Block 4. Employment
You will need to employ good people.
Perhaps you wouldn’t even interview the guy in the picture?! And who could possible blame you!!??!!
People make profits not companies: people with their abilities, their motivations, their creativity and analytical skills. You need to be able to find the right person for the right post.
Perhaps the best way to do this would be to get you to produce your own c.v. and covering letter in English….. but this does NOT mean translating from French into English your existing version (for reasons I will explain… I don’t mind you using your old French version as an ‘aide-mémoire’, but nothing more, OK?!) You will then be interviewed for the post you have chosen, act as interviewer of one of your colleagues and also as ‘rapporteur’ giving feedback to interviewer and interviewee as to their performance and ways and means by which they may improve it.
This will be a rather lengthy block and I have put together a considerable number of mini-videos for you. Here they all are.
Do go through them! They are there to help you!
We will be considering the questions:
- How (and why) are recruitment and selection functions changing rapidly (what is going on from the employers’ side?)… especially: ‘How much does it really cost to lose and replace a member of staff?’ Here we will consider direct and indirect quantifiable costs and also non-quantifiable, non-financial (but no less real) costs. If you can understand the employer’s postition better you will write a better letter and cv and will have a greater chance at interview. Here is an exerise I want you to do on the subject!
- What does that mean to you seeking employment on the job market? Do you need to approach job-search differently? Don’t wait for Friday or Saturday night newspapers: prepare your ground. Prepare to be found – develop LinkdIn profiles…. sanitise your Facebook and social network presence: employers DO look before inviting you to interview. Think about Professional Association membership (see my video!): it matters! it shows you are no longer a student looking for a job – you are already a Young Professional moving in Professional circles. Such associations allow you to become a student member very cheaply and theat enables you to put your CV online for corproate members to see. Target the comlpanies you want to work for – don’t do bland speculative letters.
- The significance of the job offer and the Job Description and Person Specification – see the examples here. READ, READ and RE-READ these until they are under your skin. Match who you are and what you have done to these and then consider how you are going to show this ‘match’ in the covering letter and cv…and interview. I show you how to do this in one of my videos which helps with structuring the covering letter and designing the CV
- What makes a great covering letter (10 Tips webpage) for the international, English-speaking market – and, incidentally for the Ferench marketplace? Here are two videos I have made for you on the subject:
TASK. ASSESSED.
On the basis of the advice I have provided above, you will produce a covering letter for a particular post of your choice currently available on the English-speaking market [NB. this has to be something detailed with significant information concerning the Job Description (résponsibilités) and the Person Specification (qualifications)]. IMHO, students spend ages on their cv but comparatively little time on the covering letter… but it is this letter which (literally) covers the cv: it is what the employer sees FIRST..; and if he doesn’t like it why is he/she going to bother to turn the page to look at your cv? A recent article on BBC news suggested that fully 85% of all cvs sent off are NEVER READ by the potential employer because the covering letter just is not convincing. Hardly surprising: if the employer has hundreds of applicants, the quicker he/she can differentiate you positively or negatively, the sooner the job is done and the less it costs in time, money and efforty.
- What makes a great CV / résumé 10 Tips? My videos on the subject:
- You really should produce a CV for the particular post you chose for the covering letter task (but in March 2021 I don’t think we will have time for this). There is an art to this and, strangely enough, the employer actually helps you with the task as a result of what they have put in the Job Description and Person Specification. Effectively they have given you the words to the ‘song’ they want to hear: all you have to do is ‘sing’ it!
- How to prepare for interview and to interview well. Interview 10 tips. My video on interview preparation. The best way of reducing the ‘fear-factor’ of an interview is to be fully prepared so that you can walk into the interview confident that you have done all you can do. That is liberating indeed. OK, if they like someone else, so what – there will be an interview where they prefer you. But at least you can walk in and out with your head held high: you couldn’t have prepared any harder and you did your best.
You will discover that this is NOT something you have done before and that even here in France the hallowed French 1x page CV is dying and dying fast (if it isn’t dead already for career posts) because it simply doesn’t help to differentiate candidates (and cost-effective differentiation is THE name of the game today)…. it is set to become very much more like the international English-speaking and international corporation approach.
PLEASE: don’t even bother starting by translating your existing French CV or ‘lettre de motivation‘: it won’t work and in fact it will make things more difficult for you. There is a whole different mindset here that you have to appreciate and let under your skin.
You will then submit your covering letter for marking and thereafter you will (but not in March 2021 as I fear we do not have time) produce a CV play (and be marked for) each of the following roles in a rotating role-play:
- interviewer
- interviewee
- ‘rapporteur‘
I will offer you a series of ’10 Tips’ (also linked above) for:
These will probably NOT be things you will have heard of before. No one of these will guarantee you selection for interview or for appointment, but, taken together, each of these will reinforce the other and will ‘say’:
- this is something different, better, out of the ordinary
- this person has been to considerable trouble (more than others)
- this individual has a sense of design and presentation
- this person weighs every word in the balance
- this person is very clear about what we want and is at pains to show us why and how it is he/she
Other pages on and off my site which may be of use:
About Me
Here is the link to my professional site personal profile if you are that desperate to know a bit about me, my career and life and thoughts in general! Surprising how many actually read it!