Importance of English for an interview

English is immensely important wherever you are in the world. In countries where English is not a native or official language, over two-thirds of employers say that English is important for their business. English is the language of international business, so increasingly it is just as important for businesses in native and non-native English-speaking countries. In today’s world the competition in the professional world is increasing with each passing day. Therefore it has become immensely important for people to equip themselves with adequate skills and the knowledge of English language is one such skill. A person needs to be fluent in English while speaking and writing. English is utterly important to clear job interviews because majority of the interviews are conducted in English language only

Articulating your value in an English based interview is paramount.

Enhanced communication skills in English can result to not only an improved social life, but also better job opportunities in the future.

There is a wide range of English requirements in countries where English is not a native or official language. 7% of job tasks require native-level English and 49% requires advanced English, 33% requires intermediate English and 8% requires basic English. Your career is one of the most important parts of your life – and securing job interviews is a vital step towards getting your foot in the door. In an interview finding the right professional tone is always tricky, especially if you’re worried about how well you speak English. But you don’t need a complex vocabulary to show off your business English skills.

In job interviews, most interviewers conduct interviews in English. Interviewers quickly make judgments and give great importance to first impressions. Poor skills in the language can mean smaller chances of landing a job. On the other hand, being proficient in the language can help one leave a good first impression which means higher chances of getting the position one is applying for. English is the most commonly used language in the business world. Most job interviews are done in English. Most business contracts are written in English. Handling international business deals require effective skills in English. English is the preferred business language because it is an exact language. It allows a person to say what he or she wants to say without having to argue about the meaning. However, using incorrect tenses, prepositions, and the like will make one’s statement less accurate. So in order to have an increased competence in the professional world, one should have a very good grasp of the English language.

There are a number of things you can do in your daily life to make professional English a part of your routine. The more you practice, the better you will get — and the more opportunities you will have!

Check out our course on mastering your English here.

Posting on LinkedIn: How It Increases Your Value & Visibility

A LinkedIn account is not enough. If you think that having an active LinkedIn account is all it takes to get noticed in the recruitment pool, think again. You need more than signing up for a LinkedIn account to get connections. You need more than having an extensive profile to get noticed by recruiters. And it would help if you had more than a wordy headliner to stand-out to prospective employers. Think of LinkedIn as your digital personal branding platform that gets recruiters and prospective employers to notice you.

LinkedIn’s algorithm for their newsfeed and posts focuses on personal connections around similar interests. That means that your professional brand and whatever you post on your profile is seen by like-minded users who share the same interest as you. This includes recruiters and business owners. Keeping in mind LinkedIn’s objective in “connecting the world’s professionals”, there are a handful of straightforward ways to increase your visibility on LinkedIn. Keywords are key. There’s a reason why it’s called ‘keywords’ after all. Appropriate, relevant, and strongly-worded keywords help with visibility. How? When we generally know what we’re looking for, but not precisely, we automatically search for it using prompts that relate to what we are looking for. We are creatures of habit, and technology advances by understanding how to bring over our habitual behaviour digitally. For example, when we want to know where to get Thai food within a certain proximity, habit prompts us to type in “Thai food near me” on search engines. Within nanoseconds, we obtain numerous results. These results are a product of brands’ understanding of their market’s online behaviour and carefully curating the right keywords to match it. The same strategy applies to your LinkedIn profile. Curate focused, relevant, and robust keywords to incorporate in your profile to increase your visibility and to enable recruiters to find you based on searchable keywords quickly. Pay attention to your introduction card, which is your headline, cover photo, and headshot or profile image. Your headline should contain a concise yet informative teaser of what makes you a strong and valuable professional; spend time in crafting an intriguing one. Create, post, share Other than accumulating connections, you also want your profile to have value. What makes it valuable is if your audience finds something of use for them on your profile. You are your own professional brand, and your audience is your market.

To have visibility and maintain the audience’s awareness of your brand, you need to market yourself effectively. Posting on LinkedIn: How It Increases Your Value & Visibility Posting relevant and engaging content makes you a reliable figure/profile to refer to for others who share the same views and interest as you do. If you are familiar with content marketing, you can understand why top brands widely use it to date. It does not bluntly promote a specific product, but it sparks the audiences’ interests towards the brand. And this is what LinkedIn encourages its users to. Posts must be relevant to your career to gain the right audience and for your posts to have value. Whether you are creating your own articles on LinkedIn’s publishing platform or sharing others’ posts, make sure its quality is relevant enough to gain your connections’ interest and engagement.

Jump in on threads and most people or audiences nowadays read the comments section on posts more than the post itself. This is due to countless “clickbait” titles and articles that have so much word-count with very little relevance in its content. So, what do people do? They resort to reading the comments first to save themselves the trouble of reading an entire article. Jumping in on threads with a respectful, smart, and helpful comment not only involves you in the conversation, but it also exposes you to other connections and potential recruiters. Activate #OpenToWork feature This feature on LinkedIn is by far the easiest and quickest way to increase your visibility and be more discoverable to a range of recruiters and hiring managers. By activating this feature, your profile photo will adapt to LinkedIn’s #OpenToWork photo frame, which will prompt and signal recruiters that you are actively working for job opportunities. This is a passive way to let recruiters and connections know that you are ready to mingle job-wise. Don’t get too frazzled. We’ve all been there, taking LinkedIn’s features and platforms for granted.

But now we know better, and it really does help with job searches and opportunities when you tweak your profile and online behaviour with the above tips.

Do you need help with your LinkedIn profile?? Let me know!! Happ to help you:

info@impressivecv.com

Is the Job Application Dead??

Hiring and developing great talent has always been one of the most important things a company can do.

Job boards and untargeted cold emails might work well for entry level positions, but if you want to get top tier talent through the door, you need a new approach – you need to focus on candidate engagement.

Here’s why:

Why The Application Isn’t Working

Job adverts make a fundamental assumption that a candidate is actually interested in applying to your company. This is great for active candidates who are job hunting, but what about everyone else? What about the candidates that sees one of your tweets? The people that come to your careers page hoping to learn more about your culture?

Prospects that heard from a friend your company was “doing some cool stuff”? Do you think they’re going to click that apply button? They might do, but it’s more likely that they’ll just leave your website and go back to checking out cat memes! A shocking 98% of people that visit your careers page leave without taking any action at all.

Why? Typically, the only action visitors can take is an application. The main problem with this is that the passive candidates that hit your site aren’t “ready-to-apply”.

Online, but the same

AKA, the seemingly sensible ‘one-step at a time’ approach that utilizes online resume templates. After all traditional resume formats typed up in word-processing software have long been the common standard. This type of change could be better if done gradually (for the bulk of candidates and recruiters alike). Using such tools job seekers can start with a structured template, and finish with an impressive looking resume.

Pros

• Easier to have a structure than starting with a  blank screen

• Simple to share and track communications

• Less risky approach, well-suited to more conventional industries and less creative jobseekers

Cons

• Doesn’t give employers any more information than a conventional resume

• Templates that are too structured limits the ability of the job seeker to show their creativity

• A resume created with a Word processor is already in an electronic format

I see this as a useful tool for jobseekers, but too small a step at addressing current concerns to become a new standard.

Creative/Videos

There have been those who suggest that applicants should be as free as possible and put together their own creative presentation, with limited guidelines. This approach was recently adopted by Union Square Ventures, who have been requesting applicants to submit links representing their web presence and short videos when applying for jobs at the venture capital firm. They say this process “nets better-quality candidates.” UK job seeker Graeme Anthony was looking for a PR job when he put together a compelling video that attracted big audiences. “It shows off my personality in a way a paper CV can’t,” he said.

Pros

• Provides employers with a greater understanding of a candidate’s personality and style, as well as a more thorough story of what they have achieved during their career

• Candidates can choose a domain for their presentation, and utilize inbound marketing techniques so their target audience will find it

• Candidates can truly stand-out: no two applications can be the same

Cons

• For once-off low-volume applications geared towards a creative market, this can be a lot of fun. But what about everyone else?

• This style of application is difficult to manage within a company’s existing HR processes and systems. Companies who are hiring more than ten people may find managing and reviewing these entries simply too complicated

• Reviewing such presentations can be time consuming. HR professionals are already pulled in several directions, with not enough time in the day to complete daily tasks, let alone when they need to review 500 videos or creative websites

• They lack data that is important in determining a candidate’s fit for the job

• For non-creative job seekers, these are too difficult to put together

• Rarely relevant to positions outside technology, design, sales, marketing and PR

This may indeed become more common in certain industries, but will need to be a component of an integrated approach for the mainstream.

Infographic

As I mentioned in my last post, given that many enjoy reviewing data visually, we are increasingly being surrounded by infographics. Predictably, ideas have been proposed to replace resumes with graphics. This is one of the more visually pleasing options available.

Pros

• Can be exciting to put together, and allows creative skills to flare – for the right candidate

• Ability to portray a different side to a job seeker’s skill-set

• The end  result can look fantastic in contrast to current conventions

Cons

• The style can be confusing for resume reviewers, and could take too long to review in a volume situation

• Whilst they are sometimes superb introductions, they lack the necessary data behind them

• More attention will inevitably be given to the design rather than the data it represents

• Again, job seekers who aren’t creatively minded will find this concept difficult and frustrating

I see value in these for recruiters in being able to easily digest and review information, but surely these should remain the powerful book cover to the rest of the candidates’ information.

Social networks

With the web becoming more social by the day, where better to develop an online presence than using a social network, where users can easily interact with current and potential employers. As Allison Cheston correctly points out “networking is still the number one way people find careers.”  Further, these networks now offer features for users to easily apply for job opportunities.

Pros

• Powerful tool to develop relationships with potential employers

• Profiles are search-engine optimized, so users can be found easily

• Easy to update, as it is important to maintain these even when not necessarily looking for a job

Cons

• You only get one profile, and therefore it is very difficult to customize it for a particular position

• The information in such a profile is more at the introductory and narrative level; perfect for developing a network, but not detailed enough to get a job

• These networks often have a one design fits-all for the profiles, which doesn’t allow a candidate to show enough of their personality and style

• These are less useful for jobseekers earlier in their careers without a substantial business network

Online social networks have already changed the recruiting process. However, I see the use of these as complementary tools to the more general standard approach.

All of these approaches have creative products that are allowing jobseekers to change the way they apply for job opportunities. And sure, each of these has significant value and gaining traction in different industries and job types.

But what it takes to become the new “common ticket” is a combination of the above, with the flexibility for each industry to set their own standards within a designated framework. Here, I wanted to take products out of the equation, as this discussion is about something much larger – the themes. Within the next few years, a combination of the above will rapidly increase adoption, and we will start to see the end to the resume as we know it.

There are too many issues with the current passport to a new job, and too much innovation available, to prevent its evolution. Be ready for it.

Finding a Job in Dubai

Are you looking for a job in Dubai?

Well let’s be honest: thousands of others are too so you need to hold a royal flush. Many visitors who came here to seek employment say they want to return home as they are living off the generosity of Good Samaritans with little or no money left on them. I have been helping job seekers out for over 4 years now I will tell you what I have found to be a winning hand. Time is running out, so let me cut to the chase.

What Impressive CV Has To Say

First things first. You are a product. You need to define your personal brand and be consistent with your message of what you can do, what you have done, and where you envisage to be able to take a company. Your resume and your LinkedIn profile are your advertisements. I know I own a successful CV writing company, and yes this might sound like a sales pitch but, an impressive, professional resume should summarise and highlight your strengths, skills, and experience in a way that grabs the attention of the recruiter. He or she spends seconds skimming through hundreds of resumes - and that is only when it passes the rigorous screening tool of ATS. My humble advice is to invest in a resume written by a professional agency or consultant or spend the time going through various websites that give tips on getting it right. In a highly competitive market such as this, if you don’t you will more than likely fail.

Get active on LinkedIn

1. Put in the Time to Make it Awesome

   Simply put, the more complete your profile, the better the odds that recruiters will find you in the first place. So, completeness is important from that standpoint. It’s also important after a recruiter has found you and decided to click on your profile: He or she wants to know what your skills are, where you’ve worked, and what people think of you. So, don’t get lazy—fill out every single section of your profile. The good news? LinkedIn will actually measure the “completeness” of your profile as you work and offer suggestions on how to make it stronger.

   Get a Custom URL

   It’s much easier to publicise your profile with a customised URL (ideally linkedin.com/yourname), rather than the clunky combination of numbers that LinkedIn automatically assigns when you sign up. How to get one? On the Edit Profile screen, at the bottom of the gray window that shows your basic information, you’ll see a Public Profile URL. Click “Edit” next to the URL, and specify what you’d like your address to be. When you’re finished, click Set Custom URL.

   3. Choose a Great Photo

   Choose a clear, friendly, and appropriately professional image, and pop that baby up there. Not sure what “appropriately professional” means? Take a look around at what the people in your target company, industry sector, or business level are wearing.

   4. Write a Headline That Rocks

   Your headline doesn’t have to be your job title and company—in fact, especially if you’re looking for jobs, it shouldn’t be. Instead, use that space to succinctly showcase your specialty, value proposition, or your “so what?” The more specific you can be about what sets you apart from the competition, the better.

Register on company websites

Large international and/or local companies including aviation firms such as Emirates and Fly Dubai or hospitality companies such as Marriot; media and advisory ones such as Reuters, or finance firms such as KPMG, Emirates NBD, and PWC still have a fully functional career portal within their website. 

This is much more direct than going through a third-party website such as LinkedIn. Most of these portals can take a bit of time to submit applications as you have to be quite detailed on your entries for work history or qualifications, but the best part here is that you can directly track your application.

Join Digital Networking Events (there are plenty of Zoom calls being offered)

Experts agree that the most connected people are often the most successful. When you invest in your relationships — professional and personal — it can pay you back in dividends throughout the course of your career. Networking will help you develop and improve your skillset, stay on top of the latest trends in your industry, keep a pulse on the job market, meet prospective mentors, partners, and clients, and gain access to the necessary resources that will foster your career development. Create a digital network and widen your community (here is a great site you can join https://www.signature-network.com/) )

Register for the Dubai Virtual Labor Market

The Virtual Labour Market is designed to support establishments that have excess labour, and offer job opportunities for labourers living in the UAE and are impacted by the precautionary measures taken to confront coronavirus. The MOHRE virtual labor market's electronic platform enables job seekers inside and outside the UAE to enter their CVs and create their own profiles. Job seekers can also see the vacancies announced by UAE companies at careers.mohre.gov.ae. and apply for these jobs. The use of AI will ease the process of matching the requirements of the jobs announced by UAE companies with the job seekers’ profiles, created and uploaded on the website in an interactive manner.  Recruiters can search for qualified candidates by creating their own page to display their vacancies and also by searching the website for job seekers. This way, it helps both, the recruiters and the job seekers to find what they are looking for.

Be aware that at the time of writing, no fresh visas will be issued. All residents in the UAE whose visas are expiring between March 1 and the end of the year will be able to stay in the country without penalties until December 2020 and will continue to be legal residents in the UAE, As per the directives of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai.

My advice- prepare now for later!!

COVID-19 and Employment Evolution: A Three-Week Survival Plan.

When change is the only constant, adaptability equals survival, and panic can kill.

TODAY:

If you, like so many others, have just lost your job or had your hours cut, you probably hit panic- mode pretty quickly, maybe you raced down to line up at Centrelink, or you’ve had them on redial, trying to get through. Maybe you raced to supermarket to buy as much as you can while you still have money in the bank, or maybe you just sat down and cried. We all react differently, but in some ways the same – involuntary job loss and threat of job loss creates high stress levels, and the first thing you need to do is stop, breathe, and find a way to think and act productively.

So, take three deep breaths, hold each breath for 4-5 seconds, and release it slowly. Close your eyes while you do it. If you still feel panicked, try again but with your eyes open, chin up, chest out, and standing in a superhero pose while you do it. Seriously, find your centre, find some calm, slow down and start building a real plan. Next, talk with your adult family and members of your household, make sure everyone else is calm and managing ok, then talk to your kids about changes to schooling, about the things they are seeing on TV and hearing online or at school, and talk to them about how some things will change at home too – maybe it’s that they’re not going to school anymore (if they’re in Victoria, or vulnerable) or maybe that Mum and Dad will be home more, and that going to play with friends isn’t the right thing to do at the moment. Ground yourself in the most important things in your life and the panic will ease itself.

It’s not fair – it’s really not a fair situation. Nobody asked for this virus, nobody asked for any of it – I agree with you 100%. The only consolation is that - worldwide - everyone’s lives have been turned upside down at relatively the same moment. Lamenting on the unfairness won’t help. Cursing the government for seeming to help some individuals more than others won’t help either (there are genuine reasons why this happens, but this isn’t the place for that discussion).

DAYS 1-7:

So, what will help? Start with being as socially responsible as possible – STAY HOME. Supermarkets are staying open, and they have purchase limits, so whatever day or time you do go there, they will have most of the things you need – no more hoarding Australia. Centrelink phone and online services are running; they are frustrating and difficult at times – but they are running. Just know there will be extended hold periods, know there will be delays once you start. You can do your part to minimise it by being prepared*:

1. Have your last two years tax returns ready, your last couple of months of payslips, and download your bank statements to show the drop in income.

2. ID (passport/Birth certificate, driver’s licence, Medicare card, and a bank card will be enough).

3. If your employment has been terminated, request a separation certificate (these can be downloaded from: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/forms/su001 ). Send this to your employer and ask that they complete it and return it to you as soon as they can.

4. If your employment has not been terminated, but you have significantly reduced hours, you will need a letter from your employer advising these details.

5. Take photos of each of these documents on your phone, and upload them direct to Centrelink via mygov, or at https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/. If you can’t get online or can’t get through on the phone yet, be patient. Go do something else for 10 minutes, or for two hours, and try again. Stay calm, the new payments won’t be rolled out for weeks yet, eligibility is almost wide-open, and waiting periods to claim are gone. Your turn will come, and every time the line is busy, that’s one more fellow Australian whose gotten some support, and one more move up the queue for you. Your turn will come.

*If you already receive one of the below-listed payments then please move to the next paragraph – you will automatically get the additional assistance as the payments start rolling out and contacting services Australia to confirm this is only contributing to the logjam of enquiries.

• JobSeeker Payment

• Youth Allowance for job seekers

• Youth Allowance for students

• Austudy for students

• ABSTUDY for students

• Parenting Payment

• Farm Household Allowance

• Special Benefit

Ok, next: Go over your budget – many major banks are offering a freeze on mortgage repayments, your entertainment and eating out expenses are going to drop, but your supermarket/grocery expenses will go up a little, try to be honest with yourself about how much this will change, look up item prices online to get a realistic figure. If you are practicing safe social distancing, then your petrol/public transport costs will reduce, your weekly trip to the cinema is gone, Friday drinks after work are now - at best – a glass or two at home (at bottle shop prices instead of the $10+ per drink at the trendy bar down the street from work).

Check your current pantry/freezer stocks and get creative – all of a sudden that 3 year old tin of peaches and that packet of frozen pastry looks like it could make a decent desert, and that frozen meatloaf you’ve been avoiding in the back of the freezer looks like it will feed the family just nicely tomorrow night. If you’re not much of a cook – there are heaps of TV and online resources available, or just make it another of the many great reasons to call your parents and grandparents, I’m sure they’d love to share recipes and tips for both the kitchen and for saving money and living on less.

Check your first aid supplies, and any regular medications needed within your household too. If you can get through two weeks with what you’ve got, awesome; if not make a thorough list of what you need (only what you need) to combine to your shopping list.

When you go out to get what you need, follow all of the recommended guidelines on social distancing and hygiene, and when you get home think of yourself as having been in contact with the virus and act appropriately (wash hands, face, and other exposed skin, change clothes and put the dirty ones straight in the wash, etc).

DAYS 8-21:

Ok, you should now be able to survive at least the next few days, if not the next few weeks. Now start some more forward planning. If this virus remains active in the country for 2, 3, 6 months (as predicted) how can you get back to earning money? Will your job become available again eventually, or will it be gone for good? Which of the changes brought about this virus will be temporary, and which will be permanent? The truth is nobody knows for sure. There is no precedent for this - there are predictions and likelihoods, but nothing is certain. For now, let’s focus on some likelihoods:

1. It’s likely to be at least 6 months before things look anything close to ‘normal’.

2. Some job roles will increase in number at least during those 6 months, some indefinitely. These include government roles, healthcare roles, supermarket staff, delivery/supply chain, and of course, technology. The world is going almost fully online RIGHT NOW, this moment is monumental in human history. It is the new Industrial Revolution; the Technological Revolution has begun. If you already have skills and experience in these areas, AWESOME!!! Seriously, you may be in the first or second wave of new appointments, and I sincerely congratulate you; keeping as many Aussies in the workforce as possible is vital to our country’s eventual recovery. Especially to our healthcare providers – thank you, thank you, thank you. There are no words to convey my respect and gratitude to you right now.

3. If securing new employment is going to be a challenge for you, then start working on the new skills you will need to gain employment in the weeks and months to come. There will be a lot of competition for jobs, so prepare yourself as much as possible. Do online courses, use YouTube tutorials, ask your kids or your nieces and nephews for some tech tips, learn about Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, and webinars. Learn to code, or learn to use your excellent face to face communication skills to sell things over the phone. Especially important, is to practice your job interview skills for phone and video interviews – these are no longer ‘the future of job applications’, they are happening now and will be for a very long time (subscribe to our newlsettler/blog at impressiveCV.com for tips – my next post in in 2-3 days will have lists and links to available jobs, and to relevant education and training opportunities).

4. Update your CV and make sure it is as competitive as possible (another shameless plug for Impressive CV here – this is what we do, and we really can help you).

5. Look at ways you can really start to reduce your expenditure long-term – can you grow vegetables in your yard, or herbs in a window-planter – smaller investments in these ideas now might be a game-changer in a few months. Can you learn to sew to alter your clothes as needed? Do you really need to keep colouring your hair, or wearing a full-face of makeup every day? Can you learn to fix that squeaky hinge yourself, or to change the spark plug in your lawnmower? What many of us have now, that we didn’t before, is time – use it to learn how to change careers, and how to save money.

Good luck everyone – stay home and stay safe.

Written by Stacey Whitelaw.