Your career comeback: planning, applying and thriving in your next job

User6 – Zoe Raymond The CIPD Trust and sharing the expertise of people that work in HR is a kind of key part of what we do at the CIPD Trust and these webinars; we’re trying to give like a behind the scenes look into the recruitment process and what that means for you as someone who’s returning to work following a career break. So, we’ve got some really great speakers today who are going to talk us through some things about how to do that job search, how we get going. 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 no attendees will appear on the recording. Please use the chat to ask questions and make comments. Just be aware that we might read those out on the recording and my colleague Resonne [phonetic, 00:46] will be posting tips and links in the chat, so keep an eye out for her. We’re going to be talking through questions that were submitted when people registered for this webinar. We’ve hundreds of questions submitted, so we won’t be able to answer every single one, I’m sorry, but we have tried to pick ones that we think will be the most universally applicable. We had quite a lot of versions of the same question so, we’ve tried to boil them down to some really great ones. And if we have time towards the end, we’ll answer some questions from the chat. So, please do share anything that you might have and if, following this webinar, you feel that you’d really benefit from some one-to-one support. Please do sign up for our “Bridging the Gap” mentoring programme. You can get up to six months support with your job search from one of our fabulous HR Mentors. The link is in the chat, so please do click through and sign up. So, today we’re going to be talking about career gaps and how to talk about them. And when you’ve been out of work for a while, that gap on your CV can feel like a huge, looming obstacle. And it’s really easy to fall into the trap of thinking that every setback is due to how long you’ve been out of work. So today, we’re going to talk about some of the realities of job searching with a gap on your CV, some of the ways that you can keep positive and make a successful return to work, and we’ve got a great panel here today to share their thoughts and ideas on how to do that. So, let’s hear from them now. Belgin, do you want to introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about yourself. User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville Sure. Yes. Hi everybody. My name is Belgin Okay-Somerville. I’m not an HR person, but I am an academic who does a lot of research on job search and contemporary careers. I’m a Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Business School, and I’m delighted to be here. User6 – Zoe Raymond Great. And Ciara, let’s hear from you next. User15 – Ciara Carty Yeah. Hi. It’s lovely to be here as well. I’m all the way over in not so sunny Dublin. So, we have a very dull day today here. I’ve worked in HR roles across very different sectors over probably about 25 years. So, I’ve worked in financial services, I’ve worked in a number of roles in not-for-profit organisations working in social care. So, I hope that I’ll be able to use some of that experience as a recruiter and as someone who now, I partner with organisations in my own company in working with them to improve their people strategies as well, so lovely to be here. User6 – Zoe Raymond Brilliant. And finally, Roxy, let’s hear from you. User16 – Roxy Kaminska Yeah. Hi everyone. My name is Roxy and thank you for CIPD for having me today. I’m very glad to talk about this. I’ve been in HR for five years now. I moved to the UK from Ukraine three years ago, due to war and I actually had a career gap myself, when I was searching for a job, for a few months. So, I hope that I can bring some insights from my personal experience and just yeah, just that we have a great, insightful session. User6 – Zoe Raymond Brilliant. Great. So, we’re going to start off with a question for the audience. I think we’ve got one of our poll questions coming up. So, the question is, “What is the longest amount of time that you’ve been out of work?” And I think we’ve got some options for you. Let’s see if that’s popping up now. Oh, no, seems that we’re having a few technical challenges there. So, well, why don’t you just tell us in the chat what’s the longest? Oh, here we go. “What’s the longest amount of time you’ve been out of work?” So, the options are: less than a year, one to two years, two to five years, five to ten years or over ten years, so. Oh, I can see we’re getting some really great responses. So, quite a lot of people saying, “less than a year”, which I guess it is, is your experience, Roxy, of just having that gap of a few months, but it still feeling really significant. And we’ve had some, a few other different ones, quite a range, couple of people “over ten years” and a few more people kind of “five to ten”. Ciara, Belgin. I wonder if either if you’ve got any kind of well, I suppose a question is, have either of you had a time out of work that’s kind of been significant like that? User15 – Ciara Carty I haven’t had an actual gap, but I’ve definitely had transitions in my career. So, I’ve had some points at which I’ve changed direction and some of the same, I suppose challenges that you might face in terms of reorienting yourself or equipping yourself with new skills or having to have that self-belief and confidence to be able to actually step into a new space, would be very similar. But I definitely think the world has changed, as we all know, in recent times and breaks and career gaps are not what they used to be perceived as. I think in, when I started in HR and in recruitment, they had been seen as maybe a red flag or a risk or, you know, the world of work was very different, where people, you know, went into a career for life. So, if you weren’t in a career for a long time, there was maybe some more questioning around that, whereas now we’re in a very fluid phase, especially post-COVID. So, I think many organisations actually, they welcome, you know that kind of I suppose pivot in people’s lives. User6 – Zoe Raymond That’s great. And actually, Ciara, that kind of takes us on to our first question, which is around how employers look at a gap on a CV. I think you’ve talked a bit about how it’s quite different now, is that yeah, is that something you can tell us a bit more about? User15 – Ciara Carty Yeah, I think it used to be something that was very linear, in the past with employers. So, that they liked to see a very steady, natural progression, and in education as well as in, in employment backgrounds. But now I think there, the world of employment has changed dramatically and the skills that people bring from very different experiences are seen now as much more of a, I suppose, a diverse range of contributions. So, we aren’t, in employment now, or employers aren’t looking for a full workforce of the same set of skills or the same type of background. So, I think often what they will look for, and many big, large employers in the UK and in Ireland, are actually, they’re making formalised programmes, re-entry programmes where they’re looking for people who are maybe, like the poll said, some people were out of work up to ten years or more. So, they are actually going out, seeking to employ and give opportunities to people who have been out of the workforce for a long time. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah. Excellent. And Roxy, I wonder if you’ve had any experience of how employers kind of view career gaps or, I guess, also in your role, if you’ve seen a lot of people coming in with different gaps on their CV. User16 – Roxy Kaminska I can say from my personal experience, when I had a career gap and also like being refugee, I think it’s not quite mixed, to be honest. I kind of struggled to find a job. It was, I’m not sure if it was, you know, perception of the career gap or me being from another country, but I spent a few months like searching for jobs, having a lot of interviews. They were not positive, and I couldn’t find a job in HR despite, like, have like three and a half years of experience at that point in HR. So, I ended up just having like just basic admin role in the law firm. So, I couldn’t find a job in HR and after spending like a year working there, then I could move to like my HR role. So, yeah, I think I had a bit different experience, but at the end I ended up in HR. It just took me a bit like longer than it would take if I probably was like still back at home or I didn’t have a career gap, but I would just say that there will always be like an employer who will believe in you, will try to understand you, will put themselves in your position, and I was happy, I was glad to find that employer who was ready to support me and ready to, like, put themselves in my shoes. And there will always be like an employer like that for everyone. So, don’t want to discourage anyone. It just might take some time and some effort that’s, I can relate to that. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah. Great. Excellent. And so, our next question is, “How can anyone? How can we ensure that applications get through an applicant-tracking system, despite having a career break on a CV?” So, this is a question we get a lot. We get a lot of questions about applicant-tracking systems and there is a lot of misinformation out there about how they work and there’s also a lot of people that will try and tell you that there’s like one little trick and then you’ll get through every single system and all the systems are the same. So, Ciara, I wonder if you could do a bit of myth-busting for us. User15 – Ciara Carty I think the one thing I’d say is that in all applicant-tracking systems, well in, for the most part, there’s still generally humans that are behind the scenes. So, the applicant-tracking systems are; they’re tools designed for recruiters to be able to deal with large volumes and take out some of the administrative work. And, for me, as when I’m recruiting, I think where I use the applicant-tracking system and I know for most employers, they want to see, I suppose your job description. Whatever role that you’ve put out there for advertising, they want to see the keywords, the actual specifications that you’ve set out, being reflected back into the CV and the application that is sent in. So, that would be one really simple way of actually addressing your application, is to, are you using the right keywords? Are you able to reflect what the job specification has done? And in terms of career gaps and how to frame those, I think being clear in your structure of your CV or your application with dates. So, I think an applicant-tracking system will definitely red flag if there’s just no naming or kind of, I suppose, clarity with regards if, particularly if it’s a longer gap. If something is just missing, it’s going to confuse the system. So I, what I would suggest is that for people who have been out of work for whatever reason, you frame it, and you don’t have to give great detail, but you actually track it in your own experience. So, if you were out for care-giving reasons or out for illness, you might just say for the years x to x, whatever your care-giving responsibilities and whatever skills, because often during these breaks we have other developmental kind of tools or growth opportunities. So, maybe listing some of those, but just naming that in the applicant-tracking system would be really helpful and you can broaden things out maybe a little more in a cover letter. But once you’re aligned to what the specification is, I think that’s most of the trick. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, great. Thank you. And so, our next question is how to, I guess, follows on from what you were saying. So, this is kind of how to, “how do you positively present a multi-year career gap due to a severe health condition that will remain a disability I need to disclose to employers.” Belgin, I wonder if you could just talk us through some of the how to, kind of, think about framing something that’s been a bit of a negative situation, positively. How can someone kind of start to think about that? User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville I will try. So, I think, if we take a couple of steps back, I completely agree with Roxy and Ciara, that gaps aren’t anything extraordinary nowadays. We do have a lot more gaps in our careers than say compared to two/three decades ago, yeah? And I think there is a growing understanding that gaps do not necessarily mean we are not competent; we take gaps for many, many different reasons. So, I think one of the starting points in our minds, as we approach a job search coming out of a gap, is to stop questioning our competence and start building on our career skills, and they’re not necessarily the same things. How well we can do a job is not necessarily the same thing as how good we are at looking for a job. So, spending more time understanding, what are the different options available in the labour market, maybe also reflecting, Ciara mentioned that, you know when we take breaks, whether that’s out of choice or whether that’s out of necessity, we take gaps, but things happen to us. So, maybe taking a moment to reflect on what skills can we talk about as a result of this gap? It doesn’t necessarily be just skills. It can be a realisation. You realise that you really don’t want to do something anymore or you realise you enjoy something. So, with gaps, I know we always focus on the negative side of things, but there is also positive things that I think we should acknowledge, as we approach our job search as well. And once you’re ready to go back into the labour market, I think trying to be as realistic as possible is also a good thing. So, if you’ve stopped for a number of years, chances are your field has moved on. So, are you on top of your field? What do you need to do to maybe get back on track, etc? So, and it’s not easy being realistic if you haven’t been inside. So, and I guess we’ll talk about other ways, such as networking etc. But talking to other people, is always a good option. And I’ll stop there and let the industry experts chip in as well. But I can come back. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, Ciara, I wonder if you’ve got any thoughts about that, particularly around the kind of having to disclose a disability as well as talking about the gap. Is there a kind of a “best foot forward” way of doing that, as it were? User15 – Ciara Carty Yeah, I think you have to be, I suppose, careful for yourself as well. So, you have to consider what are you comfortable in sharing. So, the level of detail that you might want to share; it’s different for everyone. And whose right is it to know you know, in detail what the reasons for your break was. So, it’s about being comfortable and actually being OK with sharing, if you are going to give some additional detail, and for everyone that that will vary. But also, like Belgin was saying, is to actually reflect on what it is that you actually learned, so as a person? How did you grow during that time? And sometimes you know, particularly if you’ve had a breakout of, because of something out of your control, circumstances that were not expected or you know you didn’t, I suppose necessarily anticipate, it can cause doubt and self-doubt and it’s about actually saying, “Well you came through that”. What levels of resilience? And it’s; resilience is often used as you know, too commonly as a word and as a skill, but what resilience did you take from that, and how have you grown as a person? But yeah, I would be careful about having to, to feel obliged to over-share, you know, employers have very strongly guided limitations on what they can ask and what they can, you know question in an application or an interview as well. So, just to remember that as well. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. And so, our next question is kind of on a similar theme, but just a slightly different situation. So, someone says, “If you’ve taken time out to care for a family member, what should you say?” So, I guess this is again a similar thing of just how do you begin to tell that story of your gap? Belgin, should we come back to you because I think you were kind of beginning on quite an interesting thing there? User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville I think where I left off, if that’s what you’re referring to, Zoe? The power of networking I think is where I was, where I was talking about and when we use the word “networking”, it’s often almost like a scary term for many of us, including myself, back in the day, until I realised it’s really just talking to people and understanding other people’s experiences, because oftentimes, when these things happen, the things that happened that are out of our control that put us out of the labour market, it’s very easy to, scares us. Not only lose our confidence in ourselves but also feel like it’s only happening to us. But they’re not necessarily, that’s not necessarily the situation and there is knowledge that’s out there that can be shared, for instance, through the Mentoring Programme and there’s loads of material that CIPD actually has on the website. But if you’ve taken time out to care for a family member, going back into work. I’m assuming, on average, the care situation will still be there when you’re going back into work. So, my recommendation there is for thinking about the job search process, not only as you getting into work, but also trying to find a good match that satisfies your current needs and expectations, in your working life. So, what does that mean? Will the employer be able to accommodate whatever caring responsibilities you may still carry on when you get back to work? So, in an interview situation, for instance, as Ciara said, share as much as you are comfortable sharing. And remember that word, that employers can actually, they are restrained by law, for asking many different questions, so keep that in mind. But also, it’s a two-way process. It’s a process for you to judge whether this new employment situation will be able to accommodate your now-changed needs? So, I would use, for instance, an interview situation to gauge whether you would like to work there as well, because you don’t want to be in a situation where you’re two weeks in, and you realise, “No, this is not working out.” User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, that was great. Thank you. Yeah, I think that’s a really good way of thinking about it, that part of how you talk about it is also about how an employer reacts and whether or not that’s going to be a good fit, because, I think one thing we don’t talk about enough in job searching is that it’s not just searching for any job that will take you, it’s about searching for a job that you want also and that you, you know you have something to offer, and it’s. Yeah, it can feel sometimes, like all the power is with the employers. But don’t forget you do still have your own power and your own agency in that sense, yeah. Great. So, our next question is on a similar theme. So, we’ve put all of these kind of three together because they’re all about the kind of “how do you talk about different aspects of your career break?” So, the next question is, “If you took a career break due to burnout, what is the best way to positively spin this when looking for work?” Roxy, I wonder if you’ve got any thoughts about this in terms of just yeah, how you can talk about having had like a negative work experience and that’s why you’ve kind of had time out? User16 – Roxy Kaminska Yeah, sure. So, I think it’s quite similar to your previous questions and what we were talking about. I think the key is to be honest about situation, to address the situation that it happened, but present it like more balanced, maybe not. Don’t go too over details. Don’t blame the previous employer, but rather I think just like shift it to the positive side in terms of like what did you do during this career break? What did you learn? Maybe you took some courses, you upscaled; just turn it to something positive. And also, I feel like, I mean, I think burnout is quite common these days, unfortunately, and it’s not that like red flag anymore when people talk about it. And I feel like, if you know if you made that choice, it speaks that you are taking care of your well-being and employers who value well-being and value healthy workplace will understand that, appreciate that and won’t question it that much. So, I think again, the key is just turn it into something positive and show the employer that you will have done like your inner work and you’re ready to come back. You feel energised, balanced and yeah, I think that’s, that should work great. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, that’s really great. Thank you. Ciara, did you have anything to add about that? About kind of talking about negative work experiences? User15 – Ciara Carty Yeah. I think Roxy’s points are really well made and it is about actually, yeah, being very true to yourself and recognising your own self-care strategy in whatever. And like Belgin said, be careful about, you know what, what role you’re considering. And I had a thought as Roxy was talking, thinking you know, it’s likely that anyone sitting at the interview table is also a risk of burnout. You know, it’s something that is universal now, especially since the pandemic. So, you know, again, sometimes we think, when we’re applying and kind of, we’re on that side of the table that we’re the ones in need, but often your interview panel, they’re made up of humans who are also struggling with life events and difficulties, who may have had career breaks themselves. So, I suppose to again, trust that you’re dealing with, you know, humans at the end of the day and who hopefully can relate. And I think framing things is really important. So, again on a CV, you might frame it as a sabbatical, a wellness break or, you know, and really concentrate on what growth, what skills, what learning. How are you richer for the break as well. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, I think that’s great. Thank you so much. So, we’ve got another question for our audience coming up. Oh, here we go. So, oh I don’t know if this, can people answer this by typing? Yes. So, “What is something positive that you have gained from being out of work?” So, we kind of saw earlier that quite a lot of you guys in the audience have had time out of work for various lengths of time. “What is something positive that you’ve gained from that?” Oh, I can see “resilience” coming up. That’s great. That’s just what we were talking about, “opportunity to volunteer”, that’s brilliant. Big fan of people getting time to volunteer. Oh, several people saying “perspective”, realising that slowing down is a positive which really ties into what Roxy was saying about being kind of ready to go back. Oh, lots of really great things; “Career focus, redirection”. “Get time to recharge and establish my expectations”. Oh, really fantastic. Great things! Oh, someone’s discovered their identity even better. Oh, fab “new skills” even, that’s great. So, I think you can see how great these things are, about just the value that sometimes-having time out of work can be. Not all of the value that you bring into employment comes from employment. Sometimes that can come from not being in employment. I think we all know that instinctively but sometimes it really helps to kind of write that down. I think these things are really great. I wonder if any of you three had anything that you picked out here that looked particularly good or interesting. User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville I’ll maybe chip in here, Zoe. I should have. I should have said, I’m not on a career break at the moment, but I am on a sabbatical which releases me from some duties of my work and I can relate to a lot of the things on the list, you know, new skills, even identity, you know? Part of the skills that I’ve been released off are to do with teaching, for instance, and I’m now refiguring my research identity as well. So, having that time off is actually, as Ciara mentioned earlier, in a way could be an opportunity to find out positive things about your career. So, a lot of it resonates with the last few months that I’ve been spending in sabbatical as well. User6 – Zoe Raymond Great. Yeah, well, that’s great to hear. So, you can really like, resonate with these things. I hope everyone in the chat could see all the responses. I don’t, I’m afraid this is a slightly new platform for me. So, I apologise if some of that wasn’t coming up for you all. Great, so back to our questions. So, our next question is, “How to overcome the lack of confidence and self-belief ones, self-belief in one’s worth in resuming work after a longer gap”. So, how I mean, we know that having a career gap can really knock your confidence when you start looking for work again. So, how can people really build that confidence back up? Roxy, I can see you’re nodding. So, I’m going to go to you first. User16 – Roxy Kaminska Yeah. When I had like career gap for a few months, honestly, that felt longer for me because every day is the same, at least it was for me. And just like endless interviews and that’s it. I think the important thing is, first of all, to focus and like, remember what you have achieved so far. So, just put your career in perspective and what you’ve gained so far and don’t let that gap define your value and just yeah, focus on your experience and what can you bring to the next role. And yes, it was, it, sometimes it can be frustrating, but I think it’s just a simple thing to keep going. Keep applying, keep having interviews, sometimes taking smaller steps, whatever you feel comfortable. But yeah, just, I think it’s important to remember and reflect on your past achievements and keep that in mind and just yeah, don’t let that gap, for whatever reason it happened, like define your self-worth as a professional. Yeah, that’s how I felt. User6 – Zoe Raymond Great. Thank you. And I can see Viola [phonetic, 30:59] in the chat has said, “it helps being consistent and disciplined, I’ve found, with my job search and the way my days are structured”. I think that’s really true, isn’t it, what you were saying about every day felt the same? I think you need to put that structure in, don’t you? User16 – Roxy Kaminska Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to add about networking as Belgin was saying, I think it’s quite important to talk to people who had similar experience. For example, a few of my friends had career gaps as well. And for example, my friends from Ukraine also moved to another country. We kind of all had career gaps. So, it just helps to talk to people who have similar experiences, understanding you’re not alone, and as we were talking, like having career gaps nowadays, is quite common, so there’s nothing to be ashamed about or feeling uncomfortable about. And just yeah, just share it with people and yeah, it will, it’ll give you more confidence for sure. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, great. Ciara, did you have anything to add on that? User15 I think, in a very practical sense, just create a daily kind of set of wins or small tasks that you have within your control; to say you know, you mightn’t be able to control all the things. But, and I do it, I do it every day and some of the tasks are so boring and you know really simple. But I procrastinate a lot. So, and I also, I think, I’ve pivoted again into running my own company and I’m getting used to lots of knock-backs and rejections and you know some wins as well. So, I have to make sure that I can do what’s in my power and you know, maybe and I don’t say it lightly, but let go of you know the other side. So, and be confident. Like we said at the very start of the session, there will be an employer that matches you. And I have, in my 25 years or longer, I’ve had many knock-backs and now looking back, when the door opened to different opportunities and it felt like it was never going to open, it was the right door. So, have. Yeah, have that trust and confidence and give yourself an opportunity to yeah, be around positive people as well. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, I think that’s really great advice about, yeah, finding the positive people in your life and being around them. I love the having a list of things to tick off as your achievements. I think it’s really easy, when you’re not working and when you’re looking for work, to feel like there’s just one achievement and that’s going to be getting the job and everything leading up to that is a failure if it doesn’t end in that. And I think it’s so important to keep focused on the, you know, that end result. On the how to be positive day-to-day and how to make sure that you know you’re feeling good each day instead of thinking, “Why haven’t I heard back?” Because we know how dispiriting that can be. Great. So, our next question, and I’m going to ask you this Belgin, is, “How do I turn my career gaps and different career pathways into effective transferable skills?” So, how can someone kind of bring together all the different things that they’ve been doing, either not in work or in work and kind of think about that in an effective way of thinking about their transferable skills? User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville I think we’d started mentioning some of these early on as well, but obviously when you get to selling yourself for a job, you will need to convince the employer that you have the skills that are required for the job. Not only find an employer that matches your expectations, etc, but also you know, you want to be able to do that job properly, whatever it is you’re applying for. So, some of the things we’ve already talked about, you know, when we take time out, whether that’s for, out of choice or not, we often end up doing many different things. Many different things could look like “only” caring for someone in our family, but even that also has many different things involved in it. So, re: that reflection that we mentioned early on about, you know what is it we’ve been doing in the last year, six months, three years, however long that we’ve been out? And it could, we often disregard some of these things that if they’re not unpaid, if they’re not paid. So, things like our volunteering roles, our hobbies, the clubs that we’ve been involved in, etc. So, it’s really reflecting on, and some of the things are actually even more objective than that. You know some of us actually take part in various courses or you know, various ways of continuous professional development opportunities – they’re easier to demonstrate. The ones that are more difficult to demonstrate are the ones that we take for granted, the ones that are unpaid. So, reflecting on all of those unpaid things that we’ve done, that we’ve filled our time with and it could be really just sticking there and trying to find that job day after day, as Roxy was saying and it could look very much like repeating yourself. But even there, you could talk about resilience, persistence etc. So, what is it that I can get out of all of these experiences? That reflection I think, comes back to me again, but also keeping in mind that when we’re talking about the different pathways, keeping in mind you know, from our gap today, tomorrow is not going to be necessarily where we want to be in our career – not for many of us. It often involves baby steps, yeah? Often involves understanding, you know, what is it you’re getting into? Maybe trying to build up skills one way or another, maybe through quantifiable, objective ways. It could be certificates; it could be short courses etc but realising that or recognising that it’s not going to happen overnight. We talked about finding our identity – it’s not going to happen overnight that you’re going to move out from your carer position or your burnout position today and tomorrow into a fulfilled job, yeah? So, it’s really kind of also reflecting on or coming up with a plan, maybe, a realistic plan. So, what are the steps that are involved in getting you there? And again, talking to people, maybe seeking that mentorship through CIPD. CIPD isn’t paying us to promote mentorship, but I have been involved on the other end, and I find it very, very helpful, that’s why I keep mentioning it. It’s really, as I say, recognising the baby steps or initial steps or what could be the steps or stages that could get you from your current position to where you want to be? Recognising it’s not necessarily going to happen overnight. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s the kind of a key thing about transferable skills, isn’t it? Sometimes you need to think about how to transfer them so you can demonstrate them in a different environment first and then build up to whatever’s next. Ciara, what’s your kind of perspective? From the kind of employer’s perspective, I guess, of transferable skills. How can someone bring all those things together and demonstrate them really well? User15 – Ciara Carty I think anything that involves a commitment, an on-going commitment. So, volunteering is one of those things. When I see it on the CV, I think, because that’s the ultimate commitment is to volunteer, to do something, to give your time, turn up consistently, sometimes doing, you know, difficult tasks and or, you know. And I think, anyone that coaches or volunteers at their park run or you know in bad weather and you know has to stand around for a long time, that to me shows a real you know, tenacity and something that I would like in a team, if I’m recruiting. Other skills, I think that you can definitely, you can transfer to any role, any employment is the interpersonal. So, teamwork skills and a lot of those volunteering roles will involve some level of social interaction. So, your communication skills, even when I think of, if someone has been care-giving and I think of the amount of project management and you know, multitasking that goes on. The commitment to be able to manage you know someone’s schedule and support them in lots of different activities. That to me is you know it’s an incredible kind of piece of experience. So, anything that I think can show that you’d be a good team member, you’re going to be reliable, you’re going to turn up and you’re going to be able to communicate with other people on the team. That’s what an employer wants. So, you know, just to remember that, you know, it doesn’t have to be, like Belgin has said, it doesn’t have to be paid employment for that. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, that’s great, right. And so, we’ve got our next question which, kind of I guess, slightly follows on from this and certainly picks up on something we’ve been saying a lot around networking. And I’m going to come to you, Roxy, about this. So, “what is the best way to approach LinkedIn or other platforms when searching for a new role after a career break?” So, how can someone get going on those kind of, that sort of like social media, the networking space, I guess let’s say generally? User16 – Roxy Kaminska Yeah, sure. Yeah. LinkedIn, I think, is a very powerful tool. I found all my jobs through LinkedIn. And in terms of updating your profile, I think they have option now to put like a career break as a, as a like not a place to work but like in chronological order. So, I think it’s important to put that, as we were talking about just being honest and just if you feel comfortable, put like a few words, why did you have, like a career breaks, for recruiter who is seeing your profile, they can clearly see that. You can also add a title. So, for example, it can be like “HR professional, open to new opportunities” and then you can add a summary after the title, of your achievements, your job experience and just to again add like “open to new opportunities.” So, that’s in terms of your profile and you can add skills at the end and also in, yeah, in terms of networking, just basically engage with posts, engage with communities that are interesting for you. Engage with companies and just basically, if you just grow your network, just add people from your previous workplaces, colleagues of colleagues. You never know how it’s going to work out and, for example, if you feel comfortable, you can just like share a post that, “I’m currently on a career break, I’m open for new opportunities”. I know it worked out great for a lot of my friends, for example, if they post something and somebody from their network is looking for this particular person and they were able to find a job. So, that’s, that’s quite I think, a powerful tool, powerful community. So, just I would just advise to use it to maximum. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. And I guess so, we ran a webinar last year about the best ways to use LinkedIn and one of the tips that’s really stayed with me, which you’ve just kind of covered, was about; you don’t have to do loads of posts, you can just do a bit of reacting and commenting, and people will eventually just recognise your name and that just helps to get you kind of just a bit more up there in the, in kind of people’s minds. Yeah, Belgin, you’ve mentioned the importance of networking. I wonder if you could just talk to us a bit more about that and how people might go about it? User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville I can, actually. Recently we’ve done a study, we talked about over 80 job seekers and how they use social media in general to understand exactly this question. We found, not too surprisingly, but there was a significant group of people who use social media, particularly LinkedIn, to learn from other people. They’re not necessarily very, very active there. They’re not – it’s those of us who don’t feel too comfortable being out loud in public, yeah? But there’s a lot of learning from other people. As Roxy said, it could be your colleague from your previous job or it could be your friend from school or their friend or it could be a celebrity that you find, whose career quite interesting, yeah? There’s a lot of, you know, observational learning that you can actually do, in terms of what’s going on in the world of work, what’s going on in your own area. And these people tend to be more likely what we ended up calling “purists”, they represent themselves as they are. They don’t try to be someone else to fit into different jobs, yeah? And then we’ve got “players” who play the system, who present themselves in certain ways, thinking these are the people that are wanted, or these are the skills that are wanted in the areas and both, in their own right, find meaningful ways. So, there is no right or wrong because people approach social media and the job search in general, however way they feel comfortable. So, it’s, there’s not necessarily one way is better than the other. It’s really how people approach and how people are more comfortable. And there’s a lot of kind of networking opportunities that doesn’t require any effort at all, apart from clicking a button or connecting with somebody on LinkedIn. There’s also a lot of learning opportunities that you could do, say via courses on LinkedIn. There’s also courses on how to use LinkedIn for the better. And I think we should also remember that LinkedIn operates based on algorithms. So, as Roxy said, the more you feed into LinkedIn about yourself, the keywords that Ciara was mentioning in terms of putting into your application forms, it’s a similar thing with LinkedIn, and I guess other social media platforms that are geared towards employment and careers. So, the more you put in about your interests, the more likely that you’re, you will get opportunities related to those interests, etc. And again, you can share as much or as little as you want. And one of the key things is, you can put yourself as “open to work”, which then signals to recruiters or head-hunters that you are open to work, and they can approach you about it. So, it also saves some of the effort on your end to kind of actively go and approach people. And one other thing, if I may add, in terms of research findings and this is nothing new, but the reason platforms like LinkedIn are effective is because they build on our, what we call “weak links”. So, job search research shows that it’s not necessarily your mum or your dad or your closest people that are instrumental in getting you the job that you will like, or you will find enjoyable. It’s the people that are kind of further away in your network. So, through word of mouth or someone recognises your name or something you do resonates with someone else, etc. It’s those further links that are often more instrumental in finding jobs. And I think the beauty of LinkedIn comes in there, because you’re not networking with your mum or dad. It’s networking with the professionals in the right places. User6 – Zoe Raymond That’s really great. Thank you. And really interesting to hear about that research because yeah, I think. Like, whenever you think of networking, you think it must be people that you know really well who are going to get you a job. So yeah, super, it’s great to hear that it’s one of more your wider network and those, “weak links” as you put them are going to be the ones that really unlock that. Ciara, I wonder if you’ve just got any quick thoughts about networking while we’re on this? User15 – Ciara Carty Yeah. And I think, like it’s been said, “networking” is a scary term. It sounds hard. But it’s, I see it as, it’s really just staying connected and again recognising that there are lots of people that can help you on your path, people you know and also people you don’t know. So, that’s the power of that platform and it opens up so many opportunities. I’ve seen it to good effect where, particularly for those of us that might be older, that you can actually connect or reconnect with people you may not have worked with for a long, long time. And people still remember, you know different roles where you may have been colleagues, and they may now be working somewhere else that there’s opportunity or they know someone who knows someone. So, it’s about, and like you said from the previous webinar, it’s remember you don’t have to post because that’s, that can be quite difficult sometimes. But it’s about actually liking and following and giving some kudos as, as they say, and I know it’s so cheesy, but giving recognition to other people, because I think that always comes back in a positive way. So, you know being interested in other people, being interested in the industry that you’re looking to seek a role in. So, if it’s social care, if it’s HR, or if it’s, you know, following those groups, joining the groups, doing the training, as Belgin said. It’s a very good platform to actually do your networking. But the other add-on, and we’ve said it already, is; don’t forget your human network as well. And I’ve seen some great opportunities where people in, and it could be from your volunteering or your social side, they know something that may be of interest to you. So, don’t be afraid to put it out there in your own personal network as well. User6 – Zoe Raymond Great. Yeah. So, we’ve had a question in the chat, which was, “How can I overcome the mental blocks that are preventing me from fully engaging with my learning due to a long career break?” I guess it’s some of that, like how can someone get remotivated again to at least start a kind of, and I assume they’re talking about a learning that’s then going to lead to, to work. How can someone overcome that kind of that lack of motivation? Roxy, do you have any thoughts about that? User16 – Roxy Kaminska I think it’s just probably take step-by-step, not to overload yourself with information. For example, this year I’ve completed my CIPD 5, and I was in like touch with other people in my group who were studying for it and for some of them they were, for example, taking care of their children. So, they were doing this during that or not learning for a very long time. So, I saw it that, for some people it was quite difficult, and I think it just yeah. Take it step-by-step, allow yourself more time not like comparing yourself to other, how fast they were doing it, because for example, I finished university not that long ago, so I’m still in that studying mode, but I know for people who are older this can be quite challenging. So, I think it’s just, yeah, take it step-by-step, allowing yourself more time, not to be discouraged if you’re, if it’s not happening, you know from the first time you’re remembering everything or you’re getting everything right, but just, yeah, just being kind and gentle to yourself. And I think within a time you will, you’ll improve and the process, it will be easier, and the learning will be easier and more enjoyable as well. User6 – Zoe Raymond Great. Thank you. Belgin, I was going to go to you, but you’ve appeared twice on my screen, so I don’t know if you’re having some technical challenges? User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville I am. I’ve decided to go on my mobile because I think my wireless has given up, apologies. User6 – Zoe Raymond That’s it. Well, if you can, if the connection stays OK. I was wondering from your kind of experience in terms of teaching like how? Do you have any advice for someone who’s really struggling to get back into, to learning and how to kind of motivate themselves to get on with it? User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville In terms of teaching as in going back into education or going into education or? User6 – Zoe Raymond In terms of, yeah, in terms of, so someone who is struggling with their, to get back into education in terms of mentally they’re struggling. How can they kind of motivate themselves to kind of, I guess get on with their learning? User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville I think there’s two questions there because, as we said with burnout, also issues to do with mental health is more and more common, both in education as well as in employment as well. So, I guess if someone is struggling with mental health issues, the first question there is, are they ready to get back into or are they ready to get into these things? Because we, the last thing you want to do is push yourself for something that’s not going to, that’s going to set you further back as well. But if the answer is “yes”, the time is right and you’re ready. And one of the things that I’ve increasingly started doing with my students is I’m asking them a lot of motivation-related questions. Why are you here? What brought you here in the first? What? What is it you wanted to do? Questions such as, “Imagine your retirement party. What is it they’re talking about yourself?”. Some of these things are from coaching practice, and I’m not a coach myself, but. It’s really questions that I try to prompt my students to, or anyone who comes to me about going back into or going into education, is trying to understand where the motivation comes from because, when we lack that insight about ourselves and it’s very easy to lose motivation that was already weak in the beginning. It’s also a lot more easier to end up burnt out because we take on many, many different things or things that aren’t necessarily aligned with our goal. So, it’s really trying to see what is it that sparked an interest in people, before we head out into a new direction. Basically, if someone’s looking into going into education etc. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, that’s really great. Thank you. So, I think we’re just about coming up to the end of our time. We have got an evaluation form that we’d love for all of our attendees to fill out. I’m going to copy that link and pop it in the chat. I’m sure some my colleagues will have it up. Yeah, there we go. So, you can see that Karine [phonetic, 56:35] has shared it. If you could fill out that, like three-minute survey, just let us know what you thought of today’s session. And while you’re doing that, I’m going to go round all three of our lovely panellists and ask for one final thing that they want people to take away from today’s session. Ciara, I’m going to start with you. User15 – Ciara Carty I think it, from the chat earlier, the poll earlier, what really came out to me was the perspective, the word “perspective”. So, it’s having that in all aspects of this, so and not underestimating the experiences that you’ve gained through your break and the value that they bring to any workplace, so to really celebrate that. User6 – Zoe Raymond Great. Thank you. And Roxy, how about you? User16 – Roxy Kaminska I would say, don’t let a gap define your value and your professional skills, your professional experience, and let it question yourself as a professional. I think it’s important to remember that you control the narrative, so it’s not about like what happened but what you did with it, what you did with this time and how you present this to the employer. I think that’s the most important part. User6 – Zoe Raymond Yeah, and finally, Belgin. User11 – Belgin Okay-Somerville I think on top of all the things that have been said, I could maybe say, searching for a job is a process and so is a transition, so is a career transition. So, be realistic and be easy on yourself. Be clear about your direction and talk to people, talk to people about, doesn’t necessarily mean talking to professionals, but talking to people about where you are, where you want to go, etc. User6 – Zoe Raymond Great. Yeah. Thank you so much. I think that really sums up, I guess one of the key messages we want people to take away, which is just being kind to yourself is so important. And I think particularly you know, job searching is hard, like no, let’s not sugar-coat it, it’s pretty, it can be really demoralising. It’s really important to look after yourself and in a lot of ways, that is the thing that is going to get you that job in the end. It’s about being kind to yourself. It’s that kind of the key ingredient going all the way through, so do hang on to that. And I can see someone in the chat saying “good luck” to everyone, so I would also say that to all of you. So well, thank you so much all for joining us today on this kind of slightly well, certainly rainy here, lunchtime and a particularly huge thanks to our panel, Belgin, Roxy and Ciara – you’ve all been great. And yeah, I hope, good luck with everyone’s job search and have a lovely rest of the day. User16 – Roxy Kaminska Thank you.

Zoe Raymond So, before we get going with the webinar itself, I just wanted to tell you about our mentoring programme, Bridging the Gap. So, hopefully today’s session will give you lots of tips and ideas, but if you’re feeling like you’d benefit from some one-to-one support with your job search, then bridging the gap is for you. It’s a six-month mentoring programme to help people who have had some time not working. We’ll match you with a mentor who works in HR and knows all the ins and outs of recruitment and work and they’ll work with you over video calls for six months to help you take the next step in your job search. So, that could be looking at your CV and helping with applications, or it could be helping you to feel a bit less lost or rethink your approach. Everyone needs help to find work and that could be support from your friends and family, it could be your professional network, or it could be from one of our mentors. So, if you’re interested I’ll pop a link in the chat or just search for CIPD Trust Bridging the Gap. So today we’re talking about finding work that works for you and looking for work when you’re not working can be really hard and it’s very easy to fall into a trap of thinking that any job will do, and if you’ve been out of work for a while, it can be easy to forget what the day-to-day reality of work is like and things have changed, of course. The nature of the job market at the moment can make it seem like you have to take anything that’s offered to you, and there’s also the reality of your financial situation. We all need to work to pay the bills, and all of those factors make it quite easy to make a decision that results in you burning out in a job quickly and needing to start again looking for work. So, we’re going to talk about some of the ways that you could avoid that. Before we start, I just really quickly wanted to talk about stress. We had a lot of questions about, kind of, stress and burnout. So, I thought I’d just start with a little thing about that. So, imagine that you have a bucket and that everything that causes you stress fills up that bucket with water, and those will be different things for everyone. So, it might be things like financial worries, having too much work, not having enough work, responsibilities at home, external events. What causes you stress is unique to you and how much stress each of those things causes you is also unique to you. And everyone also has different limits to how much stress they can tolerate. So if we go back to our bucket, everyone has a different sized bucket and there’ll be different amounts of stress will make that bucket overflow. And finally, there are ways to empty your bucket. So, if they’re called taps in the proper analogy, so those can be things like relaxation, talking to people you trust, doing things you enjoy. Everyone’s got different ways of emptying their bucket. But it’s important to recognise what those are for you and make sure that you protect time for that, and the crucial thing to remember is that some stress is normal. So you’ll always have water going into the bucket and you’ll always be taking it out. That’s just a normal part of life, and sometimes that can be really beneficial as well. That’s just part of, kind of, what drives you, what keeps you going. So, it’s just as important to think about what relieves that stress as what causes it, and when you’re thinking about big changes like going back to work, it’s important to think about that bucket and what fills it up and what empties it and how you’re going to manage those things. So, to talk through some of the detail, we’ve got a fantastic panel today, and we’ve also got my fantastic co-chair, Rewa, who’s going to be asking them questions. So, let’s hear from everyone now. Rewa, do you want to kick us off by introducing yourself? Rewa Gupta Perfect. Thank you so much, Zoe. So, my name is Rewa Gupta and I’ll be co-chairing this with Zoe, and I volunteer with the CIPD central London branch, and through that I found Zoe and this amazing platform and these amazing sessions that we do. So, without further ado, should I just open the floor and let our panellists introduce themselves? So, if you just want to kick off, Tom, then we can work from there. Tom Neachell Yeah, of course. Thank you. My name’s Tom Neachell. I work for Green Folk. We are a kind of recruitment, a consultancy company, but I’ve only been in the dark side of recruitment for the kind of, past three years. Previously I was an internal HR VP for an international manufacturing group. So, I’ve seen both sides of the line. I understand what it’s like to be a recruiter out there, obviously working with people that are applying, as well as being on the internal side of seeing how it all works internally. Yeah, looking forward to the chat. RG Perfect. Wonderful, and now let’s hear from Karimah. Karimah Walters Hi, so my name is Karimah Walters-Stroud. I’ve been working in HR or people programmes now for the past few years. I’m currently working in an in-house role as Imagination’s of Head of Employee Experience, so really focusing on HR operations, systems and programmes, but prior to that I’ve been in HR business partner roles and senior, kind of, HR ops roles, and in some companies I’ve been looking after the recruitment process as well, so I really understand that job search and difficulties and challenges there. And I’ve also faced challenges of my own career where I had to look for roles that had more flexibility, so I understand it from that perspective as well. So, really keen to share in this chat. RG Wonderful, and we’re excited to hear from you, and last but not the least, can we hear from Matthew, if you want to introduce yourself, please? Matthew Ponsford Yeah. So, hi everyone. My name is Matt Ponsford. I work as a strategic HR business partner for a charity called Fitzroy. We work in the adult social care sector, looking after adults with learning disabilities, mental health and autism, and I cover all things HR, strategically or not, and loads and loads of recruitment. So, lots of experience throughout. RG Wonderful. So, we’ve got a really diverse panel, everyone bringing their own experience and a lot to share. So, without further ado, should we jump into the questions, then? All right. ZR I think, actually, Rewa, I think we’ve got a question just for our attendees, to start off. RG Wonderful. ZR So, if we could get everyone in the chat just to tell us what does balance mean to you. We, kind of, we wanted to kick this off just by having a good, kind of, little think about what that actually means in terms of you and, yeah, what you experience. And I guess, Matt, we were just talking about this beforehand, so do you want to tell me a little bit about what balance means to you specifically? MP Absolutely. I mean, for me, balance is really relevant to different stages of your life, so what balance might be as a new starter in your career is very different to what balance might be mid-career if you’re more senior in an organisation or more junior, and also part of your life that you’re in. So, for example, if you’re a new parent it might be flexibility in hours, might mean that there’s balance there. Maybe if you’re a bit further into your career, a mentoring opportunity is more important for you. But for me, definitely throughout my career in HR, what I’ve found is the ability to be able to switch off at the end of the day, the ability to finish your work day and not dwell on maybe difficult conversations you’ve had or difficult decisions you’ve been involved in is key for me at this moment in my life, however, ten years ago that wouldn’t have been the case. Ten years ago, it might’ve been more around actually what benefits am I getting? Do they impact the balance of my work life balance? For me, definitely it’s, I suppose, around what’s non-negotiable for you, and I (Inaudible 09.22) that quite early on. But again, that will change depending on what part of your life you’re in. What’s non-negotiable at the age of 21 is very different to the age of 45 and again at the age of 57. There’ll be very, very different approaches that you take, I suppose, to what your balance will be at that stage. ZR Yeah, and I’m absolutely with you about being able to switch off work and then work is finished. That’s a big one for me, definitely. We’ve had some answers in that chat. So, someone said, “Flexible time, not feeling burnt out.” I think that’s really important. Someone else has said, “Taking the time to understand how various parts of your life are impacting one another,” which I think is really important as well. Like, when things are busy at home, sometime that balance with work can shift, can’t it? I moved house recently and all my colleagues are absolutely sick of me talking about it in, like… going on, like, I can’t think about anything else. So yeah, definitely. Someone has said, “That all the plates are spinning well and none are dropping, work and home.” Yeah, I think again it’s that, yeah, we’ve also got managing time and energy between work responsibilities. Someone has put, “Balance, to me, is ensuring fairness, equity and sustainable management of resources.” I think that’s also a big thing that, that feeling of fairness can really impact how you feel about balance. What else have we got? Yeah, work not negatively affecting your personal life. Again, I think that can shift over your career. Karimah, what about you? Do you have any thoughts? What does balance mean to you? KW Yeah, I think it definitely can shift over the course of your career, for sure. I think it’s definitely not something that’s age dependent. You know, life happens to everyone. You know, you can have care commitments, looking after an unwell relative. Perhaps you have health problems that suddenly occur yourself. So, I think it’s really about having that mindset of being able to adapt around challenges that we face in life and then also in terms of, you know, the day-to-day in your role, balance is important there, even if chaotic things aren’t happening outside of the realm of work. So, you know, just making sure that actually your workload is suitable and adequate so that you’re not stressing too much beyond that work day. So I think similar… you know, echoing similar thoughts to Matthew there in that it can depend on various situation going on in your life, but also regardless of what’s going on in your life, everyone has that right to enjoy their work and to not feel overly stressed by their workload. ZR Yeah, absolutely. I can see that Fiona in the chat has said, “Balance is the agency to manage my own energy levels, setting boundaries and the ability to, kind of, manage stress,” which I think is really interesting, because I think agency can be a huge thing, can’t it, of if you feel in control, you can, kind of, manage quite a lot more than if you feel like things are being put on you. So yeah, super interesting. Right. Well, thank you all for answering. That was really helpful. Right, Rewa, I will hand back to you to begin the questions. RG Perfect. I think it was really interesting, lots of thoughts about what balance means and lots of common themes about preventing burnout and just balancing your different work life things. So, lovely. Wrapping that up, we will just dive into the questions that we’ve got from our audience, really interesting questions. So, the first one is around… the first question – I will read it out – says, “Our first question is about how to explain a long career gap. Say being out of work for six years to a new employer.” So, Tom, let’s start with you. From your recruiter perspective, how should candidates present this gap? TN With honesty, is number one. If you have been out of whichever game, you were in for six years, you need to be up front about this, about it. Anything on your profile that might be seen as a negative or a question, you need to address it first. You could have the most stunning career history before that, but it’s the first thing people see. They want to know why, and one of the things we always talk a lot about is you need to answer the whys when you’re given a chance to. When you apply for something, when you give your CV to somebody, you’re being given a chance to answer your whys then. Don’t leave it back. Don’t try and circumvent it. Be honest, be open, say, “This is my plan to get back into work. This is what I want to be doing. This is what I can do.” A lot… a few issues that we see is people aren’t getting the phone call to say, “Oh, why is the last job on your CV in 2019 and 2018?” Use that application as the opportunity to answer the question that people are going to ask. There is no getting around it. You’ve been out of work for six years. Talk about it, own it and have a plan for when somebody asks you. This is going to be hard. You’re going to go from zero to a hundred very quickly. You’re stepping back into full-time work. You need your plan. You need to be able to answer that to a prospective employer with the confidence to say, “This is what I’m going to do. I know it’s going to be difficult. I know it’s a challenge. I know I’m a risk, but I’m worth it.” So, very much take any opportunity you can to answer the whys first. RG And I think that’s really important. It’s a good point about being honest. It also sets a good impression. It builds that relationship and helps you portray yourself better moving forward, so those are excellent points. And Karimah, what are your thoughts on this? KW Yeah, I think, as well it’s important not just to wait for the opportunity to be asked questions around that gap. You know, proactively pre-empt that question by when you, you know, contact that employer, be it in the form of your CV and cover letter or, you know, I’m a great advocate of doing things a bit outside of the box. Pick up the phone, call the recruiter. If there’s an email, you know, in the application where it says, “If you have any further questions, email this person,” if you’re making that content… that contact, it’s a great time to be able to address that gap. And normally during a gap, you’re not just doing, you know, absolutely nothing. There’s normally something that you’re doing that’s actually, you know, in relation to your work and developing that skillset, even if it is, for example, you know, in a parenting role. You’ll still be doing some project management task, scheduling. So, trying to link the fact that you have still been developing your skills during that gap I think is a great way to, you know, answer and respond to any concerns around your ability to be able to pick up that fast-paced nature of a role that you’d be able to go into. RG Perfect. I think that’s a very strong point about being able to demonstrate your transferable skills from personal life into your professional life. So, thank you both. Great advice. Moving on to the next question, we have a question that says, “If you need to get a job immediately, is it okay to settle for any job? And if I do so, will it affect my experience in trying to secure a senior manager role?” And I will kick this off with Matthew, if you want to explain your view on how this affects your long-term progression. MP Yeah, I think it very much depends on your own situation. So, sometimes there is no choice but to take a job because you need a job and you need the income from it. However, what I would always suggest is what is your long-term goal? So, is taking a valid, relevant short-term job, maybe a temporary contract, to get to your future goal the right thing to do? I’d suggest it’s going to enhance your experience; it’s going to look good on your CV because you’ve been proactive, and it is relevant. It also helps you, I suppose, to maintain your professional brand, to say I’ve come back into the workplace or I needed to get a role. I’ve been proactive in doing that. I have sought out a job and made it work for me. Some examples might be if there’s a temporary admin role, for example. In any role that you take these days, being able to have digital HR skills, to understand the impact of AI, to understand the impact of data generally is really important, and you can get that experience at maybe a lower-level job or a temporary job that you might not have considered beforehand. The other thing to consider, I suppose, is if you’ve been offered maybe a job that you wouldn’t normally go for, is it in the right organisation? It’s very easy to transition between jobs once you’ve got a foot in the door. So, thinking about maybe a lower-level job or maybe a job that you wouldn’t normally go for and it gives you that launchpad and that networking ability to then move into maybe a different role within that situation. What I have seen recently is quite a lot of people trying before they buy. So, a series of maybe short-term contracts. Now, some employers would say that shows maybe that they don’t know what they want to do. From my perspective, I think actually what it shows is that you have integrated yourself into new organisations quickly, you can demonstrate your impact there, hopefully, in an interview or on your CV, and then that gives you the starting point, I suppose, for a longer career with that experience that you bring with you. So, I don’t always see it as a negative, personally. RG And I like that ideology of trying before you buy. I think that just shows that, you know, you can pick up so many different skills trying different roles and this can really help you achieve your long-term goals, so that’s absolutely right, and Karimah, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well. KW Yeah, I think thinking about what Matthew was saying about short-term contracts and interim roles, I mean, I think a lot of employers are going for that option now because there is a bit of a reluctance and fear to hire for permanent roles these days. You know, people are quite cautious now. So, the fact that the market is reflecting that availability, these interim contracts or these short-term roles, if you’re presenting yourself for a new opportunity and you explain that to them, you know, what you notice in the market and how you’ve not seen that as a negative but actually as a positive, it’s about really spinning whatever could be deemed as a negative as something that is actually an opportunity. So, for example, if you’ve been doing a few short-term contracts, you can say, “Well actually, I gained exposure in this industry and that sector, and that would really enable me to thrive in this role because I’ve learnt X, Y, Z. So actually, I’m a candidate that, you know, could be quite unique because I’ve seen a lot more than the average candidate because I’ve had that exposure across various sectors and industries.” So, you cross spin it as something positive and make them think oh, okay, we haven’t considered someone like you, but actually maybe we should. RG That’s really encouraging to hear that. It’s all about how you position yourself, what is your strategy and spinning the mindset. Instead of looking at it as a negative thing, looking at it from a positive angle. So, that’s really encouraging to know. Thank you, Karimah, and we’ve got another really great question here, and that says, “How do you balance asking for flexibility as a parent of a young child without putting prospective employers off?” So, Tom, from a recruiter’s perspective, how does this work? TN Well, not just from a recruiter’s perspective. I’ve got a three and a five-year-old. I had two born 15 months apart from each other during Covid and I was in a very busy HR role at the time in a big manufacturing group, and I realised that that wasn’t going to suit being a young dad of two under two. That was the reason I moved from internal HR to external recruitment, for the flexibility of what my role offers me now. I can do the school drop-off; I can leave when I need to to go and see (Inaudible 21.17) recitals. I can do all the things that are my absolute non-negotiables at the moment because I realised where I was in my career mattered slightly less than where I wanted to be as a father. In terms of how do you actually position that, how do you, kind of, get that across to a potential employer, again, it’s something that you need to prioritise in your mind of… not everybody has got the flexibility in their role as it is today to make it work for them. Is there something you can do to make your life more flexible or is there something you can do to make your job more flexible? There is always going to be non-negotiable roles where… you can’t be a policeman and say, “Oh, sorry, I’m going to go and pick my kids up.” It doesn’t mean you should stop being a policeman, it should be how do you find that flexibility and really help, kind of, discuss it with people. And I think part of it, again, not going back to the previous point but you need to be honest about it. When I was thinking about… and with the first thing I was saying was, “I’ve got two kids under two. If they’ve had a bad night’s sleep, if my wife’s sick, I won’t be here tomorrow.” You’ve got to make clear from the start that that is your situation and make clear to the employers what you value. Because if you go in saying, “Oh, yeah, I can do that, I can do that,” and you start dropping more and more at home, that stress, that burnout is going to build up a lot quicker behind you. So really, it’s setting your stall up. It’s back to being honest with them and saying, “This is what I need as a non-negotiable. This is where I can have flexibility. This is what I can do extra in the evening or can come in early or I can do more around it,” but be up front and discuss it. Don’t hide from being a parent, it’s the best thing in the world. RG Right, yeah. Be proud, own it and have the conversation, open conversations and that. Yeah, and Matthew, what are your thoughts on this one? MP Yeah, I sort of echo what Tom said. I think it’s very much around it is a two-way street, so there is negotiation there, potentially. If you’re already in a role, it’s the same situation. It’s maybe a flexible working request; it’s having that two-way conversation. But when applying, I would definitely think about who you’d like to work for, who is well known for having good family-friendly policies. I work for a charity, and you might not get paid the highest salary but generally it’s a lot more flexible in regard to work life balance and being able to do those school drop-offs, pickups, whatever it might be. Local authorities are similar. Government bodies are quite similar in that there is generally a bit more flexibility there. So, if you’re not getting the success maybe that you’d like to when applying to maybe the corporate world or to for-profit organisations, have a think maybe outside the box about who might be able to accommodate that. And I suppose that leads to what are your non-negotiables? Could you take maybe a lower salary to work in an organisation that can accommodate that? So, is it all about the money? Is it all about the flexibility? What is your lead into applying for roles, I suppose. RG Yeah, so like you said, works both ways. So, even people who are applying for jobs need to, kind of, take a step back and look at what their priorities are and how much can be negotiable, what cannot be negotiable. So, I think that’s really important and I think this is really assuring for all our parents who are attending this session today. So wonderful, wonderful advice from everyone. Really positive, really encouraging, and before I carry on with more questions, because we’ve got lots of interesting questions, but before we move on, I think we have a second poll. ZR Yes. RG Yeah. ZR I think we’ve got another question for the chat. So, we’ve been talking a lot about, kind of, the things to look for in roles. So I guess we wanted to find out from you in our audience, what is it that you value from work? And I guess beyond the obvious of a salary, yeah, what are the things that you value? Tom, do you want to tell us a bit? I mean, I think you’ve already covered this a little bit, but maybe a bit more about what it is that you value in your work? TN Yeah, absolutely. I mean, fairness is number one. Especially… I now exist in a kind of, commission-led world where it’s a sales environment. This was completely new to me three years ago, but the main element for what I’ve (Inaudible 25.36) this and previous roles and what I see is people want fairness. Now, that could be fairness in pay, fairness in flexibility, fairness in opportunity. My biggest value is I know I get a fair deal from where I am now and everything I do, and that sometimes get you past the longer days you have to do or answering a phone in the evening, because you know that give and take is fair, and there is a lot that can be said in terms of it’s not a written benefit, it’s not something you see on a… oh, you get free parking and everything. I work for an employer who is ultimately fair with me, and that gives me the kind of, that trust with what I go off and do great with. So, yeah, 100% fairness is my value. ZR Yeah, that’s great, and I think so… definitely resonates and I think I’ve experienced situations where people feel that their work is unfair in some way and that often just leads to a complete breakdown in trust, and I think then everything becomes part of the kind of, unfair picture. So, yeah, I think that’s definitely super important. I can see that we’ve got in the chat, “Trust from managers,” which I think is also very resonant, as well as “Feeling valued.” Phillip said, “Interaction with other people and a sense of shared purpose.” I definitely resonate with that. I think interaction with other people is, kind of, really high on my list. Karimah, what about you? What do you value in work? KW I think definitely for me it would be autonomy. You know, be that over the projects that I work across so that I can have that ability to be creative and to develop new ideas, or even autonomy over my own schedule, you know, not to feel like I’m being micromanaged or, you know, to feel like if I need to run an errand during the day or go to some sort of appointment, that’s not even a question. It’s not a problem at all. So, sort of similar to fairness, but I feel like autonomy, I feel like that word empowers me a bit more, having that control over my own schedule. And yeah, I think a lot of employers these days, they see that that’s important for employees. They want to feel like, you know, they’re being trusted to deliver their work and if they need to do something outside of the realm of work within work hours every now and again, that’s fine. ZR Yeah, great. I think that’s super important. We were seeing fairness come up a lot in the chat, so obviously you’ve hit a bit of a, kind of, nail on the head there, Tom, but yeah, I can also see… although I can’t see autonomy specifically, I can see several related things around feeling valued and flexibility and being trusted. I think all of those things kind of go in with that, kind of, autonomy bit. Someone’s put… this is from Jennifer. “Appreciation that I am a human with individual needs.” I think that’s super important and kind of easy to overlook. Yeah, what about you, Matthew? What do you value in work? MP I mean for me, I’m slightly older, maybe, so things that matter to me are is the organisation I work for… do I have a link with my personal values in what I’m delivering day to day, what I’m working towards? And that wasn’t always important to me, but I think the older that I get, maybe I want to see the impact that I can make, I want to see my career goals aligned to wider, maybe, goals within the local communities or within, sort of, the political situation in the UK at the moment. But also, the main thing, and I think this is really important across the board, no matter what role you are in, be that in HR or any other role, then psychological safety is probably the biggest factor. Are you able to feel safe and listened to at work? Are you able to raise any concerns in a manner that isn’t seen as aggressive or inappropriate? Are you able to confide in your line manager in a way that supports your growth and your values personally? And that’s something I think that sometimes can be forgotten about, so you need to make sure it does live and breathe and you need to make sure that no matter where you are within the organisation, you reflect on that and think, “Do I feel that I’m in an appropriate role in an appropriate organisation for me personally?” and if the answer to that is no, that might be when you start thinking about actually how do I change that? How do I get something a bit different, maybe? ZR Great, yeah, thank you. Well, Rewa I’ll hand back to you. You can tell us what you value in work and then carry on with the questions. RG Perfect. I think all of the points that were shared were so real, being fairness, having the autonomy. I think autonomy is the one that resonated with me the hardest because it’s true, like someone said in the chat, we are human, we have human needs and we’re there to do the work. So, we know we’ll be able to manage both. So, for employers to have that trust in us and letting us balance things and giving us that autonomy to do… manage our life and manage work, I think that’s really, really important. So, great. I’m fully 100% onboard with everything that was shared in the chat and all of your responses, and I think these are great responses, so thank you everyone for that. And moving forward, because we do have many more interesting questions for you, so the next one I think is a really important one on this topic, is how to identify companies that genuinely value work life balance? Because I think this is something that’s thrown out a lot now, that work life balance, work life balance, but how do you identify these companies that actually help you do that? So, Karimah, do you want to kick off and tell us some tips? KW Yeah. I think I’m naturally a more sceptical person, so I like to find evidence and to do my research, and I think the best way is to speak to people who are working in that business currently. Perhaps, you know, they’re not part of the interview process, but we’ve got LinkedIn and we can connect with these people and send them a DM, send them a message saying, “Hey, I’m interested in the organisation. Could you take five minutes to just share your experience there? What have things been like?” Of course, you can use things like Glassdoor as well to get a few insights there, but I think the best method that I’ve found personally for me when I’ve been job searching in the past and also speaking to other candidates, is by speaking to people who work in that organisation. Because they are going to give you, you know, a transparent picture of what things are really like, and of course, whenever you’re looking at any job description or advertisement, everyone wants to say, “Oh, we’re flexible, work life balance,” but for me, the opinions of the people that actually work in that organisation are the ones that are going to give me the best insight. RG Wonderful, yeah. The honest insight into what it actually is. Absolutely right, and Matthew, what practices do you think really show that balance is actually a part of the company culture? MP So, I think there’s a few things. I mean, I’m quite sceptical also and I think I’m mostly sceptical around things like Glassdoor or online reviews because generally people tend to leave reviews if they’re really happy or really unhappy. So, you don’t really get that middle ground. You don’t really get any averages in there, and I’m quite data driven, so I take that with a pinch of salt. I think LinkedIn is a good starting place, but you need to increase your network. It’s not just having people you’re connected with and not doing anything with that. So, are you actually building a network where you can ask questions? Are you directly messaging people but not trying to sell them something? And I think LinkedIn can be a real positive with that, but also it might end up being a bit of a sales messaging situation, so to try and avoid that. So, it’s commenting on maybe an interesting article you’ve read, it’s commenting on other people that are talking around work life balance. It’s seeing what are HR leaders within the UK talking about when it comes to that. What’s the legislation looking like at the moment in regards to day one rights, for example? If you hear people saying something that you’re interested in, have an opinion on it because you never know who that person is. They might well be looking for somebody to work in a role that you’re interested in. For me, talk to anyone that will listen to you. So, it’s scary to go and network with people. It’s scary to go to events or to volunteer to speak at something or to do a new course, for example, but all of those things will only increase your network which will allow you to meet people with similar interests. And I suppose my final point would be if you are going through an application or interview process, think about what that organisation’s strategy is. So, you want to know what the values of that organisation are. If it’s a values-led employer, it’s likely they’ll mention something about work life balance or about maybe family-friendly policies. Anything on those lines quite early on so you can do your research, you can… I mean, Google’s a dream sometimes to get a policy, particularly in public sector bodies. You’ll be able to find, maybe not the most recent version, but previous versions to see actually how flexible are people. RG Wonderful. I think we’ve got some really practical tips there, whether it’s going on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and I love the fact that you pointed out that employers who really, truly value it will mention it early on. So, kind of, looking out for those signs and those keywords about work life balance and policies. So those are really great points. And we’ve got another question here that says, “Many roles in the current markets are stating that you need to be able to work in a fast-paced environment. What does this really mean?” Tom, if you want to explain to us what is this fast-paced environment. TN Yeah, it’s one of those catch-alls that a lot of people put in. I think what it reflects is businesses in the UK have never been leaner. There has never been so much expectations from businesses to meet their margins, to grow, to provide what they need to provide, and if you look back over the last five ten years, you’ve lost layers of bureaucracy. It’s… you’ve lost middle managers, you’ve lost support functions, especially in the public sector. I’m sure Matt’ll appreciate that. The fact that a lot of support functions that existed 15 years ago just aren’t there anymore. Equally, in the kind of, global economic state we are at the moment, businesses are struggling. They need people to wear more than one hat; they need people to be able to contribute perhaps more than they just do. A lot of the businesses that I speak to at the moment, I kind of always ask businesses, like, “What’s your USP at the moment? What makes you guys special?” and I’m hearing the word agility more and more. Businesses are succeeding by being agile, but that means being responsive, being flexible, being able to work in a fast-paced environment and the fact that your direction might change three or four times a day, but that’s what is, like, giving the success to those businesses. So, it’s not one thing. I would say it’s more reflective of the kind of, wider market at the moment that every business is struggling from the top of the stock market right down to your, kind of, little businesses. Everybody needs more out of people, for better or for worse. Everybody works in a fast-paced environment now, so it’s very much just acknowledgement of that wider industry. All I would say, my, kind of, caveat on that is… what they mean by that. An interview, a screening call is a two-way thing. If you see, kind of, a job description or an advert and it says, “Work in a fast-paced environment,” ask them, “Well, what does a fast-paced environment look like in your company? What do you find people… the challenges that they have in working in a fast-paced environment?” Use your opportunity in these, kind of, processes to give one question for every two you get. You should be exploring it in both ways. RG And I think that’s really important, to treat it as a conversation rather than just being scared and just answering the question that the recruiter’s asking, but to be able to have that conversation and get clarity of what the role would look like. That’s an excellent point, and Karimah, any thought on this one? KW Yeah, I think it’s quite standard, sort of, job description speak, to be honest, this language, isn’t it? It’s like when you see at the bottom of the job description, “Any other reasonable duties as required.” It’s just to, kind of, cover employers’ backs to say look, it’s a busy period, this is a busy organisation, but I feel like busy and fast-paced, you know, that does differ from organisation to organisation. You may join somewhere and then based on your prior work experience think this is quite chilled compared to where I’ve worked before, but they describe themselves as fast paced. So I think it also depends on the background that you’re coming from, and also just trying to be positive about the fact that, you know, they might say it’s fast paced, and like Tom was saying, you can ask question to, kind of, gauge what that really means in that particular business. But just remembering that we have so many tools now in the way of AI and project management tools to combat that busyness or that fast-paced nature of the working world, and they’re tools that we didn’t have several years ago. So, it’s trying to also leverage the fact that these things are available to make us more productive and to combat this fast-paced nature of the working world. RG Wonderful. Yeah, I think you guys have very well summarised what this word fast-paced environment means and how can one cope in these fast-paced environments. So, being able to wear many hats, being agile, thinking on your feet. I think these are some of the key skills that we need to survive and thrive in this market now. So, thank you so much, that was really great, really great advice just to hear from everyone. So, we have a lot of interesting questions in the chat as well. So, Zoe, do we want to go over the chat, or… how do we think? Because there are lots of them, so it’s going to take them… (Laughter) ZR Yeah, I’ve pulled out a couple that I spotted. So, let’s start with this. So, Caroline asks, “How should a candidate feel about or respond to feedback that says, ‘Sorry, you’re overqualified’? In this market where there could be more jobseekers than jobs, surely a well-qualified and experienced person is a win for the employer?” Matthew, I wonder if this is something you’ve come across before, the kind of, overqualified question? MP Yeah, and I think for me, it’s a slightly frustrating piece of feedback because it doesn’t actually tell you anything, it tells you that maybe you’ve completed a course or it may be that you’ve had a career at a certain level. For me, it could be, if you’re getting that feedback often, it could be something to broach at interview stage, and explain, “I’m applying for this job. Even though I might seem overqualified, my values align with the organisation and X, Y and Z are the reasons that I’ve applied.” I would always welcome candidates coming back and maybe asking for a bit of clarification around that. You might not get a response. It depends how proactive the employer is, but if you’re consistently getting told you’re overqualified for a role, there’s a couple of things that I would do. The first thing would be are you applying for maybe entry-level jobs when you are very qualified? And if that’s the case, you need to be able to justify why that is. If you’re being invited into an interview, that would normally be the stage at which I would be looking at are people overqualified for this and maybe feeing back early or having that conversation early doors. That’s not something that every employer does because again, it’s around have we got capacity to make all these phone calls to do that? I would suggest, if I’m completely honest, if you’re actually getting into an interview and being told that, it’s a bit of a cop out and there might be another reason that is being masked slightly by the overqualified answer. So, I would ask maybe for some more formal feedback. Is there anything that you identified as maybe areas I could improve in? Have you got time for a quick five-minute phone call just to debrief on the back of that? But it’s not feedback that I have ever given or would like to give somebody, because I see it as a real swerve from the truth, if I’m honest. ZR Great, yeah. That’s really interesting, kind of, a way of avoiding giving whatever feedback it is you want to give. And what about you, Tom? This must be something that you’ve come across. TN Yes, it’s something that we hear a lot and I’ll put my hands up and say I have given this feedback before. From the business perspective, a lot of that reads between the lines of you’re a risk to them. Are you applying for this job because you can’t find something at your level but in three months’ time when you have found something at level, are you going to be straight out the door? Recruitment decisions are always risk based and if they’ve got three candidates, one has that risk that they could and should be doing something better in the eyes of the employer, it’s hard to turn that away. If you’re getting that feedback after interview a lot, I’m going to mirror a lot what Matthew says. There’s probably something else there. Are you giving examples that are at a higher level that conveys that you should be doing more? If you’re aware that you’re, kind of, stepping down in your, kind of, career level, which is… I wholly recommend people to do if they’ve got the chance to and they’re seeking work, make sure you’re using examples that are relevant to the level that you are applying for. One of the big things that we get feedback when they say, “Oh, they’re overqualified,” and we break it down, is because they’ve been talking about a sales management job that’s turning over maybe £200,000 a year worth of sales and they’re giving examples in their career where they’ve done £20 million in six different countries. It’s not just that you’re overqualified on paper. Have a reflect on what interview examples are you using. Are they actually relevant to the job and the level that you’re applying for, or are you potentially blowing somebody out of the water who’s sat on the other side of the table who hasn’t operated where you’ve been before? 100%, you are a valuable addition to the team, and as the question starts, you are definitely a win for the company if you can give them the confidence that you fit in that hole. I don’t think it’s purely just you’re overqualified on paper. If it’s something you’re regularly getting, have a think about those, kind of, those questions that you’re answering. How are you answering? What examples are you using? What are you doing to reassure them that this isn’t a stopgap until you find the right thing at the right level that you’re looking for. ZR Yeah. I think that’s a great point, and the idea of being a risk to the company I think is… I think it’s, like, I think it’s hard to think about when you’re the candidate, but I think that is really, like, a big part of lots of these things, is companies are thinking, “Oh, but they could leave,” or, “Oh, have they thought this bit through, that bit through?” So I think yeah, like, I… they don’t know you. It’s always one of the things, so yeah, you might’ve done all the work thinking about taking that step down or whatever it is, but they don’t know that that’s the case. Great, so we had another question in the chat from Abishek. So, they say, “Should I leave my job, as I’m currently working 65 to 72 hours a week?” Now, I think the answer to that is only you can really answer that, but I guess I thought maybe it was interesting to hear from the panel. Are there any thoughts about, kind of, hours worked, what that looks like? Yeah, like, are there, sort of, things to think about when you’re thinking about how many hours you want to be working in a week? Karimah, shall we go to you? KW Yeah, I think it’s important to think about contractually, how many hours are you engaged to be doing every week? How many hours have you been employed for? So, that is way above, you know, your contractual hours, then you know, there could be concerns, then. There’s a reason to ask why, and these are things that should be flagged, you know, with your manager as and when they’re happening. You shouldn’t really wait until a long time has passed. It’s good for the manager to receive feedback that you are doing this overtime or having to work additional hours to get the job done so that yourself and the manager can delve into why that is happening. Because obviously, you know, there are times when it’s busier at work and you do a bit extra, but if it’s consistent and it’s happening, then you know, it’s a bit of a red flag as to, you know, whether the workload is adequate and suitable for the role and the contractual hours. So, it’s important to flag, for sure. Obviously, you know, it’s the person’s decision, at the end of the day, as to what they do, but I think definitely raising that with their manager and their employer… if they decide to leave, that’s their choice, but also whilst they are there, just making it more manageable in the meantime is really, really important because as we know, a job search, it can take a while. So, it’s important to have that stamina and that energy outside of work so that you can fuel that into your job search. ZR Yeah. Great, thank you. No, that’s really helpful. And Rewa, have you got a couple more questions? I think we’ve probably got time, if you want to run through. Have you got question six and seven on your list? RG I think there’s questions about a very important theme that was raised again and again throughout our conversation as well. Burnout from job-seeking. So, I think this is really important and like Karimah just said, you need to have that stamina outside of work as well. So, I think we’d love to hear from our panel about how do you deal with this burnout, how to avoid it, and how do you actually succeed in landing a role? So if we start with Tom. TN Yeah. Burnout in job-seeking is a difficult one because we always talk about burnout in work, but I think what a lot of people forget is job-seeking is work. It’s not something you do for fun, it’s not something that you do because you want to do it. Job-seeking is work whilst you’re not working. I think one of the big things that we reflect is feedback I give to people a lot, is take the time down. If you’ve hit a wall, take a few days off. Something that I am a big advocate for not is don’t go on LinkedIn and start ruining that personal brand that we’ve talked about before and saying, “I’m burned out. I’m not getting… I’m banging my head against a bit of wall.” Reach out to your network for support but try and keep yourself positive. At least that personal brand positive. Go home, tell everybody about it, have a bad day at home. Remember your LinkedIn is essentially, it’s your sales stall. That is what a lot of people look at first, and it’s challenging enough already returning to work after a break or when you’ve been job-seeking for a while, but your application hits somebody’s inbox and they go on your LinkedIn and they see half a dozen posts about you being quite negative about job searching and… it is that initial viewpoint that people will see and make decisions about. So, 100% have a bad day. You need to have bad days in work, you need to have bad days job-seeking, and you will get burnt out at times. Everybody does in their own ways to different levels. I think how and where you manage it is the most important and remember it’s not a sprint. You can’t apply for jobs quicker. You can’t do more quicker. Give it a set mount of time and give your job-seeking some structure. Say, right, I’m going to do two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. There is no point sat looking at LinkedIn for eight hours a day, applying for stuff in the first two minutes that comes up, because you just get yourself into a headspace where you’re not going to be the best when the right opportunity comes up. So, give yourself some structure, remember that LinkedIn and your CV is your sales stall and enjoy some downtime. You don’t always have the chance to be off work. I know it is frustrating when you’ve been out of work for a while, but go for a walk in the day, go walk your dog, go and have that opportunity that you might not have in six months’ time when you’re working full time again to go and enjoy being out and about. RG Yeah, and I think that’s really important, to be patient and almost treat job-seeking as a job as well and don’t work overtime on that so you don’t get burnt out. And Matthew, do you have any thoughts on this one? MP Yeah. I mean, I think it’s very easy, if you’re not being successful in your job-seeking, to sometimes think applying for 16 jobs in a day is enough because it’s really easy to click apply all and send your CV to a load of people. For me, that isn’t really job-seeking. That’s spamming. That’s “flyering” people to hope that something might happen. I would much rather hear about somebody who’s applied for two jobs but tailored their application appropriately, maybe written a really good cover letter for that role, potentially. And that, for me, would mean you’ve put the effort in and therefore you can reward yourself for that reason. On the back of that, it depends what level the role’s at. Some roles require a lot more information. It might be a cover letter, it might be a project in the lead up to an interview, which takes time. Others may well be they just want a CV, which also is a lot easier to do. So, it’s not a one size fits all. What I would say is give yourself some weekly goals. If you’re looking week in week out on applying for roles, how are you finding those roles? Put a limit there and say, “Well, maybe this week I’d like to find five really suitable roles which match my values,” and have a plan about how you’re going to do that. Not every job is going to be on LinkedIn, or on Indeed, or on Totaljobs. There are very niche websites out there. In the charity world, there’s charityjob.co.uk which advertises only on there a lot of the time. Guardian Jobs is very good for HR jobs. Obviously the CIPD has a website itself around HR jobs, but for me, think about if you see a job that you like, think about reaching out directly to that organisation. There will be recruiters working for that organisation, but agency people that are on the call might not hear it. There is a cost if you use the agency, and if you avoid using the agency and directly recruit, it saves the organisation money. So, what are you going to lose from sending a CV directly with a nice cover letter to a recruiter whose name you know from the website? Not a lot. You might get declined, but you might get through that first round. You might get an interview on the back of it. So, for me, it’s thinking outside the box a little bit about going LinkedIn isn’t enough, apply all isn’t enough. What am I doing to work my way around the barriers that I have maybe found previously? RG Yeah, I think, like, it’s really important to identify these barriers that we often don’t think of. For example, it’s a really good point about understanding when to send a CV to a recruiter versus an agency. I think that’s a really important one as well, and thank you for sharing all those websites, the niche ones as well. I think it’s really important to know that and be strategic, maybe search job sites that are specific to your industry. I think that’s a really important one as well. Sometimes we just go on LinkedIn because it’s popular, but then we do miss out on jobs that are on the niche sides. So I think that was a great point as well. Thank you, thank you all. Perfect. ZR Great. Right, well, I think we’re probably at the wrapping up stage, so I guess it just leaves me to thank everyone for attending and I guess we… would be great to hear from the panel, kind of, one thing you want people to take away from today. Shall we start with Karimah? KW Yeah, it’s kind of linked to the last question, actually, but just for people to just be specific and strategic with their job search. You know, try to do things that will make your life as easy as possible because it is tiring looking for work, it is frustrating and as Tom was saying, sometimes you might just need to take a walk, but you can do things to make your life easier, whether it’s having a master CV so that you’re not having to create multiple versions of your CV each time, where you can tweak just little points. Whether it’s going to networking events, so, you know, that is a form of job search… seeking, or job searching. That will feel different, mentally, to sitting at a computer and filling out some sort of application and also doing things that are a bit outside of the box. You know, I’m a big advocate for that and I think that that’s helped me to be successful in the past. Even doing things like video cover letters. Not many people are doing them, but if you’re that candidate that goes the extra mile and you think, “Well, how can I really attract someone’s attention and, you know, where are… my gap in my CV, but actually I’m going to proactively mention that in this video and tell them why I’m the best candidate for this role, the skillset that I bring,” you’re going to stand out and they’ll see that you’re unique. So, just being strategic and thinking about methods that you can use that are a bit outside of the box I think is really, really helpful for any candidate looking for work at the moment. ZR Great, thank you. I’m not sure about the video cover letters. That slightly makes my blood run cold, but I guess if you’ve got the wherewithal to do that, that’s fantastic. Yeah. Matthew, what do you want people to take away? MP So for me, there’s a few hints, I suppose, for applications and for interviews specifically that I think are probably relevant. So, in any organisation, impact is the main key when being interviewed, I think. How do you demonstrate that? So, if you can throw out some figures, some figures regarding the impact that you’ve made, from an HR perspective I suppose it might be how many cases do you manage if you’re an (ER? 55.03) specialist, how you’ve reduced turnover for your organisation. Those sorts of things are quite important, I think, for HR roles, but the themes and trends that come up day in day out for me are people being able to demonstrate their values at interview stage, or via a cover letter or via a CV, potentially. To demonstrate empathy in some way, shape or form, empathy’s incredibly important to all organisations. Obviously, I’m from the charity sector, so it’s something that we live and breathe, but I think if you mention empathy and understanding in any interview, then that’s probably going to be a good thing. And the final one is being able to identify and demonstrate resilience, and it’s been a tumultuous few years for everyone. I think if we look back on the last five years, lots of things have happened socially, politically, where people have had to become more resilient, and that must equate to people’s work lives as well. Everyone has had some hard times, and particularly reading the chat today, there’s quite a lot going on out there, so how do you demonstrate that you have the resilience to make those difficult decisions or to be involved in difficult conversations or to be able to, for want of a better phrase, sleep well at night outside of work? Because we want good people who do understand work life balance, who can get away from the day to day and maybe not have to go off sick or might not have impact in their mental health, those sorts of things. So for me, if you can demonstrate resilience at any stage of application or interviewing, all the better at this time in life, really. ZR Great, yeah, that’s really interesting and I hadn’t really heard that before about demonstrating how resilient you are, and finally, Tom, what do you want people to take away? TN I mean, the main thing, and this is something I say on a daily basis, is a rejection isn’t saying that you can’t do the job that you’ve applied for. A rejection isn’t turning around and saying you’re not capable or you’re not good enough or you can’t do what you’ve applied for. All it is saying is you didn’t win that race. Like, you look at the Olympics. Twelve people at a time go and run the 2,000m race. One of them is going to win. I think that job-seeking is lots of individual races. You’re never going to win every single one. A lot of people, especially when you’ve been through a really intense interview process, you’ve had three or four interviews, you’ve been to site, you’ve met people, you’ve fallen in love with it, you know where you’re going to park your car and then you’re not that person that crosses the line first, it is really deflating and you think oh, I’m not good enough. If you are getting two good interviews, if you are getting through interview stages, you are the right kind of person. People don’t make it into interview processes, and especially far down the line, unless they are the right kind of person. You just didn’t win that race. If anything, it is more encouraging to get a few second stages and not get there because you know you’re interviewing for the right kind of jobs. Alternatively, if you’re not getting far enough down the interview line, then perhaps you’re running in the wrong race, and I think it is something to really reflect on, is you’ve, kind of, got to think that I’m in a pool of people here, am I in the right pool? Do I need to be looking at a different level, a different type of company, a different type of role? You are never going to be the only person that applies for a role. You’re never going to be the only person that the recruiter or the agency or the hiring manager speaks to. It is… it’s about crossing that line first but making sure that it’s right for you and right for them. I am a bit of a cliché, that I do think everything happens for a reason. I do think people end up in their right place eventually, and it’s got to feel right, but no, rejections aren’t rejections and please make sure you’re running the right race. ZR Yeah. I think getting in that right headspace about rejections is absolutely key. I think yeah, that can spiral you off into the worst places, but if you can try and get a grip on it and think oh, just… that wasn’t for me that time, that’s, yeah, definitely the right way to approach things. Well, thank you all so much for all your insights. It’s been super interesting and really great to hear from, kind of, different perspectives around the recruitment process, whether that’s in house, you know, internal, agency. That, kind of… what’s going on out there in terms of the job market. I can see we’re getting lots of people clapping in the chat, so that’s great. So yeah, thank you all for speaking, thank you, Rewa, for co-chairing. That was really helpful. And thank you everyone for attending and best of luck with your job search. Yeah, take care. RG Thank you.