Jon Gregory's blog

"I'm coming to the end of my degree and already into some heavy-duty selection processes with a variety of organisations. I'm concerned about my longer term employability so how can I tell which employers might be most likely to keep training me for the future?"

Alain? Thank you. Thank you so much for asking this question because it opens up an often-unrecognised can of worms the size of a council skip.

"What's the best line of approach to take when being interviewed by my present employer for an internal promotion? I don't want to appear critical of the other supervisors and managers because they'll all still be here, whether I get the job or not."

This was a question I was asked recently by someone I was helping to rehearse for a forthcoming interview and it's a very valid one.

During the interview, the best way to stand out is to try and put across two things:

“I have to attend an assessment day interview and it will be my first. What can I expect and what’s the best way to play it during the day? What are your best tips for trying to make it through to the next stage?”

This question has cropped up a lot recently as major recruitment programmes kick into gear. Anika had no real clue what to expect and how to interact with her peers on the day. She was more used to the traditional, there’s-only-one-survivor, style of single interview.

“I’ve read a lot of advice on how to write a personal statement for a CV and some of it is conflicting. What’s your view on what makes up a good personal statement?”

Iain needs to bear in mind that advisors’ views on what makes up a good personal statement can be coloured by: their own role; which industry they work in; what level of seniority they work at and their own age or background. Let’s try to side-step those factors.

What’s a personal statement?

“I’m in the middle of a job hunt, applying for anything relevant that I see, but someone suggested I should be looking at the hidden job market. I was told that means looking at jobs which aren’t generally advertised, but how would I would do that?”

Rob was puzzled and the term itself is somewhat counter-intuitive. How do you begin to look for jobs that are, by definition, hidden from you? In fact, so-called ‘hidden’ jobs are simply those vacancies that don’t see the light of day via adverts or general publicity.