Making yourself employable

With unemployment at 7.8% or 2.48 million and the number of vacant jobs standing at 482,000 there are now, on average, five people chasing every job. However, this ‘average’ doesn’t actually reveal the true picture. In some places, there are up to 18 people chasing every job and in some sectors there are dozens of jobs going spare.

So what effect does this have on you? If you are looking for a job, now is the time to diversify and put your business skills to good use. There are jobs out there you might just need to think a little differently about what you want to do. Check out the Guardian Jobs website to search through hundreds of jobs by career sector and location, with a particularly extensive London jobs section.

In the mean time, it’s time your tidied up and refocused your C.V. practiced your interview skills and think about what kind of transferable skills you can utilise.

C.V.

Your C.V. is like an advert. You need to think of your employer as your target market; you therefore need to tailor the language and style of your C.V. to every position you apply for. According to Guardian Careers, you need to create your own brand. This is what big companies and advertising agencies do. They build up a brand that you want to buy into. You have to do the same on your C.V. You need to balance sound confident with sounding cocky. You want to sell yourself, not sound like a cheesy ‘too good to be true’ advert.

Transferable skills

If you are having trouble getting that dream job as an account manager in PR, think at what else you can do with your skill set. You can go off on a tangent and move into marketing, advertising, copywriting or even journalism. Your skills at communication, selling and building client relations and your media knowledge and background mean any of these jobs are available if you know how to sell your transferable skills. Likewise, you can jump completely outside of the box and become an HR executive. The same basic skills such as communication, selling and organisation and contacts formation are required and it could lead you down a completely different avenue.

Interview

When it comes to the interview you need to be able to back up everything you have on your C.V. You will need to elaborate and give more examples and prove your transferable skills. A good idea is to make use of online testing sites, as well as roping in some friends to ask you questions as part of a role-play situation. It’s a good idea to ask people who don’t know you too well, as they will be more inquisitive.