Charity Partnership with National Star

We are really proud to announce our charity partnership with National Star.

With two events under our belt we are looking forward to helping raise more funds for it’s work enabling young people with disabilities to realise their potential through education and personalised learning opportunities, and by providing other transition and accommodation services.

The college itself offers programmes that are tailored to meet individual aspirations and abilities, with a strong emphasis on creative and performing arts, sports, communication skills and lifeÂ skills. Learner progress is monitored through the setting of individual goals and targets, and a strong multi-disciplinary team, including speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapist and behaviour specialists, ensure a holistic and person-centred approach is taken.

The amazing and inspiring National Star Fire Walk is where we started our fund raising activities and just last week we hosted what proved to be a very popular cake sale. Thanks to the generous clients and job seekers who so kindly made donations and bought the very tasty cakes lovingly made by members of our team.

If you would like to know more about the fantastic work National Star undertake and how you could help, please visit their website.

Writing a personal profile for your CV

A candidate recently asked whether she should write an introductory paragraph or personal profile at the beginning of her CV. Great question we thought, so here’s our view.

Whilst a cover letter tailored to the specific job you are applying for will do a lot of the talking for you, a short well written personal profile really helps your chances of standing out. A personal profile is a short paragraph that sits at the top of your CV. Its aim is to effectively and concisely sum up who you are and your skills and strengths relevant to the job role and career aims. It is similar to a cover letter; the main difference is you will be selling yourself (the main purpose of your CV) in four or five sentences rather than a full page. A good personal profile added to your CV will grab the recruiter’s attention.

And grabbing the recruiter’s attention is vital. Many roles are in competitive fields and can attract dozens if not hundreds of CV’s – and that means you need to provide a short sharp reason for them to read on beyond the first few lines. You risk a recruiter flicking past your CV unless they spot reasons to put you forward pretty quickly. Help your recruiter to help you!

Your profile provides an ideal way to grab the recruiter’s attention and continue reading your CV because you are telling them in the first few sentences why they should consider hiring you. A personal profile can be useful if you are uploading your CV to a job board such as CV-Library. It provides you with an opportunity to outline your career objectives and can help put your CV into context. It also helps recruiters to match you with the right job for you and gives them some direction as to what sort of working culture would be the right fit for you.

A profile is best included when you are fairly sure what type of job you want or where your skills suit specific sectors. If you aren’t sure then consider leaving it out. A profile that is too broad risks giving the impression you haven’t done your research or that any type of employment will do. Not the best impression to give

Structuring a personal profile

The most important thing to remember is that your statements should around four or five sentences – between 50 and 200 words. Some people like to write in the first person (I am, my skills include…) or the third person (Sales professional seeking, skills include…). It really doesn’t matter as long as you are consistent with your grammatical style.

We suggest dividing your personal profile paragraph into three sections.

Who you are
What you can offer the potential employer
Your career goals

If you’re writing a more general personal profile, be sure you include key achievements that make you stand out. For example, if you’re looking for a position within graphic design and you’ve got extensive Photoshop experience working on a major campaign, not only can you claim you have these skills in your personal statement, but you can back them up as well.

Leave out the buzz words

You may well be a highly motivated team player with excellent communications skills and extensive administration experience but these buzz words don’t really provide any evidence (and a recruiters will have read the same words a thousand times).

Try to highlight real, relevant skills and back them up with evidence to make your personal profile strong.

Get straight to the point – recruiters don’t like to read waffle!
Provide evidence of your skills and experience, but be brief! Offer just enough to hook the recruiter
Remember that you’re marketing yourself
Reflect the job specification in your statement
Be authentic. Recruiters want to know you as a person and what you can bring to the table
Proofread for spelling and grammar
Read it aloud to make sure it flows properly. It can be useful to get someone else to run an eye over it too

Don’t

Overuse buzz words or jargon
Be boring – you want to sound unique with noteworthy qualities
Copy from your cover letter or copy your cover letter from your statement
Ramble!

Employers and candidates tell us that First Base is their first choice for help with their recruitment requirements and their personal career progression. If you would like to know more about how the First Base team could help you, contact us on 01453 755330 or email tricia.hay@first-base.co.uk

To upload your CV follow this link!

Six tips to help you motivate temporary staff

The best employers we work with are really good at motivating and engaging their temporary staff. They also tend to be the employers that temporary staff are attracted to and want to work with again.

How well temporary staff are treated has a real impact on an organisations reputation as an employer. Let’s face it, temps are as much as part of the local community as full time staff and they share their experiences (good and bad) with people who you might want to recruit in the future.

Six tips that will help you to get the most from temporary staff.

Adopt the right mind-set.

The first thing we notice about employers good at motivating temps is that they adopt a mind-set, across their organisation, that temps are a really important part of the team. It’s important to treat them as if they are permanent staff. Temporary staff are a flexible and often specialist part of a team and provide extra resource when needed. Skills are important but employers also benefit massively if temporary staff are also enthused and energised.

Get them on board.

When hiring permanent staff we all know that a good recruitment process includes a good induction. Don’t skip good ‘on-boarding’ for temporary employees either. A proper welcome and initial training can play a key role in making temps feel valued, more effective and they can also play a part in any hand-over process for a new person coming in. Think about enlisting permanent employees as mentors, they can support temporary staff and also act as your ‘eyes and ears’ day to day.

Make them feel involved.

Help temps to understand your culture and what you do. Communicate regularly and involve them in internal meetings – for any member of the team to feel like their work has value, they must understand how it relates to the overall department and company goals. Don’t take the attitude that they won’t be with you when a project finishes, so why involve them in the planning. If you do, not only will the temp worker lack understanding, but you may miss out on some great idea

Provide Feedback

Let your temp employees know how they are doing! Like any employee, they will appreciate the feedback. This will also help them grow and improve. Because temp workers know they have a limited time at a job, they are usually very eager to implement any suggestions you give them, and you are likely see improvements right away.

Say thank you!

Actively look for things your temporary staff have done well and give them a genuine thank you for something specific. A generalised thank you can feel more like a pat on the head for coming in. When you thank someone for something specific it helps to make them feel good about themselves, their managers and the company. Everyone wants to know when they do a good job and they are more likely to continue with the type of performance you want.

Good people are also more likely to want to work with you again and they send out positive messages to the rest of the world about you as an employer.

Provide benefits.

Benefits packages are now the ‘norm’ for permanent staff because it is recognised they help to motivate people and take care of their wellbeing, traditionally temps have missed out. Whilst it may be difficult to include temporary staff in your company benfefits package, ethical agencies like First Base provide temporary staff with a wide range of similar benefits so that they don’t feel left out.

Straight Talking Sales Seminar at The Growth Hub

We’ve teamed up with The Growth Hub to bring you one of our ever popular Straight Talking Seminars!

In this highly practical, interactive and inspirational workshop David Tovey, author of ‘Principled Selling’ and Tricia Hay, MD of First Base Employment will show you how to win more business with a 21st Century, trust based, ethical approach to sales. You will learn how to make the sales process enjoyable and effective for both you and your customers, how to win more business from the right customers at the right price and how to guarantee you meet your sales and profit growth targets.

Workshop content includes:

• A four step process that guarantees sales growth
• Understanding how and why people buy
• How to use social media as part of the sales process
• Building trusted business relationships
• How to motivate customers to buy
• Winning more business from new and existing customers

Ideal for non-sales people and sales people alike and relevant to all business sectors, this workshop will equip you with an easy to apply, proven approach to growing your sales profitably.

Tricia started First Base Employment 22 years ago, is an award winning local business owner and huge fan and user of the Principled Selling approach to business growth. Tricia and David’s objective is to give back to business by sharing their hard earned knowledge to help other Gloucestershire firms to grow.

The event is free and you get the chance to take away your own copy of ‘Principled Selling’ published by Kogan Page. Places are limited so apply for your chance to attend today!

Wellbeing – it’s not just about free fruit!

Wellbeing at work isn’t a new concept but it is certainly on the agenda of many employers we speak to about their recruitment requirements. It’s increasingly important to the candidates who approach us well – many ask us to seek out those employers with a reputation for taking employee health and wellbeing seriously.

Still misunderstood?

According to a group of wellbeing experts in a recent British Safety Council report, there still remains a great deal of uncertainty about what exactly wellbeing is all about. The report ‘Not just free fruit: Wellbeing at Work’ found that employee wellbeing is often ignored or misunderstood. Employers are unsure how to define it, how to improve it, what priority to assign to it and how to measure the success of well-being programmes and interventions. While occupational safety remains a key priority for employers across all sectors, there is growing awareness of the impact wellbeing has on individuals, organisations and society as a whole.

“The link between wellbeing and productivity is undeniable and calculable. It cannot be ignored.” – Lawrence Waterman OBE

The report provides a timely reminder that too often, unlike the highly professional approach to risk assessment and risk control which has yielded improvements in preventing accidents and injuries, wellbeing efforts have been marked by a combination of real enthusiasm and commitment married to a woeful ignorance of what will, sustainably and effectively, make a difference. Well-being at work not only includes traditional health benefits but, crucially, the conditions which characterise the working day: workload, collegiality, autonomy and salary, to name a few.

SME’s risk losing good talent

Whilst there are now many impressive well-being programmes being promoted by larger organisations it seems that some SME’s, whilst suffering the consequences of absenteeism and long term health issues, remain reluctant to provide health and wellbeing benefits.

A survey of 500 SMEs, conducted for BUPA, explains the paradox. While 76% of SME leaders who experienced the long-term sickness absence of a worker declared that it had a ‘significant impact’ on growth, only 46% said that health and wellbeing will be ‘a key consideration’ as they develop their business.

Following the survey Richard Norris, Bupa’s Consumer Director, observed that health and wellbeing ‘should be an integral part of their growth strategy from the start’. He stated: ”If small business owners continue to side line employee wellbeing, they risk losing market share and good talent to more supportive competitors. By supporting the health and wellbeing of their people, leaders are helping to protect the long-term health of their business.” The Federation and Small Businesses and the CIPD support his view. With 5.5m small businesses in the UK, both agree that health and well-being needs to be linked to an employer’s corporate strategy and based closely on the specific needs of the organisation and its people from the outset.

The report concludes with a statement we at First Base wholeheartedly support based on our experience of placing over 13,000 people into work with over 300 employers:

‘Workers are the lifeblood of all businesses, large or small. No company can survive without them. Looking after their well-being is not only the right thing to do, it also make good financial sense.’

You can download the full report here.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

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One of the most frequent questions candidates tell us they have difficulty answering is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” No interviewer really expects candidates to be able to describe EXACTLY what they will be doing 260 weeks from now. So why do interviewers seem to insist on asking this question?

Why do interviewers ask the question?

The interviewer wants to understand more about your career goals and how the role you have applied for would fit into your longer term plans. They care about your career aspirations because they want to recruit someone who is motivated, proactive and who is likely to stick around if they are offered the job. Recruiting people is expensive for any organisation, getting it right is really important. If the interviewer feels that this role is important to you as part of your long term career aspiration’s, you are more likely to do well.

Where do you want to be in 5 years is a bit clichéd these days so you might hear it put differently:

How would you define success at this stage in your career?
What are your long term goals?
What is your ideal job right now?
What are you looking for?
What is most important to you in your career?

So what should you say?

Let’s be clear. You should never lie during a job interview. However, that doesn’t mean that you have to be 100% candid about all of the directions that you are investigating. Do make sure you know something about the organisation and the role you are applying for – research is key.

Keep your answer fairly general,especially if you don’t yet know a lot about the potential career path at the company. Make your answer honest, but broad enough that it doesn’t raise doubts about whether you would be a good fit for this position. For most interview questions, we recommend being specific, this is the exception.

Stress your interest in a long-term career at the company. Your interviewer wants to know that you’re ready to settle in and grow with the firm. Remember that the organization is going to be investing considerable time, effort, and money in recruiting and training someone for the job. You must at least show an honest intention to stay long enough to be a good investment. If you are taken on and you leave after a short time, the interviewer is not going to look great to their boss.

Demonstrate enthusiasm for the job as an exciting opportunity for you. Most importantly, make it clear that you are motivated to take on this new challenge right now.

Your response to “Where do you see yourself in five years?” is your chance to sell the interviewer on your commitment to the career path and the position being offered. Take the time to think about the question and prepare a response in advance. Practice how you will describe your long-term career plans in a way that will be relevant to the interviewer and help you tell your story about why you’re the best person for the job.

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Has the annual review had its day?

A waste of time, stressful, outdated are just some of the descriptions we hear when we speak to clients and candidates about annual reviews. It seems many employers and employees don’t find the topic of the annual review very engaging. Yet, as we discussed in a recent blog, companies with strong employee engagement rates experience 87% higher staff retention, 17% higher productivity levels, 20% higher sales and 19% increase in revenue. So why don’t annual reviews seem popular anymore?

An annual review isn’t enough. Most organisations exist in a fast-paced, highly competitive environment. Leaving something as important as staff reviews for a year often means so many things may have changed, that the goals set a year ago have become seriously outdated. Providing feedback on an individual’s performance is a key objective and an annual review just doesn’t cut it.

In our experience, people are more eager for feedback than ever and many (particularly younger people) want to receive feedback regularly, even daily. It makes more sense for managers to adopt a coaching style approach where on the spot performance feedback can be timely, relevant and effective in motivating an individual to repeat what they do well and make improvements where necessary.

CIPD research revealed that almost 70% of managers surveyed felt uncomfortable communicating directly with individuals on their team and over a third (37%) avoided delivering feedback about an employee’s performance that they might respond badly to. No surprise then that many annual performance reviews don’t seem to work for either party. Communication and genuine praise are key to employee engagement and workplace happiness improved productivity and increased profitability. It really should be a fundamental part of a managers personal development programme to keep their coaching and communication skills up to date.

You know the annual review process is failing when people start to complain about it being a ‘paperwork exercise’. Most people hate paperwork and it might be time to ditch the paper and adopt a technology-based approach and use modern HR procedures such as staff surveys and more flexible, ad hoc processes that provide the timely and relevant information today’s business world needs.

Ditch the annual review?

Should you ditch the annual review completely? We think not. There is still a place for a well-planned annual discussion provides an opportunity to invest quality time to review how far an individual has developed in the past year, take stock and reflect on the longer term. Well executed, an annual review can be motivational and add value for everyone involved.

Add to the management mix regular on the spot feedback and you have the perfect combination of communication tools to ensures team and individual performance is aligned with the organisation’s goals and objectives.

Ten interviewing tips for employers

Poor interview technique cost one technology company a lot of bad press recently when the CEO was accused of bullying a candidate. Beyond what appeared in the public domain, we are not privy to what actually happened. But sadly we do get to hear first-hand some pretty cringe worthy stories about employer’s interview technique and recruitment processes.

How you interview and how you handle your recruitment process matters. Get it right and even the individuals who didn’t get the job will be your company ambassadors, get it wrong and you potentially affect your reputation as an employer and will find it more difficult to attract the right candidates. You might not make the newspapers but social media and word of mouth are both very powerful.

Getting it right

Understand what you really need.

Go beyond the job spec (but do write one) and identify what the critical business need is. Identify the qualities you are seeking and how they match with your culture – then tailor everything in your recruitment process to finding the right person to solve your critical business need.

Define what you mean

If you decide you need an outstanding admin manager, define what you mean by ‘outstanding’ and how you will identify if a candidate is outstanding. Does it mean some specific experience, qualification or performance at the interview? At a time of high employment, be prepared to be flexible and consider transferable skills and the potential for training.

Explain the recruitment process to every candidate.

Candidates selected for interview should know exactly what to expect; when they will be interviewed, where they will be interviewed and who will be involved in the interview. Make sure there are no surprises, no bad practices, no uncertainties and no confusion.

If you don’t portray your organisation as a great employer from the very start, the best candidate may decide your company is not the right fit for them.

Prepare for the interview.

Too many managers glance at a CV a couple of minutes prior to the interview. Leaving to the last minute means being unlikely to be able to ask insightful and intelligent questions or hold a meaningful two-way conversation.

Use the candidate’s CV to prepare probing questions about accomplishments, work ethic and attitudes. Do a quick LinkedIn and social media check to explore outside interests and who they network with.

Have a conversation, don’t interrogate.

You can’t have a conversation unless you do some preparation. You simply won’t know enough to do anything other than ask questions. When an interview is conversational (and you listen effectively) candidates relax, speak more freely and provide more detail. Have a grown-up, respectful conversation and don’t use tricks or techniques to put the candidate under pressure.

Ask follow up questions.

The most revealing answers usually come from follow-up questions. Listen to the initial answer, then probe the candidate’s answers with the interviewers tried and trusted friends, who, what, where, when, why, how and tell me more!

Answer the candidate’s questions

The best candidates are assessing you, your company, and whether they really want to work for you. If they are interested they will ask questions. Be open and honest with your answers but resist the temptation to oversell.

Outline the next steps.

At the end of the interview always describe the rest of the recruitment process. Explain what you will do and when you plan to do it. Don’t force the candidate to ask. Tell them and if there are any changes following the interview communicate with them.

Follow up – with everyone.

It’s a fundamental business courtesy that says lots about you as an employer. Failing to follow up is incredibly rude, will be remembered and broadcast widely by those who invested time in your recruitment process but received little courtesy in return.

Be decisive and make an enthusiastic offer.

Good candidates are in high demand. Don’t introduce delaying tactics or anything that will reduce the enthusiasm the candidates has to join your organisation. Be decisive and don’t be reluctant to show that your excitement at having found the best candidate. You and the candidate should be pleased to have found each other – there is no upper hand in the business of finding the best talent.

You both win.

Working parents – how to avoid feeling overwhelmed

So how does your ‘master’ to do list look? Does it include a never-ending list of job deadlines, parenting responsibilities and domestic chores? The reality is that working parents have a seemingly endless and ever-growing to-do list or even multiple to-do lists. No wonder that research confirms that most working parents can end up feeling tired, in a constant hurry and stressed. For some, managing multiple priorities can seem overwhelming.

Technology has given us access to the tools we can use to organise our professional and personal lives but somehow these tools serve to remind us of the fact that we might not be getting enough done and may not be in control as we sit in bed scheduling meetings, phone calls, social media and business deadlines alongside school events, holiday activities and family commitments. We’ve all had that ‘stop the bus I want to get off” moment.

Our problem isn’t that we aren’t actually in control – it’s more about how the human brain functions. It is normal to feel overwhelmed when there seems to be so many multiple priorities to deal with.

The good news is that there are well established and simple techniques that every working parent can do to feel calmer and in control of those ever-present to do lists.

Begin with the end in mind

Good managers know that organisations work well when there are clear strategic, operational and tactical goals. There are targets that, when achieved, can be celebrated. Knowing where the organisation or team is headed they can be confident in decision making and enjoy the motivation that comes from working towards their destination.

Working parents don’t always do the same.

Too often we are working to get through what can often seem a daunting day ahead. Our heads go down as we ‘get on with it’ making our lives potentially seem relentless and stressful. It can feel as if those to do lists and schedules are in charge of your life rather than the other way around. Constantly feeling that we have too much to do can be exhausting.

If we take a leaf out of the good managers’ book and start thinking about the end results of being good parents and good in our professional lives you can put yourself back in charge. Knowing that your goals are to contribute to the success and growth of your organisation whilst raising healthy, independent, successful children provides a sense of confidence, motivation and self-determination. YOU decided on the goal and it is your goal you that you are getting closer to every day. And remember they are YOUR goals, not necessarily the goals of other parent’s. It’s achieving your own life and career goals that will motivate you when times seem tough. The more specific your goals are the more likely they are to motivate you.

With a clear view of what you are working towards you can rid your to-do list and schedules of anything that does not contribute to achieving your professional and family goals, focusing only on those things that matter, spending time and energy on those things driving you forward.

Keep an ‘it’s done’ list

It was when our very own David Tovey was speaking at a ‘Dealing with Multiple Priorities” event in Sydney that he was introduced to the work of Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik. The Zeigernic effect states that people tend to remember and over fixate on uncompleted or interrupted tasks significantly more than finished ones. Outstanding tasks take up a lot of mental space and create negative emotions that can leave us feeling anxious. As a working parent, the list of outstanding tasks can lead to a great deal of anxiety. Whilst that to do list is necessary, it only fuels any stress we feel.

In Sydney, David met one person actually putting completed tasks, not originally on her to do list, on to the list so that she could put a line through it, showing it as completed. Why? Because it gave her a positive feeling of closure. Capture all those completed projects and remind yourself of how far you’ve come, how much has been accomplished in your professional and family life. Look back on the list from time to time to remind yourself of your achievements. At the same time keep all those ‘well done’ and ‘thank you’ work-related messages as well as fathers, mother’s day, birthday etc cards (especially the handmade ones). They have the power to bring a smile, a warm glow and remind yourself why you do what you do.

Take a digital detox

Smart phones, apps, email and social media provide great tools BUT also can contribute to a feeling of never being off duty. Promise yourself that sometime in the next couple of days you will set aside a minimum of 30 minutes for a digital detox at home. With that time commit to focusing on yourself and/or your family. Have a ‘no phones’ at meal times rule when the kids are telling you about their day. You have work commitments, yes, but even the highest powered execs can switch off for 30 minutes without the world ending.

Just 30 minutes can make a real difference. Stress ebes away and you are back in control having made the decision to detox and executed it. Those schedules and to do lists are there to help you achieve your career, life and family goals. They don’t rule you, you rule them.

How to answer the ‘tell me about yourself” question

The team at First Base undertake hundreds of recruitment interviews on behalf of employers every year. Well qualified people too often let themselves down by failing to prepare for the questions they should expect to be asked. Often the most stumbled over and feared question in the recruitment process comes right at the start with the classic ice breaker ”Tell me about yourself”; especially when asked to talk about what isn’t on your CV. Here are a few tips to help.

Getting personal

As well as an ice breaker, this question is a way for the interviewer to gain some insight into your personality. They also want to determine your fit for the job and the organisation. The interviewer doesn’t want to know everything about you – your answer needs to be a careful balance between declaring too much and making them wonder why you aren’t being more open with your answer. The interviewer wants to know that you have the sort of well-rounded personality and outlook that will fit well with their culture. Your research should, of course, include finding out about the culture of the organisation that you are hoping to join.

Remember that the early stages of a recruitment interview are about establishing rapport so avoid the temptation to start by giving a long list of qualifications for the job. You are being asked about the you beyond your career and work experience – so share something about what makes you tick and be authentic, don’t make things up or over exaggerate because you think it will impress – there will be follow up questions!

An option is to share some of your personal interests that don’t directly relate to your career but demonstrate your attitudes to life and work. For example, fitness related hobbies can help to emphasise a healthy energetic and positive outlook. If you mention more sedate pursuits such as reading or the theatre to demonstrate a thoughtful or creative edge, be prepared to be asked who your favourite author is or which genre’s you enjoy. Voluntary work you are involved in can demonstrate your community and social values as well as highlight any skills you use, such as communication, that are relevant to the job you are applying for. On the other hand, do take care not to sound so enthusiastic about interests that you might suggest they could interfere with your career.

From Personal to Professional

Once you have shared a few interesting aspects of your background you can transition to speaking about key professional skills that would benefit your potential employer if you were taken on. A good transition might be to say “As well as my outside passions, my career is very important to me” and then move on to speak about the positive attributes that you would bring to the job you are being interviewed for. Prepare to share a few of the personal qualities and areas of expertise that would help you to deliver high performance in the job. Over the course of the interview, you should build on these three of four areas to help reassure the interviewer that you are the right person for the job. Your advanced research into the organisation and the job description will help you to emphasise your relevant strengths and skills, without overwhelming the interviewer with too much information at the start.

When you answer the ‘Tell me about you” question you are providing a brief summary of evidence that supports your application. For instance, you might say how much you enjoy networking and getting to know people if the job you are applying for includes interacting with clients and customers. You don’t need to share information about your family, your partners, children or any other strictly personal information and we suggest avoiding potentially contentious subjects such as politics and religion unless you are absolutely sure that your personal opinions are being sought and will be well received.

Remember, the more you research the organisation and job role, the more you can prepare for the questions you are likely to be asked.