advance presentation skills

In a former life, I employed thousands of people and prior to that when I worked in recruitment, I must have met tens of thousands. Here are my top tips for graduates when applying to employers and going through the assessment centres.

Firstly, get your CV in perfect condition. Get recruitment agencies to review it. Don’t take any one persons re-write but get a range of views. . Only include roles that add value to your application if you have had a plethora of part-time jobs whilst studying.

Secondly, most CV’s at the Graduate stage should not be more than two pages as people simply will not read them, no matter how successful you have been up to the age of 21, I an pretty much guarantee an employer or agent will not find your CV interesting. Unless you took your internet company public or gained £100,000 in VC for your start-up. And then why would you be applying to a graduate programme?

Thirdly, and I am not telling anyone to do anything here that is illegal or that they are uncomfortable with but I knew a clever graduate who wanted to apply to PWC. He missed the required office points because he got a C instead of a B in History at A Level. Now we are not talking someone who is going to be operating on someone here. So he lied. And on the first day at PWC they asked for copies of the certificates. So what did he do? Did he come clean? Absolutely not! He smiled sweetly at the HR Manager and handed them over. They were never checked, he completed his professional exams and handed his notice in the 264th day of his third year. He qualified and is now a director of a successful financial training company. Understand that the motivation for major employers in setting criteria for A levels is simply the paper sift as they do not have the resources to assess every application.

Fourthly, ESP. I harp on about this but when you meet prospective employers; Eye contact, Smile, and Be Positive. Do not look at your shoes. Too many graduates are awful at holding eye contact or acting interested even if they are outgoing and do all of these things amongst friends and relatives. I notice a lot of “Kevin the Teenager” in so many graduates.

Fifthly, you must learn how to control a group in an assessment centre when working on group assessments. I will go through this more in the next few days….

Ciao for now!