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What are the current trends in the job market?

There is a high demand of people in


the health sector. What companies are looking for? They're looking for people who
are for sure. They know that they've got the right skills for the role. How much
time do you really spend on a candidate resume? Your CV's should reflect what we
want to hear. I would say that the best thing is to get out of your comfort zone.
When a company says, we're like a family, that means literally they expect you to
give everything to your family. Hello and welcome to Never Late Show with Anuvindh
aka Nlsa podcast. This is your ultimate destination for professional growth
strategies. Are you feeling lost in your job hunt? Wishing you knew the secrets to
land that six-figure dream salary? Whether you are a recent graduate or a seasoned
executive, this episode might be a one-stop shop. Today, we are diving deep into
the world of career advancement, covering everything from easing interviews to
navigate the complexities of the job market. Joining us today is the industry
expert and a seasoned professional, Sidra Siddiqui, who have worked with companies
like Rocket Lab, Solarzero and Government Entities as well as Education Industry.
She has successfully recruited more than thousands of candidates. She will be
sharing her invaluable insight and tips for success. If you are interested in a
specific topic, feel free to check our timestamps. Today, we are diving deep. So
buckle up and get ready to take your career into the next level. Welcome, Sidra.
Welcome to Nlsa podcast. Hi, my name is Sidra Siddiqui. I am an academic recruiter
at NZSEG. I started recruiting 12 years ago, started as an external recruiter at a
deco where I was mostly doing recruitment for construction and supply chain
management companies. And since then, I have been recruiting for various different
industries, which included the Government Institute, I worked at Auckland Council,
and I've worked at several large tech companies, one of them being Rocket Lab. I've
probably recruited more of the higher end. So people who are on their higher
trajectory in their careers. Maybe we can start with, you know, what's a secret to
impress a recruiter. The best thing you can do is to keep your CV nice and short
and precise and make sure the role that you applied for, you actually have those
skills on your CV. So it should reflect, you know, whatever role you're applying
for, those skills, those requirements, those expertise are actually reflected on
your CV. And they actually are reflecting on the first page itself, because I'll
tell you what, we get like hundreds of hundreds of CVs to make sure that, you know,
we pick the right one. We don't go through if you've got five pages in your CV and
you've got the most relevant expertise that is required for the role in the third
page, you've already missed out. So the best thing best tip that I can give anybody
is to make sure that the relevance of the job is reflected in the first part of
your CV. Does this mean like when you're applying for an IT job, you should not be
mentioning your Pizza Hut experience? No, no. I mean, like in any hospitality, I'm
not mentioning a specific company. Like if you worked in an entirely different
industry and you want to apply for another industry, you should not be mentioning
or it's okay to show us, even let's say you worked as a manager for that company
and you're applying for a project management role. Does it still relevant? What
we're trying to see here is how you, I guess, conceptualize in a workspace, you
know, not, you know, so it's always very important to have those things in your CV
when you are hitting those higher roles. So yeah, I don't think, you know, you're
anything that you did, maybe as a student or anything that you did, if you were
new, I guess, a migrant to New Zealand, those roles do help you get your first
break, you know, but once you're sort of, you've got some experience and you're
hitting those higher level roles, I think you need to reflect on what you did on
your current roles. Let's look into the job market now. What are the current trends
in the job market that requires someone who is in highly skilled and that's ready
to pay a six-figure salary? There is a high demand of people in the health sector.
Health sector? Health sector is like, it used to be tech for a long time, but I
feel like from the last quarter last year to now, health sector has picked up
massively and we're not, we're not talking about like surgeons and things like
that. We're talking about, you know, practitioners, not like professionals. I mean,
those are also there, but just general practitioners. So that's why the New Zealand
government is trying to build relations with a lot of, you know, countries who
exchange in these. And there's a huge skill shortage, in fact, that a lot of
clinics and after our clinics, like White Cross, you would find them close because
the talent is just not there. All right. You know, so that's there. And then the
second, which is, I guess, always steady is nursing. We don't have good nurses here
and New Zealand needs them and they're working, but there's still a skill shortage
there. After healthcare, skill shortage that we have had and we've always had is in
the tech industry. Not particularly IT, hardware or infrastructure as such, but
there's a lot of skill shortage in software development. There's a high shortage
for cloud, cybersecurity, machine learning, AI development is big. Now it is
predicted that by the time it's 2030, we are going to be in a $200 billion digital
marketing world. And there's a huge skill shortage for that in New Zealand at the
moment, especially in the government sector. We have people who've been there for
years, even younger people, but they're not very, you know, tech savvy and that
requirement is there. Simple apps like Articulate, Storyboard, Mirro, those skills
are needed for project development. You mean like mainly storytellers?
Storytellers, you know, I guess even in recruitment and HR, a lot of analysts are
needed and we don't have that skill at the moment. That's quite, there's a huge gap
there and a lot of efforts are being put in to make sure that they're upskilling
people. But this also enables, you know, people from overseas who've actually got
that experience to come in here and, you know, use, you know, put those on their CV
because you just never know. There might be a recruiter who's just so desperate to
find the right person that actually go ahead and do a job check, you know, just
because they don't have that skill here. So, so when you say that it's mainly comes
between my understanding is people who know how to tell a story in a effective way.
Yes. They can make easily say the six-figure salary. Yes. Oh, that's really amazing
to see. Storytellers, IT engineers and the medical industry people, how about
construction people? I think what's happened is since 2023, there has been a low
demand in construction. Okay. And that's why I guess the gap is not sort of so
visible. But for seeing with it, because see New Zealand is an aging population and
New Zealand is a small country. So keeping that in mind, it is very easy to pick
yourself up. You know, so we do get a lot of, so we are losing a lot of very
talented project managers in the construction industry. Okay. So they are, you
know, they're moving on, you know, they are retiring, you know, they're taking a
step back. So there is a, there is, it is predicted that there will be a gap for
that soon. Right at the moment, it's not there. All right. Because we've got people
in the market. And there's not a lot of, I guess, large projects that are
happening. But very shortly, I think, you know, by the time we hit 2025, there will
be a lot more requirements coming up because New Zealand has got a lot of big
projects in the pipeline. You are expecting that next five years, there is a huge
jump in job opportunities because of there are no young generations. I definitely,
I definitely think not even five years, five years is really long. I think just
currently right now, it is right now, a lot of companies have seized recruitment.
But I think this is not going to last for too long. I feel like by the end of this
year, thing will pick up. So, you know, everything that's on pause. So the tech
industry, you know, they had the big fall last year, you know, in terms of in other
countries like America, there were a lot of people were laid off and New Zealand
experienced that towards the end of last year. And they're still experiencing that
at the moment. But having said that, there is going to be huge projects that are
going to be started up again. And we would meet people in those areas, especially
cybersecurity. That is a huge gap here. We've got, you know, companies like Dark
Trace, they're always recruiting people. Okay. And we, we, they need talented
people there. And that skill is not here. But what New Zealand and what a lot of
PTEs are doing at the moment, they're taking this opportunity and they've developed
micro credential courses. So these micro courses, yeah, so these micro courses are
really helpful. So we had a lot of layoffs in the tech companies last year, even
companies like Zero who we felt like are untouchable, they had layoffs there. So
what these people have done is they've started upskilling themselves. Yep. And
when, okay, so upskilling yourself is different to studying a whole degree again.
Upskilling yourself with these micro courses is just sort of, I guess, getting new
skills. So yeah, a lot of these micro potential courses are quite handy these days,
especially for people who are upskilling themselves. So AWS have a lot of these
programs that they offer. And I think that definitely adds value to people's CV,
especially to recruiters, because that's a gap that we're looking
for in our, when we do our planning without hiring managers, we look for, we asked
them what are the gaps and they tell us, yep, these are the gaps we're looking for,
and these are the programs we were looking for. So if somebody who's done these
micro credential courses, it really does help them, you know, for us to pick these
people out and it helps these candidates to secure, I guess, the role that they're
looking for. As you mentioned, these micro credentials really give priority to
evaluating the candidates. How much time do you really spend on a candidate resume?
If I'm very honest, I can pretty much read the first half of a candidate's page to
know if they're going to be good for the company or not. So I can easily just have
one glance at the candidate for 30 seconds and know of these good values, because
what I look for is, and especially because I've been doing a lot of technical
recruitment and specialized recruitment for the past, you know, three, four years,
I can easily look at their expertise and see what, you know, what they've done,
what their tech stacks are, no expertise. I can easily look at the tech stack that
they have and see if, you know, that's something that's required. What companies
are looking for, they're looking for people who are for sure, they know that
they've got the right skills for the role. So when you're looking for a six figure
salary role, when you're trying to cross that benchmark, by this time, it's not
that you apply for any role. By this time, you know what your expertise are. You
know what the job ad has asked for. And you know what the company is looking for.
When you're applying for a job, you've got from the desired skills, make sure that
you've got 80% of those skills and the compulsory ones make sure it's 100%. Because
if you don't have those, because, you know, you can, when you're starting off, when
you're starting off your career, the first few years, you know, you can easily
learn things. Companies, when they hire somebody at a six figure salary, they want
to make sure that that candidate who's become an employee can hit the ground
running. If there is a role that you've seen, you think, oh, you know, I definitely
want to get into this role. That's where you get into these micro-credential
courses and you do them. At times, it is okay if you don't have working knowledge
on certain programs or certain languages or even, you know, certain projects. It is
okay that you've just got like, I guess, short courses that you've done to achieve
that because they would just mean that we are recruiting somebody who have up-
skilled themselves and they can use those skills that they've learned in their
courses to the role that they're entering. What advice you can give for the people
who are losing jobs at the moment. First of all, don't take it personally because
this happens to everyone and anyone. They've been some very, very experienced
people who get made redundant. It's just how it ends. So what you do in these
situations is you don't take, you take it as an opportunity. You take it as an
opportunity to give yourself time to upskill yourself. So this is where that's, and
that is why a lot of PTEs are running these micro-credential courses. So yeah, you
can do a lot of courses on AWS, cybersecurity, project management and AI. I want to
go back to project management because that's applicable across many roles as well
and many different industries. I think people's management skill is one of the most
valuable skill in the industry. And I think anyone who want to be successful, they
need to have that people management skills. Yes, you understand the psychology of
handling people, it's easy to get a fixed figure sum. So a lot of times we have
delivery leads and project managers and product managers. Now they've got the word
lead and managers to it. Those are still individual contributors, but they are
highly paid. They are highly paid because obviously the product knowledge that they
have built, but also because they know how to project manage. So they've got like,
you know, and they most probably have done these courses in project management that
does add value because in the end, I mentioned before as well that in New Zealand,
there's a high shortage on digitally savvy people. They can conceptualize ideas
very well when they will be speaking, but you know, what you need to do is you need
to be able to display it. So you know, that conceptualization is very important.
Take this as an opportunity to upskill yourself. And if you've been in a company
for more than three years, I think it's the best thing that will happen to you if
you're being made with a different. I would say I would say that and the best thing
is to get out of your comfort zone. Yes, yes. So the reward for that, you won't see
it now. Within six months, your entire life is going to change on that. Completely,
completely. It is hard just in the moment, but later on, it just adds so much more
value. You're saying the traditional way of employer loyalty is, no longer. No, no
longer. Yeah. That's very interesting. That's a complete shift. It's a complete
shift of mindset at the moment. No, the moment, it's just changed now. People who
are agile gets to more opportunity over there. Yes, yes, you have to. So change
management is very big. There's a lot of ambiguities. I mean, COVID has definitely
brought a lot of ambiguities on how we do things. It's brought in ambiguities, but
in a positive manner as well. People are more enterprising now. Companies are more
enterprising. They take risks. So they need somebody who's very agile, who can
adjust to any changes to one of them. So as you mentioned, you are not going to
spend 30 seconds on an resume to validate it, right? I just want to know before
that, like what happens before that when a resume is going to when a student is so
candidate is applied on a job application, it will initially go through the ATS,
right? The board that decides whether this application is valid or not. Yeah. Yeah.
How someone can really improve their resume to make sure that's been passed the
ATS. So when you put your application through a job board, I mean like C, go trade
me or indeed or anything, it is automatically sent to an ATS system. Now for us to
be able to pick that up, first things first, what I've noticed these days is people
like to make really pretty CVs. They add lots of colors and a lot of boxes and they
would chuck in a photo as well. I think what happens is a lot of times they don't
convert it to a PDF and the margins and things they move around and it is not
clear. So we lose those applications and the ATS doesn't, you know, sort of, I
guess, adapt to the columns that they have. So first things first, to make your CV
very compatible to any ATS, keep it simple. Yeah. You don't need to put lots of
margins in, a lot of things, keep it as simple as you can get and make sure it's
PDF. When you put an application through a, you know, a job board, it will get to
an ATS and ATS will never automatically reject. What the ATS does is a lot of times
they will have keywords. So what they will do is they will recommend applications
to us. So automatically those keywords are there, we will look at those keywords.
We will go into it. But in the end, again, it's, you know, it's machine, right? You
know, so, you know, a lot of times they don't pick up the right candidates. So we
will go back. But what gets rejected is when, when we open up an application and it
is all scrambled. Okay. That is, that is when, you know, we recruit as a human
rejects it. Okay. So there is someone who is literally looking into the
application, according to the board recommendation. Yeah. And then they reject.
Then they reject it. How is the market looking like for remote jobs? And there has
been a huge shift since the last quarter of 2023 where more and more and more
companies are wanting their people to come back to work. Why is that? I think what
they feel is that there's a lot of pressure from the government because people
working from home does not add value to, I guess, you know, they're not spending
money. They're not spending money. Yeah. So, you know, the transport transportation
is not getting, you know, any money out of it. The hospitality is not getting
money out of it. So that's one of the reasons there's a lot of pressure there. But
another reason is companies want people not to be working for themselves. They want
them to work for the organization, you know. So what happens is when you, because
of post-COVID, a lot of companies, a lot of people to continue working from home.
So, yeah, these people have sort of, I guess, built on, build their routine around,
they work routine around their lives. Company no longer want that. What they want
is what how it used to be. There's still a huge sort of, I guess, in line between
what is work-life balance. But they sort of, so you sort of want the culture back
where, you know, 95, you focus in the work and then you go have your balance. You
want to share a story of a time that you hired someone. Because not because of the
knowledge he had or he or she had. Because of how expressive, because of what they
are, you know. What I meant by that is like, even though that candidate, you
clearly, you know, the candidate didn't have the skills, technical skills required
to run the job. But you feel or you felt that candidate is the right fit for the
job. Yeah. Yeah. So can you give an example and why did you hire them? So one of
the really interesting, I guess, recruitments that I did was an open council. So we
were recruiting for our business exchange manager for the leisure centers, for the
leisure department. So this person was pretty much going to head all the leisure
centers, do their scheduling, do a lot of their procurement and do a lot of
forecasting for them.
And, okay. So we needed somebody who had sort of technical knowledge of supply
chain. But they were also going to manage the leisure centers. And the leisure
centers, honestly, consist of close to 300 people. Okay. You know, so they were
around 11 leisure centers, 11 direct reports, which is a leisure center manager's
and then indirect reports. So we needed somebody who was very robust, somebody, you
know, who could actually build relations with these people, but also had the
technical knowledge and skills to actually make sure the leisure centers run. Yeah.
Understood. Okay. So went through a lot of candidates, you know, got a lot of
people, you know, got really good experience. I came across a guy. So he had an
interesting profile. He was a, he was in the police, but he was retiring. Okay.
Okay. And he was just in the police for the last six years before that he was in
the UK and the aviation industry and supply chain. Okay. So obviously the aviation
industry, I know is much bigger than the leisure center. So they would have, you
know, different, I guess, moving parts. What I liked here was the leadership. I
felt like he would have gained while working as a policeman. Yeah. Yep. Understood.
You know, because see recruiters don't, don't just see, I guess, okay, I've spoken
about, you know, the requirements of the role, the expertise of the role, but
there's a culture as well. So this is a very strong leadership role and the
leisure, the leisure center managers and staff members, they can be pretty like
pretty full on, pretty hands full. So somebody to manage them, they have to have a
lot of charisma and strong leadership skills to actually, you know, motivate them
because, you know, what I had noticed was they would give a lot of, they would talk
back a lot to their managers and they would be, you know, I guess they would have a
lot of opinions of their own. So that strong leadership was lacking. So I put this
person forward. Now it didn't exactly match the requirements, you know, in terms of
just being able to, I guess, you know, manage a large team because this person was
an individual contributor. The only leadership they had was because they were the
policemen. And what I told a hiring manager, let's interview this guy and see how
he comes off. When we interviewed him, he pretty much ticked all the boxes. You
know, he had the, I guess, the technical knowledge from his aviation days when he
was in supply chain, but he had that personality, the oomph, the charisma that was
needed. Yeah. And I feel like that was a really good recruitment call that, you
know, I had made. So that happens a lot. Can you give us a step-by-step process on
an interview? In a recruitment process, step one is a hiring manager will come to a
recruiter and say, I've got a requirement for a role. They'll have a discussion.
And then based on that, the recruiter will develop a job ad. In the job ad, they
will list out all the requirements for the role. Now, a candidate who's applying
for a role at this level should understand their skills and expertise. And they
should understand that, yes, this is what's required in this role. And these are
skills I have. And that is when they should apply for it. So once the candidate has
applied for the role and the recruiter has gone through a CV and they think that,
yep, they've got all the skills on paper. Let's have a chat to them. The recruiter
will give them a call for a phone screen. In the phone screen, basically, it's
around 15 or 20 minutes. What they're looking for is the validation, the validation
of all the skills that they have listed in the CV, they can actually carry that
out. Yeah. And the recruiters will ask for specific examples of working knowledge.
Yeah. Make sure we're pretty with the stories. Yeah. Yeah. So here, relevant
stories. Relevant stories. Yeah. Make sure you already have. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
There you are ready with relevant stories to make sure that the answers that you're
giving to the recruiter are feasible. Feasible. Okay. Right. Yeah. That's needed.
The recruiter, when they're talking to you, they're also judging the way you sound,
your tone, your confidence. You know, understood. Because at this level, you need
somebody who can hit the ground running. Yeah. You know, there's not a lot of
movement around for training. There is training, but there won't be. So they're
looking at your confidence and your skills. Yeah. So once a recruiter feels, yep,
they've got the right skills and they can't pretty confident. They will put you
forward to the hiring manager. Yeah. Okay. For an interview. Now in the interview,
it's going to be more extensive. So for this, the candidates need to make sure the
example, see the recruiter would have spoken for 15 minutes. This will be up to one
hour. You need to really portray a good story. Yeah. So you need to, you know, if
they will ask you a question, you need to make sure there's examples, examples of
what went well, examples of what, you know, if they didn't go well, how did you
remedy that? All right. This is what the hiring manager is looking for. Okay. Yeah.
One thing. Okay. When should I be negotiating my salary during the interview? Or if
I'm like having that conversation with the manager, how should I be approaching for
the salary? All right. Oh, specifically a negotiation. So the recruiter is there to
negotiate. 90% of the time, hiring managers are not allowed to talk salary with the
candidate. Okay. The recruiter is because they like recruit recruiters like to keep
things centralized. So when the initial phone screen is happening, the recruiter
will tell you that this is a salary we're offering. What if they don't tell you?
Yeah. So if you ask them, you can ask the recruiter, what is the salary? Okay. Give
me a formal way of asking. So say, for instance, you've had a really good chat with
the recruiter. The recruiter is like, okay, awesome. I will set up a timer. I'll
call you. Okay. Then you can say, oh, actually I have a question. Okay. And the
recruiter will be like, what is it? What is the salary for this role? And the
recruiter then will be like, okay, Anuvindh, The salary for this role is 120 to
140. Let's do the role play here. Okay. Okay. So you asking me about salary, just
go for it from the... Oh, just before you go, I just want to know what is the
salary scope for this role? Oh, what's your expectation? Well, obviously I in seek
this is sitting on 120K and above because that was my search that I narrowed down.
So I'm looking for something around 140K. Okay. So I feel like that's kind of above
budget. Let me talk to your manager and get back to you. What do you feel like from
that? Does it mean that the HR is not happy about your negotiation or is it like
out of the budget? It's out of the budget. Okay. So when they say... So if you are
wanting 140K and nothing less, you have to be transparent to get HR as well. All
right. So you can be very clear saying, look, currently I'm sitting on 135K. Okay.
And I'm leaving this job only so that I can get a bit more remuneration as well as
the experience. And I don't want to change my job for anything less than 140K.
Okay. So make sure you are transparent with it. Okay. If you are very transparent
like that and you strongly say, look, I don't want to change my job for anything
less than 140K. And the recruiter goes, oh, okay, I'll have a chat, but I still
think I should move you forward. That means there is scope for negotiation. Okay. A
recruiter will not put you forward if you are so strong about what salary you want.
They will not put you forward if it's not in the budget. Okay. What if they ask you
about what's your current salary before? Like I've seen that practice like
recruiters who just wanted to know what you're getting paid for now. Do you want to
share it to the recruiter? No, you should not be hit. It's not required to share it
with them because they tend to judge their expectation on top of it. You know,
actually, this is a very traditional question. Nowadays, recruiters do not ask you
what your current salary is. If they ask, they may ask you and they'll sort of pile
around. I think you need to take in these situations, you need to take charge.
Okay. Okay. So, how you take charge is by being very honest right in the beginning
when you're phone screening. Let's say a candidate who is having 100k, right? Right
now, the job is 100k. But he or she has a skill set, currently Market in the market
like 140, 150k, right? So there is a almost 50% jump happening. Yeah. Does this
influence in any way in hiring manager or the HR? And they say, okay, right now,
I'm 100k, I'm expecting to get 150. So how you handle that actually because
definitely that's a red flag. Yeah. So, okay, my advice here is if you've applied
for 140k, okay, and if you're saying, oh, yeah, I'm 100k, there's a high chance
that they will negotiate it to be left. Yeah. Okay. I understood. You know, so you
have to put your best foot forward. So and if the, it is highly unlikely a
recruiter will, if you're on 100k salary and you apply for 140k, it first of all,
it's highly unlikely a recruiter is going to go or they will ask you, what is your
salary expectation? You can say, look, based on my skills 140. If a recruiter is
asking you, oh, what is your current salary? I think that's red flag for the
company, you know, because they should not be asking you that really. Oh, that
makes sense. Yeah. It's a red flag already. Yeah. But if the recruiter does ask,
say, look, you know, my, this is my skill set. This is my expectation. What other
red flags you should be looking for when a call is happening from recruiter to the
hiring manager? One question that you should always ask the hiring manager is why
has this role come about and how long was the previous person in this role before
me? If the hiring manager goes,
oh, yeah, they were here for like six months or three months. Anything under a
year, I see that as a red flag. Okay. You know, because, okay, why did that person
leave him on, you know, less than a year's time? Maybe they were not the right fit.
If they were not the right fit, why, why was a person who didn't have the right fit
recruited for his role? I think that's the first major red flag. Okay. Okay.
Interesting. There are other red flags and you can pick up. If the recruiter and
the hiring manager keep telling you, oh, look, this is a fantastic company. We're
like a family here. That is the biggest risk. Too much boosting is. No, it's not a
boosting. When a company says we're like a family, that means literally they expect
you to give everything to your family. You know, it's like, hi, you've come to your
new family. All right. I understood. That's another red flag. Okay. All right. A
couple of other red flags here are if they're hiring, sometimes the phone
screenings are done directly by hiring managers and the senior roles or recruiters
even. If they are calling you after work hours, say, oh, hey, we want to talk to
you now, I see that as a red flag as well, because I see a company not being very
organized. I understood. No, and because a lot of times what happens is a lot of
these managers, they have either been there for so long or either they literally
have given their lives to the company, they don't see the value of time. I
understood. And I know these days, everybody wants that work-life balance. That's
very clear. Now what are the red flags for the candidates? As a recruiter, my
biggest red flag is if I see a candidate apply for five different roles that I'm
looking after in my company, I, and that those, these are not like your junior
roles. These are senior roles. I feel like the candidate doesn't value their skills
or they actually don't know what they're doing in terms of why they're applying. So
again, when you're applying for roles that are at a higher level, you apply for the
right role. Okay. Okay. So that's when it's like, so a lot of times I see
candidates. I see candidates who don't have the right experience even and they
apply for those roles. And I reject them. And then the next time, and I'll put a
note saying, oh, rejecting candidate because it doesn't have the right experience.
The next recruiter, when they apply for a role next time, and it is for the right
fit for the team, but the recruiter will see the next recruiter will see the note
from me saying, oh, yeah, the candidate apply for the role to not have the right
skills. That's a red flag as well for the candidate. Communication skills,
obviously there's going to be at eligible level on that area. Like a six figure
salary, but I want to know how the tone of a candidate that gives you a vibe that
makes you okay. This is the right one. Okay. Yeah. So just very recently I phone
screen the candidate. She had all the right skills. She's very confident the way
she spoke. Now I was actually telling her the process. And a good, okay, a green
flag of a company is where the recruiter will be transparent on what the
recruitment process is going to be. So I was talking through the process. So she
interrupted me. Oh, okay. And she interrupted me saying, oh, look, I need to get
four weeks notice. I was like, okay, no, that's fine. You know, we are still, we've
still got like, you know, a few candidates we're going to put forward. No, no, but
I have to let you know that I've got four weeks notice. So, you know, if you're
considering for this role, please make sure that you have that in mind. I do not
put that person forward because I felt like it's because of demanding. I feel like
they they felt very privileged and entitled. What are the five main things that you
look into a person CV that makes sure makes make you say, okay, this is the one I
like to read the highlight. If somebody has got, okay, so you've got your, the role
that you've done, your roles and responsibilities. I really like it when somebody
summarizes the highlights of that role and they highlight the achievements and it's
short. Yeah. Okay. That's one thing that I really like. Second thing that I really
like is I believe in less is more. I like really short concise series. Okay. Okay.
So, one to two pageo max. I feel like if they're able to, you know, fit everything
there, they can fit things in the lean way. So, that's another thing that I look
for. Number three, what I like is that sometimes, you know, people get like, for
instance, but I give you an example of the Auckland Council guy who was a police
officer, but he was also in supply chain once upon a time. What he'd done was he'd
put a little para in the beginning of the CV that, and it said most relevant to
this role, most relevant experience. And he mentioned that. Okay. That's right. I
feel like, yes, this person is organized and they're pointing it out, you know,
that yep, this is a relevant role. All right. Okay. Now we spoke about, you know,
the loyalty that culture has gone, but that doesn't mean that, you know, we, you
know, we're going to pick up some money. It was been changing jobs every six
months. If a person has been switching jobs, if they give us a reason to why, valid
reason, so it can be contracting, you know, if they write things like that, or, or,
um, if they've had huge gaps, you know, and they CV. And if they've said that,
okay, you know, you know, 2018 to 2020 stay at home, um, or traveling, or looking
after, you know, a family member's health, you know, valid reasons. Valid reasons.
I like that. Okay. See, your CV should reflect what, you know, we want to hear. All
right. Okay. Next. That's the fourth thing. And fifth thing is, to be honest, I
don't like it when people put their photos. Okay. Yeah. I think it's different if
it's for a marketing role and a design role. Okay. But not on project management
role. I don't think that's in New Zealand, Australia, specifically, I don't think
it's required. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to add your photo there
because we're going to look at you in LinkedIn anyways. Huh. All right. Yeah.
Sometimes they, you'll notice that in the job ad, it will say only successful
candidates will be, um, uh, only successful candidates will be contacted. Yeah.
Okay. In that case, you know that the recruiter will not get back to you. Yeah. But
if that's not the case, it is okay to email. It is also okay to reach out to the
recruiter on LinkedIn, you know, and we like, um, look, I've applied for this role.
I've not been successful by following this company for a long time. Can you give me
feedback? Okay. Can I please connect with you so you can just directly contact
them. It's good to know. All right. I think, uh, we're taken too much time off
yours. I know. It's all right. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I've enjoyed
this. We had really a good insight off the market at the moment. Yeah. People who
are looking for a job, people who want to get into that and have six figure
bandwidth. Yeah. Um, I think this is going to be really helpful. Always look
positive, even if you are facing some rejections, if you are facing, yeah.
Obviously, there is always happening that a lot of job cuts happening. Take this as
an opportunity for everyone, I believe, um, any recommendation you want to give to
audience that, uh, once you have secured an interview, you're going to get you one
step to success can be the research that you do. Okay. So when you get that invite,
you got the name of the hiring manager there. It is very beneficial that you go
into LinkedIn and it is okay if it comes to their knowledge that you've seen their
profile because it'll just make them feel like, okay, you know, you are very much
interested in this role and you're exploring. It is okay to, um, see what kind of
posts they've been sharing. Okay. Um, what kind of post the company has been
sharing and making a connection to yourself and to them and using that as an
example. Or I noticed that you share a story and so post about, uh, agile work ways
or something like that. Okay. Make it relevant. Make it very relevant and already
have a connection before going in. I think that really helps in terms of connecting
to the hiring manager. Thank you very much. Sidra. Sidra is one of the best person
I have known. She made thousands of people's dream come true. Thank you for your
time. No, I appreciate it. All right. Thank you for having me. It's been lots of
fun. Yeah. Talking. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. No, it's happy to give tips. Thank
you for your precious time. I appreciate you came here and, you know, I did it.
Thanks for it. That's all for today's episode of Nlsa podcast, but don't worry.
This conversation doesn't end here. Be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit
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is within your reach and we are here to help you in every step of that way. Until
next time, stay motivated, stay inspired, keep chasing those career goals. This is
Nlsa podcast signing off. See you in next episode.

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