Career Advisory postgraduate studies – after the sixth weekend
What are your strengths from the employer’s point of view? Why should the decision maker give you 15 minutes of their time, although their company isn’t recruiting right now? Why should they choose you out of all of the other candidates?
Will they see what makes you unique after a quick glance at your CV? These are clients’ challenges that a career consultant has to deal with every day. The sixth weekend of the Career Advisory postgraduate studies was about preparing an effective CV and a LinkedIn profile from a job search perspective.
Preparing an effective CV for humans
The first day of the sixth weekend was hosted by Anna Zadrożna who focused on how to create an effective CV so as to reach decision-makers (potential bosses) and generate interviews.
Anna covered the topic of the CV preparation process using concrete examples and demonstrating different stages of it: preparing a catalog of questions to collect data for the CV, making a draft version of the CV, then a CV draft with the client’s answers, the elements of a CV session, as well as formatting and proofreading.
During that day, Anna also presented various forms of professional summaries, e.g.:
- Key areas with examples
- Professional bio
- Unique storyline
- Bio with examples
- Horoscope
- Non-standard ones
We also conducted a so-called “recruiter test” which showed how important a well-written “profile summary” is for those looking for a job.
During the first day, we also had a chance to listen to our guest speaker: an expert in Leadership and Transformation, and Co-Founder of the New World Leader Institute – Hanna Jędruszczak. She shared with the students not only her experiences related to cooperating with a career advisor, but also the ones tied to being in the process of changing jobs and constantly expanding her knowledge of new areas.
LinkedIn for job search
The second day of the sixth weekend was hosted by Anna Mady, who shared her knowledge about LinkedIn as a job search tool. According to statistics, there are over 20 million job ads on LinkedIn and this platform is used by at least 94% of recruiters. This means that each candidate should have a profile optimized for the LinkedIn algorithm to be more visible to the target group.
Anna presented the students with a perspective of a person who searches for candidates on LinkedIn by typing “keywords” in the platform’s search engine. The algorithm first shows people with the desired skills, so when creating a profile, it is worth remembering about the target group:
- other users = people (recruiter, decision maker, hiring manager)
- LinkedIn algorithm (keywords!).
These things can also help users optimize their profiles: - analyzing job ads in light of keywords and required skills
- filling out job search preferences in profile settings (in two places!)
- setting the right job ad alerts.
To sum up, the key to success is a good, optimized LinkedIn profile. Anna also covered user personas and explained selected aspects of the LinkedIn algorithm.
Reflections after the sixth weekend
“During this session, I significantly deepened my knowledge of LinkedIn in the context of job search”
“I realized that people don’t notice how much each click on the Internet matters on a daily basis and that it is later analyzed”
“During this weekend, I found myself very interested in the LinkedIn algorithm. The cool thing is that it’s something I can track and influence; this is something that I can control”
“I had an opportunity to learn a lot about new LinkedIn features, such as skills matched to job ads or candidate skills. I hadn’t heard of the JobScan tool before, neither about using it to match a CV to a job ad, nor to analyze keywords”
“LinkedIn is a tool worth exploring, whether we like it or not”
“I really enjoyed the profile search and analysis exercise. Thanks to that, I was able to look at profile elements, activity, and visibility from a completely different perspective. It made me reflect on how my own online profile is seen by others”
“I am very grateful for these valuable classes”
“I’m thankful for the knowledge and advice of the group, it’s truly amazing how many perspectives on one topic you can get”
“I really enjoy meeting guests who share their experience. This shows how different motivations in approaching a change can be”
“Thoughts and reflections motivate me to break through and “become friendly” with the platforms that I don’t necessarily like to use”
“I understood that it is worth presenting the client with other options”
“This weekend was a breakthrough moment for me and thanks to that, I see that there is a lot of work ahead of me”
“It is important to update and verify your knowledge and share it with our clients. Doing this, we build our image as a person who keeps up with changes and technology”
“I intend to use today’s knowledge in building the image of hiring managers in the organization: in terms of building their profile, online activity, and credibility. If they are to look for employees, they must be credible and identify with the company”
“The knowledge about LinkedIn regarding job search, which I acquired during this weekend, forces me to think about how to properly build job ads, so that they attract the right candidates – what keywords, skills, etc. to use”
“The conversation with the special guest was very interesting; it showed me that we are now dealing with the market of constant learning”
“I am glad that I was able to learn about different types of professional summaries”
“I was very impressed by seeing two versions of a CV: before and after, because it clearly shows the scale of the change and the final effect”
“I can sense how the participation in these studies really develops me, even if in the end I decide not to pursue the career of a consultant”
We will keep you informed about our students, as well as the progress of our studies.
PS. Read more about the past weekends:
Are you interested in this field and don’t want to wait for the next edition? Follow information about our courses – including in-house – on this page:
https://careerangels.eu/become-a-certified-career-consultant/
