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Are you looking for that job that ticks all your lifestyle boxes? A career that enables you to harness your creativity in a positive, fulfilling and rewarding manner? Something that is well-paid, and enables you to fund your annual snowboarding holidays in Whistler? Something which has plenty of space for you to grow both personally and professionally?
Oh dear!
I see countless bright, ambitious young things who wax lyri-cal about all above. For many, it is their first taste of the “real” world. Fresh from school or college, they are bright eyed, bushy tailed, and brimming over with enthusiasm and, sad to say, utter naivety.
Universities do not help the exiting students who have had their expectations built up to expect high pay with their first Job – only a small percentage with flying colours will get the £30k+ Management Trainee jobs. The rest – you start at the bottom as you have no ‘real’ experience and will be lucky to get £12-15k.
All of this presents me with a problem: how to harness that enthusiasm but to inject it with a healthy dose of realism? And how to do this without crushing their spirit?
I recently commissioned a survey which threw up a very tell-ing statistic. Out of 1,000 job seekers interviewed, 50% believe that their experience at school or college did not prepare them adequately for the realities of the job market and the world of work.
The truth is, no matter how many A* GCSE’s you may have, no matter if you were head girl or boy of your school or if you played tennis at county level – impressive though this may sound, none of it counts for much in the real world.
Of course, with an understanding of how the job market and the work place really works, all these acquired skills and natural talents can be harnessed to maximize opportunity, but as with any activity, there is no point owning the tools without knowing how to use them. It’s a bit like arriving in France, keen to explore and immerse yourself in the culture, but without speaking French, having any French currency, or bringing a guide book. You may have arrived, but without a bit of help, you aren’t going to get very far!
The truth is that work is all about expertise, relationships and experience. Understanding that is half the battle.
So, in order to get your foot in the door, you need to con-sider the following:
1. Getting the interview in the first place - click here to read more about getting the interview.
2. Interview success - click here to read up on the truth behind a successful interview.
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