The Journey To Find Flexible Working – Practicalities

Quick Recap:  I’m looking for flexible working.  A well-paid, part-time job, to be more precise.  The Holy Grail?  Maybe.

I want to share my journey.  How long will it take to find work?  Have attitudes changed? What I learn along the way.  How best to broach the subject with a possible future employer.

And I hope sharing my story will help you if you’re looking too.  Please see my previous post on the start of my journey to give you some context.

Things To Do Before Applying For A Job

Today is all about practicalities.  What do I need to have in place in order to start applying for a new job?

So, off the top of my head, the list comprises of:

• Updating my CV
• Figuring out which job boards to post my CV on
• Finding the right recruitment agencies to speak to
• Starting to think about how I would tackle an interview (maybe I need to get my CV up to date first)
• Updating my LinkedIn profile
• Starting to think about which companies to approach directly
• Making a list of already-established contacts, friends, previous colleagues who I could send my CV to

Tips On Updating Your CV

This, for me, is the bit that takes time.  It can be tedious as you can often struggle with getting the wording right and in remembering what you’ve achieved in previous roles.

However, it’s important and worth investing the time.

Once you get your CV updated though, you can use it on your LinkedIn profile and use elements of it when talking to recruitment agencies and when prepping for interviews.

My CV is relatively up to date.  I need to add my last role.

Here are some tips I’ve found useful in the past:

• For each job on your CV, summarise the role (2 to 4 lines long) and have a key achievements section which is bulleted. The key achievements section may vary in length depending on how long you’ve been in the role and what exactly you did.
• Detail the work and then quantify the results, if you can. Examples: launched 1 month early, reduced errors by 10%, improved efficiencies by 5%, drove £40k of cost savings.
• Don’t sell yourself short. I think we can often play down our achievements.  I’ve done some great work and sometimes when I write down what I have achieved I think did I really do that? And the answer is yes, I did!  Be proud about what you have done.
• If you’re struggling with how to word your CV, you can look at other people’s profiles on LinkedIn, who do similar work to you, to get some ideas.
• If you are open to feedback, ask someone to review your CV for you. Your friend, sister, partner. When I was looking for work a few years ago, I had a good relationship established with a recruitment agent and I asked him to review my CV.  He told me what he thought worked, what didn’t work, things that weren’t clear etc. Useful.
• Spell check your CV several times. Sounds obvious but read and re-read your CV.  Ensure it is grammatically correct too.  Get someone to check it over.  Often when you spend a lot of time writing something, you can easily miss mistakes.
• One thing to bear in mind, is that you may need to do several iterations of your CV, depending on the job you’re applying for. I do project management work, PMO work and outsourcing.  If I was to apply for a job in outsourcing, I would tailor my CV to emphasise that type of work.  Again, may be stating the obvious.
• If you have taken a career break, then think about what other skills and experience you can add to your CV. If you have done volunteering or the odd bit of freelance work, add this in.  If you have studied or taken a training course, this can show initiative.

Head-Explosion

CV writing can be hard and it can take a few days to write a CV that you are happy with.

If you get to that point where you’re going around in circles trying to write just 1 sentence, take some time out!  Go and do something much more enjoyable than CV writing and come back to it later on.

What’s Next?

My CV has taken a little longer to update than I thought it would but I’m happy with what I’ve written.  Got the right amount of detail and it reads well.

I’ve updated my LinkedIn profile too by adding details of my last job – taken from my updated CV.  I’ve also edited my title, under my name, to say ‘Project Manager – looking for opportunities – either contract or perm.’

Next step is to figure out who to send my CV to and who to network with on LinkedIn.

If you’re looking for flexible working, let me know how you are getting on.  Email me at lou@womanready.com.  Thanks.