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Whatever careers you
are considering, identifying careers which are appropriate to your
values and abilities is the key objective.
Processing applications
through to offers depends on a match between what you have to offer
an employer (and vice versa), and what the employer is looking for.
Understanding how employers
determine their needs can help you a great deal in deciding if you
wish to apply and how to maximise your chances of success.
Generalising about organisations
as diverse as Food Manufacturers, Banks, Social Service Departments,
Motor Companies, Retailers, Accountants or Law firms is difficult
but look at this:
Many organisations have
hierarchies:
Directors
I
Division Heads
I
Section or Function Middle Managers
I
Supervisors
I
Graduate Trainees
Most graduates are recruited
at or near the bottom of organisations, but with the intention that
they will progress to middle or senior management at a later date,
say between 5 and 15 years.
Most senior managers
have moved around within organisations, obtaining the experience
which it was felt best fitted them for their ultimate positions.
Many moves required
the individual to undertake some form of training.
Thus each middle and
senior manager will have three types of skills:
(a) Skills gained
by experience
(b) Skills gained
by training
(c) Basic skills
presented at entry innate?
Employers you will be
applying to, therefore, are looking for your potential for training
and progression, and evidence of certain basic skills - but which?
This is where organisations
diverge, although you will be surprised how many skills are valued
in common by many different organisations.
Most good employers define
their needs, or recruitment criteria, and expectations, and then
go on to define what sort of evidence they see as giving positive
or negative indications of these criteria. Interviewing based on
this technique is often called Criteria-Based Interviewing.
When mentioned in
recruitment adverts, what do employers mean by the following?
| TERM |
MEANING |
| Leadership: |
Recognizing
opportunities, providing evidence of responsibility for others
and ability to motivate others, comfortable working with other
people, using a variety of resources effectively, creating a
good first impression, appearing self confident, enthusiastic
and responsive. |
| Initiative: |
Gets
going on important priorities, overcomes obstacles, keeps moving
towards goals, finds improved ways of getting results. |
| Thinking/Problem
Solving: |
Ability
to sort through complex data, gets others viewpoints, identifies
important issues, thinks through alternatives, learns from successes
and mistakes to better solve problems, makes realistic/practical
decisions. |
| Communication: |
Seeks
to understand and then be understood, organizes and expresses
thoughts clearly and concisely both verbally and in writing,
expresses ideas so as to build commitment to them, involves
and informs others to share the whole picture, recognizes cultural
differences and communicates in ways that work. |
| Works
effectively with others: |
Has
played a key role in groups/teams in the past, demonstrates
integrity and high personal standards, respects and works effectively
with a diverse range of people and enables all to contribute,
builds productive working relationships, gets the best results,
sensitive to cultural and political issues. Listens. |
| Creativity
and Innovation: |
Takes
a broad view, translates new ideas into workable solutions,
goes beyond the accepted ideas to find new opportunities and
generates ways to get better results, searches out and reapplies
proven ideas/methods to new situations, uses logic and intuition. |
| Priority
setting: |
Seeks
to understand the needs of others and sets priorities accordingly,
recognises the most important issues, makes effective plans,
and gets resources in place to achieve key objectives with the
end in mind, despite obstacles. |
| Special
skills: |
Does
the candidates have the appropriate specialist skills required,
e.g. legal, scientific, etc. |
Evaluation
The employer at pre-selection
stage, i.e. application form or first interview, will be on the
look out for positive and negative evidence clustered around examples
of these criteria in your application. Be thorough and honest.
|
Negative
evidence:
|
Positive
evidence:
|
- Poor work and
study habits
- Lazy or erratic
- Misses deadlines
- Poor judgement
- History of relationship
problems
- No management
potential
- Immature
- Lacking energy
and enthusiasm
- Accepts the
status quo
- Weak or ill
thought out reasoning
- Abrasive or
withdrawn
- Not particularly
fluent
- Seriously shy
or socially inhibited
- Little evidence
of working with others
- Narrow group
of friends
|
- Impressive appearance
- Socially poised
and confident
- Outstanding
intellectual ability applied effectively
- Visionary and
creative
- Able to prioritise
- Meets difficult
deadlines
- Sound judgement
- High level of
social skills
- Welcomes change
- Comfortable
working with other people
- Has done things
- Effective interaction
with people at all levels
- Good influence
skills
- Mature and well
balanced
- Highly motivated
and enthusiastic
- High level of
energy
- Strongly driven
- Strong commitment
to chosen career
|
Let's call evidence of
these criteria the employer's 'shopping list'. You will note here
that impact is important!
The next thing the employer
does is to write these criteria into their recruitment brochure,
or their directory entry.
At the same time they
will produce an application form designed around these criteria.
A careful reading of
the brochure by you and the use of a highlighting pen is what you
need next.
Having extracted the
list from the brochure, you need to think what evidence you have
in your background to support your application on each criteria.
It is at this point that
many students get cold feet. Feeling
inadequate, many students worry about what to write down. Well,
employers are quite used to receiving applications from, and ultimately
recruiting, very normal people - even those who have not had the
advantage of being at University!
However, some words of
caution. Not all criteria may be listed in the brochure or profile
of graduates.
The employers may save
one or two for interview or selection centre. If you genuinely feel
that the 'shopping list' contains very little you can respond to,
you'd best say "goodbye" to the organisation and save
yourself and the employer hours of work.
With the occasional exception
mentioned above, the same criteria tend to be used throughout the
recruitment process. So, having determined what the employer is
looking for, don't lose sight of them.
This content
is © The University of Hull.
Edited and reproduced with kind permission from John Franks - Head
of Hull University Careers
Service. All Rights Reserved.
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