Super Bowl XXIX

The looking for a job is a passage often obliged for the majority of the Anybody S of a country.

The purpose of it is to allow the Anybody S with the Chômage (or without employment) to find a work.

It can take different forms, according to the target (Public office, large Entreprise, small company (SME). But certain points remain common.

One in general distinguishes two types of research:

answers to job offers; the company presents an offer in a bulletin of advertisements (of the company, branch, of an specialized magazine or not, on Internet), via an Employment agency (in France, ANPE), via a recruitment firm, etc and the candidates answer it.
spontaneous candidatures; the candidate decides not to await an offer of employment and fact form application either because it knows that a station is opened with recruitment (before information is not public), or because it hopes that it or the case, or because the company or the service appears to him particularly attracting.

In both cases, the formal aspects are important and must generally be respected with attention to give the best chances to a candidature. In particular, the candidate must provide a Covering letter and a CV. It is more and more frequently requested from the candidates to pass a psychometric test (for example: Orientation 21 or Personality 21).

If the service of Human Resources (or Staff management) retains the candidature, this initial step will be followed of one or more individual or collective talks.

The CV

The CV (or Curriculum vitae vitæ ) are a document which presents the professional path and/or didactic of a person. In the case of a looking for a job, the CV is an intermediary quasi obliged to present its candidature for a station. The form of the CV is not imposed. Nevertheless, certain practices exist (generally, in order to facilitate its reading):

to present the personal coordinates in top of the first page
to organize the experiment in a way ordered in time (the opinions are divided on the order ascending or decreasing dates)
to gather the experiments according to their professional relevance
to be held with essential information
to reveal the keywords likely to draw the attention of the reader
to finish the CV by less professional information, but being able to have an interest for the recruiter (for example of the contributions to Wikipédia are a leisure who adds to the interest of a candidature, for example in trades where the editorial one holds a big part).

The privileged form of one CV is variable from one time to another and country to another. The councils distributed for its drafting are legion in the press, in the edition, on Internet. They will appear sometimes contradictory, but it is necessary to keep in mind that the CV must be read and must convince.

In particular, the form of the CV must facilitate the reading on several levels of attention:

first glance in 10 seconds. When a recruiter receives several tens (even hundreds) of CV for a station, the first sorting will be fast and critical! It is necessary to be able to at a glance find all information essential (which are you? Your experiment/your formation, etc), and that on the first page (if ever the CV comprise some several).
Second reading: attention on the level of detail of each subcategories… Thus to look after the subtitles, to play with the bold characters, the tabulation, etc
Lastly, last level: you were selected with a handle of other candidates. Cheer! Maintaining your CV will undergo an attentive examination: think of the positive details of your track records, your formation… without putting some too either. Certain recruiters say " a page not plus". After, if your track records are really rich and determining for the station concerned, then is, to two pages. The remainder will be able to await maintenance…

The Covering letter

According to the CVMag magazine, magazine of councils, ideas and easy ways to find an employment: " a relevant covering letter must propose other information that those presented in your CV. It must always supplement it while insisting on your motivations: why the employer can be interested by your candidature? "

It is traditional to accompany the CV by a letter briefly describing the reasons for which the candidate estimates to correspond to the target use of the step.

In its simplest form, it is about a mail which concerns the courtesy not to address one simply CV in an envelope and to make it possible to facilitate its treatment (for example, when a reference of offer of employment must be quoted.) But generally, the potential employer waits to find there the description of the motivations of the candidate (the reasons which make him prefer this employment with another) and - often - the projecting elements of his experiment taking into consideration station concerned (at least in order to allow to emphasize this candidature among the others). A few years ago, the letter was to be handwritten. Graphology had passed by there… Today it is not necessary any more, the word processing is largely enough!

According to the companies, the letter will be read with more or less attention. But it is rare that its absence is tolerated. In all the cases, the candidate will avoid the exaggerated draftings (one saw too many covering letters in which the candidate literally condemned international groups to the economic failure if they let pass the occasion to associate the services of the writer). In the same way, when it is read attentively, a letter must - at least - appear personalized (too many letters indicate a company as the leader of its market when it knows challenger behind a known leader.)

Nevertheless, it is generally advised to avoid delivering all the details of the positive arguments of a candidature. A good covering letter must wake up the attention and the interest of the reader, to cause the desire for meeting the candidate, but not completely déflorer the subject (what would reduce the chances to be retained in the small number of talks).

The size of the company or the service has an impact on this part of the step. For example, it is often developing to have a good knowledge of the company of small size and its market (and to reveal it in the covering letter); a company of greater scale will be able to more notice the clear comprehension of the internal stakes of its structure (the knowledge of the company and its market being on the other hand relatively easy).

The Maintenance of recruiting

The maintenance of recruiting is one important moment (for the company as for the candidate) where, in a short time, it will be necessary that the company renews the arguments which make its attraction and the candidate will have to show that it is the best choice to be made by the company. Of course, balance between these two aspects varies according to the state of the labor market more or less favorable to one or the other of the parts, but maintenance remains a time when most of the conviction concentrates which leads to recruitment or its failure.

Psychological dimensions of maintenance are often described since it is generally about the confrontation of a candidate with a representative of the company (a person of the service which recruits, a person of the recruitment firm which is used of intermediary and filter, a person of the personnel department of). More rarely, of the talks can confront several candidates. All the elements can play a part (as in a first meeting in love): personality, the way of getting dressed, general behavior, manner of expressing themselves, of arguing or of answering the questions, the place, the hour or the mood of each participant.

The recruiting or the refusal

With or without maintenance, a candidature can be refused (and the majority are it in a market of employment where unemployment is measurable as in the majority of the countries of the world in this beginning of the 21e century). The majority of the companies address a mail (simple but polished) to indicate their refusal; but it is not rare to refuse silently (especially if the company receives candidatures more than its capacity to answer it).

In the case of a recruiting, it is also traditional to formalize it by a mail accompanied or not by the work contract suggested to the candidate.

See too

; in France

ANPE
Association for the use of the executives (APEC)
Club looking for a job

; in Belgium

Regional Office Of Brussels of Employment
Forem Belgium

External bonds

On the site of ANPE:

Method of recruitment per simulation
List of the sites adherent employment to the charter Net Employment
the Councils on the techniques of looking for a job

Other sites:

Handy guide of the looking for a job (site of UNEDIC).
EURES: European gate on the job mobility and the employment services in Europe
Method of Lucky Clover of Jacques Limoges
Cyber-Employment-Center - Directory of useful sites for a looking for a job.

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