Having a great resume is one thing, figuring out where and when to send it is something else entirely.
Recruiters, career coaches and Web gurus say that less is more when it comes to resume proliferation, despite a host of services that will shotgun your CV across cyberspace. Finance candidates, in particular, should show restraint, as so much of the industry's work revolves around personal networks.
Not only does the scattershot approach generally yield dismal results, but the more resumes that a person has circulated, the harder it is to update them or to keep different versions from popping up in the wrong places.
Flags go up when a candidate has spread a CV far and wide.
"There's the old saying that the best talent is always in demand." "And there's a fine line between self-promotion and proactive outreach and spam."
In many ways, the recruiting game has become an arms race of sorts. Recruiters, job boards and Web sites like ResumeBomber.com have built technological systems to store and ship unprecedented numbers of CVs. Monster.com, for instance, takes in about 25,000 resumes a day. Meanwhile, companies have developed equally sophisticated programs to sort, select and scrap all of those resumes.
Job candidates, meanwhile, are often caught in the middle, trying to get noticed. Here's some advice from job pros on how to do just that:
Take Aim
Tory Johnson, CEO of Women For Hire, an online recruiting site, said too many people are using the "spray and pray method." "They're literally spraying their resume out there -- applying and submitting to anything and everything," she explained. "Then they sit back and pray that the phone rings. It doesn't -- and it won't."
Keep It General
Consider an unsolicited online resume a way to "pique interest," not necessarily a way to lock up your dream job, said Sean Ebner, regional vice president for Technisource, an IT recruiter owned by staffing giant SFN Group. "I tend to advise less is more," Ebner said.
Keep Track
That's the advice of Joanne Vincett, assistant director of career development at Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business. "You have so many different sites now, and it's easy to forget where you've posted," she said. "You have to get your stories straight."
Update Often
Michael Fertik, CEO of ReputationDefender Inc., said the best way to scrub old information from the Web is to replace it with new, more current content. "Claim your Web real-estate," Fertik said, with thorough and timely profiles on Google, LinkedIn and a personal blog.
Think Twice
Look before you leap when it comes to search firm databases. That's the advice of Bruce Lloyd, director of employer relations at Columbia Business School. "You don't know who's had access to them, you don't know who's copied them or who they may have passed it around to," Lloyd said. "The last thing you want is your resume ending up on your boss's desk for another position in the organization."
Go Direct
Save most of your resume traffic for specific jobs. Pongo Resume, which stores and distributes CVs, advises candidates to doctor their documents to include keywords found in the targeted job listing. That's one of the only ways to beat the HR robots.
Forget the Resume
Get networking! The old adage about "who you know" is still very much alive in the finance industry. "People hire people," she said. "So if you're spending the bulk of your time chasing positions with your resume, the results won't be as promising as they could be if you invested in building and nurturing relationships."
And be on the lookout for news of departures. The revolving doors on Wall Street spin at a blistering pace and that is often the first sign of an opening.
Thursday 29 July 2010
Applying for jobs?
Applying for jobs? Make sure that your online profile - and that of your friends - is in good shape: employers may try to look through your Facebook page and any other available information to find out what kind of person you really are.
What are hiring managers and recruiters are looking for when they scan your online profile? Use these tips to cover your digital tracks that could harm your candidacy.
~ Key Takeaways ~
1. Be careful with your "friends" and associations. Employers and recruiters aren't just monitoring your online footprint, but also those of your close contacts.
2. Make sure that your name isn't easily confused in search results; use a middle name or initial if needed.
3. Brand yourself with a Twitter feed, a blog or other relevant Web presence that speaks to your professional experience.
Tuesday 27 July 2010
Understanding the Financial Markets
It is essential that newcomers to the Banking & Finance industry gain a solid understanding of the financial markets. Once this understanding is developed, one can acknowledge their contribution towards a specific financial market, depending on which setor of Banking & Finance you choose to work in. So I thought I'd share some information to help with this.
The term marketplace or simply market is a reference to a place where goods and services are bought and sold. The New York Stock Exchange is one example of a market where trading takes place and is one of the best known markets in the world.
Stock Exchanges
There are two primary theoretical marketplaces where securities are traded. The term theoretical is used here because the market need not be a physical place where buyers and sellers meet to trade securities. This is akin to references to different markets for selling both new and used automobiles. The primary market for car sales refers to sales of cars between the manufacturer (or a dealership) and the buyer. A secondary market refers to used car sales and may be between any owner and seller. The point is that primary markets refer to new sales and secondary markets refer to used sales.
A stock exchange is any legally recognized market where securities can be bought and sold. Corporations that issue stock are traded in these markets and typically wish to be listed as an officially traded company so that the shares of stock can be purchased by investors in a liquid market. In addition, stock exchanges are regulated such that both companies and investors must follow trading rules making the transition of ownership safer and less risky. The liquidity of the market refers to the ease with which ownership of a company in the form of stocks can be bought and sold without delay or complications afforded by selling the stock on a one-to-one basis between each company and investor.
A stock exchange is any legally recognized market where securities can be bought and sold. Corporations that issue stock are traded in these markets and typically wish to be listed as an officially traded company so that the shares of stock can be purchased by investors in a liquid market. In addition, stock exchanges are regulated such that both companies and investors must follow trading rules making the transition of ownership safer and less risky. The liquidity of the market refers to the ease with which ownership of a company in the form of stocks can be bought and sold without delay or complications afforded by selling the stock on a one-to-one basis between each company and investor.
Primary and Secondary Markets
A primary market refers to any market where new shares of stock are sold. A corporation wishing to sell new shares of stock benefits from this sale because the stock is sold in the market directly by the issuing company. This is in contrast to secondary markets where shares of stock already in circulation and issued at a previous date are traded among investors. The company who issued the stock does not benefit directly from the sale of stock in a secondary market because the money paid for the stock goes to the seller in exchange for part ownership in the company. In this case, the company is not involved in the transaction.
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Tips to enhance your CV, and improve its uniqueness
Regardless of the debate around the number of people currently pursuing financial services positions, two things are certain: there are thousands of financial services CVs available on CV databases, and any recruiter advertising a job has to trawl through many hundreds of them every single day.
This being so, how can you ensure that your CV isn’t consigned to a life of oblivion?
1) Use key words
If you send your CV to a recruiter, it will probably end up on a CV database. Alternatively, you can always load your CV onto a CV database directly.
Once your CV is on the database, it will be extracted by recruiters who have searched for key words. If your CV does not contain the correct key words, it will therefore not be found. Conversely, the key words your CV contains, the greater the chance that it will NOT languish in obscurity.
Needless to say, you should only mention key words if they actually apply to your achievements and experiences. One senior in-house recruiter says candidates have a tendency to insert key words, even when they’re not relevant.
“Candidates might write, ‘I worked with a project manager,’ so that they ensure the words ‘project manager’ are included in their CV and that it will come up in database searches for project management roles,” he reflects. If you do this, you will get a bad name.
2) Cut the guff
Do not bury your achievements in a mountain of waffle. If you do, it is unlikely that your CV will be unearthed on a database search, ever. Keep to the point; concise and RELEVANT information will be vauled by the recruiter. CVs need to be short. The recruiters often read 200+ CVs each day. “As a rule of thumb, the more verbose the covering letter, the longer the personal statement, and the more long winded a CV, the less suitable the candidate,” says James Heath at Greenwich Partners.
3) Mirror the job specification
If you’re sending in your CV in application for a particular job, then guess what? It will help to adapt it to the job in question. In particular, it will help to read the job specification in detail, to think about what’s being asked, and to adapt your CV to try and reflect the fact that you’ve got the experience requested (if you haven’t, it’s not worth applying). Look at the words being used to describe the skills required in the advertisement. Use these in your CV.
4) Keep updating it
When recruiters are searching job boards for CVs, they are usually given the option of filtering CVs based on how recently those CVs were updated/uploaded. This being the case, it’s worth uploading your CVevery day every month to make sure you’re not at the bottom of the pile.
Alternatively, if you’ve sent your CV to a recruiter, it might be sufficient just to keep calling them up. “We are able to sort CVs on our database according to how recently we’ve spoken to candidates,” says one recruiter. “Every call a candidate makes to us is registered, and the more recent the activity, the higher the CV will appear on a search that's filtered by date.”
This being so, how can you ensure that your CV isn’t consigned to a life of oblivion?
1) Use key words
If you send your CV to a recruiter, it will probably end up on a CV database. Alternatively, you can always load your CV onto a CV database directly.
Once your CV is on the database, it will be extracted by recruiters who have searched for key words. If your CV does not contain the correct key words, it will therefore not be found. Conversely, the key words your CV contains, the greater the chance that it will NOT languish in obscurity.
Needless to say, you should only mention key words if they actually apply to your achievements and experiences. One senior in-house recruiter says candidates have a tendency to insert key words, even when they’re not relevant.
“Candidates might write, ‘I worked with a project manager,’ so that they ensure the words ‘project manager’ are included in their CV and that it will come up in database searches for project management roles,” he reflects. If you do this, you will get a bad name.
2) Cut the guff
Do not bury your achievements in a mountain of waffle. If you do, it is unlikely that your CV will be unearthed on a database search, ever. Keep to the point; concise and RELEVANT information will be vauled by the recruiter. CVs need to be short. The recruiters often read 200+ CVs each day. “As a rule of thumb, the more verbose the covering letter, the longer the personal statement, and the more long winded a CV, the less suitable the candidate,” says James Heath at Greenwich Partners.
3) Mirror the job specification
If you’re sending in your CV in application for a particular job, then guess what? It will help to adapt it to the job in question. In particular, it will help to read the job specification in detail, to think about what’s being asked, and to adapt your CV to try and reflect the fact that you’ve got the experience requested (if you haven’t, it’s not worth applying). Look at the words being used to describe the skills required in the advertisement. Use these in your CV.
4) Keep updating it
When recruiters are searching job boards for CVs, they are usually given the option of filtering CVs based on how recently those CVs were updated/uploaded. This being the case, it’s worth uploading your CV
Alternatively, if you’ve sent your CV to a recruiter, it might be sufficient just to keep calling them up. “We are able to sort CVs on our database according to how recently we’ve spoken to candidates,” says one recruiter. “Every call a candidate makes to us is registered, and the more recent the activity, the higher the CV will appear on a search that's filtered by date.”
Sunday 18 July 2010
Areas in Banking & Finance to explore
Image via WikipediaAREAS TO EXPLORE:
- Commercial Banking
- Corporate Finance
- Financial Planning
- Hedge Funds
- Insurance
- Investment Banking
- Money Management
- Private Equity
- Real Estate
The Best Investment Banks to Target for a Career
Below are the top four best investment banks, in terms of career:
Goldman Sachs
Bank of America
Citi
Morgan Stanley
Goldman Sachs
Bank of America
Citi
Morgan Stanley
Tuesday 13 July 2010
How to chase job applications without being irritating!
I thought I'd post a link that I came across. I thought it would be helpful to any job seekers currently searching for Banking & Finance positions, as it discusses ways to chase up applications and interview feedback.
Check it out!
http://news.efinancialcareers.co.uk/newsandviews_item/newsItemId-27022?source=EM:efc_eu=2949&om_rid=NWmmBt&om_mid=_BMPID3B7biBoAw&
Check it out!
http://news.efinancialcareers.co.uk/newsandviews_item/newsItemId-27022?source=EM:efc_eu=2949&om_rid=NWmmBt&om_mid=_BMPID3B7biBoAw&
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