Getting your priorities straight

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The observant/chronically unoccupied among you may have realised that I didn't update the blog last week as per schedule. Being the clever clogs that I am however,  rather than pretending it didn't happen I am instead going to use it as the jumping off point for this week's topic: prioritising.

There comes a time in every job (or life) when you have too many things to do and not enough time to do them in (I realise that for many people this may be the rule rather than the exception but bear with me). Maybe you have a big one-off project on top of your normal work or you’re trying to apply for new jobs whilst continuing to work at your old one. Maybe you’ve been given a lot of different tasks by different people who all want them done yesterday. Or maybe (to take an example not completely at random) you’re trying to write a blog alongside working two jobs and visiting your sister at university. Whatever the situation, there comes a time when you have to make a decision about what to do and when to do it – the alternative is to sit and panic whilst not doing any of it, which I can tell you from personal experience doesn’t work!

Here then, are my three immutable rules for prioritising your obligations:

1.  Do the most important things first and the things you least want to do second. This might sound like a no-brainer but – as anybody who’s ever cleaned their house from top to bottom when they were supposed to be revising will tell you – often when you have a lot of things to do its easier to justify not doing the things you don’t want to. After all, the tasks you are doing are useful and worthwhile so it’s not like you’re wasting your time… Sadly if you’re going to get everything done you need to prioritise ruthlessly: do the important stuff and then do the stuff you hate (these may be the same things). Once all the difficult and boring stuff is accomplished move on to the rest, secure in the knowledge that there’s no horrible tasks lying in wait for you to do at the last minute.
2. Make a to do list you can edit. Again I’m not re-inventing the wheel here, but you cannot overestimate the importance of list-making when it comes to getting your priorities straight; write each task down on a post-it note and then arrange them in the order you think they should be done. When each one is completed you can rip it up and feel the true sense of accomplishment that comes with reaching a goal. The post-it note method is great because it allows you to re-shift your priorities as the situation changes.
3.  Know your limitations. Sometimes even a superbly prioritised list of tasks is just too long; if there aren’t enough hours in the day to do your work, then you need to be honest with people. Explain your priorities to them and work together on rescheduling the tasks that are less urgent. Often people simply want to know when something will be done without necessarily minding when exactly it is. The most important thing is to show that you have a plan and a schedule and that you’re not just being lazy and not bothering to write your blog post this week (ahem).

At the end of the day, it’s important to take a balanced attitude to your work – unless your job is vital to saving human lives it shouldn’t consume your every waking moment and prioritising effectively is the key to getting your work done within work hours, leaving you free to pursue your own desires the rest of the time.

Having problems with your priorities or got some more advice to share? Let me know in the comments.

How to have a healthy relationship with your job applications

You know those people that get carried away by relationships? They go on a few dates with somebody and suddenly they’re building castles in the sky – planning their wedding, doodling names on their notebook and mentally planning out their life for the next thirty or forty years. Next thing you know they’re sobbing on your shoulder because the other person got freaked out by the intensity and broke it off.

Photo by Mendhak via flickr

Well, it turns out that when it comes to jobs that’s exactly the kind of person I am: as soon as I know I’ve got an interview (arguably the first date of the job hunting process) I get carried away imagining my life if I got the job; I look at possible places to live, think about how I’d get to work and work out where I’d meet up with my friends. I even plan holidays I could take on the salary available. Just like the over-keen person in a relationship I go too far, too fast when there’s no guarantee that the outcome of the situation will be the one I want. As a result, I leave myself completely emotionally vulnerable for the (seemingly) inevitable rejection that ensues.

It’s an easy trap to fall into, particularly if your job hunt is just beginning or not going well: in the former situation every application seems like a dazzling pathway to a better future and you get carried away by the fantasy and in the latter each opportunity provides a glimmer of hope that this time the search might be over and you’ll finally get your life sorted. Either way, you get attached to the vision of the future rather than the job itself, meaning that when you’re unsuccessful you don’t just lose the job, you lose all the plans and dreams that go along with it.

While this may not seem like the worst thing in the world, I’ve learned the hard way that if you keep repeating this pattern with each application you get extremely disheartened about the job hunt and depressed about your future opportunities.

Instead of focusing completely on one role at a time therefore, make sure you have a number of applications on the go at any one time – put the same amount of effort in but don’t dwell on the possibilities inherent in each position. The more positions you apply for, the more possible futures there are, making it less likely you’ll get overly invested in any of them. In addition to this, when you come back from an interview get straight on with the next application – it can be tempting to give yourself a break but resist: taking a break often means you are subconsciously relying on getting the job whereas continuing the process prevents you becoming too emotionally involved with the future that success could provide.

Are you a needy job hunter? Do you get too attached to the possibilities each job provides? Let me know in the comments. For more job hunting information click here.

Feeling the fear and doing it anyway

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Everybody has something they hate doing – some part of their job, however important or trivial, that they really, really don’t want to do ever if they can possibly avoid it. For me, it’s making phone calls but other people hate giving presentations, meeting one-on-one with their boss, creating resources, e-mailing people, dealing with IT or any of 101 things that other people think is no big deal but that you lie awake at night fretting about. The hardest thing to do –especially at three a.m. Monday morning - is to admit to yourself that they’re right: it really is no big deal.

There often isn’t really a reason that you’ve grown to regard the task in question with a combination of fear and loathing – sometimes you’ve just had a really bad experience, sometimes you’ve had no experience with it prior to your current position and sometimes you’re just behaving irrationally. The important thing is that you need to get over it because letting it get the better of you and adversely affect your job performance is not something you want to happen.

Of course, I’m not going to bring up a problem like this without providing some solutions, so here are my top three strategies for curing yourself of work phobias.

Throw yourself in at the deep end

Rather like jumping into cold water rather than easing in, or ripping of a band aid, for some people the best solution to not wanting to do something is to just do it: do it now and do it as often as possible. If you’ve been putting off making a lot of calls, schedule a day when that’s all you do; if you hate presentations volunteer to give all the presentations on behalf of your team for the next couple of months, and so on. The idea is that once you do something, you lose the fear of the unknown that was previously holding you back and repeated exposure will reduce the anxiety you feel about the activity. This worked for me when I had to call a list of about 100 people. I had been putting it off for as long as possible but then one day I had to just give in, sit down and start making calls. After three days of continuous phoning I still didn’t like doing it, but I was able to put it on my to-do list without dreading the experience.

Dip your toe in the shallow end

For those of you that are less crazy about throwing it all at the wall, an alternative is to start small: if you hate presentations try doing some for people you work closely with and who make you feel comfortable, then gradually work your way up to the really scary stuff. By making your first experience of whatever it is you don’t want to do as pleasant and non-stressful as possible, you decrease your apprehension of repeating it and thus gain confidence gradually. This might be less feasible if you’ve really left it all to the last minute however – sometimes option one is more of a necessity than a choice.

Going to swimming lessons (I’m stretching the metaphor to the breaking point here)

The third way to get over your aversion to doing something is to put a lot of preparation into it: if it’s a presentation make sure its planned and scripted and practice it as much as possible; if you’ve got a lot of calls to make write a script so you don’t forget what to say and again, practice on friends and co-workers. Preparation can reduce your disinclination to do a task because it increases your feeling of control over the situation. If you’re as prepared as you can possibly be, it takes a lot of the uncertainty out of the equation and can make you feel calmer about the situation. The more confidence you gain, the less preparation you’ll find it necessary to do, but the first few times it can be quite time consuming, so this is possibly not the best method if you’re extremely busy.

So there you have it: three ways to beat your personal work demon. What do you hate to do at work? Let me know below! For more work advice check out my posts on regaining control and procrastination.

The Truth about TEFL Part 3: Selling yourself via Skype

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TEFL job interviews are all about one thing: Skype. Occasionally employers may be in the UK during their recruiting period but for the most part your opportunity to impress them with your

There are a few things it’s important to remember however, if you want to become a Skype interview pro.

personality and suitability for the job will be a virtual one. Many people dread Skype interviews, unsure of how they should behave comparably to face-to-face interviews, but once you’ve gotten a few under your belt they’re an easy and effective way to connect with potential employers with little cost to either party.

1.       It’s still an interview so don’t get lazy. You still need to dress like you would for an interview and take care with your appearance – no top half only, no ‘smart casual’ wear. This is your only chance to make an impression and you don’t want to blow the deal before you even open your mouth.

2.       Do your preparation. When an interview is going to take place in your house, it often feels like the urgency is removed. Do not trust this feeling – you need to isolate a block of time before the interview to read up on the role and refresh yourself on what you wrote in your application. Remember that you won’t have the travel time and the pre-interview coffee shop time that you would with a traditional interview. It’s possible to have notes by your laptop for a Skype interview but you don’t want to be obviously fact checking every few minutes.

3.       Think about your body language. Even over a video link the way you present yourself can say a lot about you to an interviewer so it’s as important to consider your body language in a Skype interview as it is for a face to face meeting. Make sure you centre yourself on the screen and sit a sensible distance from the camera – you don’t want to be overly close but you need to be in range of the microphone. Most importantly make sure you look directly at the camera rather than the picture of the interviewer or of yourself, to maintain good eye contact.

4.       Be aware of the pitfalls of the internet. A lot of places that hire TEFL teachers aren’t renowned for their strong internet connections or good wifi coverage so it is quite likely that there will be a problem with the connection at some point in the interview. Obviously if you have prepared your setup properly this won’t be your problem but there are a couple of things you can do to minimise the damage; firstly, make sure you speak slowly and clearly to ensure you remain audible even if the connection becomes faulty and secondly try and minimise the amount of moving you do – the less work the system has to do to maintain a clear picture the better.

5.       Act natural. Lastly, behave as you normally would in an interview. Try to resist the urge to reference or joke about the nature of the process – it might be novel to you but they do it everyday. Trying to keep yourself in a normal interview mindset will also hopefully stop you being too nervous about the different format and should help you to come across well to the interviewer.

Had a good or bad interview experience on Skype? Let me know below. If you missed the first two parts of my series on TEFL you can find them here.

Success means never having to say you're sorry

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It’s a common axiom that very successful people are driven and ruthless, trampling over people on

Now, I’m not advocating this approach to the workplace, but not embracing the asshole lifestyle doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from these people; in essence, what allows these people to disregard others and strive to become the best is confidence, focus and a refusal to apologise for their actions.

their way to the top without a thought for the cost of their actions to the people they leave behind. Moreover, we tend to think that it is because of this willingness not to count the human cost of their decisions that they become so very successful.

Don’t apologise is one of the most important pieces of advice I’ve ever received: I don’t mean you shouldn’t say sorry if you’re in the wrong but keep it short and simple – don’t try to explain or excuse your actions – this is where you come across as weak and unconfident. Simply acknowledge your fault, express remorse and leave it at that. If you don’t dwell on your mistakes, others won’t either. Late with a project or forgotten to reply to an e-mail? A short apology followed by the delivery of the desired items is far more effective than long-winded justifications.

To put this advice in context, imagine you’re applying for a job, you fit most of the criteria but you don’t have experience in one particular area – it’s still worth applying but you’re not sure how to deal with that particular part of the specification. In this situation it’s tempting to write a sentence  like this: “although I do not have experience with x, I do have an understanding of y because of my work with z.” This way you feel like you’ve shown awareness of the specification but justified your application in its absence. HOWEVER, what you’ve actually done is made sure that their attention is drawn to what you don’t have that they want, rather than what you do. If you don’t mention the area in which you are lacking, but focus on presenting your other skills strongly, you present a much more confident appearance and chances are they won’t even notice – especially if it’s not a particularly crucial part of the person specification.

You don’t have to be rude to be successful: you just have to be confident, focus on the positives and keep your apologies short and to the point.

Interested in improving your job applications or interview skills? Go to the Job Hunting page to find more articles and advice.

Get a hobby: what your interests say about you

There are many parts to a job application and they all have their challenges – how to fit your experience to the requirements, how to sell yourself effectively, how to highlight your skills and aptitudes. One of the areas that doesn’t often get a lot of attention from us as we sweat over jobs applications and endless CV revisions is the things that make us interesting people aside from our work experience and qualifications – unsurprisingly, in addition to wanting you to be fully qualified and possessed of a wide range of relevant experience, employers also want to make sure that they’re hiring interesting, engaging people with a wide range of interests and hobbies.

If you’re like me, you did quite well in the recreational section of your CV throughout school and university – joining sports teams and clubs to pad it out – but once you got into the world of work your interests… narrowed… somewhat. To be quite honest, most days I consider it a success if I manage a conversation with my parents and read part of a book when I come home from work, let alone taking up expensive and time consuming hobbies. Tempting though it is to sink into a routine of work, television and sleep with the occasional friendly outing, there will come a time when you realise it’s a bit of a stretch to talk about the football team you were on four years ago in a covering letter and will find yourself in need of something else to talk about.

Although it may seem like the least important part of your application, your hobbies and interests can say a lot about you as a person and can reinforce that you possess certain desired traits without you having to repeat yourself. So just what do your hobbies say about you?

Team sports: if you play a team sport or can get yourself involved in one, it’s a great thing to put on your CV. It shows that you can work well with others, that you are able to manage your time effectively enough to fit in practice around the rest of your life and it presents you as a healthy, active person who is happy to get involved.

Individual sports: are you a runner or a climber? Maybe you cycle or swim? If so, you’re showing that you’re a dedicated and self-motivated individual who can set themself a goal and work to achieve it. It shows that you can work unsupervised and that you aren’t afraid of a challenge.

Playing a musical instrument: If you play an instrument or sing – especially if it’s with a choir or an orchestra – you show that you have the capacity to learn and continually improve, the dedication to practice regularly and the ability to work in harmony with others and follow direction and you demonstrate that you have an interest in culture.

Physical activities: these include things such as yoga, pilates and dance. Physical activities show that you have a good work-life balance, that you are interested in new experiences and that you are able to commit your time and energy to a long term project.

Arts and crafts: these things might be less common or obviously connectable to your CV but there’s no shame in not being a sporty person. Hobbies like painting, knitting, photography or scrapbooking show that you are capable of taking on projects and seeing them to completion, of developing your skillset and applying it to new challenges and indicate a practical, organised nature.

Hobbies to be wary of: cooking and travel are two things that a lot of people will claim as a hobby; this is fine but you have to be prepared to back it up. Everybody makes dinner, so for cooking (or baking) to be a hobby you have to show that you work to develop your abilities, that you try new things regularly and that you belong to communities or attend show/exhibitions related to your interest. Similarly if travel is an interest you need to talk about places you’ve visited recently, languages you’ve learnt and show that you read around your subject. Handled well these hobbies can demonstrate project management skills, self-motivation, an awareness of the wider world and a willingness to try new things and new places.

Hobbies to avoid: reading, watching TV, listening to music, playing computer games. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with these activities as pastimes, but they are unlikely to impress on a CV and will not set you apart from the crowd.

Not sure what is the right hobby for you? Take a look at my highly scientific diagram below to work out the best way to spend your free time.

Go North: leave London and live better

I'm not as southern as some people, coming as I do from good Yorkshire stock, but it is seldom these days that I have reason to venture past Oxford, let alone Birmingham. It was with some trepidation then last week that I boarded train to Leeds to visit a friend. Upon my arrival however I saw that all my fears were unjustified - Leeds is an amazing city with excellent transport links to surrounding towns set in picture postcard rurality.

Saltaire

I had been told that Leeds was a superior shopping destination and it more than lived up to its reputation: apart from John Lewis (which my friend assures me is arriving next year) it has all the major chains as well as some fun and quirky independents and boasts a truly superior waterstones as well as that increasingly chimeric creature: a well-stocked HMV. There is also some beautiful architecture, an excellent museum and a wide selection of bars and restaurants. All in all I had a delightful weekend (so delightful that it caused me to miss an update last week - sorry about that) and had my perceptions about Northern loving thoroughly challenged. Why though am I taking the time to tell you all about it?

Well, among the other manifest attractions of Leeds my friend happened to mention how much she paid for a two bedroom apartment with a balcony, covered parking and access to a tennis court. I could only stare dumbly at her as she rattled off the numerous benefits she got alongside her apartment, thinking that you wouldn't even get a room in a dodgy flat share for that in London. I had a similar shock when we walked past an estate agents and I saw how little it cost to buy an apartment in the city centre.

I suddenly realised how affordable grown up life could be if you moved out of London - renting would no longer be a pointless money sink but a reasonable expenditure and getting on the property ladder could be more than a hopeless dream. Additionally, in areas like Leeds you're not really sacrificing anything: it's about two hours by train or driving to reach London (it has taken me this long to travel across London some weekends) and there is more than enough to keep you busy and social. There's even an airport for quick Europe-based getaways.

The only downside is,of course, the comparative scarcity of jobs, making it a life choice that is not possible for everybody. However if you are in a profession - particularly one that pays well - you will be amazed at how much further your money can go outside of the M25. You can love the lifestyle you want and still be capable of paying off your student

loans and saving for the future.

So my advice this week? Go north - if you can. It will be well worth it. And now if you'll excuse me I'm off to do some location based job hunting....

Want more life advice? Check out my post on regaining control or adjusting after uni.

The Truth about TEFL 2: All about applications

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So you decide to do a TEFL course-you've endured a ridiculous workload, overly high standards and patronising instructors but the end is finally in sight and you feel like all your hard work (and financial investment)  is going to pay off after all. That's when you get given the career talk and they drop the bombshell: you're not going to find a job - especially if you have a set of criteria - easily, if at all. There are thousands of people just like you, they say, and hundreds of TEFL courses. What employers are looking for is experience. If you’re like me, at this point you start to believe that your life is some hideous groundhog day-esque tragicomedy but fear not! The real picture of the TEFL job market is not as bleak and they’d have you believe.

First of all however, you need to adapt your expectations: if you’re going to be picky, you’ll have difficulty finding something. To be honest, if you want to work outside of Spain, Turkey or Saudi Arabia you’re out of luck unless you have experience. You also need to forget about jobs at prestigious or established schools – they can afford to be selective, you can’t. Also forget about finding work in large, glamorous European cities – partly because the competition in these places is a lot stronger but also because your money will go a lot further in small towns and villages.

Next you need to decide on how you want to progress: you can either dive straight into a long-term position and start applying to language schools immediately or (if you qualify relatively close to summer) you can decide to work summer schools first to get some experience before you launch into more serious applications. There are three advantages to going the summer school route: first, the aforementioned experience, second the lack of experience needed to get a job on one and third they pay extremely well – especially if the programme is residential. A word of warning though – you need to be available from the beginning of July for the majority of these positions, so don’t do what I did and book your holiday for this term two years in a row.

The best place I found to actually look for jobs was www.TEFL.com as it is reliable and fairly reputable. For jobs in Spain www.spainwise.com is excellent for job postings and as a reference for checking the school is legitimate – this is something you need to do whenever you’re offered a position because there are some fairly dodgy EFL schools out there and you don’t want to be stuck providing slave labour for a school in Hong Kong for a year. When you’re applying DON’T apply through the website – use the contact details it provides but send an application by e-mail as I found this was far more likely to get a response. Also ignore the at least one years experience criterion and apply for those jobs anyway – more often than not you’ll make it to interview, despite your CV lacking in this area.

Finally, be prepared to wait out the market. TEFL is a notoriously fickle market and lots of people use these jobs as a back-up for other plans. As a result of this, teachers quite often leave schools hanging at the last moment and, as September approaches, hiring requirements drop drastically as employers panic about not being fully staffed by the beginning of term. It’s at this point that you’re most likely to have success in finding a position that meets some of your own criteria after months of compromising.

If you found this helpful and would like to know more about my TEFL experiences, check out part one of this series here and check back in next month for part 3 where I’ll be talking about how to ace your skype interview.

The Other Side of the Desk: Interviewers are people too

The other day I was sitting in the office, getting on with my work when the conversation turned to the upcoming interviews with prospective interns – intrigued I watched as the established members of staff debated who was going to have to do it and then googled interview questions to ask. It really brought home to me the rather obvious fact that interviewers are people too – most of them are just like you!

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Chances are that most people know somebody who has had to conduct interviews as part of their job from time to time – very few companies outside of huge multinationals hire people purely to hire and fire employees and the smaller the company, the lower down the chain of command the interviewer is likely to be as there will be fewer layers of management. As your career progresses – or your job hunt if you’re particularly unlucky – you will find yourself increasingly likely to be interviewed by somebody the same age as you, somebody who, outside of the interview room, you would likely consider a peer. Somebody just. Like. You.

So why is this grand realisation so important?

Well, firstly it helps even the playing field in your mind: it can be easy to imagine the person on the other side of the desk from you as a remote, all-powerful figure because they do, in fact, have the power to affect your future. What it is important to remember is that you have the potential to similarly affect their life in turn – whoever is hired after all will be the person they work with on a regular basis. Thought about this way, interviews become much less about a supplicant and a powerful figure and more of a negotiation – you are trying to convince them to invest in you as a person and they are trying to establish that you will provide the best possible return on their investment. If you treat the interview as an egalitarian transaction, you are likely to be more comfortable and confident and, as a result, more likely to get what you want out of the meeting.

Another consequence of realising that interviewers are people too is accepting that they are as subject to the whims of fate and the caprices of human emotion as anybody else. If your interview is on a day when their train has been late or they’ve just lost an important contract you are likely to fare worse in comparison to an interviewee on a different day purely by association with negative emotion. While there is nothing you can do to affect this, it does help with the realisation of just how many unknown variables there are in any hiring decision and how little part your value as an individual often plays in such decisions.

Something you do have control over however is your behaviour in the interview: it’s important to pay attention to the clues an interviewer drops about the kind of person they are. People are usually drawn to similar personality types so if your interviewer seems particularly outgoing or friendly, react accordingly; if they seem more reserved, make sure your demeanour mirrors theirs.

At the end of the day it is your interviewer as a person who makes the decision about you and so it is as a person that you need to visualise them when doing your interview preparation – make sure you treat them like a human being and remember that in a year or two it could be you sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk.

Looking for more interview advice? Take a look at Dressingto Impress , Interview Danger Zones and Ten Tips for Reducing Interview Stress.

Dressing to Impress: top tips for interview outfits

Photo by Gareth Williams via Flickr

They say you only get one chance to make a first impression and that’s especially true when it comes to job interviews. You usually have less than an hour to make yourself memorable and to ensure that your best features are highlighted and that you leave them with a positive memory of you, both as a potential employee and as a person. At the same time, as we all know, interviews (and interviewers) are terrifying and unpredictable – sometimes they can go incredibly well and sometimes you can feel like you’ve stepped into the coliseum without a shield. With this in mind then, the last thing you want is for your appearance – one of the few variables in the situation that you can control – to let you down. You might be the brightest legal mind of our generation or a technical wizard but all that’s going to stick with your interviewer if you don’t take care with your appearance is the huge ladder in your tights or how greasy your hair looked. Lest you completely freak out however, I am here to sort you out with my five top tips on what (and what not) to wear to your interview.

1. Business smart and formal-smart are not the same thing. Obviously everybody wants to look their best in and interview and stand out from the crowd, and smart dress is important however there’s no need to go overboard. Unless you are auditioning for the Wolf of Wall Street you should not turn up in a three piece suit – it’s pretentious and out-dressing your interviewer will do you no favours. Ditto bow ties, hats and hipster accessories – your clothes should be the velvet backdrop to your sparkling personality, not the main attraction. Likewise ladies dresses that you would wear to ascot are not interview appropriate – stick with the basics here and try to keep to muted tones with maybe one key colourful piece rather than eye-catching patterns or haute-couture styling.

 2. Read the information they give you and abide by it. Increasingly, many industries are taking a much more relaxed attitude to dress in the office, especially if your role isn’t client facing and this sometimes translates into a recommendation for smart-casual interview wear. This is not a trap – take them at their word. Turning up suited and booted to an ‘informal’ interview is not appropriate and will leave them with the impression that you would not be a good fit for their more casual work environment.

3.   3. Personal grooming is not optional. I’m not suggesting that every interview should be preceded by a spa day or – as one book rather unrealistically suggested – a haircut. Showering, deodorising, trimming your nails and moisturising (guys and girls) however should be mandatory interview preparation. You want to look your best and shiny hair, neatly trimmed nails and well-tended skin are, unsurprisingly, an important part of that. Even if it’s not part of your normal routine, you need to make an effort for interview days.

4.      4.  Pay attention to the details. It can be the smallest imperfections sometimes that utterly preoccupy a person – and this is as true of interviewers as it is of anybody else. So shine those shoes, carry a spare pair of tights and if you’re nail polish is chipped either re-apply or take it off. A friend once told me that her father, who held an influential position in a big company, once told her that he judged interview candidates by the quality of their shoes, so it’s worth taking the time to go over your appearance with a fine tooth comb – and a sticky roller.

5.       5.. Wear something comfortable. Runners will tell you never to get new shoes before a race and the same is true for interview outfits – do not buy new clothes for the occasion! The whole experience is going to be excruciatingly uncomfortable mentally and emotionally as it is – there’s no need to add physical discomfort to the mix. Wear something you love, something that gives you a boost when you see yourself in it. If you feel you need to wear heels (girls) or uncomfortable dress shoes (boys) carry a spare pair for before and after the interview – after all during should be largely sedentary. Make sure you have layers so that you’re not too cold or too hot and make sure your clothes fit you the day before the interview, as there is nothing worse than a last minute, panicked rummage through the wardrobe or run around the shops.

Ultimately, if you follow only one of those rules make it the last one – the way you feel physically will transmit itself through your performance at interview and feeling comfortable will make you look comfortable. For more information about the importance of appearance in interview success check out my article on the halo effect.

Experience: the Catch 22 of job hunting

When it comes to job hunting there’s one element that frustrates and angers me the most – to the extent that I sometimes feel like jeopardising the occasional interview just to get it off my chest – and that’s the issue of experience.

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In the current economic climate experience is prized for two reasons: one, it means that the company doesn't have to train you, nurture you or invest any more money and time in you than is absolutely necessary to make sure you understand the role and two, with the amount of redundancies being instituted across the spectrum of industries, there are an awful lot of experienced candidates out there. Now, in all fairness, you can’t blame companies for this, however it leaves new arrivals to the job market with their very own catch 22: can’t get a job without experience, can’t get experience without a job. 

This is less of a problem if you’re going down the corporate graduate scheme route (although you may still be surprised by the weighting that is given to summer jobs and internships and the expectation that you will have experience of one or the other). If you want to get into any kind of less mainstream career however, the job hunter’s catch 22 can leave you feeling like you’re staring through a glass door that you can’t get through because you don’t have a key – you can see where you want to be, you just don’t have the means to get there.

The unspoken message that companies are sending of course is that you need to get the experience you need in some other way than formalised employment – usually by working for free. It’s unfair, unfeasible for many and ultimately doesn’t do businesses any favours in the long run but these days most graduates without vocational career pathways are resigned to either doing the unpaid legwork, approaching their desired career in an extremely roundabout manner or giving up on it completely.

Unfortunately there isn't a never before heard solution or lifehack for dealing with this problem – if there was, believe me, I would spread the love. However, I do have some ways of dealing with this conundrum that might make the application process a bit easier.

Do the internship but minimise the damage.

Obviously not everybody is able to work for free or has guaranteed parental accommodation but there are strategies for handling the internship to minimise its negative impact on your life. A short-term internship that pays expenses is one option – it doesn’t cost you anything and it can get you on to the next step of your career journey. Alternatively you may be able to work out a part-time internship alongside another, less ideal, job. If you can’t manage a long term internship, at the very least try to get a few days work experience or shadowing in the industry of your choice – anything you can do to inch your CV up the pile makes a difference.

Give them something else they want

Although experience is prized by employers there are other skills and qualifications that you can develop that they may find sufficiently valuable to make up the difference on your CV. Languages are a good example – Spanish, German, Arabic, Chinese and Italian are frequently sought after by employers and there are often adult education classes run by your local authority that are discounted for those not in employment.  Another option is to develop your computer skills – but in a specific area. Everyone is good at MS Office but if you can demonstrate database management skills, knowledge of coding, web design expertise or graphic design abilities you can increase your on paper value to the companies you’re applying to.

Use the power of networking

The adage that it’s not what you know it’s who you know remains true even in 2014 so it’s worth examining your contacts for common ground with your interviewer or the company you’re applying to. If you can manage an informal introduction or meeting with someone before you present yourself formally they will have a face to put with the application – and it’s much harder to reject someone out of hand if they’ve already bought you coffee. Similarly, if you’ve been to the same university as the person in charge of the recruiting or you used to work at the same company or you even support the same football team then you are presenting yourself as someone familiar rather than a complete stranger and they are less likely to focus on your lack of experience if you have a common ground to discuss. Most positions are won or lost face to face, so if you get to that stage, any advantage is crucial. Attending industry events or conferences is another way to build up these connections – even if you don’t manage to meet the people you want to, just being able to talk about the event in cover letters and interviews will put you further up the shortlist.

Obviously, there’s no guarantee that following these paths with guarantee you success but your chances will increase and – most importantly – you will be actively involved in improving your changes rather than feeling increasingly impotent and resentful with every rejection and sometimes attitude is half the battle. Read here for more tips on dealing with rejection proactively.

Interview danger zones: where does it all go wrong?

Photo by openDemocracy via Flickr

So you’re a veteran of the job hunt: you’ve mastered the CV and got your cover letters primed to perfection. Invitations to interview are coming thick and fast but for some reason you’re just not managing to seal the deal. Even when you think it’s gone well things don’t work out and you start to ask yourself where am I going wrong? Feedback from the interviewers is seldom revealing: unsurprisingly they’d have you believe that you were perfect but somebody else was just a bit more perfect – nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news, after all. In reality, few interviews go without a hitch and all we can do is focus on smoothing out as many of the hitches as possible. One of the ways to do this is to identify your interview danger zones.

BEFORE THE INTERVIEW

How do you prepare for an interview? If you are an under-preparer then this could be a potential danger zone. Doing your research is an expected part of the interview process these days – you need to know your stuff not only when it comes to the company and your interviewer but also the field in which they work and current market trends. You don’t have to become an expert overnight but you need to sound confident and familiar with the business if you want to work for them!

During a skype interview once, for which I had done fairly cursory research, the interviewer said “if you read the profile on me…” I was forced to admit that I hadn’t and it was clear that that didn’t go over well.

Alternatively you might be an over-preparer, which can be an equally problematic danger zone. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with doing your research, keep in mind that the information you’re busy memorising is stuff that they already know. You’re not going to impress if you simply recite information about their company – if you have a chance to mention any of it at all. A better technique is to read up on some of the more recent developments in the company or one or two areas you find particularly interesting and think of a way to link it to your personal interests or experience. That way not only is it easier to bring up in the interview, you will come across as much more analytical and prepared than you would do simply reciting facts.

DURING THE INTERVIEW

Although you can never predict the direction an interview will take, there are certain questions that are the bedrock upon which such meetings are built. These are the big questions, the broad questions and for many people (myself included) these are where you fall down. Even though it seems like you can prepare for these questions, when they arrive it’s always an unpleasant shock. A lot of interview preparation guides provide ‘slick, professional’ techniques for dealing with this situation but I find that in such moments I can barely remember what I wrote on my CV let alone what I read in a book three days before. My advice would be to recap the progression of your CV (people assume this is redundant but you’d be surprised how little attention it receives from the interviewer once they’ve made the decision to ask you in) and give clear reasons for your decisions in each situation. If you’re feeling brave you can also give some details about your duties in each post and how it contributed to the skill set you’re presenting to them.

More than once I have had an interviewer recapping my CV to me and have had to correct them because they have gotten the timeline completely wrong, despite my helpful dating alongside each position or have failed to take in how my education and experience overlap. It is up to you to direct them to the information you want them to remember.

If broad questions don’t faze you and you are happy to chatter on about yourself ad nauseam then it may be the more specific questions that trip you up. After all, if the worst comes to the worst you can always say something about yourself but if you don’t know how you would deal with a specific situation or the answer to a technical question then you’re in trouble. The important thing to remember in these situatio

ns is that you need to give some kind of answer – any answer – rather than remaining silent. If you think you have an inkling it’s perfectly acceptable to ask for further clarification which may then help you answer the question but if you genuinely have no idea pull a classic politicians move and deliberately misinterpret the question into one you can answer – then talk at length and hope they’ll move on. It might not fool them but it will show them that you can think on your feet and have a good knowledge of topics relating to the one they’re interested in.

AT THE END OF THE INTERVIEW

The final question in every interview – and I do mean every – is the one that strikes dread into the hearts of many “do you have any questions?” The answer by the way is yes you do if you want to have any chance of getting this job. Think of some questions – preferably intelligent and preferably prepared in advance. I intend to write more about developing good stock interview questions in a later post but for now will just content myself with two pieces of advice – make them relevant or interesting and capable of stimulating discussion but don’t overdo. When they ask “is that everything?” they are not questioning the brevity of your inquiries they are simply making sure you have the time to say everything you want to. Do not get sucked into the black hole of trailing out increasingly weaker questions every time that sentence is uttered. Decide on your questions and stick to them.

Hopefully this will be helpful to anybody heading off to interview this week – let me know in the comments if you have any different danger zones or advice to offer for this situation. You can also check out our general tips for interview success here.

The Truth about TEFL: Debunking the misconceptions

Having just returned from a year in Spain teaching English as a foreign language I've decided to let the rest of you benefit from my experience in order that you make the most informed decision possible about this major career choice. Don't get me wrong, there were many things I loved about my year abroad and I will cover the positives as well as the negatives over the coming months, however to start with I want to dispel some misconceptions that people might have about the industry.

 

First of all, You can’t go wherever you want – certainly not if this is your first job in the field. You will be at the mercy of the market in terms of location and you may find that there is a small market for EFL in the area you have your heart set on. I wanted to find a position in Germany, but ended up in Spain because that’s where all the jobs were.

As a result of this, It’s not a good way to fund your travelling – unless your idea of travelling is to stay in one place for nine months at a time. A TEFL contract is the same as any other contract and schools are looking to recruit staff for classes that take place throughout the school year. This means you will likely work five days a week, 6 or 7 hours a day. It is very difficult to fit travelling around this, even at the weekends and due to the long summer holidays, you receive very little time off during the year. 

That’s because It’s not a paid holiday – in any way. Contrary to popular belief, TEFL teachers actually work pretty hard and usually in residential areas. Forget beaches and big cities, you’re far more likely to be living in a small town with minimal entertainment and transportation. The fun and excitement of living in another country wears off after about three months and then it becomes just another job, only one in a country where you don’t speak the language.

Speaking of language, You don’t automatically become fluent in a language just because you live abroad. This misconception is a biggie but in actuality, it takes very little knowledge of a language to get by day-to-day. If you want to become fluent, you need to make friends, take classes and talk for extended periods of time as often as possible. You won’t learn a language by magic osmosis unless you have an audiographic memory.

However it’s not all bad because many of these things lead to my last point which is that You can save money as a TEFL teacher – even though the salary is often very low. I saved about a third of my money overall simply because I lived in a very small town with low rent and nothing to do.

I hope that this has helped dispel any misconceptions for those of you thinking about going into TEFL. Stay tuned for the second part of my TEFL series, on job applications, next month. Let me know in the comments if you have any further questions or suggestions to add.