Career Advisory postgraduate studies – after the seventh weekend
Automated recruitment processes, bots, ATS, algorithms… candidates on the rapidly-changing job market face them on a daily basis. This is also the reality of professional Career Consultants who have to be familiar with digital trends and tools to be able to advise, as well as guide their clients to achieve their professional goals. The seventh weekend of the Career Advisory postgraduate studies focused on two topics: “How to prepare an effective CV for ATS” and “Online presence”.
Preparing an effective CV for ATS
The first day of the seventh weekend was led by Anna Zadrożna who focused on preparing an effective CV for ATS, which goes through Applicant Tracking System and, thanks to that, generates interviews. The day started with a very practical meeting with Maciej Michalewski, CEO / Founder of Element, who created ATS Element out of his passion for technology. Maciej showed the “backstage” of the system and explained its features, both from employer’s and candidate’s perspectives.
Later, Anna discussed tools used by both the candidates (our clients) and the Consultants – the so-called CV scanners: VMOCK, RezScore, ResumeWorded, SkillRoads, ResumeGo, Skillsyncer, Enhancv, CultivatedCulture, Resume.Shine. Using a concrete example, she explained the functionality of JobScan, a platform which allows comparing CV with a job ad. The purpose of “scanning” is to check the match between keywords from the job ad and CV. This exercise helped our students realize how important it is to add several keywords from the job ad in several strategic places in the CV. It impacts the final percentage indicator of matching, and can raise you from being a candidate with a 27% match (= delete) to 81% match (= interview).
Online presence
The second day of the seventh weekend was led by Anna Mady, who explored the topic of online presence: what it consists of and what impact it has on building a personal brand. A personal brand consists of many factors, according to the “Personal Branding” model. They are, among others: reputation, competencies, strategy, written communication, online presence, public speaking, network, etc.
When assessing the presence (your own or the client’s), it is worth looking at it in the context of the following categories:
- Visibility → how easy is it to find you?
- Networking → how many contacts (and followers) do you have?
- Professionalism → what first impression do you make?
Anna also conducted an exercise that allowed students to see what impression they make on their clients. Later that day, she covered the topic of how to create a professional LinkedIn profile, and what to focus on when setting the following:
- link
- first and last name
- background and profile photo
- contact info
- tagline
- profile summary
- experience
- education
- other sections
She also mentioned potentially useful LinkedIn functions.
As a Career Advisor, it is crucial to know what particular online platforms can be used for, how and by which professional groups they are used. These platforms are e.g. Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Xing, Twitch, GitHub.
On that day, a Managing Director from the construction industry made a guest appearance. They shared with the students their experiences related to cooperation with a career advisor and challenges faced during job search process.
Reflections after the seventh meeting
“I was very impressed by the exercises with searching and evaluating one’s own online presence. It allowed me to look at myself from a different point of view; I discovered some things on the internet that I hadn’t expected to find”
“I really enjoyed the practical aspect of the course: lots of exercises allowed me to use the online presence assessment tool right away”
“I was inspired by the special guest: it was interesting to find out what surprised them about the job search process, its duration, methodology”
“After today, I know that once again I need to focus on my LinkedIn profile and improve it. I learned a lot of practical things about this platform and profile-building”
“I’m beginning to convince myself to set up a LinkedIn account and take care of my profile, network, and how others see me. Regardless of my own preferences, I know the world is moving in this direction and I have to deal with it”
“I understood that ATS tools are best tested to one’s cost”
“I can see that in the context of working with ATS, the ability to find keywords on your own is also important”
We will keep you informed about our students, as well as the progress of our studies.
PS. Read more about the previous weekends:
– first
– second
– third
– fourth
– fifth
– sixth
Are you interested in this field and don’t want to wait until our next edition? Follow information about our courses – including in-house – on this site:
https://careerangels.eu/become-a-certified-career-consultant/
