The Straight Talking Seminar is back – July 19th at The Old Lodge, Minchinhampton
Join my team and I on the 19th July to start the summer off with a bang. Some food for thought whilst you’re on the beach #CustomerExperience plus the launch of our Leadership Challenge #TheGoodRecruitmentCampaign #Growth
Book via Linked in at https://bit.ly/2LLZWks
Should you tailor your cv?
The short answer is yes, you should tailor your CV. As a recruiter I see a wide variety of formats, styles and approaches to CV’s but the ones that really stand out are the ones that ‘check the boxes’ of my client’s requirements. With that being said, it is important to still be honest! Ensure you highlight relevant skills and experience, but if you say you have experience using a certain type of software or system because you think it will help you secure the job you are looking for, you will soon come unstuck when you are expected to complete tasks you simply cannot do.
So, what is the right approach? My advice is to think about the job you want to secure and then think about what skills you needed in your past roles that are applicable. Don’t just list your ‘key responsibilities’ as they would appear on your contract – think about what skills you use that are transferable to your dream job. For example, if you worked in retail and want to get into a customer service role then instead of putting ‘dealing with customers’ you could highlight ‘providing excellent levels of customer service’ and instead of ‘restocking items’ you could phrase it as ‘monitoring stock and ensuring relevant records are accurately maintained’.
Remember, your CV is your golden ticket to your future and if you want to take the next step in your career, or change paths completely, it is vital that you communicate to a potential employer why they should be giving you this opportunity over everyone else. Tailoring your CV can not only help demonstrate that you have transferable skills that can benefit their business, but also that you have the work ethic to really put effort into securing that job you’re dreaming of.
If you need some help in your job-search please register or contact us for an informal chat.
Nathan Hughes, Talent Spotter
We’re recruiting
We’re recruiting for a really switched on person who will hunt down and connect with the right people for us. Magda continues to try all options but she needs help. https://bit.ly/2rgC8vR
Team Building Success
After a great first quarter’s work from my team, I thought long and hard about an appropriate reward for my team. I decided on “locking them in a room to see if they could escape”…
Well done guys. The Haunted House team got out with 33 seconds to go and the Prison Break(ers) had 5 mins left.
Thank you to Trapped (Eastgate Street, Gloucester) for a fabulous experience. We’ll definitely be back to beat our times!After a great first quarter’s work from my team, I thought long and hard about an appropriate reward for my team. I decided on “locking them in a room to see if they could escape”…
Customer Experience – Putting Employees First
The topic of customer service and customer experience has been coming up in lots of client conversations as well as at networking meetings lately.
As my colleague and First Base Director David Tovey is writing a book on the subject we put our heads together to agree some thoughts and tips. Customer experience has been described as “the next competitive battleground for businesses that want to differentiate themselves” – so it’s a pretty important subject.
Firstly, there is a difference between ‘Customer Service’ and ‘Customer Experience’.
Customer service tends to be more about the interaction involving customer facing staff. Customer experience on the other hand takes into account all the interactions that a customer has with a company. There can be many different ways a customer ‘experiences’ what it is really like to buy a particular product or service. It is the sum of all those interactions that form the opinions of a customer about a supplier, whether they become loyal customers and what they tell other people.
Employees first
Both of us are clear that the companies delivering an excellent customer experience are not those who put the customer first. It is those companies that first make sure that their employee experience is excellent.
It should go without saying that if the person who works at a company is 100% proud of the Brand, is given the tools to do a good job and are treated well, they are going to be happy, Happy employees WANT to give customers a great experience.
It’s a leadership issue
All the research suggests that there is a significant difference between what senior managers in a business think the company delivers in terms of customer experience and what customers really think. If customer experience isn’t regular featured on the board’s agenda, it is likely that it isn’t on the agenda of anyone else in the business.
When everyone in an organisation is striving to deliver an excellent customer experience, the results are happy employees, happy and loyal customers and happy shareholders.
If you would like to know more about the connection between recruiting the right people, engaging them and building an even more successful business, let us know.
Sharon Adams and David Tovey
Miracle growing
Mags just popped back in – brought this with her to “Grow some candidates”
Well done Mags, always thinking of how to find the right talent for our rather fabulous clients :0) :0)
Our Lilly turns one: Happy First Base Birthday
Lilly Chappell turned one last week and we celebrated her First Base Birthday in style (okay, some delicious cake, some celebrations, and some well deserved praise!). We are so so proud of how she’s doing – Lilly is a great addition to our team and is absolutely focused on getting things just right for our clients and for our candidates too. She now heads up the commercial team and is working hard to source work for the hundreds of candidates she and Beth look after.
Happy belated First Base Birthday Lilly. You’re a dream to work with!
Hospitality sector – desperate scramble to fill vacancies
The recent Manpower survey of over 2000 UK businesses reflects our own local experience that whilst jobs confidence is high, some sectors are ‘desperate’ to fill vacancies as Brexit becomes a reality.
The hospitality sector has been performing particularly well in terms of jobs (up 16% in 2017) – but there are definitely signs that some employers are in a desperate scramble to find the right people, with an increasing number citing post Brexit fears.
“Up to 24% of all hospitality staff come from the EU” – Manpower Survey
Employers fear a national shortfall of up to 750,000 people post Brexit and are pushing forward with recruitment to make up the shortfall as the number of EU workers arriving in the UK is already reported as falling.
Business rates have hit the sector hard and with the recent closure announcements by Prezzo, Byron and Jamie’s Italian, the survey highlights high levels of concern that Brexit will cut off a stream of workers from the EU that the sector is so highly dependent on.
With a potential shortage of staff looming, we are working closely with our clients in hospitality to make sure they have plans in place to avoid any negative effects on their business.
Trica Hay – MD First Base
A valuable business partner
I love working in the recruitment business. We all like positive feedback and during a recent review with the CEO of a client we have been working with since 2008, it was encouraging to be praised for providing a great service over the past 20 years.
As we shared memories of those years it made me proud to realise that the team at First Base had provided staff for over 80% of the functions within their organisation. It turned out we had provided permanent, temporary staff and maternity leave cover for functions including:
HR
Customer Service
Finance
IT
Admin
Marketing
PR
Secretarial / PA
Business Development
Sales
Security
Hospitality
Facilities Management
We worked out that First Base have recruited for 16 different departments, each with their own department head who we have got to know really well, getting to understand the way they operate their policies and culture.
Keeping in touch
Keeping in touch with our clients, whatever the size of their organisation, is key to us being able to respond effectively and swiftly. Having worked with this particular client for so long we know them and the staff that we have introduced really well.
Working together on career events, graduate recruitment and at awards events has helped us to really understand the business ad become what the CEO described as a ‘valuable business partner’.
Maintaining a good relationship and contact with temporary staff, for instance, means that when there has been an urgent requirement we can often respond immediately with individuals who have worked for our client before. This means that they fit in with the team right way and become productive from day one.
Other services
As well as keeping the client up to date with employment regulations, pay rates, industrial relations and HR issues, our relationship has meant that we have been able to help during growth times and in tougher time when sadly satellite operations had to be closed. In depth knowledge of the organisation and the individuals involved meant that we were able to put our consultants on site and help with the redundancy programme by finding jobs for those people leaving the organisation.
Let me know if we can help you with any of your recruitment challenges – I’d love to speak with you!
Tricia Hay – MD First Base.
Many roles coming in
The first quarter to date has been extremely busy. Pop in and speak to us about roles we have on including (but not limited to): Warehouse, FLT work, Engineering, Management, Sales Admin and Reception work. The number and variety of roles changes on the hour . Particularly looking to hear from people keen on long term temp/temp to perm roles.