Focus On Your Future ~
Developing an effective strategy
for employment
Today’s workshop will cover….
 Case study exercise
 A guide to developing a strategy for employment
 Working on your skills audit∂to develop your own strategy
 Resources available to help following graduation
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Case Study…….
Peter is about to graduate after completing a degree in Combined Arts at Durham
University. His primary areas of study were history and philosophy but he also undertook
some modules in art history. The academic variety of the degree really appealed to Peter;
he feels that the breadth of his degree evidences his ability to cope effectively with
different challenges. He has enjoyed the opportunity to research information but also to
present ideas and views in a compelling and creative way. His dissertation involved an
assessment of the impact of propaganda during conflict. Outside of his academic studies,
Peter has invested considerable time in a music society. He has established a society
website and has actively promoted the society∂to ‘freshers’ through self-penned flyers and
promotional work with university student papers and radio. He has been working parttime in call centre and was promoted to team leader, responsible for ten staff.
Career Aspirations
Peter is keen to use his communication skills in a persuasive and creative way. PR is one
option that really appeals to him; particularly as the role encompasses contact with the
full breadth of media. Ideally, he would like to work in PR for a music company but is open
to other ideas and options. He is uncertain if the experience he has to date is relevant or
sufficient; he is reluctant to undertake further full-time study.
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Your task…….
• How would you market Peter to potential employers? (consider the relevance of
Peter’s skills and experience to PR)
• Is there a skills gap? How would you suggest Peter addresses the skills gap?
∂ (think about different job search
• How should Peter approach getting a job?
strategies)
• Are there other careers/opportunities that Peter should consider?
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Developing a strategy
for employment
David Henderson
d.m.henderson@durham.ac.uk
Jude Gowdy
judith.gowdy@durham.ac.uk
Careers, Employability & Enterprise Centre
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Developing a strategy for employment
This session will cover….
•
•
•
•
•
•
Career focus - developing a clear understanding of what is that you
want from a career
Understanding the graduate job market
Understanding how you fit into that market and what you can offer
∂
Effectively marketing yourself to employers
Diversified approach to job search
Pulling the strategy together
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Career focus
•
•
•
If you have strong career focus this can make it easier to develop a strategy
for employment
It is not unusual to have no idea about which career path to follow therefore
career focus can be considered in other ways:
Sector (e.g. retail, FMCG, media, property, IT)
Employer (e.g. Multinational vs SME)
Opportunity (e.g. structured graduate programme v’s entry level
xxxxxposition)
∂
Other factors can also help you to develop
career focus:
Location (geographically flexible or specific?)
Salary
Lifestyle
Essentially career focus is doing what you can to identify career priorities and
develop an employment strategy accordingly
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Career focus
Resources:
• Career management tools
www.dur.ac.uk/careers/students/generalinformation/careerchoicewheredoistart
• Destination information:
∂
www.dur.ac.uk/careers/undergraduates/destinations/
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Understanding the graduate and
non-graduate job market
Teach
First
740
KPMG
780
Deloitte
900
PWC
1,000
Top 5 recruiters
1,200
• Understanding which employers and sectors are more actively recruiting:
Ernst &
Young
Top 3 sectors for average graduate salary
Investment Banks £42k
Law Firms £38k
Oil & Energy £32k
•
Competition for graduate places very high:∂
45 applications per graduate place (in some sectors it will be much higher than this).
Graduate recruitment recovering but still short of pre-recession levels and increasing
numbers of graduates being recruited following internships
•
Exploring national and regional trends/skills shortages:
e.g. in this region public sector is a major employer but significantly affected by recent
spending cuts. In contrast chemical and pharmaceutical sector is strong in this region
yet nationally graduate recruitment in this sector is half the 2007 level
(www.nomisweb.co.uk).
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Understanding the graduate and
non-graduate job market
• banking & finance
• 2007 - 2011 graduate vacancies
• retailing
• public sector
• consulting, IT &
telecommunications
• consumer goods
• accounting &
professional services
• armed forces
• oil & energy
• law
• media
• investment banking
• engineering
• chemicals &
pharmaceuticals
∂
•
•
•
In terms of actual numbers of vacancies the biggest recruiters are accounting and
professional service firms, investment banking, public sector, banking & finance and
retail
The majority of graduate vacancies within organisations exist in finance, IT,
engineering, HR, general management and marketing. The fewest positions exist
within sales, logistics, purchasing, R & D, law, consulting, media and investment
banking (the last four tend to be the domain of specialist organisations)
High Fliers – The Graduate Market in 2011 (www.highfliers.co.uk)
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∂
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Understanding how you fit into the job
market place
• This is essentially about self-assessment but also an appreciation of what employers
xxare looking for
• On a basic level you need to ask the question how employable am I in terms of both
xxgeneral and specific requirements:
General (common to the
majority of graduate
schemes
Specific (common to the
wider job market but also
some graduate positions)
•Academic qualifications
•Personal qualities
•Transferable skills/competencies (leadership, communication, teamwork,
xproblem solving, decision making etc)
∂
•Relevant experience, skills & qualifications
•
Employer expectations will vary hugely depending on the nature and level of the job
role…you need to assess yourself against the specifics of the opportunity and identify
gaps.
•
Addressing those gaps will form a key part of your employment strategy
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Understanding how you fit into the job
market place
Addressing the gaps:
Qualifications:
•
postgraduate study but also explore shorter professional courses (usually
accredited by relevant professional bodies), distance learning programmes (e.g.
OU), on-the-job training, KTPs (Knowledge Transfer Partnerships http://www.ktponline.org.uk).
Skills/Qualities:
•
•
∂
Your key transferable skills and personal qualities can be improved by simply
getting involved in a range of different things: temporary / p-t employment,
volunteering, travelling etc
If you have areas of weakness (e.g. presenting, debating) put yourself in
positions where you have to put these skills into practice
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Understanding how you fit into the job
market place
Experience:
•
•
•
•
•
•
internships for graduates are becoming more common (e.g. Accenture ‘Navigator’
scheme, Endsleigh graduate internship, Carillion graduate internship)
Graduate Step offers paid internship opportunities with SMEs
(http://www.stepplacements.co.uk); Graduate Talent Pool (govt initiative that is being
disbanded but still open to 2011 graduates)
http://graduatetalentpool.direct.gov.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/p!ecaaefg
Universities are now offering internships to
∂ graduates; you do not necessarily have to
be an alumni of that institution
Graduate job websites useful for graduate internships (Guardian Jobs, Prospects,
Target Jobs, Milkround etc) but also try keyword search (graduate/internship) in
jobsites specific to your own career interests
many internships remain unpaid and organised through speculative approaches,
networking and contacts
alternative to an internship is to find non-graduate, entry level employment in the right
sort of environment/employer: in-house training, relevant experience, networking
opportunities, internal job vacancies
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Effectively marketing yourself to employers
Identify the key
information that you want
an employer to know
about you
Structure your CV,
covering letter and
application forms around
those key selling points
•…this will help you to prioritise what you write and say during the job
application process. Leave the employer in no doubt about your key
selling points!
• major gripe of employers is the quality of applications
•http://www.dur.ac.uk/careers/students/generalinformation/effectiveapplic
ations
∂
Networking
Explore the different
marketing tools available
to you
• this is a key skill and can help you to research career options,
source work experience and even get a job. Networking can be
done informally in any situation but also more formally via career
events and fairs (careers services, professional bodies,
employers, alumni networks)
• …Linked In, You Tube (video CVs), Facebook
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∂
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Effective Applications/Interviews
CV and cover letters
Career and Employer
motivation questions:
• must be individually tailored to the organisation and the opportunity
• demonstrate your understanding of the job role through effective research
(company reports, news stories, market reports, company newsletter, news
section of website etc)
Competency questions:
• relate to specific examples rather than general occasions
•e.g. As President of the Wine Society I demonstrated team work skills X
•As President of the Wine Society I worked with the executive team to organise a
series of lectures entitled ‘wines of the world’. My central role... √
Practise talking about
yourself in a positive way:
• critical to success in an interview situation
• be able to answer questions about key competencies, career motivation,
commercial and technical issues…pre-plan key points that you want to convey to
the interviewer
Quality of application and
performance at interview
that will get you a job
•…this is the same irrespective of economic conditions e.g. Zurich received 1000
applications for the finance scheme but only made 5 offers: this was put down to
the poor quality of candidates or more accurately, the poor self-marketing of
candidates
∂
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STAR applications and interviews
•Describe Situation
•Outline the Task(s)
•What Action did you take?
∂
•What was the Result?
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Diversified approach to job search
•
There are a lots of different approaches to job search…you do not have to adopt
every approach to be successful but a diversified strategy will improve your prospects
•
Online job sites – the most obvious means of finding vacancies but it is important to
select those resources that are most appropriate to your career focus (e.g. graduate
specific, job/sector specific, regional etc).
Top tip – use the career/sector articles on www.prospects.ac.uk to research the most
relevant sources of vacancies; don’t rely on only one graduate job site!
•
•
∂
Professional bodies – usually advertise vacancies
relevant to their organisation; also
often provide a list of member employers (useful for speculative approaches)
Recruitment agencies – can be a useful means of getting temporary experience but
not always effective; some agencies very specific to particular sectors/professions.
There are recruitment agencies that deal specifically with graduates including
Matchtech, Discovery Graduates, Freshminds Talent, Pareto Law, Moloney
Search, Graduate Recruitment Bureau
http://www.dur.ac.uk/careers/graduates/recruitmentconsultancies/
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Diversified approach to job search
•
Speculative – this approach can be frustrating but it does allow you to
proactively contact the employers that really interest you. It is important to
convey those key selling points within your CV and covering letter but also
convey your specific interest in the employer!
•
Social media – means of making key employability information about yourself
available to employers but opportunities also advertised; giving yourself a
strong online presence is becoming increasingly important.
Brave New Talent - interesting example
of a leading social recruitment
∂
platform http://www.bravenewtalent.com/
•
Networks – hidden vacancies can often be accessed through networks
including social media groups, professional bodies, regional/national
employer groups and alumni
•
Vacancies advertised by the Careers Centre ~ graduate vacancies but not
necessarily graduate schemes; genuine variety of opportunities
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Diversified approach to job search
•
If you are flexible about graduate employment, go where the jobs are…
–
organisations that are still actively recruiting graduates include:
-
Accenture (ongoing)
AXA Business Graduate Programme (23/6/2011)
Bloomberg (ongoing)
Britvic Finance scheme (24/6/2011)
CSC (ongoing)
Kent County Council – Management Programme (24/6/2011)
Nationwide (15/6/2011)
Zurich (19/6/2011)
Ofcom – Graduate Advisor (4/9/2011 – January start date)
Co-operative Group – Business Management programme (19/6/2011)
Peppermint PR – Trainee Account Executive (1/7/2011)
∂
Source: Milkround (www.milkround.com), Graduate Jobs (www.graduate-jobs.com) and
Durham Careers Centre vacancies (www.dur.ac.uk/careers/vacancies)
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Diversified approach to job search
•
Research graduate recruiters outside of the top 100…it is surprising
how many less well known ‘big’ companies there are out there
(Hemscott & Kompass useful company research tools)
•
Think carefully about levels of employment: a non-graduate role in the
right type of organisation could be a very positive step forward.
Approximately 20% of graduates will progress onto a ‘graduate
∂ have to find a different career
scheme’ meaning that the vast majority
pathway.
•
Evaluate the options available to you carefully but don’t be too anxious
about making the wrong career decision…your career will not be static!
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Pulling the strategy together
Allow yourself the time to
research different career
options and begin to develop
some degree of career focus
Specific career goals?
Consider related careers or
opportunities that will allow
you to develop relevant
skills/experience; this will also
broaden the range of jobs that
you can apply for.
Look beyond the sector
headings – e.g. challenging
financial graduate jobs
available in all large
organisations not just banks;
PR roles not confined to
agencies and media
consultancies
Research the job market in
respect of the career ideas that
you have: some sectors are
much more active at recruiting
graduates than others
Think carefully about what you
want to market about yourself
to employers; also consider
how you want to do this (e.g.
combination of traditional and
online approaches)
Employ a range of job search
techniques and critically be
proactive…don’t wait for the
vacancies to come you, go and
find them!
Develop your understanding of
what specific employers
expect from graduates or
simply employees; undertake a
self-audit to identify the gaps
Address the gaps! Key part of
the strategy and could
encompass a combination of
further training &
qualifications, networking,
work experience, non-graduate
employment
Finally…set yourself
achievable goals within a time
framework. This will help you
to set targets to address the
gaps in your employability
profile.
∂
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Additional help and support
Services to graduates:
• careers advice (via telephone if necessary)
Register online to continue to receive
our Vacancy Bulletin at
www.dur.ac.uk/careers/graduates
• marketing yourself (CV, cover letter and application support; mock interviews;
self-awareness)
• vacancies
∂
Immediate
start date
(aimed at
graduates)
Future start
date (aimed at
finalists)
Gap Year
Opportunities
Vacancy Database
Use Careers
OnLine to
find current
opportunities
www.careers.dur.ac.uk
Parttime/Termtime (aimed
at all
students)
Placements
Internships /
Vacation Work
(aimed at
penultimate
year)
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Useful resources…..
Graduate Recruitment
Sites:
•www.targetjobs.co.uk
•www.prospects.ac.uk
•www.grb.uk.com
•www.get.hobsons.co.uk
•www.agr.org.uk
•www.bestcompaniesguide.co.uk
•www.gradjobs.co.uk
•www.jobs.guardian.co.uk
•www.just4graduates.net
•www.thebigchoice.com
•www.thegraduate.co.uk
•www.totaljobs.com
•www.gradfutures.com
Recruitment Agencies:
•www.rec.co.uk
•www.lpgr.com
•www.freshminds.co.uk
•www.grb.uk.com
•www.agencycentral.co.uk
•www.nigelwright.com
•www.thebigchoice.com
•www.tmpw.co.uk
∂
Other resources:
•www.dur.ac.uk/alumni.careers
~ Alumni Contacts
•www.targetcourses.co.uk ~
Postgraduate Study
•www.work-experience.org ~
Work Experience
•www.volunteering.org.uk ~
Volunteering
•www.dur.ac.uk/community.acti
on ~ Volunteering
•www.yearoutgroup.org ~ Gap
Years
•www.gapyear.com ~ Gap Years
•www.dur.ac.uk/ktp ~
Knowledge Transfer Partnership
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Focus On Your Future ~
Any Questions?
Developing an effective strategy
for employment