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

00 00 00 Zoe Raymond That we give insights into what the recruitment process looks like for HR and what that means for you as someone who’s applying for jobs. So a couple of housekeeping things to begin with. Firstly, we’re using a new platform for this webinar, which our speakers have already experienced. We’ve had some technical issues getting everyone in. Hopefully it will all be perfectly smooth from now on but if we have any technical issues, please do bear with us and we’ll be recording this session. Cameras and microphones have been disabled for the audience, so you won’t appear on the recording. But please use the chat to ask questions and make comments. Just be aware that we might read some of those out on the recording. And my colleague Ali will be posting useful tips and links in the chat. We’ll be talking through questions that were submitted when you registered. We’ve had hundreds of questions submitted. So unfortunately, we won’t be able to answer every single question that got asked. But we’ve tried to pick the ones that we think are most universally applicable. And we had quite a few that were quite similar. So hopefully if you did ask a question, you’ll get something really useful out of today anyway. And if we have time towards the end, we’ll answer some of the questions from the chat. So please do put in any questions that you have. Great, so today we’re talking about job search success and, in particular, how to plan and manage your job search in a way that will work for you. So once you’ve made the decision to start looking for work, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of rushing into it and then very quickly get overwhelmed or finding yourself stuck in some corner of the internet. And this is why planning is so important and it’s not just planning how you’ll find a job, it’s also about planning how you will use your time and how you’ll set boundaries. Looking for work is hard, and it can be really emotionally draining. So, it’s important to plan how you’ll keep your spirits up and keep motivated. And we’ve got three fantastic speakers here who have loads of insights and ideas on how to get started in your job search. So, let’s hear from them now. Konstantinos, do you want to start and tell us a little bit about yourself? 00 02 01 Konstantinos Tasis Yes, thank you very much, Zoe. Hi, everyone. My name is Konstantinos Tasis. I work as a Learning and Development Programmes Manager for Ipsos UK and Ireland. And I also am an active mentor as part of the CIPD Trust Mentoring Programme. So, in the past three to four years, I’ve been supporting other new professionals coming into the business or adults with big career gaps that they have decided to come back into the business. I’m very much looking forward to share best practices, we have discovered within those past few years and how I’ve been supporting adults just getting their dream jobs. Zoe Raymond Great and Hannah let’s hear from you next. Hanna Stacey Hi, so I’m based in Surrey, the UK, so I’m seeing the sun as well. I saw all those comments today. I work for a SaaS company, Contentful, as the Principal People Programme Manager. So, essentially, I’m in charge of change and transformation programmes that are contributing to our people strategy and our culture here at Contentful. I got involved because I started speaking with Zoe around my career pivots. I don’t come from a strict HR background and we were having an interesting discussion about how that might benefit people if they want to have a shift in their career. I’m also a working mother, so I had some time out of the business. I utilised a full year out of working and experienced that hesitation going back into work and having a lack of confidence in just that year gap. So I can speak to both of those things, I think. Zoe Raymond Great. And finally, Krystle, let’s hear from you. Krystle Siaw Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Krystle Siaw. I’m the Senior People Partner at the Lego Group. So, yeah, very cool company, I would say, that I work for. I have been working a bit with the CIPD Trust. So initially, a few years ago, I was part of the mentorship aspiring HR director mentorship, so I learned so much there and then thankfully they’ve asked me to come and speak in January and to something that was quite similar to this session today, and obviously I must have done a good enough job for them to invite me back again, so I’m really looking forward to sharing my knowledge and hopefully inspiring you guys. And I’m also one of the chairs for the CIPD in Central London branch, so yeah. 00 04 45 Zoe Raymond Brilliant. I’m guessing, Krystle, it never gets boring saying I work at Lego. I can’t imagine that ever really wears off. Krystle Siaw Never does, no. Zoe Raymond Brilliant. OK, so we’re going to start off with a question for the audience. We’ve got one of our poll questions. So the question is, what do you find most challenging about job searching? And we’ve got a list of a few things, staying motivated, finding vacancies, writing applications, networking, interview prep, getting responses from employers. I always find that it’s the motivation bit that’s the most challenging. I don’t know if any of our speakers have anything that they find a particular difficulty with job searching. Hanna Stacey Yeah, I think the one that originally was peaking in numbers was the networking thing, that’s not something that comes naturally to me, not in human form anyway, networking on social media is a little bit easier for me but having to go into a big room or a forum where you’re seeing lots of different people, (inaudible) outside my comfort zone, I resonate with that one. Zoe Raymond Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think you’re not alone. I think there aren’t many people who love networking. Great. Yeah. So interestingly, that’s quite high. So we can see that 20% of you have feeling quite a lot of anxiety about that and interesting to see that getting responses for employers is one of our top ones. Yeah, I know a lot of people can sympathise with how challenging that is. And I think that’s not something you can control. So it’s all about thinking how you can spin those things to your advantage, isn’t it? And how you cope with not getting a response because you’re not going to force anyone to respond to you, unfortunately. Great. So, let’s get started on our questions that we’ve had submitted. So, the first one we’ve got, starting with quite a big one this time, is I’ve not had to job search for 20 years. How do I begin? So I think, Konstantinos, I don’t know if you want to take this from your kind of L&D perspective of how to start on a big task. Konstantinos Tasis Yes, absolutely. OK, I think the first thing is to understand that that’s a big step. If you haven’t worked for 20 years and things have changed in your life and you have made your decision to go back to your professional career, that’s a very big change. And in HR, we know very well that every change comes with a level of resistance, hesitation, and it kind of creates this uncertainty and not very nice feelings. 00 07 28 Konstantinos Tasis So, the very first thing I would suggest to someone who is looking to go back into their career after such a long period is, number one, look after your wellbeing. It’s something that we don’t speak a lot about often, but it plays a tremendous role into our career success. If you are at the best states, then you will be able to perform and demonstrate your professional knowledge, skills, and behaviours you have. So, you have higher chance to be recruited by the company that you want to. So look after your mental health, look after your wellbeing. The second step I will suggest is have a clear picture about what type of jobs you like to have. It’s important to have a clear picture, ideally to have one specific job that you like to have. The more focused you are in this sense, that will help you to understand the very specific professional knowledge, skills, and behaviours you will need to develop or you may already have, so you will need to practice how to display those to your future employer. So, you will have a very and that’s purely L&D here so you will have a purely very descriptive and action plan. So, you’ll know exactly what are those micro steps you will need to make to improve some of your skills and to be present more competitive, competitor into the future employer. Once that you have done this, the third step to my opinion is to do a little bit of research to see what is happening in the market. 20 years is a big time, a lot of things may have changed, certainly will have changed, I mean, think about this. A few years ago, we started talking about AI and now AI has dominated pretty much every area of the business, has completely changed everything. So, the third step is about doing a little bit of research, try to understand what the companies look for those who apply or for those who cover the job that you want to do. And then again, think about improvements that you can do to your skills and to your performance in order to be ready to demonstrate your skills the best way that you can to your future employer. Finally, and sorry, I’m taking too much time now on this one, but finally, practice, practice, practice, practice. That’s the number one way to build confidence and to ensure that you will be at your very best this moment that you will be standing in front of your future employer and you really like to present yourself the best you can. 00 10 19 Zoe Raymond Yeah, love that. Practice, practice, practice, practice. Very good. Krystle, I can see you nodding along. Did you have anything you wanted to add there? Krystle Siaw Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, a lot of what you said is similar to what I would have said as well. Just like you said, the practice, practice. Probably, we’ll see in this session I probably say research quite a lot, research, research. So, I really like that, that was mentioned. Just in terms of the research and what’s helped me is is around like starting small then building on this. So, like setting like manageable goals so maybe today you’re going to research three companies, you’re going to like look in terms of their values what they’ve got to offer. You know, if they’ve got any reports on them, just like really research on that company and (inaudible) landscape in terms of job search at the very front changes so much and you know we’ve got applicant tracking systems, we’ve got the AI every works for you or doesn’t but you know the algorithm is there as well. But I think also that there’s a point, yet now like even if you want to like, you know, get some free courses to get familiar with people that maybe you haven’t been familiar with with before some of you have on LinkedIn to get some free courses on LinkedIn or even like (inaudible), just how you can get more familiar with these tools so they’re not so overwhelming. (Inaudible) from your network, your research like no matter like whoever you’ve worked for (inaudible) support you because you’re not alone in doing this you know, the world of work may have evolved, but you still have experience that’s valuable. So, yeah, just get as much support from those people around you as possible. That’s probably what I’d build on but you said most of what I was going to say anyway. Zoe Raymond Yeah. Krystle, I think we’re having some issues with your sound, but I think we got most of that. Krystle Siaw Oh no. Zoe Raymond Yeah, I don’t know if there’s anything you can do there. But yeah, I just wondered, Hanna, if you had anything to add. Krystle Siaw I’ll put my sound higher. 00 12 58 Zoe Raymond Oh, yeah. I think it’s you’re breaking up a little bit, Krystle, is the thing. So, I don’t know if you want to, if there’s anything you can figure out there. Yeah, Hanna, I wondered if you had any further tips. I think we’ve probably covered almost everything. But if there’s anything you have for someone who’s starting that job search after a long time having not done it, yeah, please let us know. Hanna Stacey Yeah, I think when I start a new task, whatever that is, this is the program manager hat on. It’s about, and I think Konstantinos said this, it’s about breaking it down into smaller, more achievable tasks. So, you know it can feel overwhelming, especially after 29 years, that’s one huge mountain to climb and if you look right to the top of the peak of that mountain it could almost scare you not to try and climb it. So, it’s like one foot in front of the other, breaking it down thinking very programmatically about your approach, becoming a specialist in terms of what it is you’re going after and really honing in on those skills. And to Krystle’s point, research the companies. I find a scattergun approach or casting the net wide isn’t always the best approach. So, being really programmatic and prescriptive around your search and breaking it down into smaller, more achievable things can feel less overwhelming. Zoe Raymond Yeah, great. And I think one thing that Krystle was saying, I don’t know if everyone caught this, was just about thinking about your support network and making sure that you’re leaning on that. And I think that’s also really important, isn’t it, for just making sure that you’ve got all that, you’ve got your tasks that you’re doing, you’ve split it down into micro tasks, but making sure that you’ve also got something kind of buoying you up in the background as well. Yeah, great. So, we’ll go on to our next question, which is, what key skills should you consider refreshing when entering the job market after a lengthy career break? Krystle, I think you were kind of touching on this a little bit. I don’t know if your sound has improved at all. Oh, she’s completely frozen, I think. OK. Well, maybe Konstantinos, you want to pick this up? Konstantinos Tasis All right. Yes, of course. I think one of the first ones is going to be about time management. Try to find a job. It’s a job by itself and it takes a lot of time, especially when you start kind of thinking about what are those kind of skills and knowledge that you need to sharpen a little bit to develop, that will take even more time. 00 15 32 Konstantinos Tasis And if you consider that we have our private lives and we have our responsibilities, it’s I mean honestly, it takes time and time and time. So, it’s good to kind of have the bigger picture of how you’re spending the time within the day and ensure that you block some time within the day, ideally some hours within the morning and some hours within the afternoon that you completely focus on this task. So, time management is number one. The second one is about presentation, it’s about communication skills, it’s about having the confidence and the ability to demonstrate the key achievements, The impact you can bring to the business, as well as all those professional skills and knowledge that you carry with you and can be very supportive for the organisation you want to work for. I will start with those two and I will, I cannot emphasise how important it is, again, within this time, to focus on skills that promote your wellbeing. It’s important to work in parallel while you’re trying to find a job because it is a threatened situation, actually. It can be a threatened situation. Zoe Raymond Great. And Hannah, I wonder if you’ve got any thoughts about this. I know we talked previously about AI and kind of how people might upskill in that area. Is there anything you want to talk about that? Hanna Stacey Yeah, so I mean, we mentioned AI earlier, it’s become such a huge part of everyday life, even if you don’t realise. So firstly, it’s not something to be scared of. So, we’re probably already using it without realising we are because most companies have integrated AI into their product offering anyway. WhatsApp, even today, message me via AI. So I would say, having a skill set and knowledge of AI and awareness of how you can apply that to yourself in your everyday job to make yourself more productive is certainly a skill set I know that my company are looking for, but I also know people across technology and other industries are. There are new roles every day spinning up where they are asking for this unicorn that has AI experience. And I feel like it’s a real niche that if you can get in quick with AI and get confident with it, it’s certainly a plus. And that can be as simple as, I mean, I use ChatGPT every day. It’s almost like my assistant. 00 18 10 Hanna Stacey And sometimes when I want to get comms done, so comms is really important in like an ever-changing world, especially in the SaaS world, things change from day to day. And so, I have to be really conscious about creating comms that appeal to hearts and minds of employees. We’re talking through why the change is happening and getting them through that kind of change curve cycle. I use ChatGPT every day to do that for me. I type in demographic, age 35 plus, global company, and it spills out all of this thing. And it would have taken me three hours to write that. And it’s doing it in 10. And of course, there’s always, always needs to be a human element and human touch. But I think having a skill set with AI or being confident using it is certainly a plus at the moment. Zoe Raymond Great. Krystle, we’ve got you back by the looks of it. Reappearance. Fantastic. So, we’ll go on to our next question, I think. So, we had a lot of questions about CVs. So, we’ve gone for a few sort of almost quickfire ones. So, how long should a CV be ideally? Krystle, do you have an instant answer for me? Krystle Siaw Can you hear me OK? Zoe Raymond Yeah, perfect. Krystle Siaw Perfect, sorry guys about that. I tried to change the network and then it cut me off, so I couldn’t get back in. Instant answer would be no more than two, two pages is what I would say as an instant answer. I think it’s a good question that people do normally, but yeah, I think like nobody is going to read your full CV unfortunately, so you need to be really specific and try to grab whoever is reading it at the very beginning. Sometimes even in your last job, they’re not going to read through, you’ve got like, you know, 25 bullet points that I’ve seen before, they probably look at the first like one to five. So, really there is where you want to really highlight the best parts of what you’re doing in your role and then also I always try to say put some like facts and numbers into it as well because sometimes people really like to see the impact of what you have done. So, if that’s numbers or if that’s just impact in general, just put that, don’t just say what you did, but how you did it or like the impact of what you did. Like how that became a positive benefit for your company that you’re working at. 00 20 30 Zoe Raymond Brilliant. Great. Krystle, I can see everyone is nodding. So, perfectly on the money there. So the follow-up question we’ve had is, how do I get the right balance of detail on my CV? It often feels wordy, but I have strong experience and achievements that I want to mention. I don’t know, Krystle, if you want to follow on from what you were saying onto that. Krystle Siaw Yeah, I think again like you it, you know your CV doesn’t need to be like a life story, you don’t need to think about every single responsibility I had, I have to put every single bit into this story because it’s not going to fit and again like I said even if the two pages max they’re not going to read that. So, just prioritise, be selective not exhaustive. So, you want to just prioritise on what’s relevant to your role that you’re applying for, just put it like in a bullet point that’s really readable. (Inaudible) paragraph and yeah, focus on those achievements not just those the responsibilities as well that you’ve had. Zoe Raymond Fantastic. And Hanna, I wonder if you’ve got anything to add there. I know that you kind of changed industry and sort of slightly changed career a bit. How do you manage that with having everything on your CV at once? Hanna Stacey Yeah, I think the main thing is to kind of keep in mind not to create a job description. And to Krystle’s point is to really highlight the impact or the benefits that you’ve realised for your company at that time. So, the really key moments where if you look back where your direct manager or the company really recognised you for the efforts you’d made in that role. I think, you know, typically people understand what each role would construct and what the everyday responsibilities of a project manager are. For example, so I wouldn’t typically write those down, but I would do those key wins or those high-impact moments that I had within that role to kind of show that I’ve gone above and beyond the you know, the everyday job description as it were. So, that’s how you would consolidate it down and it’s how I did, it’s how I used my CV to really showcase my transferable skills coming from business operations as a PM, you know, like I kind of do that because it’s like the other side of the fence to HR, it’s in the business, and then flipping into the the HR world, I was able to showcase those PMing skills that, you know, could serve both best. And so, I mean, and the other thing I would say is not to kind of bang on about it, but AI is very good at doing that for you. 00 23 03 Hanna Stacey It’s really good at helping. If you put your CV in as it stands and you write, I really want to show, give me some advice or feedback on things that I can highlight as big win moments or high-impact moments in my career, or give me some suggestions. It’s very, very good at doing that. Again, with the caveat that it should be yours and it should be your wording but just help it to assist you. Zoe Raymond Yeah, brilliant. Konstantinos will know from our previous webinar on how to best use AI during a job search that one of the things that we suggested was saying to the AI, ChatGPT, whatever you’re using, or act as a recruiter and give me feedback and that could be a really great way of doing that. I suggest you will find that webinar on CIPDtrust.org. We’ll send a link to it at some point. It’s definitely worth watching. So, the final question we have on CVs is someone has just asked, how do I structure my CV? Konstantinos, do you want to take this as a bit of a start of the turn? Konstantinos Tasis Yeah, actually, that’s a very interesting question, actually. I think the way you’re going to structure your CV in this, I mean, OK, there are the best practices which we are going to share with all of you now. But also, please, at least this is always what I say at my mentees. The way that you are going to structure your CV, it needs to represent you. So, for example, I always choose to have a very small intro paragraph at the very top of my CV because I believe that this will be the key points and values of my professional knowledge, skills, and behaviours. And pretty much I do this because I believe that this is what the recruiters will read at the first. And we may say that this is the hook, so if you manage to hook them with this small paragraph, then they can go down and start reading the bullet points but that’s a personal preference. It’s not necessary that you can do this way for sure, based on the best practice, it needs to be based on your professional knowledge, skills, and behaviours. I keep repeating those three words, I truly believe in those. And needs to be presenting in a bullet point form to the point which at the same time it shows another skill of us, our ability to communicate what we can do in such a direct and discreet way, and this is a business skill that a lot of businesses are looking for. 00 25 40 Konstantinos Tasis I’m saying this because I just recall conversations I had in the past with recruiters that they just didn’t consider some applications simply because the way the nominees were presenting themselves it was really complicated. And the question was, but the job we have opened requires a lot of reporting so we are not sure if they will be able to do that because we can see from their CV, they’re not being able to present in this kind of consistent, direct way their top skills. Yeah. Zoe Raymond Great. Yeah. Krystle, I imagine you see quite a lot of CVs in your job. Is there anything you want to add about how to structure your CV, how to begin on that first bit? Krystle Siaw Yeah, I think the only thing I’ll just add on to that is that, yeah, I really do think it’s good to have you know that hook how to hook them at the beginning but just be like very mindful of the words that you use in that because sometimes I see a lot of like buzzwords like I’m good at problem solving or, just those buzzwords that people may think that that would be really good to put into that, but it everyone has has when you’re looking at so many CVs you have so many people that have the same words. So, try to make it like as personable and genuine in terms of yourself, so if that’s the that’s the area you’re going to try and hook them, try to really hook them if someone thinks that’s really like, that’s really going to hook them, really like the things that you’re really proud of or that you can really do that you want them to see as soon as they like open up your page with your CV is what I would say. And yeah, it’s all up to people’s preference, like you know education wise, where do you want to put it? It all depends. I say, if you’ve been working for a while, maybe you can put education at the end, but then if people are quite new to the working, you know their career, I’d say put at the beginning because potentially you don’t have as much work experience, so put it the beginning, so they see your education. But that’s all personal preference, but like I said, like yeah try to keep it concise, like I said, put those numbers if you’ve got that, the impact, if you can, can put it. 00 27 46 Krystle Siaw Don’t just say like, what’s the word, I, some people sometimes say like I’ve been responsible for managing a project, so responsible for doing I actually say, I lead in and I delivered Y result. I kind of feel like really like highlights what you’ve done because yeah those, I think Hannah you said is it, don’t make it like a job description. So, how is it personal to you in terms of what you’ve delivered but yeah. Zoe Raymond Yeah brilliant. Great, yeah. So, really focusing on those achievements I think is key isn’t it, yeah. Fantastic, so we’ve got our next poll question now which is hopefully if it will appear. How much time per day do you spend on your job search. So, yeah we’ve got a full range. Couple of hours, six plus, four to six hours. Yeah it looks like we’re on the kind of one to two hours is kind of edging it up there, and a few people on two to three and a couple of people spending more than six. I don’t think I spend more than six hours on anything a day, I have to say, very impressed with those people. Yeah, so quite a range here although I can see that in that kind of lower, that one to two hours is really winning out. So, yeah and we kind of, we’ve touched on time management a bit already, but our next question is kind of specifically about this. How do I balance a job search with other demands on my time? I think this is particularly one of the challenges if you have been out of work for quite a while and you have to kind of start getting back into that rhythm of looking for work. I think that can be particularly challenging. Krystle, I know that previously you’ve shared your kind of timetable for how you were managing your job search. Do you mind just going over that again for us? Krystle Siaw Yeah, no, it’s fine. And I’ll just caveat, like at this point I was made redundant. So, if you think about the timing that I was doing it, you might think how does that work with your normal, if you were working at the time, but I wasn’t at the time. I always felt like I wanted, my CV to be the first CV that the recruiter would see in the morning when they would log on with their coffee or whatever when they log on to their laptop, I’m going to be on the first CVs. So, I would only apply for jobs between like the hours of like 7am to about 2, 3pm because I thought any, even if a job had come been advertised at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, evening time. If I apply for that job most likely the recruiters turned off work. 00 30 18 Krystle Siaw So, when they come in the morning they’ve probably got about two, three hundred people that have applied for that job during the evening but I want to be at the top of the pile because I know they’re not going to go through all of those CVs. So, yeah I would literally wake up, I would treat like, I would look like I was working I would wake up and 7am, I’ll get myself all ready like so I know mentally I’m working rather than like in my pyjamas or anything like that I would get myself all ready like I was working and yeah between the hours of like seven, give myself a lunch break 100% because they’re also having a lunch break. So, I give myself a lunch break where I may go out for a walk and just like yeah, just because those hours are quite intense, isn’t it? So, you want to like make sure you’re looking after your own wellbeing and doing other things that are not just looking for a job. But yeah, I would get up and work from about 7am to, 7am to about 2pm, applying for jobs. So, I was definitely one of those six plus people. But when I looked for a job while I was working, I would still start from around 7am, but obviously I would stop when I was about to start work and then maybe during my lunch break, I would spend some time looking for a job doing that. So then, yes, I’d be probably in the same bucket as one to two hour or two to three hour people but that’s what worked for me. Zoe Raymond No, that’s great and I think just deciding that you’re going to have set hours to do it, I think, is really important. Things like job searches, I think, can sort of sprawl into all of your time and you can always feel like you could be doing more. And I think having some of those boundaries is super helpful. How about you, Hanna? Do you have any thoughts about kind of that balance of time and how to manage that? Hanna Stacey Yeah, I think it’s paired with my earlier comments around breaking things down. Humans aren’t, we weren’t made to sit at desks and look at computers for hours a day, which is typically how job searching is done in this day and age. So, it’s being mindful to have breaks throughout that time. You know, 20 minute intervals is best. There’s lots of research around, you know, how even revision. I mean, it’s kind of the same thing if you’re doing this intense work where you’re staring at a screen, you have to go and take yourself away, because if you don’t, bad habits creep in, mistakes could be made. 00 32 35 Hanna Stacey You could be saying in a job application that you know you’ve got this, attention to detail, and yet you’re making spelling mistakes because you’ve been sat at the screen for too long. That is one that comes up a lot actually, when I’m going through CVs, so I would say definitely break it down into sections and don’t do big chunks of hours on end, look after your wellbeing, and yeah, take that break. Zoe Raymond I feel like, um, putting in an application or your CV that you’ve got good attention to detail feels almost like, just guaranteed that there will be a spelling mistake in there somewhere every time I’ve had to answer a question on that, I’m always like oh god, this is almost certain that I’m going to have made some terrible error here. Yeah, Konstantinos, did you have anything you wanted to add, particularly on that kind of wellbeing thing? I know we’ve touched on this a fair bit, but yeah, just like that time management and getting those things right. Konstantinos Tasis Yeah, regarding wellbeing, it’s super, super, super important. When you try to find a new job, it requires such a strong mental work. You need to be there, you need to be focused. Also, I mean, from one person to another, the story can be completely different, people try to find a job. At the same time, they try to manage their personal lives. There are some people that they need to find a job as soon as possible simply because they need to pay their bills, while there are some other people that they have the ability to take a little bit of their extra time and to ensure that they want to find exactly the job that they want to. So, from one person to another, the situation is can be quite different, but the bottom line is that certainly just having regular breaks, going outside, especially when the weather is such a lovely as it is today, sunny and nice, will really kind of recalibrate your thinking process, will kind of create this kind of motivation feeling that you require to see things in a positive way and focus on what’s really important. Sometimes I found this do I was doing this when I was looking for a job. Sometimes you’re stuck to some processes and procedures companies have in place, and after a break, you realise that actually, was this worth it, just me spending so much time about just ticking the box, understanding exactly how to follow the steps of the company rather than ensuring that I present myself the best I can and ensuring that I display really who I am and how I can support and how I can bring impact to the company. 00 35 17 Zoe Raymond Yeah, brilliant. Great. Right. Bit of a shift for our next question. Someone has asked how to write an amazing LinkedIn profile. I don’t know which of you has the best LinkedIn profile. I maybe should have done my research before this. So, maybe just whoever wants to take this can go. Hanna Stacey I can probably talk to this just from recent personal experience. So, I actually got my current role via LinkedIn. So, I guess that’s a credit to perhaps how I displayed my LinkedIn. I think the main thing I would say that helped drive that search and how LinkedIn works is your title, your headline that’s connected to your name. And so, you know, a recruiter will put programme manager or like the buzzwords that find that role, admin assistant, and then it will just throw up admin, anyone with admin assistant in their title. For me, I had programme manager in my title. In fact, it was more specific. It was people programme manager, which I was at the time. And that was literally the title of the role that content people were looking for, and so then I was immediately shortlisted for that recruiter. So, I think that’s probably a top tip for me is put into your title what it is you want to be or are looking for. It’s a must. Zoe Raymond Yeah, absolutely. Krystle, do you have any other top tips on LinkedIn? Krystle Siaw Yeah, I mean, I also found my current role on LinkedIn, but not the way that Hannah did, just being like more active on there and actually seeing that my manager now, but she was doing my role first, had been promoted. And I’d seen it because I’d connected with other people on LinkedIn and I’d seen them actually engaging and congratulating her. And then I was like, great. There’s a position available here. Let me go and find, I don’t know, the role hadn’t even been even advertised yet. I think it was a couple of days afterwards, but I was like switched on because I was so active on LinkedIn and making sure I was networking and connecting with people and I applied through that way. 00 37 29 Krystle Siaw But yeah, in terms of LinkedIn, I don’t know if I have the best LinkedIn page. I’m not quite sure, but sometimes I would say around like your picture, you know, sometimes you, I do like a good LinkedIn stalking, like when someone has applied for one of my jobs, I like to go and look on their LinkedIn page a bit. So, just have a, be mindful like the image that you put on, sometimes you’ll see images when people are at a beer garden or they’re with their friends out and then they’ve kind of cropped themselves but you can still see people, just think of LinkedIn as fun as like social media like that can be, it’s still, it’s more of a professional social media. So, just make sure like, you’re, you don’t need to go and get a professional photographer to take your picture but if it’s a picture with like nothing in the background or something like that, that’s clear or you know, it’s not you holding a glass of wine or beer, like if you think of that, because just think of your potential employer wanting to employ you that’s their first that’s going to be their first image of you. So, just be aware of like how your, how your page kind of looks. And then again, like try to make it quite like clean and concise in terms of like your roles, some people have like bullet points sorry of the roles that they’ve done and their responsibilities you can do that or just put the job title is completely up to you but just make it look clean if you are going to put bullet points just don’t put again like 25 bullet points on there, just try and make it quite clean and easy to read I’d say. Zoe Raymond Great, yeah, and I guess moving on from LinkedIn like, and I guess, Krystle, you’ve kind of touched on this really well. We had some people talking earlier in the chat about kind of fear of networking, and I think LinkedIn is quite a good way to just kind of get your feet wet in terms of that. Yeah. Do you want to talk about how that can be used effectively? Krystle Siaw Yeah, I think LinkedIn is great in terms of that because, especially if you’re an introvert, you don’t actually have to go and like physically approach someone, tap them on their shoulder, and talk to them. You can just add them, so I think that’s quite good, and most of the time people do accept it, you know, if you’ve added them. It’s all I think LinkedIn is good in terms of like building your network because you’ll see things that will be on your network that you may not actually see on the LinkedIn jobs, like I said a job that’s coming up or sometimes people actually put in their status message, like, ‘I’m looking to speak to people that have this experience. 00 40 01 Krystle Siaw You know, they don’t even put a link in for a job. So, you wouldn’t know that unless you had been connected with them or someone that you’re connected with has liked that post. So therefore, you can see it as well. So, I think it’s really good to be active on there and have as much, as many like people in your network as possible. I’m not saying like day one, go and get 500 people. No, that’s a bit extreme. Build your network up. But if you’re looking at your LinkedIn right now and you only have 11 people and you’re looking for a job, that could be holding you back. So, I think it’s a good way to kind of like network and see what’s out there, and you know LinkedIn is also good for other things as well, like LinkedIn learning, as well that can help you, especially if you’ve been out of work or even if you’re in work at the moment and you’re just trying to develop some skills, LinkedIn skills has a lot there that you can learn from and also put that on your CV as like courses or training that you’ve done as personal development for yourself as well. So, I definitely advocate for LinkedIn and strongly encourage people to do so as well, to use it as well. Zoe Raymond Konstantinos, I can see you nodding quite a lot. Is there anything you want to add to that? Konstantinos Tasis No, I mean, Krystle, she just explained in such a nice way the value of LinkedIn in building your network. Yeah, that’s exactly such a powerful tool. The only thing that I will add, another thing that can really, really support you in building your network is CIPD, CIPD branches. Do a little bit of research and very close to where you live there will be a CIPD branch. I’m a committee member of the Southwest London CIPD branch and from experience I can say that we organise monthly events. Those are either virtual or in a face-to-face form, and we invite everyone to join, to network, to exchange thoughts, ideas, learn from each other. Take these opportunities and connect with like-minded people and even if you are not looking to find a career in the wider HR, well, CIPD offers the best HR practitioners. 00 42 13 Konstantinos Tasis So, you will certainly be connected with people who are willing to support you and just, yeah, try to support your journey. Zoe Raymond Yeah, and as Krystle points out in the chat, you don’t have to be a member of the CIPD to join the CIPD branch event. So, if there’s something that kind of takes your fancy, even if you’re not in HR, not looking to get into L&D, HR touches on so many kind of interesting aspects of work that if you find something that you think will be interesting, it’s a great way to meet other people, particularly those who do have some influence over hiring. So, definitely worth doing get, get your name and your face out there. Fantastic, OK. So, let’s see, we’ve got one more question here. So, does anyone have any practical tips for remaining positive and reframing rejection? Hanna, do you want to take this to start off with? Hanna Stacey Yeah, I think a piece of advice that was given to me some while back was to make sure that I’m not telling myself a story and I’m actually telling myself a fact. So, you know, if when you’re in this world of rejection, which typically, you know, a job search can feel like the story you could end up telling yourself is probably quite cruel and not true. So, then you have to keep coming back to the fact, and the fact is we’re in a world where there is high demand for particular jobs or it’s not my time yet. You know, it’s coming back to the data. It’s not telling yourself a story because that internal dialogue can lead you down a dark path and I’ve been there, and I really did lose my confidence when I was returning to work after maternity leave. I told myself I couldn’t do things. I’ll never be able to stand up in front of someone and talk again. I can’t create a presentation. Actually, that was a story, and the fact was that I’d done all of this stuff before and I’d done it successfully. So, it was trying to take myself away from the story and really plant myself in the fact and data. Zoe Raymond Yeah, absolutely love that. Focus on the facts and not on the stories that you’ve accidentally told yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Krystle, do you have anything to add there? Krystle Siaw Yeah, I’ll say you may have heard it you know take it as a learning experience and sometimes it’s hard to to do that when you’re in it but actually you can take it as learning for the next one you go for. I mean rejection, unfortunately is going to happen but it can only you, I mean, you have the decision if it’s going to break you or make you stronger but don’t sit in that rejection by yourself like we’ve talked about wellbeing but also like in terms of support, your support network talking to them about it as well because it can be, let’s not sugarcoat it, being rejected for like you’ve been looking for months and you haven’t got anywhere. 00 45 13 Krystle Siaw It can be really hard on yourself but don’t sit in that by yourself, you have people around you who will support you, so really lean into those people. And just learn from and try to build yourself up, try to build that resilience, keep on going because it will get to the point where you will get something that you really do want and you’ll be like, I went through all of that because of where I am today. Like you’ll be able to look back, but when you’re in it, you can’t look forward at times. But when you’re actually, when you do get forward, you can look back and see that’s what it made me the stronger person I am today. But yeah, I would definitely say speak to people. Don’t just sit in that rejection by yourself. Zoe Raymond Yeah, absolutely and I think I would add on to that, don’t be afraid to tell people how you want to be supported. I think one of the worst things about job searching or about any similar thing that’s slightly out of your control is, people constantly saying, oh and how’s it going? If it’s not going well that can be terrible. So, I think don’t be afraid to say, oh, you know can you just not ask me that all the time. Yeah, Konstantinos, do you have any top tips for remaining positive, reframing rejection? Konstantinos Tasis I also, my recommendation is the number one by far is to talk, to express your feelings, talk about your feelings. That will also help you to understand your feelings. That’s important. Sometimes we feel something, which we call it anxiety, but we don’t really understand what that is, from where that comes from. But when you start talking about this with family members, with friends, with mentors, then you kind of start understanding exactly what has triggered this fear and anxiety and so on, which will help you to understand and deal with it. And a personal thing, what I do a lot, it has helped me massively, I’ve been suffering from high levels of anxiety as you may imagine, as an immigrant I came to the UK about 11 years ago, I wasn’t talking English, I couldn’t speak English. I had absolutely no clue about what HR is but I had the ambition to work in the wider HR area. 00 47 25 Konstantinos Tasis So, the anxiety level it was quite high, what saved my head was exercise. I hate running, but I was running and running and running because I realised that actually it helps me mentally a lot. Yeah. Zoe Raymond Yeah, that’s great, yeah. And I think recognising those things is super important as well, like that you feel better if you get out, if you get some exercise and that that can also be part of your job searching. It doesn’t have to be those six plus hours you’re sat in front of LinkedIn pinging out applications. It can also, you know, part of it is also those things that keep you going. So, super important to schedule time for those as well. Great. Well, we’ve had quite a few questions coming in from the chat. I’m going to start with, so someone has said, if you require X years of experience, but your CV only covers Y, so I’m guessing that’s less. So, let’s say if you require 10 years, but your CV only covers the last five years, how do you show this? I.e. I have 30 years of experience, but my CV only details the last 10. I think the applicant tracking systems don’t pick up on this. How can you avoid it? I would say just before I go to any of the panellists. When you say that you think applicant tracking systems don’t pick up on something that is a story that you are telling yourself and you just need to be careful about those things because it’s very easy to assume the reasons why you’re getting rejected out of systems and always challenge that I think. Yeah but does anyone have any thoughts on that about how you kind of cover a long career on your CV but still make it concise? Krystle, you’ve got your two-page rule. How do you manage that? Krystle Siaw I mean personally, first of all I’ll say, I from a D&I point of view, applications they should not say you need X amount of service or an X amount of years. So, when I saw the question I was a bit like yeah, that they shouldn’t say that because that’s discriminating a lot of people by saying you need like 10 years experience whatever that’s you know, a discrimination other, protective characteristics in terms of that, but I’ll move on from there. 00 49 42 Krystle Siaw I would say that if you feel you don’t have the, if you have the experience like say for example the role that you’re doing, you’ve been doing it for less but maybe some of the parts of the application, the job, the job profile, you could say that you’ve got that experience in something else that you’ve done. So, whether that’s from personal stuff, like so if it’s asking for like oh, you need 10 years of leadership for example, but in your work experience you’ve only got five years, if you’ve got another five years of leadership from being a leader in the football team or being a leader and like maybe something that you were doing as a team leader or in a supermarket or something like that, that wasn’t exactly the the role that you’re doing today. I would say, actually highlight those other leadership stuff that you’ve done. I mean, I have 11 siblings, obviously I’m a leader of 11 siblings, like, you know HR in my family, but where else can you see that kind of leadership in your life? I would say, highlight that as well to add to the years, but like, I said, personally, for a role, just a role shouldn’t be saying that you need X amount of years. Is what I would say, anyway, but I don’t know if that can help. Zoe Raymond Yeah, I think we’re already seeing people in the chat saying, but we are applying for roles that are asking for this. So, I think it’s that balance of, yeah, ideally employers wouldn’t be asking for that, but they are. Yeah, so another question that we’ve had, this is, I think, a fairly straightforward one, is should you have different CVs for different areas of work that you’re looking for? So, if you’re looking for different jobs, different kinds of jobs, I guess, should you have different CVs? Konstantinos, do you want to take this? Konstantinos Tasis Well, I think a simple answer to this is yes. Yes, absolutely. However, the reason that I hesitate is about your CV should be able to demonstrate your best knowledge, skills, and behaviours, and those should apply directly to the jobs that you want to apply for, but the reality is that a lot of companies, especially the corporates, they have some specific requirements that they are very much related to their values or their mission. So, certainly I will encourage someone to adjust, not to fake, not to say something that they don’t have and just present in the way that they have it, but what you already have, the already current skills and knowledge you have, how those can contribute to this specific company’s mission or values. 00 52 36 Zoe Raymond Yeah, great. That’s excellent. Hanna, did you have anything to add to that? Hanna Stacey Yeah, I think it’s a dead giveaway as a hiring manager or a hiring champion in a company if you’re receiving a generic CV. I always think it should be tailored, even if it’s tailored supported with a covering letter. But yeah, I would say going back to like the top end of the conversation, being really specific about the role that you want, showcasing the skill set that you have for that role, which obviously would mean that you have to have a tailored CV to display that. Especially where CVs are so static, they’re kind of the first foot in the door and they’re so inhuman. So, you need to really do your best to make them showcase what you can do. Zoe Raymond Great, Hanna. And I can see just while you were speaking, someone has asked the question, do recruiters actually read covering letters? And I’m assuming from all of you, the answer is yes. Yes, I can see a lot of nodding. So there’s your answer. Yes. Great. Well, thank you so much, I think we’ve run out of time for any more questions but thank you everyone in the chat for putting all your questions in. We do have an evaluation survey that we’re going to share, I think, we’d love for you all to fill out. Let us know how you found it and any future topics that we could be covering. I’m going to ask for final thoughts from all of our panellists. So, I guess Konstantinos, I think we’ll start with you. Konstantinos Tasis Thank you. Thank you very much. That has been such an insightful conversation. Thank you for having me here, a last thing I would like to mention to everyone who is listening to us right now, there are so many resources that they can support your finding a job process. Take advantage of all of them. Be out, meet people, ask questions, express your feelings, look after your wellbeing. CIPD is doing such an excellent job in connecting HR practitioners with people that they need our support. So, we are here, we are available, take the advantage of us. Zoe Raymond Great. Yeah, Hannah, how about you? Final thoughts? 00 54 54 Hanna Stacey Be really clear on what it is you want. And develop your skill set if you if you lack them in the role that you want so for you know, for me that was a CIPD qualification that really helped. Lifelong learning is so important and be kind to yourself. Super key. Zoe Raymond Yeah, fantastic. And Krystle? Krystle Siaw My colleagues here have said a lot of amazing advice. I would say, again, going back to the research, research, research, research the company, look at those values and if they align to yourself. I know it can be hard, like when you’re looking for a job, you just want to find any job. But what you don’t want to do in a few months or weeks later is regret your choice. So, just really do that research and make sure that is somewhere that you would see yourself being at for X amount of years and you’ll be happy at because we talked a lot about wellbeing and you deserve to be, you deserve to, we all deserve to be happy and especially when we spend so much time at work. So, yeah just try and do as much research as possible. Zoe Raymond Yeah, brilliant, love it. I don’t think we can do better than Hannah saying be kind to yourself. I think that’s kind of the ultimate lesson for life isn’t it? Right. Well, thank you so much, everyone. Thank you to our panellists, Krystle, Konstantinos and Hanna. You’ve all been excellent. I think we’ve all learnt a lot today and a huge thank you to everyone in the chat for getting so stuck in and sharing all your thoughts, that’s been really great. And, yeah, hopefully we’ll see you at part two of your career comeback, which is in July. And we will email links to register for that if you haven’t already. So, yeah, please come to that. And thank you again. Goodbye.