Maximise Your Chances of Landing a New Job

Released on: March 01, 2010, 3:53 am
Author: Reed Global
Industry: Human Resources

Winning a new role in today’s highly competitive job market requires a level of application that many part-qualified accountants may have thought was only required when preparing for their professional examinations.

Here are a few simple tips from recruitment experts Reed Accountancy to help you take your next step in finding your next accountancy job. Know where you want to get to Only when you know where you want to get to can you work out how to get there.

Having this clarity for your career is crucial in enabling you to properly spot and evaluate the less obvious opportunities, which may not bring you an immediate big jump in salary or responsibility, but which will provide you with enhanced longer-term personal and career development opportunities.

What makes you different?

The next thing to do is work out what your Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) are.

Your USPs are those aspects of your background, achievements, skills, experience and expertise which will help you to stand out from other applicants and be of most interest and value to a prospective employer.

How to stand out

Now that you know what your USPs are, you need to decide how to market yourself so that your application immediately stands out positively from the inevitable mass of others that an employer will have received.

Make sure your CV is concise, punchy and customised with your relevant achievements, qualifications and experience. Don’t include clichéd phrases like "works well as part of a team" or "highly motivated self starter". Instead, concentrate on showing where and how you have added value to previous employers, using specific and quantified examples.

Also, be aware that business acumen and a commercial awareness are valued in accountancy professionals just as much as they are among in other disciplines. By showing that you possess these important skills, in addition to your core accountancy qualifications and experience, you will make yourself a much more interesting candidate for any organisation looking to maximise their profit or surplus.

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare

In the current vacancy-driven employment market, recruiting employers are taking the opportunity to be more rigorous and selective than ever in their search for top quality talent to bring in to their organisations.

After an employer has completed their initial sifting of applicants, leaving themselves with a short-list of talented candidates, the recruitment team will be under intense pressure from the business to bring in the best available people.

Thorough preparation is essential if you want to enter the interview and assessment processes in the best possible shape to progress. In particular, make sure you comprehensively research the organisation and the sector in which they operate, paying particular attention to online media and any recent press releases.

Expect and prepare for tough, competency-based interviews, and be ready to give specific examples of where and when you have demonstrated skills and achieved results that are relevant to the role you are being interviewed for.

An in-depth understanding of the organisation and the markets in which they operate will not only enable you to answer most of the questions interviewers may throw at you, it will also arm you to ask probing and pertinent questions of your own.

Ready, steady ……. GO!

With a few signs of recovery beginning to appear and indications that some recruitment freezes are coming to an end, recruitment experts are expecting a fresh influx of jobseekers from those who had sat tight in non-ideal roles during the most difficult times, but who are now anxious to find a more suitable role as soon as the market emerges from its current difficulties and the country begins its slow journey out of recession.

And finally ….

The most effective new job campaigns are the ones that are carried out professionally.

While this doesn’t mean you have to register with an experienced, professional recruitment agency who provide good contacts with those employers which typically provide the best opportunities - if you want to give yourself the best chance of landing a great next role then this should be a serious consideration.

Contact Details: Adrian Linden
PR Manager
Reed Press Office
P: +44 (0)845 241 9249
M:+44 (0)7919 967 865
E: press.office@reedglobal.com
http://www.reedglobal.com.au/