Our Careers: Charity administration April 23, 2012
Posted by TCG Info in : Our Careers, career profiles , add a comment
Kings College London careers adviser Emma Baker continues our series of posts about our former careers.
After graduation, I wanted to travel and spent two years working in temporary administration jobs between trips abroad. I eventually decided it was time to get a ‘proper’ job. I wanted ain HR job for a charity as I didn’t want to work for a commercial organisation and I had enjoyed the HR related module of my degree.
I knew that lots of charities advertise with the Guardian so I started looking for jobs on their website. It soon became apparent that as I didn’t have any HR experience, I was going to have to start as an administrator. Many of the jobs were advertised through agencies that specialise in charity work so I contacted three that I thought would be able to offer the kind of work I was looking for. I sent them my CV, where I put my temporary jobs at the top to demonstrate my experience in administration. All the agencies wanted me to go and meet them to talk about the kind of roles I was interested in and I found I had to be quite assertive about only being interested in HR as I think they would have put me forward for any admin job to get their fee!
Two of the agencies started sending me details of jobs they thought I would be interested in and I agreed to have my CV sent on to the companies. One of the agencies just didn’t get in touch and I found I had to keep ringing them to remind them I was still looking. I was shortlisted for interview with a few charities. It seemed that competition was much tougher for international aid charities than for less popular UK based ones. I found going to the interviews a really good way of getting a feel of the culture of the charities and there were a couple that I didn’t think I would have enjoyed working for.
I was eventually offered a job as HR Administrator for a national charity supporting people with addictions. Although some of 
the administration I was doing was repetitive, I really enjoyed the HR work and in particular the training and development work. I had a great relationship with my manager and he made sure that I had plenty of opportunities to try new things including delivering some training. The charity also paid for me to do a training qualification. After a couple of years, I felt I had enough experience to apply for a more senior role as a Training and Development Officer.
Jobs: Top 5 web platforms to get noticed on March 27, 2012
Posted by Andrew Falconer in : Selection Process, employability and skills , add a comment
Do you know your plaxo from your digg? Is Facebook still “where it’s at”? Non-plussed about Google +? These questions are hard enough when keeping track of your social life, but need a lot of thought before being used as a job-hunting tool.
With so many different web platforms to choose from, which are more effective for raising your profile and getting noticed by a prospective employer? The difficulty is that these platforms change, develop, grow or collapse. Putting all your eggs in one basket is probably not the best solution, but focusing your efforts on one or two and having a stand-by is more realistic.
First of all, why bother? Well I have already posted on why it’s worth bothering about LinkedIn but it’s worth looking at the issue more generally. According to Jobvite, in the USA nearly 90% of companies are planning to use social networks to find job candidates, up from 83% a year ago. This trend, I suspect, would also been seen in the UK. Social media tends to be cheap, very easy to target and fast.
When you’re thinking of social media you need to think about your target market. What do they use? Not every industry will use the same sites, and different sites are more popular in different countries. Do your research.
So our Top 5…. (more…)
Our Careers: Research Science March 19, 2012
Posted by Andrew Falconer in : Our Careers , 2comments
Dr. Anna Swales joined the careers service at Kings’ College, London as an Information Officer. She now works as a Careers Adviser at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her career as a research scientist and the decisions she made, continue our series of posts reflecting on the lives of our collegues in The Careers Group, University of London.
I didn’t have a dream job in mind as a teenager but I did know I wanted to go to University. Nobody else in my family had been to Uni but they were all of the opinion that education was a great thing and learning for learning’s sake was an admirable goal. With that in mind I selected a number of zoology/animal based degrees without any real plan of what careers that might lead to.
In the end I opted to study an Animal Science degree and discovered I had a real passion for physiology, particularly reproductive physiology. My lecturers in this subject area were inspiring and enthusiastic so I started to think about whether a career as a researcher was a possibility. My honours dissertation project was my first real experience of research and I absolutely loved the lab work, the background research and the analysis. Although I was starting to think about research as a career I was slightly intimated at the idea of applying for a PhD as I had it in mind that you had to be insanely clever.
As I wasn’t confident about whether a PhD was right for me I collected together a range of application forms for the big graduate recruiters. However, after attending a careers service talk by Pfizer I realised that the entry level lab roles on offer weren’t going to interest me. That was when getting a PhD became a formal plan, although at that stage I saw it as a stepping stone into industry.
I took what I now realise was rather a narrow approach to finding a PhD in that I only applied for advertised studentship vacancies. I used New Scientist and also ploughed through University websites to see what projects were on offer. Most applications required a straightforward cover letter and CV. Edinburgh University were the first to invite me to interview so after a stressful 6 hour drive, sustained only by hula hoops, I was presented with a panel of 6 interviewers expecting a presentation on my dissertation research project. The whole interview was a bit of a blur although the embarrassing moment when I blurted out that I wanted that particular PhD project because ‘I just loved ovaries’ still sticks in my mind 10 years later. I was offered the project and accepted without actually considering the practicalities that a move from Bedfordshire to Scotland would entail.
The initial months of my PhD were extremely isolating as I was the only student in my lab and I was so busy trying to learn new techniques and plan my project that I didn’t get the chance to meet other postgraduates. I found it difficult to adjust to life as a PhD student and seriously considered quitting within the first couple of months. Fortunately, I got to know some other students well enough to admit how difficult everything was and heard that every single person felt exactly the same. Once I realised I wasn’t alone in finding research challenging the next few years didn’t seem as daunting.
People often joked that I wanted to be an eternal student and how great it must be not to have a “proper job” and enjoy the student experience for longer. Clearly these people had no idea what a PhD entailed. It definitely wasn’t an easy option – being in the lab at strange hours (plus weekends) if the experiment demanded it; being grilled by thesis committees; an all but absent second supervisor and the inevitable rejection of a submitted paper were tough. On the other hand the sense of achievement when an experiment yielded good results or when I finally saw my resubmitted paper printed in my favourite journal outweighed all that. (more…)
CV advice for International Development March 7, 2012
Posted by Jeff Riley in : CVs, Global Careers, Third Sector, career profiles , 1 comment so farOriginally posted at Getting into International Development
Comfort Osilaja was pulling her hair out. It’s a regular experience for recruiters who are looking through CVs for international development internships and jobs. Comfort has many years experience in the sector and has worked for Anti-Slavery International, Cafod and the Commonwealth Foundation. One of her current projects is ‘Identity Careers’ which she runs with Kevin Cusack. Identity Careers provides training and coaching for people looking to start in the sector.
We spoke to Comfort about the damage she is inflicting on her hair. “The problem is we do get lots of applications. For example a recent internship was up on our site and JobOnline for just a week and I had to look through 42 applications. In some ways basic errors make my job easier. For example I can easily set aside applications from people who don’t include a covering letter when asked to do so. Or applicants who plaster Curriculum Vitae in big bold letters across their CV and have lots of ‘special effects’ – but then don’t include a name. Believe me it does happen.
How can people make a good impression then? One thing lots of students do is automatically start with their education.
- Now if the position doesn’t really demand a degree or masters you may be better advised to start with your work experience. Practical experience will always trump academic qualifications. For example lots of entry level roles – and indeed roles for more experienced people – need solid administrative skills. These are more likely going to be demonstrated through work experience than university education?
- Make it easy for the reader to see you have the right skills. For example you may know that your accountancy experience has equipped you to deal with databases and data entry but make sure you explicitly talk about the latter and don’t assume we will realise it. We could probably work it out but we are skimming applications very quickly to narrow down the candidates.
- Finally a common mistake is that people emphasise far too much how the role will benefit them and how much they will enjoy it. To be honest recruiters are more interested in what you can do for them. Its what you can do not what you want.
Does developing country experience make a difference? Honestly, its usually more important that people can find their way around an office than around Africa. Certainly for the entry level office work we were advertising re
cently. It is important that people demonstrate a passion for the sector but that can be done more practically through longer term volunteering in the UK than a six week experience in the summer holiday.
What is Identity Careers? Kevin and I produce one day workshops and 2-hour CV workshops for small groups of people on getting into development – usually no more than 20 at a time. It’s different from the one day course The Careers Group, University of London offers because participants will get individual advice and the opportunity for follow up coaching to better develop their cvs and put together an action plan to really get them started on their international development careers, which is really important, as we all know how easy it is to get fired up by a workshop and then do nothing afterwards
But I don’t WANT to be a translator! March 1, 2012
Posted by Andrew Falconer in : Global Careers, Languages, Politics and Policy, Third Sector , add a comment
Despair. That was the look on the student’s face as she told me that she didn’t want to be a translator. She studied modern languages (Italian and French) and according to her parents, non-modern language friends and some random careers-related websites, her career options started and stopped at translation. She wanted to use her language but didn’t aspire to be stuck in a booth translating cross languages.
First things first though. I had to challenge her perceptions of what translation was like. She could see the fascination in working with EU Careers, for example, and also hadn’t realised that many translators are freelance. Before ruling out a career, it is useful to build your knowledge about it first. We have a good selection of resources relating to translation on Careers Tagged.
So, what else can a modern languages student do? Pretty much anything. And that doesn’t help, does it? Well here are some obvious ones:
- Interpreting
- Teaching
- Governmental work (not translation) E.g Foreign Office
- Business
- Information, heritage and culture
- Leisure and hospitality
- Media
- Science, IT and Technical
- Transport and distribution
- Voluntary organisations
Within these sectors there are opportunities to use your language as a part of your job. For example, BBC Monitoring recruit language specialists to listen. watch and read foreign news broadcasts. International development charities may benefit from staff that can speak native or former colonial languages (e.g. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German) in overseas work. The Government has need for a range of language skills including intelligence, policy and research.
Languages are very useful in business. Even when they don’t explicitly state it, speaking the language of a parent company can be a strong asset in job candidates. For example, Nomura Bank has operations throughout the world but somebody that can speak Japanese and understand their culture, may find their career progresses quicker. Similarly, speaking French could be a positive attribute if working for L’Oreal.
You can find out more about using your languages skills on the Prospects.ac.uk website. But above all, translation is not the only option.
He’ll just be treated like all the other wives February 13, 2012
Posted by Andrew Falconer in : diversity, employability and skills , add a comment
Gays shouldn’t work with children. Or animals. Or with other male staff. Or plants. Don’t even mention the army. Nor should they work in factories. Actually, they should confine themselves to theatres and let the rest of us get on with it. The disturbing thing is that people have said these things to me over the years, sometimes only half jokingly. I “came-out” when I was seventeen and whilst my family and friends have been supportive, sometimes they throw in comments like these without thinking about them too much.
A few years ago I attended an open day at a Government department. I spoke to them about relocation and how my partner would be treated. Their lovely response was “He’ll just be treated like all the other wives”. I think they meant well!
This image is of serving officers in the Royal Navy marching at Gay Pride in London. Other professions, from police to firemen, also march in this parade. Employers are increasingly aware of the need to recruit and support LGBT staff. Some will opt to take part in the Stonewall Diversity Champion scheme, but this scheme has been criticised as being an income generator for a political lobbying group with other organisations prefering alternative means of demonstrating their commitment.
Why do LGBT people need additional support? Actually, more often than not I suspect they don’t. LGBT status is a “protected characteristic” in terms of the Equalities Act but for many LGBT people, it is a legislative framework they don’t feel the need to use. For me, it is important to know that it is there. In every job I have worked there has come a moment where I have “come out” to colleagues. It can be difficult to know what the response will be like, but for me has been important to do because I enjoy positive and open relationships with colleagues in the workplace. I do know a few LGBT people who prefer it not to be known.
According to a survey conducted in 2008, 82% of lesbians and 75% of gay men – say that being completely open about being gay to everyone at work is not a good idea. 14% of respondents claimed they were harassed at work because they were perceived to be lesbian or gay.
Whilst the accronym LGBT is used a lot, there can be significant differences in how people respond to transgender colleagues than gay or bisexual. The ability to “hide” and therefore not be provocative is for some, an asset. I haven’t personally experienced harassment but my nature is perceived as “straight acting” (assumed to be straight) whereas some friends who would be seen as more effeminate have been challenged, and in one case, physically abused – ironically he is straight. Actor Russell Tovey explains to comedian Rob Brydon what “straight acting” means in this mock documentary.
In that survey, one in eight said that being out as gay at work would “definitely” hold back their job promotion prospects. There are certain industries that have the perception of being more challenging environments for LGBT staff. Investment Banking is one. In reality there are many LGBT employees in these organisations but there is still a perception that they are not the best environments in which to be openly gay. However a quick look at the Gay Banker blog (which can be a little risque) can give a different perspective. Organisations increasingly have LGBT Networks that provide mutual support for LGBT staff members, and support initiatives in showcasing diversity within their workforce.
It’s criminal, putting the past behind you February 9, 2012
Posted by Andrew Falconer in : diversity, employability and skills , 1 comment so far
Having a criminal conviction doesn’t necessarily mean the end of your career potential but moving on from it can be a challenging experience. Universities tend to have a diverse student body including those with previous convictions. And whilst getting a degree can increase your employability, a criminal history can still create an additional hurdle.
So why a picture of Richard Branson? Because he is a great supporter of giving offenders opportunities to develop in the workplace. He has been encouraging the Virgin Group to actively recruit former offenders but also regonises that there are challenges. For example, he understands that recruiters can immediately be put off applicants that tick the box about criminal convictions:
“It sounds like something we should look at, perhaps we should have a clause in our applications stating that Virgin does not hold a criminal record against applicants and that, on the contrary, we will try to help where that is the case. I’d be very happy to go that far.”
He is giving emphasis to recruiting male offenders following the success of charity Working Chance that has focused on females. You can listen to a podcast where former offenders Matty and Christina talk about their careers and university experience with spent convictions.
So, if you have a criminal conviction there are some things to think about.
First, is the conviction “spent” or not. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 allows previous convictions to be ignored for the sake of employment. There are various summaries online but this might be a useful starting point.If your conviction is spent you can say “no” if asked “Do you have a criminal record?
Spent convictions do not need to be declared unless the roles are exempt – which must be declared, including:
- Chartered Accountant
- Certified Accountant
- Actuary
- Employment providing investment, insurance or other financial service
- Barrister (or advocate in Scotland)
- Solicitor
- Legal executive
- Medical practitioner
- Dentist
- Nurse
- Midwife
If your conviction is not spent then you must declare it to employers. Lifetracks has some useful points on how to do this:
- Some application forms have a space to disclose any convictions, but you could also attach the information on a separate sheet
- List your convictions, how they came about and how you feel about them
- If you’re not asked on the form, you could leave it until the interview stage to broach the subject
- If it doesn’t come up at interview, you’ll need to disclose it when you’re offered the job to avoid it being withdrawn later down the line – be prepared to discuss this openly
However you decide to tell your potential employer, make sure you talk about your conviction in a way that will reassure them that you’ve moved on. Give examples of how you’ve since demonstrated reliability and trustworthiness. But don’t let your conviction be the focus of your application – stress what you’ve learnt from the experience and then move on to say why you want this job.
There is a lot of help available. Aimed at female offenders, Working Chance has a jobs site with employers interested in recruiting from that group. The Site has a host of information covering work, study and life and the Lifetracks site above will migrate to it in the next few months. Also bear in mind that employers tend to have experienced these situations before and you may wish to contact HR to check what would be expected, or ask your careers service for help with this.
Thank you to Lifetracks for their help with this post.
Our Careers: Beyond Book-Fetching January 12, 2012
Posted by Andrew Falconer in : Our Careers, career profiles , add a commentAnother in our series of posts about the careers of The Careers Group colleagues. Mark Gilbert is an Information Officer at King’s College London, and is currently reading ‘Careers in Tree Surgery’.
Years ago, whilst teaching English abroad, I read an article about stress-levels in different professions. Apparently, Britain’s most stressed people were coal-miners, whilst librarians suffered the least. This got me thinking about a career change. Limited mining opportunities for Art-History graduates – along with an aversion to actual hard work – naturally lead my thoughts to the world of books. Before writing more I should point out that the article was wrong; it saddens me to report that there is indeed a substantial amount of stress in library work. If you seek the easy life, I would suggest bee-keeping. The modern librarian is managing an unprecedented amount of technological and social change with ever decreasing human and financial resources. The plus side is that you get to support a huge range of people in thousands of different ways, and make a really important contribution to society. Also, the lousy pay means you’ll probably never have to pay back your student loans (ok, maybe the pay isn’t that bad).
I decided that academic libraries appealed to me; I’d enjoyed the few visits I made to the library as a student, so I started looking at jobs pages of universities in places I might want to live (Cambridge, London, Edinburgh) along with www.jobs.ac.uk, which promotes most academic library vacancies. Reading the ads, I realised that admin experience was useful, so I offered to help out around the office at work; just basic photocopying, working with Excel files, data entry and binding, but it was enough to be able to add ‘admin experience’ to my CV. I also volunteered to tidy and organise the small book collection in our teaching centre. Again, nothing amazing, but enough to show I was keen.
Realising I’d need to start at the bottom, I applied for the role of Book-Fetcher in Cambridge University library (pretty self-explanatory work). I liked the Dickensian quality of the job title (a friend of a friend was the ‘Curator of Time’ at the National Maritime Museum, which is an even better job title, but that’s a whole other blog). I wasn’t shortlisted, but I was inspired to write speculatively to a variety of libraries to see if they had vacancies. In retrospect, it would have been better to ask if they needed volunteers, thus getting more work-experience. (more…)
How to be successful in 2012. January 11, 2012
Posted by Kirsti Burton in : entrepreneurship, further study and training , add a commentOriginally posted at QM Jobs Blog
Back for the new term with a fresh set of resolutions for 2012? Feeling the pressure of career and job search alongside this year’s exams and deadlines?
January and February can be tough months. Chances are there’s lots on your plate. It can be all too easy put those good intentions to one side and procrastinate when it comes to thinking about jobs and work experience. So here are some ideas about success and how to find it in 2012.
1. Look back to help you move forward
Focus on your goals, but also think about the small steps you can take to achieve them. This could include sorting out your CV, attending some employer events and practising psychometric tests. To help motivate you, how about noticing the things that have helped you be successful in the past? Then identify how you can simply do more of these. A number of small changes over time can bring big results.
For example, you might have found holiday work after A Levels by writing directly to a few local businesses. How about building on this approach for finding internships and graduate roles? QM Careers can help you put this idea into action.
2.Success doesn’t follow a straight line
Read our December post about the student who found a great role after 40 rejections? Know that JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel was turned down by loads of publishers before finding success? Your own path to success will more than likely have its downs alongside its ups. Persistence is key.
When The Guardian newspaper did research among 1,000 job seekers a couple of years ago, it found that two key indicators of successful job search were active use of a range of job search methods (including networking and direct approaches to employers, but definitely not relying entirely on internet job search) and staying positive.
So whatever your plans and goals, think not only about what you’ll do, but how you will do it. A couple of first steps could be to book an appointment with a Careers Consultant, attend some of our Spring Semester employer events or sign up for an online practice psychometric test to get you on your way.
Our Top 10 Top Posts December 30, 2011
Posted by Andrew Falconer in : Languages, Law, Marketing, Marketing, Advertising & PR, Media, advertising and PR, arts administration, career profiles, city jobs, civil service, diversity, employability and skills, entrepreneurship , add a commentFrom creative CVs to interviewers wearing pjyamas, this blog has covered them all this year. When we write these posts we think about our target audience of University of London students, but are mindful that people all over the world access these pages and may need different things.
Many of the ideas for posts come from conversations with students. Issues such as being put off during a Skype interview because the interviewer was sitting on a bed in a hotel room wearing boxer shorts. Or navigating the graduate job market with a lower degree result than you were hoping for. Other posts come from campus workshops we facilitate, including my interest in LinkedIn and social media as a career development tool.
Whilst most of the (unpublished) comments are offering cheap viagra, instant Facebook fans or very personal cosmetic surgery, others have provided genuine debate on the issues. It’s nice to get comments and to be able to respond to such queries.
So here is our Top Ten Top Posts of 2011 based on readership, with a bonus 11 and 12 thrown in as a holiday special. Have a great New Year!
