go to you first because you said that you’ve negotiated your own job offers in the past. So, how do you feel about that? Is, is there always room for negotiation on salary, or is there times where you might not do that? SE I would say yes. I would say it’s always up for negotiation. I would say there’s nothing wrong with asking a question. So, I wouldn’t, I would say, don’t go in blind sighted. Ask, what’s the salary range. I think most organisations will have a bottom point, a mid-entry and a higher point of a salary range. So, I think there’s nothing wrong with understanding what the market looks like, what the average salary for your role is, and you know, put in a figure out there, basically. ZR Yeah, great. And how about you, Elizabeth, you’re obviously coming from a slightly different background. Do you like is, do you think that is there always kind of room for negotiation when it comes to salary? Like, what, where would you stand on that. EH So, there might not always be room to negotiate, but I feel like it’s definitely worth asking the question, as Shantel has outlined almost you know, what is there to lose out on by having that conversation? You know, I think it’s important to make sure it’s at the appropriate point of that process. So, let’s not do that at the beginning. You know, show your worth, show your value, do your research and come equipped with confidence and then have that conversation. Because employers spend a lot of time on the recruitment process. It’s a lot of investment, it’s labour-intensive. And so, if you’re at a you know, the end point of an offer or the end of the recruitment process, they want you as a candidate, so they know your skills, they know your value. As long as you know your worth and you’re able to share and articulate that, then absolutely worth negotiating, might as well. ZR Right. Great. And that really brings us on to our next question, which is, “How can you determine your professional worth?” This person has asked, what factors, general or specific need to be measured to determine this, and are there any tools or resources to self-evaluate that can assist constructively? So, Elizabeth, what? How do you know your worth? How do you, when you’ve got to that point in the process, how do you work out what it is that you’re worth to that employer? EH I think the first thing, Zoe, is just self-confidence and self-assurance. So, you know, even if, when you do your research, you might not be up to par, knowing your gaps, knowing your areas of development, can really help you negotiate. But research is critical. So, you know there’s workplace salary guides, recruitment platforms, using things like Glassdoor and LinkedIn, but also using your network. You know, have you picked up the phone to someone to say, “You’re in a similar industry, similar role. Would you mind kind of sharing your own salary range?” Or, “Do you feel that this, this pitch is kind of worth my skill set?” You know, talk it over with your network to see where you stand, which that means when you go back to have that conversation, you’re able to pitch and really sell yourself. You know, not under-selling and not overselling, just finding that right medium. And also, when you’re having that conversation, how best to do it? You know, don’t always send an email communication. It’s really easy to say, “absolutely not”, and you won’t hear anything further. 10:00 EH But actually, pick up the phone to the recruiter, have a kind of virtual face-to-face conversation and really sell kind of what you’re trying to bring to the organisation, sharing your excitement for this opportunity. I think that’s probably the best way, I would say, to package it up. I will also say that’s not something I’ve always done in the past. I’ve definitely kind of gone, “Oh, yeah, I would like, you know, 5k more.” “Nope.” “OK, no worries, I’ll still take the job”. So, not always speaking from, like, my own best practice, but it’s definitely things that I’ve observed candidates do, really successfully, and when the organisation’s already invested their time, as I’ve said previously, it’s open doors to have that conversation. ZR Great. And I love the advice about asking your network. I feel like I’m too, I don’t know. It’s quite a, quite a nerve-wracking thing to talk to other people about salary, but yeah, really interesting advice. Think maybe I should be taking that on a bit more. And how about you, Shantel, do you have any thoughts about how people can kind of determine their worth, or like, you know, how can they come up with that magic number in their mind? SE I think it will depend on the industry that you’re looking for a role in and the role as well, because that can have quite an impact on negotiations and understanding professional work. I think that’s a really good point about networking, actually. Definitely network in the organisation, in the industry. And like you said, I think getting advice from someone that’s gone through the process or been in the role that you want to do. What they might be able to do is see your skillset or help you to articulate yourself or support you understanding what your professional worth is. What I think, what I think, some factors evolve, is how you articulate the value that you add to the organisation. So, what experience do you bring? Do you bring experience from outside the sector, different industries? What else is there? I think also the skills, the skills that you have obtained throughout your career. So, for example, teamwork or supporting a team overcome a challenging situation, I think if you’re able to demonstrate that, that can support your professional worth. And then I think finally as well, qualifications, if it’s important to the role, demonstrating the qualifications you have can be useful, but it’s really important that you articulate how that qualification supports you or up-skills you within your working practice. So, I wouldn’t necessarily say, “OK, I’ve obtained this course or this degree”, etc. You could say, you know, “doing this degree, I had to do independent research, I had to look at policies, I had to compare organisations, do analysis, etc”. So, it’s, you know, homing in on a lot of the things that you’ve done in your past to support your professional worth and then looking at the industry to see how you benchmark. Definitely, networking again. Actually, I think that’s a really good point. EH Yeah, and I suppose to add a bit more to that, I remember a situation where I’d received a job offer and almost didn’t really know where to go with it. So, Zoe, your point around you know, do you have the confidence to kind of share with someone? And actually, culturally, do we really share this type of information? That’s quite personal. But I had a mentor at the time and was like, “I need a call. I need a call”. And just kind of threw through the salary at this mentor, and I was like, “Is that OK?” And I think because of their role at that point in time, almost, “Is that what you would pay your team?” You know, is that, you know, how does that fit into, might be a different industry or a different sector, but it’s just another data point to be able to utilise, to kind of inform my decision going forward. ZR That’s really interesting, of just like literally going to someone and going, “I’ve been offered this. What do you think?” Yeah, there’s definitely a bit of squeamishness, isn’t there about talking about salaries. I think we’ve probably all. Yeah. Go on. SE If I could come in, actually, that supports with negotiating, isn’t it? Because if you have the confidence to go up to someone and say, “Hi, what does this look like?” That’s almost practice for being how you negotiate a job offer. So, it’s almost like practicing your skills. It’s almost like challenging yourself to say, “Can I do that?” ZR Yeah, that’s really, that’s a really good way of framing it. Like, if you’re not confident enough talking about it to like a peer or your mentor or someone like that, how you know, how will you be confident enough to then discuss it when it really matters? I love that. Oh, God. OK, now I feel I ought to be talking about my salary to absolutely everyone. EH Don’t do that. ZR Great. So, we’ve touched on this a little bit, but our next question is, “When is it best to discuss pay and working hours for a new job?” As I know, during the interview might not be the best time for questions like this. I think this is great because I think we’ve already talked a bit about how pay, kind of, maybe that’s something you leave to the end. 15:00 ZR But what about working hours? Like, what about those questions around flexibility and, you know, hybrid and stuff like that? When is that? Like when are the good times to bring that up? Elizabeth, do you have any thoughts? EH So, I would say it would depend. So, from our earlier conversation around salary, I would almost wait till you have an offer letter, something you can review, something that you can then take and do your own research, looking at the external market and benchmarks to be able to come back later on. Almost anything earlier isn’t appropriate, and it almost feels presumptuous, and it may feel like to the Hiring Manager that you’re someone may be overconfident, and may give them a question around, “Could I actually work with this, with this colleague?” But however, when it comes to kind of working hours, hybrid ways of working, company culture, I think there are some really nice ways that you can present it. So, you know, “Tell me about the culture in your organisation, working patterns, work/life balance?”, and you can almost, you know, you’re also interviewing the organisation to say, “Am I a cultural fit here? Is my lifestyle going to also work if I’m in your team?” So, I think there’s really nice ways that you can question back Hiring Managers and the recruitment team to understand some of those things. If you need working patterns based on a disability or caring requirements, then I think being upfront to kind of say, “this is something I need”, because ultimately, as organisations, we’re not there to discriminate. We’re there to be really inclusive and to make sure that we’re taking on the support that candidates and colleagues will need. And all of these things are usually in organisations, kind of, hiring commitments, diversity statements and so on. So, you know, you can almost frame it around, “I’ve read, you know, kind of what you stand for as an organisation. So, I wanted to share that I have this need or requirement.” You know, “would that work for your team? I’d like to understand a bit more, just to understand.” ZR That’s really interesting. And what if there are, like, what if there are things you’re kind of not that comfortable disclosing at that stage? So, you mentioned disability, and I know some people would feel a bit uncomfortable, particularly at that kind of final interview/offer stage, disclosing some of those things. Like, do you have any advice around how to handle that? If there are questions you want to ask but you don’t quite want to get into you know the, all the details about maybe what your disability is? EH Ultimately, I would, I would be encouraging all candidates to be overt in their need, because many organisations stand for supporting a variety of needs and almost test them. However, I understand that a lot of candidates are nervous to kind of give too much, which might then end up change, changing the decision, but you can tease kind of an understanding of the culture. Who else is in that team? How do they work? What support is on offer? Without being overt in “this is what it means for me”, if you prefer to save that for the end of the process, when you’ve got an offer letter in hand, and then you can take it from there. ZR Great. Yeah. And I love the idea of bringing in, like an organisation’s kind of what they’ve put out externally, and sort of bringing that up. I think that’s, that’s brilliant advice, and really helpful for giving you a bit of kind of backing, almost going, “Oh, well, you’re saying this, so I feel more confident to ask for these things.” I think that’s really great advice. And what about you, Shantel, do you have any thoughts about like timing and when to ask things and how that kind of fits into recruitment processes? SE I think it’s always good to get a good understanding of the team that you’re working in and your role, because once you have that information, then you’re well equipped to then start negotiating or seeing how you can fit within the team. Most teams, like Elizabeth said, they can be quite flexible. They are here to support employees. You know, you’ve already got the job offer. Sorry, no, you haven’t yet, have you? You’re still negotiating, sorry, you’re part of the recruitment stage. So, yeah, what was I going to say? Sorry, so were we talking about negotiating? ZR Yeah, so that kind of like, when to bring things up, I think you were making a really good point about, like, that’s it getting enough information so that when you get to that stage, you’re kind of really primed, and you’re not having to ask, I guess, get more information in order to start that negotiation. I guess, I think that was what you were getting at, which I think is really great, because you’ve got all those stages, haven’t you? Like the you know, you’ve got an application stage, an interview, those things where you can be getting more info about the job, the team, the organisation, yeah. SE And then you can also understand, what are the negotiables and what are the non-negotiables for teams, because it can vary. 20:00 SE I’ve worked in a team a few roles ago where I think every Monday morning the Team Leaders had to be there at 8.30 and that was non-negotiable, and you had to have a stand-up meeting to talk about the working week, etc, and that’s something they were quite clear about during the interview stage. But what that meant is, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, there was flexibility on start time, so you could potentially start 9, 10, etc, later on in the week. But they were quite clear on what Monday morning entailed. I think if you ask this question towards the end of the interview, and then they tell you, then, then you can kind of go back to say, “OK, Monday. I can do Monday, but maybe Friday, could I start a bit later?” etc. So, once you have all the information, that equips you to then see how you can fit within the team. ZR Yeah, great, love that, think that’s a really great way to approach it. And so, like when, when you’re kind of doing that negotiation. So, let’s say you’ve got your job offer, and you, like, you kind of go into that, and you’re kind of upfront about your expectations. So maybe you say, you know, “I want this much more, or I want to have every other Friday off”, or whatever it is. Does that ever lead to, like a negative perception from the employer? Like, have you ever experienced Hiring Managers being a bit put off by the way someone approached that? Elizabeth, I think you sort of mentioned earlier that you’d seen people do it really well, like what, I guess, what are the differences between doing it well and doing it badly? EH Ultimately, I think it’s where a colleague hasn’t done their research. So, my points earlier was around, are you over-selling? So, are you over-selling yourself, and you’re giving expectations that are beyond your reach, beyond your skillset, beyond what the market requires. Then, yeah, I’ve experienced times when Hiring Managers have gone, “They’re just asking for too much”, or “it’s actually quite ridiculous.” You know that, at all you know, “They’re paid more than me then. Are they asking for more than what I’m paid when you know I’m the leader of the team?” But I’ve also seen cases when you know it might be around working patterns, or someone lives really far away from the ideal location, which has been overt on the application form, and it’s just not going to be feasible for them to do that type of job in terms of being in the office x times a week, being with a team travelling around different locations. But that candidate is then put on succession plans for later. Really great candidate. But actually, at this stage of their life, we’re not able to give them what they need, because there are specific requirements of the role. However, this is someone that we can pick up later, and we’ll come back to them if we have anything with more flexibility, or have something that could be done remotely, because they, you know, sold themselves really well. Their skill set and experience is critical to what we need in the organisation. It’s almost let me put a pin in this candidate, because we’ll come back to you. ZR And is there ever anything about, like, tone? Like the way that people just come kind of come into these things? Because I yeah, I can imagine someone coming across a little bit too aggressively, and then that being a bit of a like, a bit of a warning sign about how they might be, is that, does that ever happen? EH It does. It does. I think it’s about maintaining respect. You know, it’s maintaining respect and also self-respect. It’s your brand. Every time you speak to an organisation or, you know, part of the recruitment team or other colleagues, that’s your brand that is being passed around and how do you want to be remembered? So, I think that’s my guidance around whatever you do and say, could that follow you through if you apply to the same organisation again at a later stage? Are you OK for that to be remembered? Because there are times when candidates kind of come across rude or abrasive, and it might be with full, full needs. You know, “I was paid x my last organisation. It’s something I’m looking for. It’s almost my expectation.” But actually, to Shantel’s point earlier, different industries pay different rates, and all of that needs to be considered. So, just come in with the mindset of, “How do I maintain a relationship if I need it going forward?”, would be my advice. ZR Great. Yeah. And what about you, Shantel? Have you kind of, ever seen this kind of go well, go badly? SE I think similar. I’ve seen it go quite well and quite badly. So, I would say, almost, read the room, understand what the culture of the organisation is, do your market research. You know, if you’re able to say, actually, “You know, this is my current salary. I’ve noticed this organisation pays within this salary, etc. This is something I’m after”. So, definitely go equipped with your, with the information to back up if you were to put forward something that, the salary that you’re after, 24:54 ZR Right, yeah, and what about like, things that aren’t salary, like, I guess working patterns is one thing. I once worked with someone who managed to negotiate himself like a load of extra annual leave. Like, how do employers? I know it was one of those things you kind of realised over time. I was like, “Oh, man, that was that was a good, good angle.” Like, how do employers react to things like those kind of questions? Is any of that up for negotiation or are those things kind of a bit set in stone? SE A lot of the times it would be within the policy, within the company policy, it’s usually set already, just for consistency of how they treat the employees. There are things which are set in stone. But for example, hybrid working, that could be flexible depending on the team. I haven’t come across the annual leave one, but that’s a good one if you’re able to do that that’s quite, it’s quite good skills. Yeah, flexibility of working hours. And then also in terms of progression, of how do you progress within the organisation? You know that could be something to consider. You know, you’re coming in at this point, does your annual leave increase after a certain amount of years? Does your pay increase after a certain amount of years? That’s something as well that you can discuss at that stage. EH Yeah, I would. I’d also add, some organisations, and these are industry-specific, might offer sign on bonuses, or they may pay out a bonus on a different organisation. So, I think when you’re looking at a salary offer, don’t just look at that solely. Think about total compensation, what’s in the benefit schemes, what’s in a pension offering, and then comparing kind of that total compensation like-for-like, because it may be that from a take-home perspective, you come out better off, despite your salary being lower than expectations. ZR Yeah. And can you? Oh, no, go on. Sorry, I don’t want to interrupt. SE Something just came to mind as well. So, based on what Elizabeth said, was your development with the organisation, that could be something to negotiate. A lot of organisations have a good development package, training in place. Would they pay for qualifications? That can all be part of the negotiation stage, and something to take, to take into consideration. I think that’s quite important, actually, that you look at where you are now, and where you, where the company will take you, and how the company will develop you. That’s, yeah, I think that’s really important. ZR And is it like, is it OK just to ask about these things? Because I think one thing that happens sometimes with the job offer is; you get the offer and it’s like a salary number, let’s say, and there’s often not a lot of other information. Is it OK to ask about annual leave and development and things like that? Are employers kind of happy to answer those questions at that stage? EH Absolutely and I’d hope that most Acquisition Teams have that information ready to share with you. Some might not give you all the details. So, you know when colleagues might go in to do annual benefits choices, you might not need to see every tiny bit of that detail, but most organisations have set standard benefits. However, things like annual leave, things like the pension contributions and what the organisation offers, they should be readily available. And so, I would definitely ask the question if you’re not provided with that information. ZR Great, yeah, that’s really good to know. So, we’ve got our next kind of poll question for you guys in the chat. So, the question is, “How much time do you typically take to think about a job offer before responding?” Do you respond on the same day, one to two days, three to five days, or did you not know that you could have time to think about it? What about you, Shantel? Do you have any thoughts about this, about how long people take? Is there like a, have you seen people take a really long time or no time at all? What’s the kind of typical thing that you’ve seen? SE Because it is an important decision. I think I would always say, try minimum overnight. So, I would say, try to take it away and think about it. So, I guess if you get a call for a job offer, you could respond to say, you know, “Thank you for giving me this offer. Please can you put it in writing and then I can take a look at what you’re offering, and then I can respond to your offer.” That way you have all the information to hand. You can kind of do your research and make sure that you are getting the best offer for you, the best offer for yourself. Yeah, I think it is a really important decision, and you kind of need to take it away and digest. I do understand sometimes actually, it could be quite exciting to say, you know, “Yes, I’ve got a job offer.” But if someone offers you a job, you could just say, “Thank you. Could you put that in writing?” You would, you know, and kind of get more information, I think. But let’s see what the poll says. ZR Yeah. Well, so far, we’ve got most people saying one to two days, which I guess is like, absolutely in line with what you’re saying. I have to say I’m someone who hates, like, any kind of deliberation, and I’m just like, “make a decision”. So, I tend to just accept job offers immediately, which has maybe not always been the best thing. 30:00 ZR But yeah, really good to hear that that’s kind of a) standard in our audience, but b) that’s what you would recommend. What about you, Elizabeth? Have you ever, have you ever seen anyone want to take a really long time over a job offer? Has that ever happened? EH So yes, and I think the signal that it gives to organisations, when you take a significant amount of time, is that you’re no longer interested, and it might be that they start to have conversations with number two. So, there’s always a number two in the background, so that a role gets filled with a candidate who’s qualified. But if you take a considerable amount of time, they might want to kind of accelerate a conversation with the number two. And Shantel’s point about “get it in writing” that is really important. And you know, don’t take any kind of rash decisions off having an offer straight away. You know, I wouldn’t advise you to hand in your notice immediately. Give yourself some time to negotiate. Make sure you’ve gone through all the kind of prerequisites. You know, there could be hiring references to go through, you name it. You want to make sure you’ve done all of that before. You kind of say to your current employer, with respect that you will be leaving the organisation. I personally am a reflector, so I would happily take two weeks to read and consolidate and understand. In practice, not the right thing to do, but that’s what I would like to do, in my head. ZR And when you said, like you, we’re obviously very different on that front. Just like, “Go! Make this decision”. When you said, like, a considerable amount of time, like, what are there? I mean, no, there’s probably no hard and fast rules in it, it varies team to team. But like, are there any like, what? What would you say was a kind of good baseline? Where would you advise people to start? Like, if someone is a reflector like you, what’s the maximum amount of time they can have? EH I’d almost say in the week. If you can do it within the week, that would be better. Anything longer than a week the organisation will think, “they’re getting cold feet”, or “maybe they have another offer on the table”. And actually, to be honest, having another offer on the table, could be a point of negotiation. “I would like my salary to be x because of my skill set, my experience, my attitude and what I’m able to bring to the organisation, because I also have been validated by another organisation with x offer”. So, that would also be another way to do it. But don’t leave it too long is my advice. ZR Yeah, it would also be my advice. But coming from a slightly different angle. SE It’s a balance, I think it’s a balance, you need to consider it, but not too long. Actually, I think, yeah, within the week, ideally, less than a week would be quite good. But yeah, nothing too long. ZR Nice. I like that, yeah. Like, yeah, few days. But not, yeah, not too long. Great. And so can you, we’ve kind of touched on this a little bit, but I think this is an interesting way of thinking about it. So, can you provide any advice or tips on how to negotiate the best salary offer when you don’t know the company salary range for roles? So, we know that there are still companies out there advertising without salary ranges. Can you give any advice on, like how people might go about thinking about the number that they should be asking for, or maybe like questions to ask? Or how does, how does that work if you don’t know what the range is at all? Shantel, do you have any thoughts about that? SE Yeah, sure. So, I think it’s difficult to negotiate if you don’t have all the information. So, if possible, try to, I think we were saying at the beginning; network, speak to people in industry, in organisation, if you can. Just try to gain an understanding of what the salary could look like. If they’re not giving you the salary, then I guess you would try to set what your minimum expectation is. So, what is your current salary, or the last salary that you had? And then ideally, if you do accept the new offer, you want to be better off than you are in your current position. So, you can kind of lay out what your minimum that you’re, that you want to accept add a tiny bit more and then put it to them. But yeah, I think it could be difficult if they’re not being that transparent with salaries. Specifically, if they’ve offered you the job at that point, they kind of should be giving you a bit more information. ZR Yeah, yeah. How about you? Elizabeth, do you have any thoughts about that kind of, like, doing some of that research? Like, do you have any advice for people going about that? EH You have to know your worth. You have to know your worth so, like, don’t even enter a negotiation conversation until you’ve got that research. I almost call it your due diligence. You need to equip yourself with that knowledge and there are lots of things, if you don’t know the company’s salary range, which is usually the case. I think still, quite a lot of organisations don’t publish these. It’s trying to find out, understand from the industry, what are the skills of value, but also using other job boards as a barometer. So, you know, Indeed, a lot of salary ranges are on there. LinkedIn, there’s lots of salaries that are posted there. 35:00 EH Glassdoor, you can type in a role, and it will show you similar roles in the market, or where other candidates have kind of said, “I got this offer from x. This is my salary.” So, there are lots of spaces that you can go in, to really understand. There’s lots of recruitment platforms. There’s workplace salary reports. So, go in and just really understand where your skill set lies, and make sure you’re kind of equipped to have that conversation. ZR Yeah, great. OK, and then we’ve got our next question, which I guess kind of feeds out of this a little bit. But someone has asked if there are any rights which I should know when it comes to negotiating. Like, is there any, does anyone have? Like, are there rights that the individual has that they should be aware of. Yeah. Shantel, what do you think is there? Are there things that people should have front of their mind, in terms of that negotiation? SE Well, you have to right to fair terms and conditions. You know, there is a minimum wage. So is it useful to know what the, what like, what the minimum is, what the starting point is, and then take it from there, really. ZR Yeah, great. And how about you, Elizabeth? Any thoughts on that? EH I think my, the first thing comes to mind is kind of the Equality Act and just knowing your rights in terms of, you know, making sure you’re not experiencing discrimination, or if there’s anything that the organisation should consider. And as, kind of building on what Shantel said around minimum wages, but also living wage. Living wage, you know, if an organisation has signed up externally, and they are championing that they’re a living wage, and you find that the offer is below that, this is something to also use and make sure that you’re getting what the organisation has committed to externally. ZR Great. Yeah, thanks. And so, our next question is, “Can I reject a job offer after signing the contract? And if so, how close to the start date can I do this?” Yeah, I don’t know if either of you have any thoughts about this, after what kind of post signing the contract, what can people do to pull out? EH Yeah, so you can, you absolutely can. You could do it the day before your start date. I would advise you not to, you know, kind of going back to the piece around your brand, your reputation, what you kind of want to be left as kind of knowing who you are. So legally, I suppose, in terms of your rights, yes, you, you have a right to say, “I’m not joining”. That’s absolutely fine. However, if you wanted to come back to this organisation in a future stage, the Hiring Managers or Recruitment Team that you’ve engaged with during a process, they could move from organisation to organisation. And therefore, just making sure you’re doing everything to maintain respect is kind of my starting place. ZR Yeah. SE So yes, you absolutely can reject a job offer, but, yeah, be I think, be professional about it. And also, I would say, give the organisation information of why you’re rejecting the job offer. Recruitment takes a lot of time, and you know, a vacancy’s empty, they want to fill it. They’ve put a lot of time and effort into recruiting. So, when they get to the last day, for you to then not accept it. You’re within your right to reject the offer, etc. But if you say, if you give feedback to the company to say, “Actually, this took, you took too long to get me my offer after the interview, the salary you’re giving me wasn’t good after negotiation”, they would really value that actually. So, they can take that feedback on board to try to reduce the risk of someone rejecting a job offer. And yeah, like Elizabeth was saying, it will support with your brand as well, if you can keep the communication open. So, obviously for the organisation, it’s not ideal, but if you tell them the reasons, justifications, you know they’ll just take that on board, basically. ZR Yeah. I think that’s really good advice. And I think, what you were saying, Elizabeth about like, it really affects your brand. Like, I certainly know if people who you know have accepted job offers in our team and then turned them down later on, you do remember those things. And it might not just be the Hiring Manager, it might be everyone that they’ve told that someone is joining, yeah. So, I think it’s definitely something, yeah, it’s one thing to reject when you’re offered it, but it’s quite another to pull out, particularly after signing the contract. So, I would say, definitely think very hard before you do that. EH And Zoe, I think, your point around what happens internally. So internally, sometimes, actually, even on LinkedIn, externally, might be, you know, “Zoe Raymond, has joined the organisation. We’re really excited for Zoe, and we welcome” and your picture has been shared internally, and it’s on LinkedIn that you’re joining the organisation. 40:00 EH So, you know, that could be seen across the board, and you want to minimise those situations. However, you know the labour market, at the moment, has declined. There’s a lot of reasons for that, and some businesses are going through a number of challenges. So I suppose, if you’ve got a job offer that you were kind of just holding because you wanted to fill a gap and keep in employment, and then, actually, you know, your career-ideal job came on board, you know. Shantel, your point around really articulating your reason why, your rationale, and if you can keeping that door open. So, it’s an opportunity you could pick back up later on, if you are the right candidate. That’s really critical to maintaining the relationship. ZR Yeah, I think that’s great advice, yeah. And that like being able to articulate it well, I think is, is really good. I know that we’ve had people who are kind of on the, on the slightly on the other side of that, of just having, like, done a week in an organisation and then left. And I think the people who were able to say, “Actually, this job just isn’t for me”, and get, like, do that really professionally, and I think definitely got a better reputation later on than people who just either vanished or just kind of yeah, like refused to really explain what was going on. So, you know, definitely say that having some excuses is good, or having some explanation is helpful. Great. And then our next question is, “Is it professional and acceptable to push back the start date?” So, when you’re in that position, and maybe a start date has been suggested to you, can you push back on that? Elizabeth, what do you think? EH So, you can, you can, you definitely can. I think it also goes back to articulating your rationale. You don’t need to explain to an organisation War, Peace, or any details of your life. But I suppose the moment you’re in the depths of a recruitment process, the Recruitment Team have probably asked you something like, “What is your notice period?” So, there is somewhat of a calculation in the background that says, “Yep, three months to go, Zoe and Shantel are going to join us on X date”, and that is floating around internally. So, I think if you need some time, and I’m an advocate of giving yourself some space, recuperating, you know, when do you get a break? Maybe only between organisations. Definitely take the opportunity, you know, do you want to book a holiday? Do you want to just spend some time more with your family without kind of the work process in the background always running through. But I think just being overt at that point in negotiation to say, “You know, really grateful for your offer. I’d like to talk about this. I’d like to understand the benefits. I’d also like to start on this date because of” a small sentence. ZR Yeah, great. Shantel, do you have anything to add on that? SE Yeah. So, it’s not ideal when you push a start date, a start date back, but it’s not impossible. A lot of times, a company might have already started, your induction plan in place, they might have introductory meetings. I know a lot, sometimes a lot of thought can go into welcoming new staff to an organisation. So, if you have to push that date back, it can impact multiple people within your team, etc. So, I guess it’s just, be mindful of the impact that pushing the date back will have. But again, if you articulate the reasons, like Elizabeth was saying, “I need a week off” or etc, etc, then that could. As long as you let the organisation know, then you know, they’ll be more likely to agree with that, basically. But just be mindful of all the work that’s gone in behind the scenes for someone to start, basically. EH And I suppose, you know, acknowledging the external market, and there aren’t as many jobs as there were previously, but the market’s starting to kind of move. It is quite draining to go through multiple recruitment processes. You know, where candidates have been unemployed for a period of time. They may be doing interviews back-to-back and so on. So, you might want to give yourself some grace and space. And I think it’s also OK to say, “I do need a bit of a break. This is something that I’m going to focus on for these two weeks. I’d like to start on the fourth of April instead, if possible, please” keeping it as an open conversation more than demand, “I just need it because of x”. ZR Yeah, I think that’s great. I’m a big advocate of time off between organisations, but I think it’s probably also really important if you’re not in work and you’ve been going through the churn of the job search, to go right, “Well, actually, that could be a week where I could have, like, a really nice break” or not, thinking about the job search and like, you know, “I know I’ve got something in hand”, and even though you might be really excited to get going again. Yeah, just think about that, having that little bit of time might actually make quite a big difference to how you’re able to approach the job when you start. So, yeah, I would definitely recommend that to everyone. 45:00 ZR Right, we’ve had some really interesting questions come through the chat. So, this first one is from Vanita [phonetic, 45:09], and it is; “If you have been working as a consultant and then go into a corporate environment, being asked what salary you were looking for, what do you say in this situation?” So, I guess that’s like you don’t quite have that benchmark that we’ve been talking about because you’ve worked as a consultant. So, you probably were getting more money per hour than you would in a kind of standard salaried position. How would you advise someone to kind of approach that, or to start thinking about, you know, what kind of salary they might be looking for? Elizabeth? EH It’s a really, it’s a really good question, actually, probably something I haven’t really thought of too often. I think, going back to our points around understanding the industry, looking at different job boards, looking at workplace salary guides, Glassdoor, LinkedIn, you know, using your network still applies, still applies. But I’d almost take your current contractor rates and say, if I reduced this by, I don’t know, holiday rates per year. You know, 25 days, take out that cost, a cost of pension, some of the standard benefits, almost just seeing equivalent to where you would sit, as well as doing those other activities to try and understand and research the market. That’s where I would start. ZR Yeah, yeah, that’s really great. And what about you, Shantel? What? Do you have any thoughts about that? SE Yeah, so definitely. So, if you’re going into a corporate, corporation, it’s likely you’ll get different benefits than when you are a contractor. So, you’re likely to get paid annual leave, minimum, I think, 25 days a year and it will be paid. You’re likely to get sick pay, contribution towards your pensions, etc. So, you might reduce your daily rate or your yearly take-home, but actually, the benefits that you obtain by going to a corporation will kind of offset that. So, I don’t know if you would necessarily go into a corporate, corporation with the same expectation of the salary you get when you’re a consultant, because you have, you know, less benefits, less sick pay, etc. ZR Yeah, great, yeah. I guess it’s just a lot to think about, isn’t it all the different things that go into that package of what a job is, yeah? So, we’ve got, our next question is, “A pivotal moment for me was discovering that a male colleague and I, doing the same job were being paid differently, simply because he had been bold enough to negotiate his salary at that job offer the stage. So that experience meant that I’ve pushed through the fear and started negotiating for myself”. From your professional experience, have you experienced this gender disparity in salary negotiation? So, have you seen that men are more likely to negotiate their salary than women? What do you guys think? SE I feel like we have the gender pay gap data. We have a wide, a wide variety of data from all industries which say there is clearly a pay gap, and that could be for various reasons. So, it’s not uncommon, and it is just about advocating for yourself and again, networking, finding out what other colleagues earn, because then that gives you a good footing to say, “Actually we are doing the same. I’m entitled to get the same pay, and also, I’ve been doing the same work since I started. So, you can backdate my pay, just to make sure the playing field is equal”. So, yeah, it’s not great. It shouldn’t be happening. But definitely advocate for yourself and ensure that you know do you’re getting, you do have the right to equal pay for equal work, basically. And there could be times where the Manager might not be fully aware of what the company’s policy is or what the legislation is. So, that manager might need to go to HR to get more advice to make sure that they are not discriminating, whether indirect discrimination or not. So, yeah, there’s a lot to take into consideration. EH So, I would say ultimately, the pay gap data is there to show us that there is a gap. And you know is that at the point of negotiation, is that, due to things like maternity leave, etc? There’s a variety of factors that feed into it. I saw a stat. somewhere that said a male equivalent will look at a job application and see one point that they may do. And I’m being, I’m being really candid here about what I read, and say, “Yep, I’m going to do the job and apply”, whereas maybe a female equivalent will look at a list and say, “I can’t do that one thing”, and not apply. I think it’s for all candidates, regardless of gender is just to come in really strong, knowing their worth, with the confidence that they’re able to deliver in that role, but also that they can negotiate their salary to the best of their ability. So, I would encourage everyone to negotiate where possible. So that we have things like closing that pay gap and doing your research and having the confidence to go and have that challenge. 50:08 ZR Yeah, I think that’s really good advice. Just on, like, a really personal note, I used to work somewhere that was very proud of how transparent they were about pay, and you know, they would have all these published pay bands. Everyone knew what everyone else earned, except that they allowed negotiation at the offer stage, and that meant that men were negotiating at that stage. And that was like, not the only cause of the gender pay gap, but a big one was that, yeah, so really, men were just coming into the organisation at a higher level, and then they were just always getting that extra bit more on top, because all the increases were percentage-based. And, you know, it just, it can really add up, I think. So, yeah. I think great advice, Elizabeth, that everyone should negotiate, and you should, you know, know your own worth, yeah. EH And Zoe, I think there’s a point around when you’re going into a new organisation, that is probably the biggest opportunity for you to work on your salary or increase it or change it. When you’re in an organisation, you’re part of normal schemes and reviews, and it’s more likely that that is lower than you can when you have that external opportunity. But also, you have the same opportunity when you’re going for a promotional role within an organisation. So, something for everyone to kind of consider. Don’t waste that time or that opportunity. Definitely worth at least having the conversation. ZR Great. Yeah, thank you. Well, I feel like we’ve covered quite a range of things today, and I certainly feel a bit more confident talking about salary. So, I hope everyone else does. So, thank you everyone for joining and for all of your chat. In the chat, I can see loads of things going on there and lots of questions that have come through, that was really great. I think we’ve got an evaluation survey that we’d like you to fill out, so one of my colleague’s is going to pop that in the chat. So yeah, let us know how you found it. If there was anything that we didn’t cover or could have talked about a bit more in detail, please let us know, because we’re planning our next series of webinars. So yeah, really want to hear what you think. But I guess, just as a final little takeaway, maybe we could hear from each of you about what, what were the things that that you kind of want? What do you want people to take away from this? Shantel, do you want to go first? Is there anything that you can like, one thing for people to take away? SE One? I’ve got three! ZR Three is good! SE I guess just, I guess just the takeaways. If I summarise very quickly, one, I would say, learn to articulate the value that you add to the organisation that will definitely help within negotiations. Also, there might be an element of compromise, so you would have your list, but negotiation is a part of you know, you might need to compromise as well. And then I think, like Elizabeth just touched upon, negotiation is actually, can occur in every stage of your career. So, just get used to it; start practising. You negotiate at entry stage, you might negotiate at your annual review promotion stage, etc. So, it is genuinely an on-going conversation that you kind of start when you enter the organisation. ZR I love it, yeah, negotiation at every stage. Brilliant. Elizabeth, what do you want people to take away? EH So, build your case. You know, build your case. Do your research, so that you’re starting from a really valid, strong place. Be honest, not something I’ve mentioned previously, but that integrity and honesty is really important. And use your network, use your network, people you haven’t engaged with or connected with previously, they’re there to hand. ZR Yeah, that’s fantastic. Yeah. I think using your network is something that I hadn’t fully considered before this. But I think super, super helpful and useful. Great. Well, thank you both so much for a fantastic discussion. Hopefully everyone, I can see lots of people saying “thank you” in the chat. So obviously it’s been effective, and hope that we see some people secure some really great job offers off the back of this. So, fab, thank you all, and yeah, we’ll see you all next time. Take care. Thank you all. EH Thank you. 54:20 SE Thanks. Bye.

00 00 00 Zoe Raymond (ZR) Jumpstart your job search and stand out when you’re looking for work. So, I’ve got a couple of housekeeping things to begin with, we’re recording this session but cameras and microphones have been disabled, so that you won’t appear on camera or anything when you won’t be on the recording. Please use the chat to ask questions and make comments, just be aware that we might read out any questions and comments that you have on the recording. And my lovely colleague Ali will be posting useful tips and links in the chat, and if we have time towards the end, we’ll answer some questions from the chat so please do share anything that you have for our panel. So, today we’re talking about keeping positive during your job search and of all the topics that we cover in these webinars I think this is maybe the most important job searching can be like so hard and it’s so easy to get demoralised and especially if you’re not hearing back like about applications or you’re not seeing the vacancies come up that you want. And although it can be hard to like remain optimistic, it’s like super important because being enthusiastic about a new opportunity is like, it can be a really key factor in getting hired. And it’s important to build up your resilience so that you can put your best foot forward when you’re job searching, and you can keep that enthusiasm really high. Anyway, luckily, we’ve got three great speakers here today to share some strategies on how you can do that. So, let’s hear from them now. Clare, do you want to start and tell us a little bit about yourself and how you keep motivated when things don’t go to plan or your experience of job searching? Clare Gell (CG) OK, absolutely. Hello, everybody, lots of people pinging in to join us which is exciting. I’m Clare Gell, I’m HR well at the moment I’m an HR business partner, but for many years have been sort of a consultant at sort of senior level. Worked in the, mostly healthcare sector, in education at the moment, but worked in a number of industries and been involved in HR for I don’t know, lots of, lots of, many years. I was thinking when I was preparing for this, how many interviews over the years I must have taken part in, both as a panel member and actually myself as well, obviously, I myself been a candidate on many occasions. 00 02 19 CG And sharing with you that, actually my most tricky time when I was job hunting was during the pandemic. I got made redundant, sort of part way through the pandemic, and HR jobs were there were just hundreds of people applying for very few jobs out there. You just were getting everyone was getting very desperate, very worried, you know, were we going to have money coming through, how it’s going to be and I remember that being a really, really, difficult time. So, for any of you struggling with your job search and so I’m you know, I really understand, really get it. OK. ZR Great. Thank you um Sarah let’s hear from you next. Sarah Venables (SV) Thank you. I’m Sarah Venables, I’m a HR business partner as well um at the University of Worcester, and I’ve actually been here for nine years. I’m the current chair of Hereford and Worcester CIPD branch as well. And, my recent challenge, I guess, I haven’t job hunted for a while because obviously I’ve been here for nine years. But it’s finding the right roles that align with my values and trying to unpick that during the search. That’s been my challenge. ZR Great, yeah. Thank you, and uh, last but not least, let’s hear from Krystle. Krystle Siaw (KS) Hi, good afternoon everyone! I’m really glad, obviously, to be here today. So, I’m Krystle Siaw, I’m the Senior People Partner at the Lego group. And I’m also one of the chairs for Central London CIPD. So, in terms of like what motivates me in my struggle, I would say I’ve been like very fortunate, working for a really good company. The last couple of years, for two years now, celebrated my two years a couple of weeks ago. But it was really the search that I had just before I came into this company that was the most, it was challenging but was also motivational because I had a really good mentor that helped me as I was trying to change industries. So, I’d come from a distribution business and when I was looking for jobs, it was just only distribution that was looking at or like even when I hadn’t applied, I would look at my CVs and I was like, I wasn’t trying to be in this industry. 00 04 35 KS And the best advice and motivation I got from my mentor was very similar to what you just said there about values. She’d given me great advice to actually research companies that align to my values and see how they advertise their roles. So, whether it was on LinkedIn or they advertised it on their website, research them for a few months and then only apply for those jobs. So, if I was seeing other jobs coming up and they were tempting, I’d go back and look and say, actually, those don’t align with my values. Like, and don’t align with the research I did, so yeah, although it was challenging, it was hard saying no to some because they were like really cool offers, but they, I’m so glad I did say no because I actually found somewhere that it does align with my values. So, yeah, thanks everyone. ZR That’s great and so interesting that you both had kind of really similar motivations in your kind of most recent job search. Speaking of which we’ve got a poll for you guys in the audience, which I think is going to pop up hopefully now. So, the question is, what motivates you the most during your job search? Is it learning new skills, financial stability, personal goals, being in a new environment, using existing skills and strengths? I noticed that we don’t have values on here, but yeah I guess maybe that was something we should have added on. I think that’s probably important isn’t it, about you know, do organisations kind of line up, I can see we’ve got financial stability is kind of popping up quite high on this, which I guess yeah, it makes total sense doesn’t it. It’s a big part of what why we start looking for jobs. SV I think the values piece for me has only come in there in the last few years when I was job hunting you know, in my early career I probably naively didn’t think about my values. ZR And what was it that kind of made that shift for you what, what kind of made that become more important and what you were looking for? SV Oh. ZR Sorry, put you on the spot a bit. 00 06 43 SV I think, it was probably in 2019 when I guess my confidence was really knocked, don’t really know why and then some things weren’t really aligning for me but again I didn’t really know know why. And I think I’d lost you know my career ambition and what I was looking for I hadn’t really got a focus I think that was the thing. I think I was meandering around and I had to really get in touch with myself and my values. ZR Yeah really interesting. So, it’s almost like it was part of a personal shift in how you felt about work I guess. Yeah, I think yeah, I mean a lot of people have found that certainly since Covid that values have become more important in the workplaces they’re looking for and I guess there’s been so much change in the last few years, you want to know that you’re working somewhere where they’ll handle change in the way that you would or that you want or that you know you think is aligned to what you want. Great. So, we’ve had some questions submitted when people registered. So, yeah, I guess we’ll kind of kick off with those and see how we get on. So, the first one, I’m going to ask you, Krystle, is how do you know where to look? I feel overwhelmed with so many job sites, LinkedIn, Total Jobs, Indeed, etc., etc. How do you make sure that you don’t miss a great job? I think it’s quite interesting because you were talking about saying no to potentially great jobs, but yeah, how do you how do you do that? Can you talk us through some strategies there. Krystle Siaw Yeah, no, for sure, because there’s so many places to look for jobs isn’t it? And there’s so many places you don’t know about as well, just in terms of what I was saying earlier about like actually doing your research, like the kind of maybe the industry or the company that you’re looking at, maybe searching those. And I think maybe might be easier to like search maybe like an industry and see like where do they apply for, why do they advertise jobs to apply for. So, that you don’t miss that area. I think LinkedIn is also a really good place, not just for applying for jobs but also for networking and seeing, you know when someone likes a job. My actual the job I applied for, my one of my contacts on LinkedIn, I’d worked with a few years, had actually liked the post of my predecessor, who is my manager, who’d been promoted. 00 09 13 KS And that had come onto my screen so if I hadn’t been on LinkedIn not even going onto the job section but actually the you know, the feed, the activity section, I wouldn’t have seen that she had been promoted. The job is coming up and then I was like really looking for when that job was going to be advertised. But I think like I said in terms of doing that research because yeah, you don’t want to miss places because there’s so many places. Even social media as well like, if you’re maybe in a media industry, that you’re looking for it may not be Total Jobs that the job is being applied for. So, like I said, it’s really important to do your research in that industry you’re interested in, where do they advertise roles and then go start going from there. ZR Yeah, great. Clare, do you have any additional thoughts on that? CG OK, so in certain industries it has become very much that a lot of agencies are taking people on. In HR we seem to sort of move towards that something like finance, it’s absolutely, if you’re looking for a sort of senior finance person, that’s kind of often where you would go. I think you get inundated my LinkedIn is just full of people asking me to be there, sort of contact on LinkedIn and stuff like that, and you can get a bit overwhelmed by that. But I was just maybe getting a couple of key people. I found often when I’ve been doing sort of networking and things so either on LinkedIn or sometimes I’ve gone to events and building a couple of people up that you trust that they’re people that you you know, are not going to just palm you off with some rubbish. But really be clear with them about what you’re looking for, what your skills are, and really you know nurture that relationship, you need to perhaps keep going back to them as well, they’ve got lots of people. But perhaps that can often work, and I have to admit the post I’m in at the moment, I’m on a maternity cover that was through one of the agencies that, you know, I’d got that before and, in fact, the job before that, they approached me. They headhunted me, but they were an agency again, I’d had some knowledge of before. 00 11 08 CG So, that can work very well but, you know, very much networking is going to be my answer to a lot of these things at the moment. ZR Yeah, networking is super important isn’t it? And a great shout about agencies, I think that can be sometimes like a good, good way of getting your foot in the door, if you kind of feel like you’re struggling one way, sometimes going through an agency route can just be a way of, you know, like opening up your options there a bit. Great, so, our next question is entry-level roles are almost unavailable as every employer seems to be asking for experience, which I do not possess currently, what should I do? I think this is a great question and I think we’ve probably all been there, haven’t we, that you know everyone starts off with no experience, don’t you so. And even, like you were saying Krystle, about changing sectors sometimes you can feel like you’re starting again, no experience. So, yeah Sarah do you want to take this one about, yeah what should someone do if they feel like they they’re struggling to find entry-level roles and they they don’t know how to how to get that start? SV I’ve heard this a lot uh through the branch network, and it is really, you know it does hurt me particularly you know when people, when our members are coming to us for advice, you know, they’ve got master’s degrees in HR and they just cannot get that first you know, foot on the rung. And I’d say it’s about flipping your skills, I think, and really focusing on what the skills and criteria. and abilities are needed for a HR operations type role or whatever role it is you’re looking for, and thinking how is what I’m doing currently transferable to that role? And then it’s trying to sell that really on your CV, your application and really saying this is the value that I can add through this skill. So, I might not be in HR currently, but you’re trying to get across the knowledge that you have got about HR and how you would apply it with your current skills. ZR Yeah, I think that’s great yeah. And how about you Clare do you have any advice for someone who’s just kind of starting out? 00 13 29 CG I do because when I was first starting out, I started. I was in the (inaudible) industry, I was just you know, I was working as managing hotels and things, and actually, I really wanted to get into HR and found exactly that it was really, really difficult to get. So, in fact, I ended up taking a sort of job that was then, this is many years ago, a sort of secretary there in an HR department, and I was like, well, I had no secretarial skills, had to do a typing course actually to do it. But it was a very much just sort of a way to find yourself, a way in. So, maybe if you can find yourself something which is working alongside HR, working short-term contracts sometimes, working as a temp through an agency. I’m not one who works for agencies but working as an agency, just finding a way to get just that little bit of experience, it may not be very glamorous initially but just finding a way to get a sort of side door in and things. So, yes I would say that’s possibly the way. ZR Great, yeah thanks. So, our next question is… SV Sorry, Zoe just on that note because I think because actually volunteering could be an option. So, you know especially with charities who are struggling you know, to recruit and don’t have the money, you could offer and volunteer your time, set projects, maybe to get some experience and they might give you a reference as well. ZR That’s true, yeah, that’s a good one, I think that’s a great idea. And particularly, I know we’ve talked a lot about getting into HR but this was a more general question and I think that’s such good advice for someone who’s just looking for anything like there are so many opportunities for volunteering. I know it’s not for everyone and I know it’s not always possible but just getting some, like some of those like examples that you can use in your kind of job application materials and things. I think it’s so useful, so yeah, if you are feeling a bit stuck, I would definitely think about looking at what volunteering opportunities are out there, and particularly, there’s an organisation called Reach Volunteering who do like skilled volunteering and they’ll they do kind of, placements for people who are looking to use their skills in a kind of semi-professional way. 00 15 37 ZR So, we definitely recommend looking at that sort of thing. And if nothing else, it just gets you out and gets you doing something that’s not your job search. So, totally worth it, I’m a big fan of anything that gets you talking to people about other stuff. So, yeah, definitely, definitely great idea, thanks Sarah. So, our next question is about how to balance job searching as an independent consultant while running your own business. So, this is a kind of one of these things about, I thought this was an interesting question about sort of how do you know, you’re kind of if you’ve got a business that you’re running on the side maybe and you’re kind of looking for work at the same time? How do you balance those things and is that, you know, as how do you kind of keep going when you’ve got a few things going on, workwise? I wonder if Sarah, I can see you nodding. Do you have any particular thoughts about this? SV Well, I’m not an independent consultant, but I am juggling a few things at the moment. So, if I was to be job searching at the moment, then I’d be prioritising the time, and really being disciplined with my time and still keep your CVs updated and tailored to it, it can be quite a big job I know. Job hunting, but it is really important to tailor your CV and tailor those applications to that company that you’re applying for. So, it’s about carving out that time if it’s important. ZR Yeah, definitely and Clare, I know that you’ve kind of had quite a few jobs over the years is this something that you’ve kind of had to balance, having multiple priorities? CG It is and I’ve been moving towards consultancy in the sort of by the summertime this year. So, that’d be an interesting question you can ask me that then but actually yes, it is, I mean I think it is a bit about taking on work. I mean, it’s going back to that thing that Krystle was saying earlier, it’s easy to sort of snatch out at work and things like that but if you’re actually going to be taking on work alongside doing consultancy, you are wanting to improve your CV as well So, you know perhaps taking opportunities which are actually going to enhance your CV or that are going to again network you in, you know if you’re taking jobs where they can then perhaps offer you some consultancy work on the back of it. 00 17 57 CG So, perhaps looking at things that are actually going to enhance your consultancy work, would be to me you know, a good plan I think. ZR Great thank you. And so, this next question I think is perfect for you, Krystle, how do you stay resilient when you’re being told you’re too good for a job but you’ve realigned on the type of role that gives you the most energy? So, I think this is similar but not the same as what you were talking about, you know, you’ve kind of decided what you’re looking for, but how do you find that? How do you deal with people may be thinking why have you made this change. Krystle Siaw Yeah, I mean there’s so many reasons why you get this being told to you and it’s very frustrating when someone says you know, you’re too experienced, you’re too good, it’s like I’ve made the decision to apply for this job because this is what I want to do. But sometimes it’s really important to just communicate your intentions because sometimes the other side could be just worried that you know, you’re going to come in and like, after like six months the probably the hiring managers worry that after a few months you’re going to get and you know, apply for another job internally it just maybe that job is just your way into the company and you don’t really want to stay within a team and then you have to recruit again. So, it’s really important to just really communicate like, why you’ve applied for that role. Even if, sometimes it’s just good to communicate even before they even say that because you’re thinking, I know I’m going to get this question up. So, if you’re using a recruiter or an agency just be up front and communicate you know, why you’ve applied for the job and then I always also feel like you know, if you’re being told you’re too good sometimes and they don’t see how special you’re too good is then maybe they’re not the the best place for you. They’re not going to value you, what you offer because being too good and you’ve applied for this job I’d be like wow this person is going to bring so much to the role if I was hiring. So, if they can’t see that special part of what you can offer and respect your career goals and respect why you apply for the role then maybe needs to reframe, is this the company for you. 00 20 09 KS And then also like your network as well are really there to kind of help you like with encouragement and keep you motivated and keep on applying because when you’re being told that it’s not feedback that you can work on. So, it’s not like you can be like, OK I can work on this it’s so it can be quite demoralising. So, just really lean into your network, your mentors, that support system that you have around you. That’s kind of advice I’d give. ZR Yeah, I think that’s like so important, I think. sometimes we talk a lot about like it’s so important to get feedback at work and like when you’re job hunting that’s also really important and obviously it really is but I think sometimes it’s useful to know what is feedback that you can ignore or not that you can’t action. Like, I think that’s super important. So, Clare I know obviously you’ve done a lot of hiring, what is going through your mind as someone kind of you know, if you’re hiring someone and you’re thinking this which I guess sometimes you are thinking like what are you thinking and what would make you change your mind there? CG It is very difficult because you do look at people, you often and particularly in the climate that we’ve sort of hopefully coming out of, but obviously again during the Covid and things like that, you know, you’ve had people applying for jobs that were at a far more junior level. So, I would agree with Krystle that it’s been very clear why you’re wanting to do it because otherwise, you do you inevitably sort of jump to the conclusion, well, what you know? Why are they wanting to do this? This is they’ve got skills that are far beyond this, and is this a stopgap? And all those things. So, I think to be very clear about your reasons for it. And interestingly, it’s just done, I’ve been at a director level for a number of years, and actually I’ve decided, you know what, that’s not what I enjoy doing. I don’t enjoy sitting in on tables and group, you know, meetings and things all the time. I actually enjoy the operational stuff, and it was initially quite a challenge, but in fact as I was very, very clear with the recruiting agency, etc. and other people, this is what I wanted to do, this is where I’m heading with this. 00 22 12 CG I’ve really thought this through quite hard, and the reasons are, I like doing the, you know operational work, etc. So, I think it is as an as a recruiter, it is hard when you’ve got someone like that, if they haven’t given you any reason. So, yeah. ZR Yeah, yeah. I think that’s, I think that’s really true, and I think we had a question which we haven’t included here which, someone, felt that they were being challenged in interviews a lot when they were being asked these types of questions. And I guess, I mean maybe Sarah, you could like, how can people reframe those kinds of questions? Because I feel a bit like you just want to go but I’ve applied for this so you should just trust me, like. The question in particular was about like travel and I can totally see that that you’ve like, you’ve applied for a job, and you’ve already thought about the commute, but I know that from the perspective of hiring that sometimes you’re worried that people haven’t thought those things through. How can you reframe that in like a positive way? SV Yeah, I think well, I think there’s two aspects as well because I imagine if you’ve been going through a lot of interviews and you keep getting questions it can be really, you know, soul-destroying and you probably can be a bit negative like feel a bit negative about it. So, it’s about making sure that that doesn’t come across in your answer, sort of, you know, being upbeat about it, even if you’re not feeling that way, but really, if you start to get those types of questions a couple of times is really think for yourself, you know why are you wanting this role and then get that across to them. Or there might be an icebreaker question perhaps in, in the interview. So, you could start you know, start with that from the off by saying you know, how it aligns to your values or what it is that you’re looking for next and the reason why. ZR Yeah, yeah. SV Did I answer your questions? ZR No, that was great yeah, yeah. I think it is just about yeah, like thinking, it’s not necessarily a challenge isn’t it? So, you could just kind of think, oh positively about answering it positively and, I think you’re absolutely right if you’re getting it a few times, I mean, Krystle said this at the beginning, like, can you get it in earlier so, that you’re getting ahead of the game. 00 24 31 ZR Yeah, because I think if you, if you hear something from a few different interviews then it probably is something that people are really thinking about when they look at your CV. So, yeah. SV I think as well with questions that you get asked, obviously answer the question that that’s put to you, but if you then get time to be able to say, to flip something, it’s hard to think of the top of my head, but use things as an opportunity to say, oh, I appreciate, I might not have the full skills around this, but this is what I do know or this is what I can do. Or I appreciate that this role is lower than I’ve been operating at, but I understand the role really well and this is what I could do and this is what I can add to it, a bit like what Krystle said actually. they’re getting a lot more value, and somebody very special, it’s just then convincing them that you’re going to stay and it’s not a stepping stone. CG And I suppose to add to that, so in a more general way, you were sort of also bringing in people who were long far away, and things like that. Actually, as a recruiter, you think that people have thought these things through, the number of times people really haven’t and arrive on day one and you discover they haven’t thought through their child care arrangements, they haven’t thought how long it’s going to take them. So, actually as a recruiter, you know, it is fair for them to be asking you those things and for you to be honest about it with yourself and with them about thinking through your application and why you’re doing it. Particularly if you’re getting a bit desperate, you think oh my gosh, 100 miles is far but actually yeah. ZR Yeah, I think it’s that, I guess if you’ve thought it through and you thought that was obvious. It can feel a bit challenging, can’t it? But it’s useful to hear that people don’t always think about that, and child care in particular I think is one, I know that comes up fairly often. 00 26 26 ZR I know people are a bit like, oh, you know, I don’t like people asking about this but, yeah, good to hear that there’s like solid reasoning for that, yeah. Thank you, great. So, we’ve got our next little poll question just to check that everyone is still paying attention. So, this is a question for you all. How do you celebrate small achievements in your job search? So, we know that this is like super important, Krystle has kind of touched on this a little bit anyway, but like how what do you do to celebrate that kind of something has gone well? How do you keep that motivation up basically as you’re, as you’re going through the, your job search? Oh nice, I can see we’ve got someone saying do something nice. Yeah, I always found that like doing things that weren’t like having specific time, that’s not job search related is super important for me. So, just like going right, OK, I’ve done this many applications or whatever and saying like OK I’ve got an hour. Do any of you guys on the panel have things that you do to kind of keep yourself motivated when you’re doing job searching? Or doing other things in work, I guess. Are there little tricks that you have to celebrate those small achievements? Krystle Siaw Yeah, I mean just similar to what you just said about like timing so, like when I would be looking for a job, I would strategically like put in the times I would be applying for jobs. So, I wanted to apply between like this hours of like I think like 7am in the morning, or something 6.30 in the morning until about one because I was like no one is going to read anything afterwards. They’re not going to, the agency they’re not going to do anything afterwards. So, why should I use my afternoon and my evening to apply for jobs, they’re probably going to post the job in the evening. So, therefore I want to be one of the first people they see when they come onto their laptop, their desk in the morning. So, actually, I’m going to prioritise my like mental health, my well-being, self-care during those other hours like you know, that’s what I’m going to do, that’s going to be my time. Rather than like, oh I’m going to like see a ping and I’m going to apply for a job because they may not see it with everyone else’s CVs and applications. 00 28 37 KS So, these are my core hours and the rest is my time whether I want to watch Eastenders or have a glass of wine that’s what I’ll do. And this has been my even my mindset even when I’ve been made redundant, I’m not sitting here and being like, oh it’s always been great, like finding a job, it’s not. It’s really hard, so you do really have to like be mindful of like how like it can affect you, and what are those little things that you can do to just like make yourself happy. Because you may look at the day and see like I applied for like 50 jobs or 100 jobs, and then I heard nothing this week, but then if you look back actually, yeah, I applied for 100 jobs, I got up early which was good for me because I’m not a morning person. I got up early, I did that, and then actually I went for a walk afterwards. Or I went to have a swim this week, so those are my wins for this week rather than I applied for 100 jobs and no one got back to me this week. So, yeah that’s some of the stuff I’ve done. CG And it’s also quite helpful to reach out to other people if you’ve got other people you know within your friendship network but talk to other people because otherwise you can just think is it me? Am I just hopeless? You know, I’m, you know but actually, you’ll probably find other people in the same sort of boat and that’s always you know, very reassuring. SV I think it’s about celebrating what you’re learning whilst applying for roles as well. Because you know, you’re tailoring your CV, you’re writing the application forms, you’re keeping those on your computers for future. You’re researching about the companies so, you can use all of that still with other things that you apply for. So, celebrating all of those things and I never used to do it, and a bit like Krystle said, you know you’re applying for 100 jobs, tick. I’ve applied actually, I’ve applied for that job today, that’s a celebration because it can be, it can be disheartening but you’ve done it so celebrate that. You’ve updated your CV, celebrate that, celebrate everything. ZR Yeah, I think that’s super important, and I think every time, like I think every job application is like another step isn’t it? 00 30 48 ZR Like you’ve probably done a little bit more polishing, you’ve probably, you’ve got like another cover letter that you can pull bits out of, whatever it is. So, you’re kind of building up that bank of good stuff that you can use for the next job application, and it just does become easier and easier, and it will get better and better. I can see that from our audience we’ve had a few people saying, cakes, which is great, love that. Big fan of, just like some sweet treats, very good, and also some really good ones around like recording positive feedback and making sure that you’re saving like nice comments from people. I think that’s really good and actually, I think that’s one of the things about job searching isn’t it? Like sometimes you do get feedback and sometimes that feedback can be like lovely, but you still didn’t get the job, and sometimes you do need to think, OK, that is that’s good. I need to put that in the good-good column. But like you were saying Krystle about, you know, not thinking about, oh, I’ve applied for this many and I didn’t hear back it’s thinking like what can I see as a celebration. And yeah, absolutely, like I think, that scheduling time is like so important. I think, especially with things like LinkedIn and stuff, and where things just kind of can sort of take over and everything is live all the time, and you can always feel like you could be doing more. I think it’s so important just to go right this is my time that I’m you know, focusing on the job search and this is the time that I’m focusing on me because actually that, that focusing on me bit also helps the job search bit. So, they’re so inclined. Great. So, our next question is, we as candidates don’t really have the option to leave feedback about a bad interview. How badly it was conducted, etc. whereas organisations have an option to give feedback to their candidates, what can I do with the frustration that I feel when I feel like an interviewer has been bad? Clare, do you want to take this one to start off with? CG I do, I was sharing just before we started. Yes, I’ve had quite a few bad interviews, but one particularly sticks in my mind which I was particularly keen on. I’d sort of had sort of three, three different interviews and came through the final, final interview stage with a senior person in a big charity. 00 33 12 CG So, I won’t name names, but big charity, thought it had gone really well, I thought, I’d really got a rapport, and I’d answered the questions well. I heard nothing ever, not that you haven’t got the job that anything at all just nothing. I messaged them and asked obviously for feedback. Nothing again, just very disappointing. You can do all the sorts of things which you know you could go on Glassdoor and all sorts of things like that. Actually, though, in reality, I’m not sure it’s actually going to you know, it sometimes just looks a bit sort of you know malicious, whatever. I suppose what I’ve taken from it is that I think sometimes you have to just take a step back and think, OK,. I’ve learned from that. I realise that again, my values don’t align with that company, but I’ve also taken away from it that actually, I wouldn’t treat people like that going forwards and have used this as a moving things forward. And I’m very, very big on coming back to people now for any application or anything that they do to give them feedback, I know what it’s like. So, maybe you take it on as a learning that’s my experience. ZR Yeah, that’s great Sarah. I can see you nodding. Do you have any thoughts about that? SV I think it depends on how it’s gone badly because I think as Clare already said, you know if they’re going to treat you badly through the recruitment process and at the interview, then that’s a reflection of their culture and you’re probably actually quite lucky to not hear back at all or to be regretted. I don’t really feel there’s any value in writing a complaint because it’s just energy, it’s just you know, whilst you’re writing that complaint, whether it’s an email or what have you, you could be looking for something else and it’s not a reflection on you, it’s a reflection on them. If it was a bad interview because something had gone wrong, you’d tripped over some questions, you hadn’t answered those as well as perhaps you wanted to, then then yes, reach out and try and get some feedback and personalise that there and say how you felt that it didn’t go as well as you would have liked and you’d really like to improve on that, would they mind giving you some feedback. 00 35 28 SV But at the end of the day, if they don’t respond, it’s completely out of your control. So, don’t waste that energy. ZR Yeah, great, yeah thanks, I think that’s super important isn’t it about like, you can expend a lot of energy feeling cross about something that you can’t actually change which is, just job searching generally is a lot of work. It’s like that but yeah I think, super important just to almost like draw a line and go right, OK that’s done and like moving on now. Yeah, definitely. So, next question, this is for you Krystle, I think. So, the gap in my CV due to raising a young family really knocks my confidence in attaining interviews, there is a lot of talk about it not mattering however the reality is it does matter, this is what the person has written by the way, this isn’t my specific perspective. And she says recruiters overlook applications, how do we overcome this apart from networking? So, do you have any thoughts about what someone can do about the gap on their CV? And I guess particularly about their confidence around it because obviously those two things go hand in hand, don’t they? KS Yeah, I mean I get really annoyed like when like when people are made to feel this way because you know, if you’ve taken out a gap you know, to raise a young family, or to care for somebody like that’s so much strength and so much bravery to do, to step away from maybe something that you’re used to your career and and to do something else. And there are so much you’ve learned from that you need to highlight that in your CV that experience because sometimes when I’ve seen CVs it’s like, you know, took out two years to look after my mum or to look after kids and that’s it. I’m like, no, like you have so much, like getting up every single day like you know, the resilience you’ve shown in that you may have been responsible for accounts for them. There’s so much responsibilities that you’ve done, had in that time that you probably wouldn’t even learn that those responsibilities in an office job or whatever job you were doing before. So, please do highlight that. See it as like it was a job you know, being a mother, being, it is a full-time job like more than a full-time job. 00 37 46 KS So, please do like write down like what you learned, what you did, your responsibilities, because they’ve got a lot of the stuff that you’ve done are transferable skills into a workplace that’s in an office workplace. Yeah, just kind of like look at yourself and be like, yeah, I know what I’ve done really great these few years and hopefully that sometimes when you write things down it helps your confidence because you look back and you’re like, yeah, I actually did this. I am a superpower. So, hopefully that does help and yeah, I think during the time if you’ve done any like any continuous learning. So, any sort of whether it was like volunteering or you went you did any online courses or attended any events that helped like you know, if you went to like this ace for example, anything like that put that in your CV to show like during that time, these are the continuous learnings that you were doing. I think they, hopefully that will help but yeah it’s not, I get networking also can be like quite nerve-wracking as well going to networking events, that it can be an opportunity as well but it can be quite hurtful, not hurtful. Sorry, I’m getting my words all mixed up, it can be quite a lot. But you know, even coming to this session today like, you could put that in your CV, you’ve come to a session, like you know, to learn about you know, your CV. Learn about job hunt, that’s all development you’re doing for yourself. Any of the CIPD webinars and courses that you go on. Just write that on your CV as well. So, yeah, that’d be a bit of my advice. ZR That’s great, thank you. And Sarah, I wonder if you could give us a bit of the kind of the sort of, HR hiring manager perspective. What is it that people are concerned about when they see that someone’s got a gap on their CV? What like, what are the what what are the worries and how can people kind of like overcome them in the way they present themselves? SV Yeah, I think it’s that not having that information because if people have just said that they’ve got a gap. So, OK how are you current I guess and it’s linking to what Krystle said. 00 39 58 SV So, if you can pre-empt that and be proactive that will really put that ease, ease at mind I guess, it’s because I guess people are thinking there’s going to be quite a period of time of upskilling perhaps that person. If they’ve been away from the workplace for 18 months, two years, perhaps, that might be what they’re thinking. So, we’ve got to get somebody back up to a particular standard even though actually you know, you might be listening to podcasts whilst you’re looking after your child, you might be doing that CPD stuff like Krystle said with the transferable skills for accounts or just being a listening ear to maybe somebody who’s poorly, whatever those things are that you’ve been doing, there is a lot of value in it. So, it’s getting that across. CG And I think, to just quickly out of also, the agency I’m the advocate for agencies today aren’t I, but actually there are some of the agencies have set themselves up now for people who were coming back sort of 10 to 2 is one of those that I know. Where they’re looking at sort of supporting people who’ve had time out, that’s specifically set up for that. So, some of them can be quite helpful and I suppose also sometimes then naturally taking a sort of a bit of a step down and recognising that perhaps you to get back up again to where you were it’ll only take a little while but you might just have to take a job at a sort of lower level initially to be able to sort of get yourself back into it. You know, you can then you know, whizz back up again with your experience but it’s just I agree with Sarah, it’s that you know, looking at people’s CVs as the hiring manager, if you’ve got a load of CVs in front of you, the tried and tested person who’s currently in a job or whatever it is probably the person who’s going to stand out. So, it is a challenge but I also agree with Krystle that all of those skills are so necessary and important, but I think that’s from an employer’s point of view, those are the sorts of things they might be looking at as negatives. ZR Yeah, I once, I once had a colleague run, she ran a whole session on how to be more productive and at the very end she just said that the one thing that actually made her more productive was having kids, because she just, you know, you have to multitask so much. 00 42 15 ZR She was like, actually that’s the only bit of advice that I can really give, it’s like, just have children and, you know, you will end up doing it, so… SV But you’re teaching them as well aren’t you? You’re teaching them as they’re growing, so it’s about trying to be clever, I think, with getting that across on your CVs and application forms. ZR Yeah absolutely, SV It’s a shame people have to do it in the first place. ZR Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Great, right, I think we’ve got time for a few questions from the chat. So, let me see, OK, yeah, so we’ve got someone has asked this is for you, Krystle. It says Krystle, I’m a job switcher as you were and it’s extremely difficult to get into a new industry because of lack of experience, qualifications, network, etc. What advice can you give regarding job searching in a new industry? KS Is that one of the ones I put I reply to or… ZR Oh, possibly you have, sorry. KS I know I was going in the chat but I wasn’t quite sure but sorry, can you read the question again, I’m just searching for the question. ZR It was about someone wanting to switch industries but not having any of the relevant connections or experience, like what advice do you have for that kind of how to switch industries? KS Yeah, I mean I think I did reply this one. I mean, I feel like people are people. I’ve worked in a few industries and no one’s really surprised me like the same HR issues come out whether you’re in retail, whether you’re in like a law firm, like people are just people. So, it’s really important that you kind of get across like how you’ve worked with people, how you’ve done, like those skills that you have. But then also seeing although that people are people there are some stuff some experience you’ve had in one industry that could be really beneficial for another industry. Even if you’re going from like public to private or private to public, there’ll be some, some things that you’ve learned in that that you can, that are really good transferable skills. 00 44 15 KS So, it’s getting ahead, like we’ve said already today but saying like yes, whilst I haven’t worked in in this industry, I’ve done a lot of research into this. This is the reason why I want to get into it and I feel like I can bring, you know, this learning or this development or these like values that I’ve learned and from this industry into this that would really benefit your business, it is really important to get that across because I feel especially when you’re looking in HR as well, I think we’re so harsh when people want to swap industries. You know, people look at a (inaudible) and be like, oh no like they’ve worked there, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t fit here, but actually they would. So, yeah it’s just really important to kind of get that across, like what could what you could bring from your previous one, but at the end of the day people are people, is my mantra. I’ll be surprised if someone can tell me something different about people being different in different industries, but yeah. ZR And Clare do you have anything to add to that, I guess thinking specifically not just about HR but also about people moving industry more generally? CG Yeah, I mean it is difficult and Krystle mentioned the public, private sector sort of thing which is, so I’ve worked in the public and private and actually there is a real almost like a snobbery against it really almost. It’s almost feels like, oh you’ve worked in the public sector, you’re not, you’re not going to be very good on that and so. So, I would agree with Krystle that it’s very much about bringing out the skills, showing them, you know on your CV the actual skills you’ve got, you know, if you have a CV that’s going to be around skills and achievements, and what you’ve brought to the organisations you’ve been in, and so on. Those are going to be across all organisations are going to be important there. I think it’s accepting there is that sort of snobbery, but as you say, finding a way to you know, to get in there if that’s what you want, and I think doing also your research on there. Initially, I’m, as I’ve just worked, moved into education at the moment. And it’s having worked in the healthcare sector for ages, knowing so much about it, you know, you asked me how much a nurse should earn and what do you know? 00 46 21 CG What allowances? etc. to move to somewhere where I don’t know everything is sometimes initially challenging, but actually for me, that’s exciting. It’s nice to have something different and I hopefully I brought that across into the interview where I was sort of saying to them, actually, I know that there are things I won’t know, but actually, there are other things I can bring. So, yeah, it’s, yeah. It’s difficult. ZR Yeah, sometimes that outside perspective is, can be really valuable to a business. You almost need to just push that a little bit and say, look, I’m not from this sector, but actually, I’ve got really you know, I could bring some really interesting insights that you won’t have thought of, yeah. That’s really interesting, and I totally know what you mean about the public private divide, yeah, it’s always interesting to hear how other people talk about, other sectors, you’re like, OK, yeah, I mean, you’re all just businesses at the end of the day. So, we’ve got another question, that was kind of off some of the stuff we were talking about earlier which was, what examples do you suggest of feedback to ignore and what to act upon? So, we kind of talked about that when you’re getting feedback that you know you’re kind of too good for a job, and that you know there’s not much you can do with that. I wonder Sarah if you’ve got any examples of kind of what, what can you take on board? What maybe do you know it’s good to just think, OK, I’m going to ignore that? SV Yeah, I think it’s important to put your ego aside and really think about the feedback. And OK, they might be wrong, but actually is there anything that you can do around some reflection? Was it the way you answered a question that gave them the wrong impression somehow because it could be a communication misalignment. But I would say really delve into it and ask yourself some honest questions about whether you do need to improve on something, but if it’s the feedback that you’re too good for things, then it is what Krystle was talking about earlier about really proactively telling people why you you’re wanting that particular role. 00 48 35 ZR Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Krystle do you have anything more to add on that? KS Yeah, I was just thinking about when I’d gotten feedback that I thought wasn’t worth me keeping inside. I mean i think you know, feedback in itself is something you can make a decision isn’t it? You can put your your ego aside, you can make a decision whether you want to take that feedback on or ignore it. Some feedback is to be ignored, some feedback, and feedback is to be taken on as well. Like if you feel like you’ve heard it maybe more than once in an interview, or if you feel like, actually the feedback that they’ve given was actually a really good strength of yours. I was thinking about very early in my career I’d got feedback that I intimidated the interviewer by having like a notebook where I was writing questions and just what they were saying. I was writing some notes down and I always feel like an interview it’s two ways. So, that’s why I was like, you know, obviously writing some notes and stuff, and that was feedback, and then I could have been in that moment, thought oh gosh, I should never have a notebook like that, but actually it was good to have a notebook, that’s what I’m saying. Some feedback is like, to ignore maybe, that was the how the person personally was made to feel, but some feedback you would think, OK actually, I’ve heard this a couple of times, maybe it’s something for me to just like take on and adapt and like Sarah said, like put that ego to aside but don’t go into It feeling like you have to take every single thing that someone says about you, because yeah, yeah. ZR Yeah, that’s such a great example. CG It’s a good one. SV You might need to note but for any, number of reasons. I mean, sometimes I can’t remember a whole question so I need to write it down, I’d rather write it down than keep asking to repeat it. ZR I also, would always write down the questions from an interview because they’re good to have when you’re preparing for the next interview. So, why would you do that? Oh, sorry, notebooks like it’s just like a, it’s super useful. 00 50 34 KS Yeah. SV It’s a small one as well. ZR Yeah, I think that’s like a great, a great example because. I think sometimes you can get feedback that you’re like, OK, that’s like very subjective and I don’t want to act on that because actually that’s not, you know, I don’t want to work somewhere where that’s the case. Oh, Sarah were you about to say something? Sorry. SV Yeah I just remembered something. So, I’ve been told on various occasions that I’m too people-y and at first I was a bit like, oh well what’s wrong with that, you know, that’s a good thing. And I’ve started to reflect on it, and it’s probably something I may need to balance a little bit more but at the end of the day, it’s who I am and it’s my values. So, you know maybe I need to think about the organisations and it relates to my current role as well, you know, and how I’m, carrying out my activity. And so, it’s in my mind when I’m sort of dealing with an initiative or practice or something, you know. Do I need to think about the organisation a little bit more? Do I need to think about the person more? But I have got to keep my values and alignment. ZR Yeah, I think I think that’s such a good point about how you take feedback on, it’s not just responding to, it’s thinking about how can I respond to this in a way that still aligns with who I am and what I value. I think that’s so important and I think there’s nothing worse than trying to respond to feedback that then puts you in a position where you’re behaving unnaturally because that’s they’re actually going to to make things so much worse. So, like your notebook example, Krystle like, if you then had to like do interviews without a notebook, well then you’d be much less like prepared, you wouldn’t have your kind of prop, like it’s so that’s not going to create a good experience. So, yeah I think those things are like, it’s about, it’s not just about do I take this on board, do I not take this on board, it’s also about how can I respond to this in a way that aligns with my values. Yeah, thank you, Sarah, that’s such a like, such a great point. 00 52 50 CG A very quick one on that, a very quick one on that was my, I got feedback during an interview once. And, one of the interviews said to me, and breathe, Clare. In other words, I know I talk a lot and actually she was like and breathe and you know it’s resonated with me every interview I’ve ever done since then. I think right, and breathe, I need to stop and reflect, actually and it was about the best bit of advice I’ve got, so, actually something like that. ZR Yeah, perfect, and actually, that’s a, that’s another really great example, isn’t it, about like being who you are but also like, where do you need to slightly temper things without, you know, compromising on who you are? Yeah and breathe is great advice for anyone I would say. Yeah, we probably don’t do it enough. Everyone should just take a beat and have a have a nice deep breath. Great. Well, we’re nearing the end of our time so I think we’ve got an evaluation form that we’d like you all to fill out. I think one of my colleagues is going to share it in the chat so, hopefully you can all get clicking away and giving us some feedback about how you found today and I guess I’m just going to ask while you’re all doing that in the audience, I’m going to ask the panel just to give us some kind of final closing thoughts on how people can just keep really positive and motivated during their job search. So, yeah Clare do you want to just go, what’s kind of one thing you want people to take away from today? CG I think it’s remaining positive about yourself, recognising that because there was a question somewhere there about, you know, that they you see so many people applying. If you look, you’re on LinkedIn and you see 100 people have looked. But actually, in reality, a lot of those people would have not gone as far as actually applying and will not be suitable. They would have just pinged on and sent a CV through. That can be so off-putting. So, if you really feel you’re the right person for the role, yes, get your application in, make sure that you’ve put the letter with it, an appropriate letter with it, looked at your application, made sure it’s aimed towards the actual role you’re applying for. And don’t just think, oh, there’s too many people. I’m not going to be the best and so on. 00 54 58 CG You may very well be. And yeah, don’t be put off. ZR Right. Yeah, I think that’s great advice. And Sarah one piece of advice you want people to take away? SV I think for me, it is easier said than done, because if you’re applying for a role, you really probably want it. But it’s about trying to be detached from it, actually. And maybe being a bit strategic about it, doing your research, getting that across and then letting what will be, will be. Because if you’re too excited about it or if you’re too hung up on it, that is really going to affect you and actually, there’s probably one job, there might be 10 people that have applied or as LinkedIn shows us, 750 have applied for one job just because you’ve looked at it. Try not to let that affect who you are. ZR Yeah, brilliant. That’s really great. And Krystle, finally. KS Yeah, really good advice from you both. I think I go back to the whole values part, because that’s been probably the biggest learning I’ve been given. And like you, Sarah said, it wasn’t something I used to think about before. And if it’s anything that you guys haven’t thought about before, definitely like what aligns to your values, because, you know, it’s not, it’s never worth like changing your like your values and not being who you are. You are your own superpower. And just remembering why you’re applying for that job and why you want to go to that company. Yeah, just like reframe your mind when you’re applying for roles, because what you don’t want to do is let’s just rush into something and I get, you know, sometimes it’s really hard. You don’t have a job and you’re looking, but it’s best to take that time and do that research and go to somewhere where it’s going to welcome you. You’re going to feel included. You’re going to be valued rather than somewhere that you rushed and just went to. And then a few weeks, a few months down the line, you’re not happy. And your happiness is worth so much more. So, yes, whilst it gets hard and you need to find a role, don’t just go anywhere, that’s not going to make you feel like you’re the best person that they’ve recruited for. 00 57 10 ZR Yeah, I think that’s fabulous advice. And I would just add on to the end of that one thing to remember is you’re not alone in this. I think we’ve heard from all three of you that, you know, job searching can be really hard, really lonely, can be very demoralising. You know, you can see in the chat that, you know, you guys aren’t alone. So, don’t feel like it can feel, I think, very lonely sometimes, but you really aren’t alone. And also, on the other side of every job application process they’re just people like our lovely panel. So, you know, don’t be intimidated by it, people are people and you’ll get there in the end. You just need to keep going, I think. Absolutely, great. Well, thank you so much and thank you so much to our fantastic panel, Clare, Sarah, and Krystle, you’ve been amazing. This has just been so interesting. I think we’ve learned so much. So, yeah, thank you very much. SV You’re welcome. Thank you. KS Thank you. Thank you Zoe. CG Good luck, everyone. SV Yes. KS Good luck.

00 00 00 Zoe Raymond (ZR) So, hello everyone, and welcome to Unleashing the Power of AI in Your Job Search. I’m Zoe, the Programme Design Manager at the CIPD Trust, and at the CIPD Trust we’re all about sharing the expertise of people who work in HR, Learning and Development, and ED&I. And these webinars are one of the ways that we give insights into how you can jumpstart your job search and stand out when you’re looking for work by sharing the thoughts of our amazing kind of panellists. So, a couple of housekeeping things to begin with, we’re recording this session but cameras and microphones have been disabled so you won’t appear on the recording but please use the chat to ask questions and make comments and just be aware that we might read those out on the recording so just don’t put anything in that you don’t want shared. A couple of my colleagues Allie and Ressina will be posting useful tips and links in the chat and if we have time we’ll answer some questions from the chat towards the end so do share any questions that you might have. So, today we’re going to be talking about artificial intelligence and automation in job searching and recruitment, and this is a topic that we always get questions about. We’ve got Konstantinos and Atikah here to share their insights, so I think we’ll have a really great discussion. There’s a lot of value that generative AI might bring to your job search, but we need to find ways to use it that are right for you, and the same is true for how companies use AI and automation in their systems. So, we’ll talk a bit about how that works and how you can use that knowledge to your advantage. So, let’s go ahead and hear from our speakers. Konstantinos, do you want to tell us a bit about yourself and what your experience with AI and automation is? Konstantinos Tasis (KT) Amazing, thank you Zoe and thank you very much for having us here today in this event. We are really excited and looking forward to share our experiences and knowledge on this topic. So, I’m Konstantinos Tasis, Learning and Development Programs Manager. I work for Ipsos UK and Ireland, and the past couple of years I have been massively involved in embedding generative AI for Ipsos UK and Ireland. 00 02 22 KT I started kind of being disposed into this technology around three to four years ago, and the first impression that I had it was just wow, it was mind-blowing. The idea that you can teach a system something, and the system can use this knowledge in order to produce some outcome, it was just a mind-blowing process. Now of course things have been improved massively and generative AI has been one of the main tools that we use for Ipsos UK and Ireland. I will be more than happy to share all that I know about this, and how this technology can support your process of getting a new job. ZR Fabulous, Atikah, let’s hear from you. Atikah Zaini (AK) Yeah. Hi everyone, thank you for making time for us today, really glad to be here. I’m Atikah Amalina, my preferred pronouns are she, her. I’m a Senior Programme Manager for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Amazon. I manage Europe, Middle East and Africa programmes. And I was previously at Google, so these two companies have really been at the forefront of AI over the past decade. And so, it’s been really interesting to see the back-end work that’s been happening but also to then use it in our day-to-day lives. I’m also a Certified Life Coach where I specialise on career coaching and life coaching for women in their middle and early career professionals. So, I also use AI with them to try and leverage the power to expand on our own personal human touch. So, really excited to be sharing tips from all of those areas. ZR Great, excellent, thank you both, that’s really helpful. So, first thing we’re going to do is ask a question to our lovely audience, and hopefully this should appear as a sort of poll. So, our question is, how familiar are you all with AI, and what’s the most valuable piece of data that you’re generative AI tools? Are these something that you use a lot? Is it something that you’ve kind of never used or you’re not familiar at all? So, if you just pop your kinds of answers in. Oh, I see we’ve got quite a range here. So, already we’re seeing people have heard about them but not used them. Some people are a bit more familiar. So, that’s really great because I think what we’re going to do today is hopefully talk a bit about how you can use those to your advantage. And I think some of my colleagues will have some links to pop in the chat about where you can find some of these tools if you’re not quite sure. 00 04 57 ZR Although it sounds like most people have at least heard of them. I don’t think we’ve got, so, great. Excellent. So, we’ve got some questions that have come through when you all registered for this webinar. So, I guess we’ll just kick off with those. So, the first one is, how can I use AI to personalise my job application materials such as CVs and cover letters to match specific roles? And I wonder, Konstantinos if you want to take this to start with? KT Yes, of course. And from where to start, so many to say about this topic. I think it is safe and taking consideration that as I just saw in the poll that 38% of you say that you have heard about this, but you haven’t familiarised yourself with this technology. I will start answering this question by starting from the very basics, such as what do we include in a CV? My recommendation to you is in your CV, you need to include four elements. You need to include your professional skills, your professional knowledge, your professional behaviours and your key achievements from the roles you have covered in the past. Now, technology, Generative AI is here to improve productivity and efficiency. It’s here to support you in the way that you construct your CV. It is not, though it is not here to replace you or to create an avatar for you. So, I will say as a first step for someone who is currently looking for a new job, take a piece of paper, take a pen and write down some bullet points of what are your professional skills, your professional knowledge, what are the professional behaviours that express yourself and what are the key achievements. Then I will recommend you to input to add those bullet points into any Generative AI system, I have been using a lot ChatGPT, so you may hear me referring to ChatGPT but you can use anything that you feel familiar with and ask the system to turn those bullet points into some paragraphs and some more comprehensive bullet points that you can use for your CV. I would say that’s a good start of how you can use the technology, this technology. ZR That’s great. Particularly, I love that we’re doing a session on technology and your first advice is take a pen and paper. I think that’s always good to hear. I’m a big fan of pen and paper. I think that’s always a great place to start. 00 07 32 ZR Atikah, I wonder if you had anything to add onto that or what you might think of as the next step once you’ve done that? AZ Yes, definitely. I think to Konstantino’s point, it’s very important that we leverage AI as a tool that makes things better. It is not the starting point. It is supposed to be the coach, it is supposed to be the refiner, it is supposed to be the ones that help you catch things that you may not necessarily know. Right, so, a big part of, I’m assuming, the audience today is you’re working either from an underrepresented background or maybe you’re not as privileged to get access to certain resources or certain connections. So, an AI tool is to bridge that gap. So, one of the things that I love to do with AI is to get AI to think or act like something. So, I’ll give you an example, right? So, the way AI works is you have to give them good prompts. And that’s the magic of AI. If you don’t give good prompts, you’re not going to be able to get good things out of it, right? So, if you give a generic question, it will give you a generic answer. So, whenever you want to use AI to personalize, so to Konstantino’s point, you need to write everything down, do like a brain dump of everything, right? Because you need to feed this back into AI, right? So, what I would do is after you’ve kind of written it out down, put it into a Word document, rephrase it, put it into bullet points and things like that. Then what I would do is when you find a job description that you want to apply for, right? You need to personalise all of your CVs. When you find a job description you apply for, what you can do, and this is a prompt that you can do, right? Act as a hiring manager or act as a recruiter, for example. And then you say, act as a recruiter or act as a hiring manager that is hiring for this role. Then you paste the job description. Right? And then you say, review and please create a CV for me based on your inputs, right? Whatever your description, your experience, your achievement is and create a CV that will make the hiring manager or the recruiter think I am viable for this role. So, that is an example, right? You need to input things into AI and then AI will feed it back to you. So, remember your prompts. So, yeah, a great prompt that I really like is act as a hiring manager, act as a recruiter. This is what I want you to create for me. 00 10 24 AZ So, that’s one thing in terms of using AI to personalise your job application materials. Another way that I really like to work with AI is to call out gaps, right? So, for example, ask AI, right? Review this job description, review my CV. What are some gaps in my CV that I should work on, right? Or recommend some improvements to my CV. So, then AI will tell you, right? Either like give more data points, give more numbers, give more like achievements and things like that. And then so that is how I would say leverage AI because I think that’s the part where a lot of people miss is that it’s such a powerful tool, but we don’t know how to use it. So, those are like very quick tips I can give. ZR Great. Excellent. And I guess carrying on from that Atikah so, the next question that we have are about what are the best ways to use AI in interviewing? So, I guess that’s kind of interview preparation, isn’t it? And like how you can get ready. So, do you have any tips in a similar way for people who are kind of, who’ve got that interview, how do they prepare using Generative AI? AZ Yes. So, exactly to my point earlier about taking on a persona, right? Or asking AI or chat GPT or whatever to take on a persona. I basically have a conversation with ChatGPT, I’d be like, sometimes I even say hi, ChatGPT and thank you, ChatGPT, because that’s a whole thing. So, I say, hi, ChatGPT, I have, I’ve gotten an interview for this role, paste the job description, you know, please act as a hiring manager and recommend or suggest five different interview questions for me to prep for. And then see that it will come up and then you prep for it accordingly. Right. So, that is really one of the best ways to use AI. One of the things, and this is just a shout out, because this is something that we’ve noticed in recruitment a lot is you do not use AI while you are interviewing. Because some people, and you know, what we have noticed more in the recruitment kind of landscape is that, you know, as we are having interviews, especially if it’s virtual interviews, you can see someone typing and reading off a screen. So, don’t do that because it’s very obvious and you’ll be caught out. So, what you want to do is you want to use it as something that you prep for and practice for and just, and this is not AI, this is for all interview tips. 00 12 55 AZ Make sure that you prepare your interview, your interview answers in the, in a particular format. I completely forgot the format right now. ZR The STAR format, right? AZ Yeah that one. Yeah, you really need to do it in a STAR format because that’s how you present yourself in the best way. Ultimately, at the end of the day, if you think about an interview and job application, is that they’re trying to figure out that you can do the job. You have the experience to do the job. You have the capability to do the job and that you can actually do the job. And also, a lot of the times it’s to access whether or not you someone that they can work with essentially, right? All of that can’t be used through AI that is you preparing, right? So, use AI as a coach, use AI as an additional thing that will make you better. But ultimately, you also have faith in yourself and work on the things that you can control. ZR Yeah, that’s brilliant. And just for those of you who don’t, aren’t familiar with the STAR format, that is, so you, you frame your answers in a way that you talk about the situation you were in, the task that you had to do, or that you did, the actions that you took, and then the results. So, it’s that kind of taking people through that journey of what happened and how you responded to it. And what result that was. So, that you can really show what your achievements are. Konstantinos, I wonder if you’ve got any thoughts about that kind of how you prep for interviews and using AI to kind of help you with some of that. And I guess also on to Atikah’s point about not just regurgitating the answers that it’s giving you. How do you, how can people use that to their best advantage? KT I can’t stress enough the point Attica mentioned about just ensuring that you don’t, you don’t just use what you get from the system. It is extremely important. And I guess that later on, we’re going to discuss about challenges the business, the employers are facing, and this is very much related. So, it is very important for all of us when we use AI systems to be authentic, honest, and to ensure that whatever it is stated in our CV, for example, it 100% represents our skills, knowledge, and behaviours. The technology is there to help us, to support us. For example, English is not my first language. I do use Generative AI every single day to improve the grammar of the emails that I send, to improve the text of various communications I send out. 00 15 26 KT But always I ensure that the ideas and the content belong to me. And I think that’s important. Now, regarding another way you can use GenAI to have a better preparation for interview stages is when I’m mentoring people, that they try to find a job. I always explain to them that a preparation for you to find a job is split into two big parts. There is the part where you need to create your CV in a constructive way that represents the best who you are. And then there is another part where you need to prepare your presentation skills, your speaking and listening skills, because eventually employer will call you to interview stage, and you will need to articulate this in a clear way. Now, I remember myself that before AI, I used to recommend to my mentees, go and find a friend, go and find a family member, sit down and practice, practice, practice, practice. The more that you practice, the more confident you become, the more ready you will be to answer any possible questions you will be asked. Well, now we have the privilege to have GenAI. We can ask a GenAI to pretend to be tougher, softer, more challenging, anything that we want. So, right now, we have the ability to sit in front of our laptop, ask Generative AI to take the form of employer that we believe matches the job that we have applied for and start practicing with the system. And the system will also provide us feedback on this, which is a great benefit, I think. ZR Yeah, I think it’s great for that. That kind of just getting that practice in, isn’t it, can really just help get your brain into the right mindset. It’s interesting, I sometimes refer to ChatGPT as my friend ChatGPT. So, I suppose when you’re saying, go and find friends to interview practice with, I’m sort of thinking like, oh, yeah, that’s the kind of thing. Oh, I can see we’ve, we’ve had a question come in, which I think we might just go to straight away. So, can Atikah elaborate on the type of prompts that you could use for gaps in systems? CV? So, you mentioned that you might put your CV through and say, where are the gaps? What kind of things might you be asking for there? Oh, you’ve muted yourself. 00 17 58 AZ Yeah, that was my cat. My cat is on here now. That’s a great question. So, an example could be exactly that. So, in terms of, you know, dear ChatGPT, you know, please act as a hiring manager, reviewing this CV, and then you put the job description and then you put the CV and say, and then say, ChatGPT, please identify the gaps in the CV that I need to work on. So, give them maybe a number, please identify three to five gaps in the CVs, based on the job description that I should work on and then see the ChatGPT will be able to churn out the answer and then you’ll be able to identify that. ZR Great. Yeah, thank you. So, we’ve got our next question, which I think we’ve covered a bit of, but I guess it’d be interesting to get a few more thoughts on which is, how can I use AI to stand out in the job application process? So, Konstantinos, do you maybe want to take this first? KT Yeah, that’s, that’s quite interesting, actually. And actually, this is this is also related to what Atikah mentioned about the problems. It’s quite interesting, actually, that in the last World Economic Forum, that took place a few months ago, it was discussed that one of the biggest challenges we are facing, employees facing these days, is our expression, the so much technology that has surrounded us has made our expression weakened, has weakened our expression, which has created a challenge for us. And the real challenge is that if we don’t express ourselves clearly, the Generative AI technology, we will not get the results that we expect from the technology. So, it’s important to start thinking about this skill and start working on this skill and practicing, practicing with the system. Now, once that we start feeling familiar of how to use and get the most out of this technology, I will recommend one easy way for you to maximise the use of it is by creating your CV and asking the system, to highlight your skills, knowledge, behaviours and achievements. Ideally with different colours, there are the AI systems that they can provide images and colours, they can do this job. So, once that you have these pictures, straight away, you’re going to visualise the challenges you’re facing in your CV. So, you know where to focus. Well, before, before GenAI, we really didn’t have this ability. And we were relying very much on other people’s opinion while now we have a machine that can do this for us faster and easier, that’s just one easy example that’s came to my mind. 00 20 50 ZR And Atikah, do you have any thoughts about how people might be able to make themselves stand out or make their application stand out using Generative AI? AZ Yeah so based on everything I said earlier what do you think, I’m sorry, I used to be a teacher. So, I’ll go to the question to everyone in terms of, it’s basically to identify that and prompt that to the GenAI tool, right and be like how can I make sure that I stand out? One of the things actually to go back to also Konstantino’s earlier point in terms of resumes right, is there are actually really important things that we forget and it’s basic things like grammar, like formatting, like things like that that you actually could just ask GenAI to please reformat this in the best way. It’s to check for grammatical errors, it’s to make sure that it’s clearly read, because actually those are the things because on average a recruiter or a hiring manager spends only seven seconds screening through a resume. Right. So, you want to make sure that your resume stands out from the very beginning in terms of the formatting is clear, you want to make sure your top achievements, your top most relevant points is at the very top that, so that it prompts them to read even more. So, those are the kind of things that I would recommend using GenAI for. ZR Excellent, yeah, that’s really great, I think that that’s super helpful just getting that those kind of basics right. I think it’s you kind of forget that that’s one of the most useful uses for this kind of technology isn’t it? It’s just saying, oh actually, is this a good format, is this a bit dense and difficult to read? So, yeah, so our kind of, our next question is almost the kind of opposite of this, of how can you use Generative AI when most job adverts are and they’ve put this in quotes against it, which I think is about when you see job adverts that say, without using Generative’ AI, please tell us about your skills and experience. So, how can, is there a way that people can use Generative AI in those situations without kind of, you know going against the spirit of what’s being asked there but maybe in ways that can help them and also you know how can how can people make sure that it’s something individual to them that you know they’re not just regurgitating ChatGPT’s responses? 00 23 23 ZR Atikah, do you want to start off with that? AZ Yeah definitely one of the things that I think people fail to realise is we see so many resumes that we know if it’s copy-pasted from somewhere. So, what now there are certain bots or certain systems that you know, will shoot out 1,000 different applications a week for someone that’s not kind of amended, it’s not edited, and things like that. Right? So, when we say job adverts are quote unquote against it, it means we don’t want to see things that are just copy-pasted, that has no true view of you know, you as a person. That has no direct linkages to the job actually being advertised, that has you know no real value to it. Right? And I think Konstantinos in the earlier part mentioned that you know we’re trying to assess whether or not you can do the job, whether or not you have the experience relevant to the job. And so, when we say it’s against it, it’s we’re against basic kind of resumes that’s just being regurgitated, you know, like we want to see you in your resume and your experience. So, use it to your benefit. ZR Yeah, absolutely. Konstantinos, do you have anything to add to that? KT 100%. I absolutely agree with the statement. I think it’s important to start by saying, all right, why some companies say that we should not use ChatGPT or Generative AI during the application process. Well, the truth is that this technology is so powerful, to state, that it can create for us an avatar. It can create for us another personality that doesn’t match to who we are, that’s a very big threat for the businesses, for the employers, for the candidates as well quite frankly. Because there is a performance question, whether when you recruit someone who says they have this professional skills, knowledge and behaviours but when they come to the job, actually they don’t have this performance knowledge, skills and behaviour. So, the candidate will be in a very stressful situation because they will be asked to deliver something that they don’t know how to do it. Also, the companies will be in an uncomfortable situation because they know that they haven’t recruited the person who were. expecting that they were recruiting. So, that’s the main point why a lot of organisations these days they say mind the use of GenAI. 00 26 00 KT I saw on one of the comments here in this chat say that some recruiters, they may take seven minutes to scan CV. I’m going to say some recruiters they may take seven seconds to scan your CV. So, and this can be simple because your CV is more than two pages. Some companies they do have these policies. We don’t want more than two pages CV. So, straight away as a recruiter I open your CV, I see three or four pages, see you later, next one. I’m not even reading the CV. So, this is a way that ChatGPT can help you in constructing your CV. You can get different ideas how you can form the words. You can get different ideas how to match the paragraphs, about the length. You can face some information important about the organisation. You can even include add your CV into ChatGPT for example. Also include the job description for the role that you want to apply and ask ChatGPT to make, not to create but to make recommendations to you what you can do to improve your CV. So, on one hand you have an advisor who is your personal assistant and on the other hand you are able to create your own CV that matches, that reflects who you are and you can have this open honest and authentic conversation with your future employer. ZR Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right, isn’t it? And you mentioned maybe using Generative AI to do a bit of research on the employers. I would say like that’s fine definitely do that but don’t neglect doing your own research because those models are not always super up to date and you might find that you and I’m sure we’ve seen examples of it regurgitating stuff that’s either not quite true or is a few years out of date and you don’t want to get caught out looking like you haven’t done your research when you have. So, yeah, do just go on it, go on a company’s website and spend a few minutes doing your own research, always the best advice. Right, we’ve got another question for the audience now, I think. So, when you all have been applying for jobs, do you have you been tailoring your CV and cover letter to match the job description? I think this is always a, an interesting question because we know that it’s always given as the best advice but I think you know, knowing from experience when you’re job searching sometimes you just want to get a few applications out there, and see if you get anything. 00 28 42 ZR So, I can see that we’re getting a bit of a range, some people are on the always thing, that’s really good to see, about half of you, then we’ve got sometimes rarely. Good to see that no one has selected never yet, but yeah, I can see that we’re pretty split between always doing it and sometimes doing it, which I think is probably about right in terms of how most people approach it. So, the reason why we wanted to have this question is because tailoring your CV and cover letter can be one of the best ways to get through recruitment systems. It’s one of the best ways to get recruited anyway, but particularly if you’re thinking about getting through those automated systems, getting those keywords in is super helpful, which I guess brings us on to our next question which is how and why do employers use artificial intelligence and automation in recruitment? And Atikah do you want to start off with this? I’m sure you can kind of talk about some examples that you’ve seen. AZ Yeah definitely. Yeah you know, just now earlier we mentioned you know a recruiter or a hiring manager uses an average seven seconds to actually review a CV and see whether they go on to the next one, and things like that. When we think about companies, a big priority is if you see it’s about time and hours saved, it’s about resourcing saved. So, whenever we go into automation, that’s actually the primary driver, we want to save time, we want to save money, we want to be as efficient as possible. Right? If you are thinking in any single role, I think a couple days ago I saw this stat kind of flying around right now for in tech roles, for example, for every single job opening we get close to a 1000, 1500 like applications in big tech for example. You can imagine, we would not be able to do a review of each and every single one of them right. So, when we use automation systems, it is to make it efficient for us and it’s so that as recruiters or people in the recruiting team, we leverage the human touch, the experiences, and the moments that rely heavily on the human touch which is on prep calls, it’s on actually getting to know the candidate is to actually do the interview process right. So, automation happens usually at the top of the funnel. So, that we can heavily emphasise on the human touch along the way. 00 31 10 AZ I, please, don’t quote me on the number, like it was something that I saw flying around, the other you know, but it is a lot of numbers per job, per job opening. It’s just a review of the current job market right now. So, that is why we would say that’s, that’s the primary reason why we do it. It’s not because we’re lazy, it’s just because we’re dealing with scale and a lot of huge numbers. And also, some companies, especially smaller companies don’t actually have their own HR teams, right? They don’t actually have their own recruitment teams. So, they work with agencies, and agencies work with many different employers. So, there’s a lot of things around efficiency and speed that we’re working with, that is primarily why I think automation happens. So, just to give that kind of like background understanding. ZR Yeah that’s great and I think even, I you know I’m sure those numbers sound about right to me, I think I’ve heard similar in quite a few different sectors. I think the important thing to remember is that there are still people getting jobs, and you know, it’s important not to rule yourself out by not applying because then you definitely won’t get the job. So, you know, it’s that you, yeah even though those numbers sound a bit scary I think. You’ve just got to keep going haven’t you and you know people do get hired into jobs. So, it’s important to kind of keep that positivity up. Yeah no go on, Atikah, sorry. AZ Just to that point there as well exactly in terms of don’t self-reject but also be strategic and smart about how you apply which is actually what we’re trying to talk about today in terms of how do you leverage AI to make sure that you’re putting the best self forward and not some random bot-generated CV that’s not tailored to the role, that wouldn’t go through ATS systems and things like that, right?. So, if you feel that you’re qualified for the job, then apply for it. ZR Yeah, absolutely. And I think one thing I would also say is that all those systems are different, they’re all set up differently. So, there’s no like if you feel like, oh, I got rejected there, it’s like super important to like, just keep going because that doesn’t mean that you know a different company will be looking for different things. They’ll have their systems out differently. Even if it’s the same system which you can sometimes tell, all the kind of little acronyms and stuff, and you think, oh yeah, I’ve applied through this before. 00 33 36 ZR It doesn’t mean that it’s set up in the same way and it could be working differently. Konstantinos, I wondered if you had anything to add about how kind of people can sort of think about the way that automation and AI is happening in recruitment? KT Yes, I mean why we have this system, the recruitment? Super easy, straightforward for everyone to understand about that. Two words, efficiency and productivity, that’s all about. Especially when we talk about the private organisations, the main goal is to find the best candidate with using as less resources as possible because a lot of resources cost a lot of money to the businesses. So, we do use Generative AI technologies to ensure that we are able to reach out to the best person as soon as we can. However, I may also flag that because these technologies at the early stage of becoming commercial and more and more organisations start using it in various people’s practices, still the most of the people’s practices practitioners they become quite conscious and still our biggest concern is that we will use this technology to scan through various CVs and try to identify the best candidate but we want to have full control. Human must have full control of this selection process computer and Generative AI at least at this stage, I don’t know what’s going to happen in a few years but at least at this stage should not and will not replace the human element about the selection process. ZR Yeah, I think that’s super important and I think like Atikah was saying earlier sometimes you have those systems in order that you can get to the human bit quicker, right? That you can you know, you’re not having a person sifting through 900 CVs and getting really fed up but actually the person gets to do the bits that a person is best at, right? Which I think is what’s so important about how we use these systems. So, our next question is how do employers reduce the risk of using these systems. I think Atikah, that you’ve looked at this a bit, haven’t you, in your kind of DE &I work around how we can avoid those systems kind of rejecting people who might be the right applicant. 00 36 07 AZ Yeah exactly. So, one of the key things is that to you know, this is a really important point to say is that decisions aren’t being made like key important decisions aren’t being made by AI, right? The top of the funnel where we are getting resumes and we’re filtering through them, right? It will filter according to the boundaries and the systems that you’re saying, right? It’s filtered through the whether or not you’ve met the job description, whether they have the keywords in the job description as well, whether they have experience, years of experience all those kind of things are filtered through and we make sure that those key data points are being met. Right, so, the right person for the job will have all of those things in their CV. Right and so, I think it’s really important when we are positioning ourselves in our CV that we are hitting all of those things very clearly in the CV itself. Right, which is why don’t use weird fonts, don’t make you know, I know Canva is this whole big thing right now but sometimes Canva actually might not work with ATS because the ATS can’t read Canva, Canva CVs, right. Sometimes a Word document is actually the best thing. So, it’s important to recognise that you know, when we say it’s the right applicant, it is the best applicant for the role is the one that has all the necessary experience, has all the necessary skills. Can do the job well, right? That’s the best person for the role and then what we do in terms from a DI perspective is we make sure that we build systems and tackle the barriers to entry where underrepresented groups you know are not necessarily there, so, we actually do outreach programmes. We do, make sure that people are aware of the roles that we’re actually hiring for. So, there are definitely barriers and, sorry, there are definitely programmes and strategies to make sure that we are as inclusive and building a diverse pipeline as possible. So, those are the things that we just want to make sure that people are aware. ZR Yeah, I think that’s a that’s a really great point and I think yeah, Canva is a, it can be a bit of a, I know you can make beautiful things in it but they are not always that easy to read or understand. So, yeah, I would definitely agree with you there. Interestingly, I asked ChatGPT some stuff about this webinar and one of the things that came back with like multiple times was like just format your CV so it’s really clear, like it just that formatting is actually like super important for these things but it doesn’t like it’s better to be simple than, you know, doing something totally jazzy. 00 38 59 ZR Yeah and Konstantinos, did you have any thoughts about that, about that how kind of how organisations use these systems to kind of find the right applicant and… KT Yeah to my knowledge a lot of organisations use this system for their recruitment process but still because there are so many things that we they are quite challenging, and we have identified them as kind of the weaknesses of the system, such as a very big thing is the bias. What’s the bias of the selection process when you use GenAI? And there’s no clear answer at least to myself right now. So, because of this and other big challenges that we have identified to my knowledge, if not all the most of the organisations they do use Generative AI system in a soft way. We do not rely on the system to find out for us the correct candidate. We may ask the support of the system to scan the CVs that we receive in a very basic way. In a way that we know that it will exclude some quite of extreme cases that people, they just send CVs without having a particular interest into this specific position or without even completing, having, presenting the very basic skills that we have asked for it but that’s all. We very much still rely on human persons. We very much rely on human eyes who will check those CVs and humans are the people who will make the final decision, not technology. And I say again to that day because we’ve heard so much about this technology, which quite honestly, we don’t know how it will be the situation in a week’s time or in a month’s time. ZR Yeah, I mean, who knows? Maybe we’ll be running this webinar next year and it’ll just be all AI, we can just be sitting at home. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point and I think, certainly from the CIPD when we’re advising people, we would always say to you know, use these systems with caution and don’t outsource your responsibility to them, you know. You were the people who were doing the hiring. So, don’t let the, don’t let the system do the hiring for you because the system doesn’t have to deal with the consequences. And I think that’s, I think that’s generally how most organisations are using these is that they, you know, it’s it’s a helpful tool but ultimately those decisions get made by people. 00 41 32 ZR Because it’s people who are best able to know who’s going to be right in their organisation. Great. So, we’ve got our next question is, how else can I use Generative AI to keep me on track in my job search? So, obviously we’ve talked a bit about using it to practice for interviews and create CVs and things, but what other ways could people use it to kind of keep on track while they’re looking for work? Atikah, do you want to take that? AZ Yeah, this is a really interesting question right because I think I’m going to take this slightly differently in terms of on track, way in terms of tracking the system. One of the things especially if you are quite early on in your career or is that you actually don’t know what other available jobs out there beyond what your limited knowledge is. Right because especially if you, if you’re a first-gen graduate or like you know or If you don’t want really around you can talk to you about hey, these are the different options, beyond the lawyer, accountant and things like that. One of the things that AI is really good at is to actually brainstorm and suggest careers and jobs for you based on your prior experience, based on your passion, based on your interest. Right and this has been really interesting because and I especially noticed this from like like I said first-gen graduates or people who have that don’t have family members who work in corporate before things like that. Is what we do is and this is another prompt that I can share is like act as a career coach and review my experience, my CV, and my interest, and then you put it all up recommend three to five jobs or careers for me and then you will see. And sometimes, you know when I’ve done this with some of my coachees, they didn’t, they didn’t they even realise that there were these roles available. Right like business intelligence engineer, data analyst, and all of those kind of things. It’s just because we don’t know what we don’t know. And so, going back to the point of using AI as a tool to expand our knowledge is to ask them to be a career coach, right? Like, what are the kind of available roles out there? And so that could be a really interesting in terms of tracking your job search because sometimes we think we want, we only have this particular career path or there’s only this term. Another important prompt is. 00 44 03 AZ I am interested in insert job title. What are some of the other job titles that other companies use because I can tell you there are so many job titles that actually talk about the same thing. Or there’s job titles that sound similar but have very different job descriptions. Right so, that is one way that I found really, really helpful for people trying to expand their job search. I think tracking my job search if in the tracking nature of the word. I always like an excel sheet because you, this nothing can take away, nothing can take that away from excel. ZR No, I think that’s a great idea. Do you know what I’ve heard this advice so many times about using excel and I’ve never once done it because I think it’s maybe not for me but yeah I think it is really great advice and it comes up so often. So, yeah that is really really good. I love the idea of asking other jobs might be good for you or like, well, I think that’s such a good thing and because there’s so much information out there isn’t there like it’s easier than ever to research jobs so that almost gives you like a really great starting point and then you can go and LinkedIn and do a little bit of like looking around who has these jobs, where, what jobs did they have anything before. Like, there’s so much out there, it’s like that’s such a great way of kind of kicking off any thoughts. Konstantinos, did you have any ideas about kind of using Generative AI in different ways in the job search? KT Absolutely, I think this the Atikah’s point about just using Generative AI as a coach or as a mentor is just excellent. Also, another a little bit more practical, we kind of have touched this already, but I think that’s important is that the system can match your CV to a potential application you want to apply for, in a very easy way. And I think this is a very smart way of ensuring that every single application that you go through, it’s matched with the job description, which gives you a bigger percentage of success through at least the first stage, which is the scanning process of your CV. That’s the only big benefit other than coaching and mentoring I can think now. ZR Yeah, that’s really great. And I would add to that actually one thing that there’s, one thing that sometimes can be just super helpful is if you’re feeling a bit like negative about your job search, you can just get ChatGPT to like cheer you up or tell you like positive things which is kind of you know, it’s just like, it’s just a little bit of code, it’s not real, but sometimes that can actually just help click your mindset a little bit and make you feel like, oh yeah, OK, no, I can’t do this. 00 46 56 ZR It’s going to be fine. So, yeah, I think that’s a, I think that’s also like just a good little tip if you’re if you’re feeling a bit down and, yeah, you just need a bit of a boost. Great, OK, we’ve had a couple of questions come through the chat actually that I think kind of go together. So, one of them is, what are the biggest mistakes and errors that you’ve seen in CVs, which are most likely AI-generated? And we’ve also had one about getting feedback, like if you don’t get an Interview, is there a way that you can use ChatGPT or any of those generative AI things to get feedback? I guess these are kind of similar things just around like, how can you use it in a way that’s effective and kind of to help you. Atikah, do you have any thoughts on that. AZ So, in terms of the common CV questions, so CV mistakes was it? ZR Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I kind of merged two questions, yeah it wasn’t very helpful. Common mistakes that like pop up in AI-generated things? AZ So, common mistakes is actually you’ll be very surprised about this, actual weird sentence structures like, it’s very and you once you kind of see enough. You realise that there’s actually a very robotic sentence structure, seeing that ChatGPT will come out and then that is when we’ll know that it’s really like copy-pasted. It’s not a very natural kind of thing, and I say this as a second language speaker as well, you know it’s not it’s not necessarily just a first, first speak, first language speaker kind of thing. So, being able to see very like awkward sentence structures is very common, like grammatical errors are really common as well, and then, sometimes it’s also and bear with me, right? It’s sometimes the way that people do is they use big words. That really don’t mean anything because, you know, there’s this, there’s this hacking of keywords right off the JDs, right? They want to put keywords of the JDs in and then they say they do something but there’s no data point, there is no results, there is no link to their actual job and things like that. 00 49 16 AZ It’s just literally copy-pasted from the JD. So, be very careful about that because ultimately, you know, you want to say, you want to be true and authentic to yourself and say, This is actually what I’ve done not, this is what I think you want me to see as well. So, that’s a really common mistake of just like very empty sentences as well that doesn’t really say anything about what you’ve done. It’s just a copy-pasting of keywords. In terms of, I’m going to stop there and see whether Konstantinos has anything to add about common…? KT No, I don’t, I totally agree absolutely, I totally agree, and I will say that, that it’s super easy to fall off track, to fall off track, and, just in one sentence, the system has created something that doesn’t really represent who you are and it doesn’t seem authentic, it doesn’t seem real, it doesn’t seem honest. And it’s extremely easy for the system, it does this quite often. So, I think that it’s important that whatever it has been created by using GenAI, you go through it word by word and you ensure that every single word express your feeling, express who you are. ZR Yeah, I think the more that it, the more that it stops sounding like you, the more it’s going to sound like it’s GenAI, is the thing isn’t it? So, if it like, if it doesn’t sound like you, it’s probably going to sound like a load of other people who are copy and pasting stuff in. So, that’s where you need to be a bit careful. Atikah, did you have anything else to add? AZ Not for that common mistake question. ZR Right. AZ What was the second question again? ZR It was about how you might be able to use Generative AI to get feedback like post interviews. So, if you’ve had an interview and you know that you didn’t get the job, are there ways that you could use Generative AI to improve your performance there? Any thoughts? I actually think this is an interesting question because I would say that the best way to get feedback after an interview is to ask your interviewers and I think that’s something that a lot of people can feel nervous about but I think it’s so common that I would say just do it like, don’t be afraid and just go back to, go back and say well, did you, was there anything I could have improved for next time? 00 51 38 AZ Yeah… KT I think… AZ Also, I mean yeah, sorry go for it. KT Yeah, I think, a good starting point for this is, the question here is, you are not being called, you are not being asked to pass an interview or, you have been called to pass an interview and then you are not moving to the second stage of this interview, that’s two different things. And say this because if recruiters don’t even call you, then you need to look into your CV now, with my L&D hat, we know that 70% of our ability to communicate with others comes purely from our body language. That represents how difficult it is to express who we are in a piece of paper, to write down and really to be precise and authentic, and to ensure that these words really express who we are. It’s a difficult task. Now, if you keep sending CVs and you don’t get any answer, then you need to do a little bit of work on these dates to ensure that you do a little bit of the words that represent yourself. Now, on the other hand, if you send the CV, they call you for an interview, but you don’t move on, to my personal view, the best you can do is to reach out to those and ask for a feedback and explain to them, be honest with them and explain that I have been trying, I’ve been asked to pass the first stage of interview a few times. I have been declined at this stage all those times that I’ve been asked to pass it. And I want to progress, I want to improve what kind of holds me back. So, please be honest with me and give me honest, constructive feedback. A lot of recruiters will do that. People, and this is one of the good things about the people who work in these kinds of people practices, that they work because they want to help others. So, if you come across friendly and openly, and it’s highly likely that you’re going to have the feedback. So, you will know what is this that you need to improve and how to work on this skill or behaviour that you need to improve. ZR Yeah. And I think going back to your point, Konstantinos, that you made right at the beginning about, oh, you used to recommend that people do interview practice with their friends, and now it’s easier to do it with ChatGPT or whatever. I guess there’s still value isn’t there of doing it with a person and getting that feedback from other people. 00 54 05 ZR So, yeah, it’s about that balance. Atikah, did you have something you wanted to add? AZ Yeah, I wanted to say that some companies actually have a policy where they can’t give feedback. Most big corporations, MNCs don’t have, yeah, companies that as they’re give feedback because there’s legal risks and compliance risks as well. So, maybe smaller startup companies and things like that might be a bit more prone or like let’s say it’s it’s a very early prep call then maybe you’ll be able to give the feedback but most companies, I just want to call out that there is a policy that you cannot give feedback. So, just demystifying that. Not all companies but some big MNCs definitely have that beyond just tech but also like general kind of MNCs. I think there is, there is an element of, there’s a value to things like CIPD trust kind of programmes where you do speed mentoring, speed coaching, speed interviewing, speed, like this one on one like at the end of the day AI is a tool that’s not human. It’s also a very flawed tool because people who create it are (inaudible). Right, so nothing actually beats having the one on one interaction of having you know, programmes where you meet the people get the immediate feedback and then do that coaching. So, if you can like, read and if you have the opportunity my kind of first kind of advice is go for that, like don’t overly rely on AI but you know, yeah. ZR Yeah, I think that the human touch is still super important isn’t it? Yeah, you can’t just do it all from behind your keyboard. Sometimes you do just have to go out in front of people and get their, get their opinions and, and get their help. Absolutely. No, I think that’s absolutely right. And Atikah’s right, of course, you’re right about not every company will give feedback. A lot of companies will have policies, saying that they don’t. One thing I would say is that it never hurts to ask. And if you don’t ask, you won’t know if that’s their policy so, and that no one has ever been blacklisted by politely asking for feedback. So, yeah, do just go ahead and ask that question if and sometimes they’ll say we can’t, unfortunately we can’t give feedback. And in that case you’re just going to have to go and find other ways to get that information, but yeah, if there’s any room for manoeuvre, I would definitely just ask because you’ve got nothing to lose really at that stage. 00 56 44 ZR Great. Well, this has been a great discussion. Thank you all for joining, I think one of my colleagues is going to share our feedback form in the chat. So, if you could fill that out, that would be amazing, let us know what you thought and if there’s anything we can do differently for next time that would be super helpful. You can give us some feedback, that’s always really useful. Yeah and I guess just quickly, I know we’ve only got a few minutes but Atikah and Konstantinos, did you just want to share one final kind of thought for people, just to kind of sum up our discussion today. Atikah, do you want to go first? AZ Yeah, you know I work with so many people who sometimes self-reject because they don’t want, they think it’s easier to self-reject than receive rejection. So, if there’s anything that you know I hope you take away from is that use AI as a tool that will make you better, make everything more efficient, but also have faith in yourself and if you see anything that you want to apply for, go for it. And then you know there’s no harm in putting yourself out there. And you know, if you never say anything, your answer will always be no, so definitely go out there and have faith in yourself. ZR Yeah, have faith in yourself, I think is just primo advice, I would give that to anyone. Konstantinos did you have a final… KT Be honest and authentic. That’s the best advice I can give, use the technology to your advantage. The technology is here to support you, to make your life easier, but the technology should not replace who you are. I think that’s a very strong message, that the clear you make it when you construct, when you create your CV and the best way you express this even when you have conversations with recruiters. I think that’s the number one success key to the whole process. ZR Yeah I think that’s absolutely it. Well, thank you both for speaking and thank you to our lovely audience for being so great in the chat and coming up with all these amazing questions. And yeah, we’ll see you next time towards the end of January for our next. Webinar. Thank you very much. KT Brilliant. Thanks a lot. AZ Thank you.