Morning all 

I had a friend recently who needed help with her CV so she called me and asked could I advise her. Now it's a common misconception among friends and family (and we have all experienced it) that we work for a recruitment agency. That we are recruitment experts. That we know all there is to know about (a) writing a CV (b) going for an interview (c) finding jobs. Now while some of this might be somewhat true, not the agency bit obviously, you do gain some knowledge over the years but we are most definitely not experts.

So, in order to help I needed to seek expert advice. Firstly I checked out the CV section on the career centre and read some of Paul's great advice.

Then, I emailed a friend who works in HR and asked what she thought. She gave me two words which helped no end and I wanted to share this advice with you.

She said - "SO WHAT??"

I asked her to expand (obviously) and she said, after every sentence you write, ask yourself "so what?" and if you don't give yourself a good response then remove that sentence. This is probably most relevant to the Achievements section of a CV, from my own experience recruiting I always advise people to include an achievements section under each job description and this is where our friend "so what?" really comes through for you. I guess it's all about putting yourself in the recruiters shoes and if you're bored or not seeing the point of some part of your CV, why will they?

My friend who I helped is moving to London incidentally and had some interviews with recruiters last week and all of them commented on how well her CV read therefore it must be true, RIGHT?

Morning all - here is the second in our series of blogposts from Peter in CPL - some great advice regarding writing your CV and what NOT to do... 

A candidate’s cv is the first thing a recruiter sees, so make this count!

Your cv has one purpose, not to get you a job but to get you an interview. These 2/3 pages are your primary selling tool so why do so many people take insufficient time to put the work into their cv?

The obvious mistakes are grammar and spelling - over 80% of cvs would still have grammar, spelling or formatting errors which is unbelievable. If you get past this the biggest frustration regarding cvs is that they are written as a list of responsibilities not achievements. Think about this from an agency perspective, how can they differentiate on paper between two candidates who write down the duties of the job even though one may have been a stellar employee and one may have been fired!

You need to ensure an employer sees what you have done well, not what you have done.

So when a recruiter looks at your cv is it full of achievements, measurables or does it look the same as the previous cv? In this marketplace you have to give the recruiter a reason to pick up the phone and talk to you as there are so many cvs coming in, they need to want to talk to you.

This is not just the cv but also how you email it in. Phrases like “I am desperate for a job” or “ I will do anything” may be written with a well intentioned mindset but do not endear you to any recruiter. Employers are not looking for an employee who would take any job, they want one who wants their job. So have a world class cv and be clear that you are applying for a specific  job/ job type not just any job.

Feel free to comment below.

Morning all

Here is the first in our series of blogposts from Peter Cosgrove of CPL.

Even more frustrating than someone who has a job telling you that “it is tough out there” is not getting any response from recruitment agencies when you send in your cv. Why is this, are they that unprofessional? that laissez faire? – well, the answer in the main is no!

The challenge that recruitment agencies have is the volume of cvs that come through to their inbox. There is a story that Google receive over 1.5 million unsolicited cvs every year in a company that employs less than 20,000, would this still be the case if every one of those cvs had to be sent as a hard copy letter – absolutely not. I am not advocating a move back to snail mail just trying to highlight that with the growth in online technology many many more cvs come in and often with a lot less thought put into where they are sending them or why they are sending them.

A recruiter needs to differentiate between appropriate, thought out cvs versus those sent out on a whim because the candidate thought “ah sure why not give it a try”.

So one of the challenges of a recruiter  is not having the right cv, it is trawling through many cvs to understand those that are both right for a role and interested in that role specifically. It also amazes me the amount of people who are called about their cv and do not answer their phone – guess what, recruiters are working 8 – 7pm in many cases – they expect you to be available as the market moves very quickly even for permanent roles, so ensure you have your phone on and if not at least a professional voicemail message.

Finally remember this - a recruiter only gets commission if they place the right candidate, if you are the right candidate and you are not getting the job or interview – ask yourself what could you improve about your cv, first impression, interview technique – there is always room for improvement.

Some quality advice from Peter here I think - feel free to feed back below...

Morning all

Peter Cosgrove from CPL has kindly agreed to write some guest blog posts for us and we will be featuring these and blog posts from other recruiters offering invaluable advice for candidates over the next few weeks so keep your eyes peeled. We will also be tweeting and linking to these posts on our Facebook page.

We asked Peter to focus on the permanent job market and how best to approach agencies and we also asked him to address some of the issues candidates have with agencies at the moment the main one I think being (correct me if I am wrong), that agencies don’t respond to candidates. 

Peter started his career in banking with JP Morgan before working with PWC in London as a management consultant. He began his career in recruitment in 2000 with Robert Walters, subsequently with Hudson in 2003 and currently is a Director with CPL.  Peter is a regular contributor to the national media on areas of recruitment, assessment and retention as well as a speaker at industry events.  Peter is also a Board member of the not for profit organisation Junior Achievement, an organisation targeted at keeping students in schools to improve their education. 

So if there is anything in particular you would like us to cover pop a comment in the box below or feel free to email us. 

If you are one of these people (like me) who is constantly Tweeting or Facebooking or lurking on some social media or professional networking site our survey results will be of interest.

It revealed that nearly half of all recruiters check their applicants online before hiring them. To be a bit more precise, 46% of recruiters surveyed check up on their candidates, so that means they Google your name and see what comes back, they check your Facebook page, your tweets and your blogs. They also cross check your LinkedIn page with your CV so make sure you are being honest in both places.

What it boils down to is this, if you do tweet or Facebook or whatever and don't protect your updates then at least make sure that anything you do post isn't likely to put off a potential employer or you are ruling out 46% of your applications before you even get to interview stage. A bit of advice, go and Google your name and see what comes back.

Read the full survey results here

Afternoon all

Well it's been a busy busy development week here, a quick note to let you know about some nice new features on the site.

Firstly when you view a job now you can also see up to 5 other jobs that candidates who applied for that job also applied for which hopefully will simplify your jobhunt further.

And breaking news, we just added the Facebook like button on all jobs so if you see something on the site you want to post to Facebook or alert a friend to go ahead and "like" it. Also if you're an advertiser you can like your jobs on RecruitIreland.com and post them to your Facebook profile - it's all about becoming more interactive guys...

Good news Friday this week is going to be a busy one so be sure and get your good news into me either on Twitter, Facebook or in the comments below or you can use the old-fashioned email way...

I’ve been meaning to let you know about some of the changes we made to the site recently and see what your thoughts are or if you have even noticed any difference?  

After chatting to a sample of some candidates and taking feedback into consideration we decided about 9 months ago to change our business model. There were lots of reasons for this but the main one really was to make the site more transparent for our candidates and to make it easier to find jobs.

Since we changed our business model over to a credits model we have eliminated the need for advertisers to repost jobs or update them, now when a job goes on the site it stays there for 14 days unless the advertiser removed it and then it expires automatically, obviously some will be renewed again after 14 days if they are still open but from your perspective when you do a search on the site now you can be assured and reassured that you are getting the freshest jobs first on your results page.

Some advice which is inside the box I guess, if you don't have a job alert set up on the site then set one up, it means when new jobs that fit your needs are posted they will be emailed to you. You will need to register to do this but I promise we wont annoy you with unnecessary contact. 

If you haven't been converted to RSS  yet and are wondering what its all about then why not download a reader like Feedreader and add your feed to it , then when new jobs are added they are sent to your feedreader. It sounds complicated but believe me it's as addictive as Facebook, once you start adding feeds that little orange icon at the top of most blogs and website pages will make sense all of a sudden.

Any comments, feedback or advice please let us know below?

Morning all

Thanks to @darraghdoyle on Twitter this morning I came across this pic he took in Dublin last night - as you can see jobseekers are finding new and innovative ways to source jobs all the time.

I was at Salesforum.ie last week and there were some jobseekers there networking with sales managers and prospective companies they wanted to work for, again thinking outside the box. One candidate gave me a business card with his contact details on one side and 10 words used to describe his skills on the other side which I thought was another different way to get your name and skills noticed by a prospective recruiter. I think networking events are invaluable if you are jobseeking, try to find something in your area which means you get to meet other people in your industry sector and network with them over coffee or a discussion. This can be offline or online, Linkedin have lots of discussion groups, Twitter is another one where you can connect with people and if you are a "techie" there are tonnes of forums where you can showcase your skills.

A blog is another way of becoming an expert of sorts in your chosen career or industry, check out this guy for a good example of a blogger who used his blog to find a new job.

There's always the sandwich board CV - I dont know if anyone in Ireland has tried this yet but it worked for this guy back in 2008.

What "outside the box" thinking are you using to jobsearch? Better still if you found a job using some alternative method why not let us know? 

We've had a few queries lately about cover letters and content so here are a few quick tips.

Firstly the answer to the question in the title is yes - always include a cover letter. It will help your application to stand out and more importantly stand apart from the rest of the applications sitting in the recruiter's inbox.

Now the next question invariably will be what to include? Remember you are not writing a letter here so no formal letter etiquette is necessary, well to a point anyway, this doesn't mean you can address the recruiter as Hey dude or Hiya. It does mean you don't need to include your address or their address in the header though. Try and get a name to address the letter to, if the ad doesn't include a contact name then ring the company and ask for the HR Manager's name, look up LinkedIn or ring the agency and ask who is looking after the role, if you are calling the agency though be sure and have the reference number for the job to hand because the receptionist will no doubt need this to find the role you are interested in.

Onto the content of the cover letter, don't use a generic cover letter, make it specific to the role you are applying for, don't exagerate, don't write a load of fluff expecting the reader to be impressed with the jargon you include. Be concise and honest, sell yourself but don't be cocky, there's a very thin line between selling yourself and overdoing it. So, keep it short and sweet, make reference to some of the skills mentioned in the job spec and how you fit the profile, give one or two examples of your experience but make sure it's relevant to the job spec but don't write too much, remember you need something to talk about in the interview.

The most important thing with a cover letter is to grab their interest, you want to be the candidate they remember out of all the applications they receive for the right reasons so above anything else don't bore the recruiter and DON'T LIE! Our career centre has some further advice which is definitely worth a read.

If anyone else has any advice they would like to add here - go for it...

Following recent commentary on the web and in newspapers we wanted to highlight for our candidates the importance of safety when job hunting online and the things to watch out for.

In the article linked to above it refers to the fact that fake jobs or scam companies are preying on graduates and those who are unemployed and desperate for a job, this has recently become more prevalent for obvious reasons. Most jobsites monitor the jobs that are posted on their site, but with the volume of jobs posted it's not always possible to check through every job.

We do our best to keep an eye on the ads posted on the site, also when an agency or a company signs up we check their registered company ID and that they have a valid Recruitment Agency License however we do also rely on feedback from our candidates so if you come across any suspect roles please let us know (info@recruitireland.com). We can only speak for our own safety measures, other jobsites may not be as conscious of this issue as we are.

Below I have highlighted some things to bear in mind when job hunting online;

• If it seems too good to be true there is a strong probability that it is!
• Ads based from home, data entry online, graduate jobs and jobs based abroad seem to be the most common type of fake ad. That’s not to say that all of these are fake but be extra cautious if the company you apply to is based overseas.
• Before sending your CV forward for a role do some research on the company or agency advertising the role, check that their address and phone number is valid for example.
• Never ever give your bank details, credit card number or PPS number to anyone unless you know them or you trust the site.
• Never pay an agency to process your application; it is illegal in Ireland for an agency to charge a candidate for their placement services.
• If you are reading this and think you might have given your details to someone in error contact your bank immediately.

You may have some other tips for our jobseekers, please feel free to comment below.