Career Management

Friday, August 20th, 2010

We all know how to get a job? Or do we?  It was only a few decades ago the internet was a thing of unbelievable fantasy! and long before that we thought the world was flat!  career management has been an activity of fact and, for some, fiction for a good number of years.

For the majority financial stability depends on the salary provided by your employer and yet most people will spend more time each year planning their holiday than looking at their career management.

Most people perform their job / career search the same way they live their life…….fast, enthusiastic, energetic, slow, lazy, half hearted…… and the results show!

We have all in our working life managed to gain a new job or career path. The processes we have used to get there are well known e and when we need to find another job, or we have decided to find a better career, we often think we know how to go about it. This, like it not, is your 1^st step into career management.

In only a few hours of interviews and probably only an hour with the actual decision maker, you will expect this person to invest a large amount of time and money in you for an indefinite period. Most people spend 40% of the time at work but only take a fraction of their time deciding the right or wrong move. If you equate the same % v time finding a house / car or partner! You’d make some serious mistakes.

The job seeker market is a marketplace like any other. There are people selling and people buying. In this market, as a job seeker, you are both the seller and the product.

You are realistically ‘selling’ your skills, experience, ability and your cultural fit into a group of strangers and will need to be someone the decision maker feels they can spend up to 40% of their time with.

For a lot of people competence and confidence lacks when it comes to job and career seeking.

The career management experts recommend these tips for you to help you do the right thing at the right time with the right information:-

• 65%  of your activity should revolve around contacting people who are able to offer advice in and on your target sector and suggest new contacts I.E NETWORKING
• 25%  of your activity should involve directly approaching decision makers in target companies I.E NETWORKING
• Up to 30 minutes a day should be spent on social networking sites, especially Linked In.
• 10% of your activity should involve  targeting recruitment contacts who specialise in your sector

Notice the absence of the job boards?  Posting your CV on a ‘Job Board’ is necessary but often ineffective.

The failure rate for job seekers of this kind is somewhere over 80%, so over ¾ of frustrated job / careers seekers searching in this way fail to find a job if using only this method.

2009, 2010 and probably 2011 will be the most competitive employment markets ever.  The whole recruitment industry (all recruitment /employment agencies and headhunters) only account for 20% of vacancies filled in any year, often less in tough budgetary and economic times.

Remember

• There has never been a better time to get your career management strategy and activity right
• Most potential employers are going to ‘Google’ you
• Recruiters search for candidates on Linked In more than on the ‘Job Boards’
• A large majority of all recruitment decisions are made because someone has recommended the applicant or the applicant is already known to the employer

Happy Hunting

Career Management Services

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

What does it mean to invest in your career? Go on a course to update your skills? Spend a few hours each week trawling through jobs pages and websites? Or pay a company to manage your career?

Very few will think of the latter but those who do have taken ownership of their own career by investing in their career.

In reality, career management companies deal with individuals who command salaries of £30,000 and upwards, broadly described as middle to senior management.

Based in Edinburgh at Straiton Business Parc, TCMO is Scotland’s most innovative career management services and outplacement services company. Raymond Currie, a Director of the company, explains how the career management service works in practice. “Contrary to the perception most of our clients are not out of work. Most are in jobs but are now taking control of their future career moves.

TCMO offer a personalised service, no seminars and no workshops. Everything is tailored to the specific needs of the client and is a results driven process backed up with TCMO’s career lifetime guarantee. TCMO take you on an interactive journey to success, project managed and delivered by a team of career professionals. The key to success is TCMO’s pro active support built on strong foundations. These foundations include identifying the client’s primary career objective through a Career Diagnosis and Focus consultation.

Effective marketing is essential with cutting edge CVs, covering letters and profiles being created before ensuring that interview techniques are thoroughly addressed. Routes to market are researched before TCMO tap into their network which in turn provides access to the unadvertised job market which accounts for 75-80% of positions in the UK.

TCMO are innovative in their approach to career management. Everything they do is on a one to one basis, scheduled around the client’s diary and existing commitments. Their unique selling points are the on going career support until the day you retire but in particular the professionalism of the career managers.

TCMO start the “investment in your career” by offering two initial career assessment meetings, free of charge after which they produce a proposal tailored to your needs. So if you are changing career, seeking promotion, facing redundancy or at a crossroads in your career, why not contact TCMO with the view of taking ownership of your own career…or do you want “to wait and see?”