No matter how many staff a company has, every business needs someone to pay the wages. Whether that’s done in-house, or outsourced to a specialist provider, getting staff paid correctly and on-time is fundamental for…
The number of applications received for many jobs can often number into the hundreds – it’s not feasible for HR departments, recruitment consultants or hiring managers to read them all. Often they will instead be…
Recent research by the University of Manchester published in August suggested that contrary to what most would think, being unemployed is not always worse for your health than working. The recent rise in unpredictable self-employed,…
Everyone has to start somewhere in their career. Although sometimes it can feel like you need 5 years of work experience even to be in with a chance of an interview with an entry level…
When preparing your CV, it can be tempting to list every single skill you possess. But if you’ve had a long career, some of the things you did when you first started work are likely…
October 25th marked the birthday of artist Pablo Picasso. As well as lending his name to a popular family car, Picasso is most well-known for his cubist paintings including less-than-accurate depictions of people and places. …
E-mail is one of the dominant forms of communication when you’re looking for a new job, allowing you to send information like CVs, job descriptions and offers and contracts securely and more efficiently than trying…
A new law has come into effect in the American state of Massachusetts to ban a job interview question. The offending question: “What is your current salary?” The law has been brought in to try…
One of the viral news stories of last week was of Angela Laws who came out of retirement, aged 70, to work as a social media manager for a digital start-up. In an interview…
What does your job title say about you? Traditional (and often more prestigious) jobs have fairly straightforward titles and we all know what they mean – doctor, nurse, barrister, accountant and so on – so…
2 pages to sell yourself into a job interview; the CV is probably the most important part of looking for a new job. Sometimes, keeping it concise and yet still featuring all the important information…
Thanks to the Internet, there’s probably more helpful advice out there for job seekers and it’s probably more accessible than ever. Unfortunately, you can’t always trust what you read. How can you tell what’s good…
Recruitment is one of the few industries left where there aren’t any entry requirements. You don’t need to do a degree in recruitment, or have a diploma in CVs. A lot of the job is…
When you last applied for a job, did you include a covering letter or statement? If you did you might have been wasting your time – only 18% of managers think that having a good…
The CV is the most widely used document we use when applying for new jobs. It’s ultimately a fact-based approach, allowing you to highlight your past work experience, education and skills in 2-3 pages. Of…
No two CVs are the same. No matter what decisions you make in your education and career, it’s no guarantee of what doors might open for you. In this new series of blogs, we interview…
The skills shortage in many sectors is one of the biggest news stories when it comes to all things job-related. While the focus is usually on technical skills in IT, science, technology and finance, the…
With news stories about people losing their jobs over an inappropriate Facebook status, it’s no surprise that the thought of a prospective employer checking over your profile brings most of us out in a cold…
When you apply for a job, the CV is the most important part. It’s much more important than a covering letter, perhaps even than an interview. It’s the piece of paper (or more likely, virtual…
There is a lot of coverage in the press at the moment about individuals leaving education and not being literate and numerate. It is estimated that 9 out of 10 CVs have several spelling mistakes;…
I hear a common phrase when asking candidates what they want from their next job ‘I don’t want to be in a minimum wage job for the rest of my life’. Whilst aspirational, the phrase…
Here at Essential Personnel we love our jobs as Recruitment Consultants. We match employees with employers and on a daily basis we encounter the good, the bad and the downright weird. Here are some recent…
Last month we published a blog about why recruiters don’t respond to my job applications. This great infographic from Freeresumebuilder.org offers some more helpful tips on how to make your CV stand out so that recruiters contact…
