Apprenticeships How to get started

Apprenticeships How to get started by Michael Cheary What is an apprenticeship?An apprenticeship is a work-based training programme, which allows participants to earn a recognised qualification whilst gaining practical experience.Although each apprenticeship is different, they usually provide a combination of on-the-job training and off-the-job training, which may mean day release (to attend college), distance learning or independent study.The length of each apprenticeship will vary greatly depending on the industry and employer, but will usually take between one and four years to complete.Who can apply for an apprenticeship?Anyone over 16 in the UK not currently in full time education, who may want to learn a new skill or trade.Although some apprenticeships are targeted solely at candidates between the ages of 16 and 18, there are no age limits to start an apprenticeship, with many large companies allowing applicants of all ages to apply.Do apprentices get paid?Yes. Apprenticeships are paid positions, allowin g you to earn as you learn.The National Minimum Wage for apprentices is currently £3.70 per hour. This applies to apprentices aged between 16 and 18, and those aged 19 or over during their first year.Those aged over 19 who have completed a full year of an apprenticeship are then entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage rate (according to their age).What kinds of apprenticeships are available?There is a common misconception that apprenticeships are only available for skilled labour positions when in fact, they are available to some degree in every sector or industry.There are hundreds of different types, covering literally thousands of different roles. Apprenticeships can be taken in everything from Health and Beauty to Construction and Property, Plumbing to Graphic Design, and everything in between.View all apprenticeships nowWhat are the benefits of an apprenticeship?The main advantage of an apprenticeship is that you can earn a salary whilst gaining industry specific qualifi cations. Also, they allow you to build the foundations for a career, whilst providing more practical training, making them a perfect way to gain experience in your chosen industry.Other key benefits include:One-to-one training with a reputable employerNo student loans or debtsOpportunity to build your professional networkLearn industry specific skills in a practical settingResult in a professional qualificationHow to get startedResearchThe first thing to do is decide what industry you want to work in. Try and weigh up your interests, and work out what your main strengths are. What kind of skills do you want to learn? What career prospects are there within this industry?Do some research into what’s available to you, what apprenticeship schemes are currently present within your area, what qualifications you’d like to achieve, and where you want to go in your career, before moving forward.  Tailor your CVMost apprenticeships are entry-level positions. Therefore, the majority of emp loyers won’t expect you to have an extensive employment history. However, rather than being tempted to try and compensate for this with white-lies and hyperbole, always play to your strengths.Valuable attributes for prospective apprentices include the followingpractical problem solvingbeing able to work independently and as part of a teamreliabilitygood listening skillsattention to detaila willingness to learnAs a result, some of these should be clearly demonstrated (using examples, wherever possible) within your CV. So whether it’s your good grades in Maths (problem solving), or being able to take orders quickly and efficiently when working part-time in a restaurant (listening skills/willingness to learn), these should always be kept in mind when writing your CV.From a formatting point of view, your CV should always be clear, concise and well presented. To find out more, follow our advice on how to write a CV  or download  our free CV template.  Craft your cover letterAs with y our CV, you should always use your cover letter to play to your strengths. To maximise its effectiveness, your cover letter should always be crafted for each individual application. Although time consuming, making it more personal to the position will always pay dividends in the long run.Use your cover letter to explain why you think you’d be suitable for an apprenticeship, why you want to work within that industry/for that company, and where you want to go in your career.To find out how to structure yours, try our free cover letter template.How to write a cover letterPractice your interview techniqueAs with any position, ensuring proper preparation for the interview stage is essential. However, whilst most job vacancies will be competitive, this is especially apparent when it comes to apprenticeships. With the possibility of competing against a number of other candidates, always be conscious of how to stand out from the crowd.Practicing common interview questions, knowing what qu estions you want to ask and being able to demonstrate your passion for the apprenticeship and industry in question are vital.To learn more, here’s our guide about how to prepare for an interview.Don’t give upFinally, resilience is the key attribute to adopt when starting to look into apprenticeships. They can be highly competitive and difficult to get into and, even when successful, may necessitate a lifestyle change when you start.However, never lose sight of why you’re doing it. Apprenticeships are not only a great way to learn a trade in a hands on environment, they’re also a terrific way to get your foot in the door of an employer in your chosen industry.Even if after your apprenticeship it’s not possible for you to be retained by your company, you’ll emerge with a professional qualification, as well as the vital experience sought by many top recruiters.Feel like an apprenticeship is the right option for you? View our available apprenticeships nowFind a job What Wh ere Search JobsSign up for more Career AdviceSign up for moreCareer Advice Please enter a valid email addressmessage hereBy clicking Submit you agree to the

One Resume Change That Will Significantly Increase Your Results - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

One Resume Change That Will Significantly Increase Your Results - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Remember the days of black and white TV? What about when couples read the newspaper over their morning coffee rather than flipping the virtual pages of the WSJ app on their iPads? Those days have passed, at least for most of us (my mom still watches black and white TV) and so has the resume format of yesterday. Bye, bye objective; Hello results Toss out that passé Objective section of yesterday and replace it with a well-branded, focused statement that gives the reader a clear message about who you are in less than 5 words. Here are a few examples: Consumer Marketing Executive Leadership Summary or Financial Executive Leadership Summary or Technical Writer Professional Summary. Why it works Why does this simple change have such significant impact? 9 out of 10 resumes end up in the trash because 85% of hiring managers read only the top ½ of page one of your resume. Placing a concise, branded statement at the top of your resume tells the prospective employer what your specialty is, and lands you on the hiring manager’s desk. 2 Bonus Tips: The top ½ of page one With 85% of hiring managers focusing their attention here, and 38% of them spend less than 60 seconds reading your entire resume (Career Builder 2010 survey), job seekers are wise to go further than just the first branded statement. High impact, market-focused resumes of today include a brief, one paragraph personalized summary with results, facts, figures and accomplishments. Following the summary, call out key accomplishments that are results-focused and tie them to skills. Example: Global Sales Leader, Successfully led a 25-person team of Sales Directors across Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa to 120% quota attainment annually for 4 consecutive years; contributed $300MM in bottom-line revenue. If this seems like a lot of revision to a resume you’re writing on your own, it is and professional resume writers and career coaches realize that (hint: I know because I have reviewed, revised and written nearly 6,000 resumes). If you’re considering a professional resume writer I recommend asking for at least 2 sample resumes to guarantee you know what your final resume, cover letter, etc will look like. Author: Adriana Llames is a veteran career coach and acclaimed author of Career Sudoku: 9 Ways to Win the Job Search Game, released with top book seller Amazon.com. She is creator of   “HR In-A-Box,” a Human Resources software product helping small businesses across America and a professional keynote speaker motivating and inspiring audiences with her focused programs on “9 Ways to Win the Job Search Game”, “Confessions of a Career Coach” and “Nice Girls End Up on Welfare.” For more information, visit www.adrianallames.com

3 Little Known Ways to Drive Better ROI with LinkedIn

3 Little Known Ways to Drive Better ROI with LinkedIn Ever since LinkedIn came along and disrupted the recruitment industry with products like Recruiter, dynamic careers pages, and targeted job slots, we have been asking whats next? Unfortunately, what’s next consisted of a whole stream of updates that limited the way we can use LinkedIn. Rather that bitching, after all, this was a necessary move to commercialise LinkedIn, look for how you can drive better value with some of their new updates. Data ownership! It feels like forever that I have been encouraging companies to own their data and then to take control of it. Owning data â€" yes, this is the age-old ATS, CRM and Marketing tech conversation. My advice is, EVERY single time you pay to attract candidates and leads; your aim is to capture their data on your systems. (Pay attention to GDPR though search “GDPR recruitment campaigns  on YouTube to find my explanatory videos.) Taking control of data â€" there is no point in having data if it is not useful. To make your data useful, you need to be able to use it in the future to create reports, intelligence, talent pools and to communicate with those talent pools. (Search  #tahack recruitment on YouTube to see how companies are doing this.) The current LinkedIn strategy seems to be to keep all data on LinkedIn: LinkedIn advertising campaigns are purely focused on follow us’ and LI careers page clicks all data stays with LinkedIn. Their new talent landing pages drive people into your Recruiter Projects all data stays with LinkedIn.  Recruiter projects encourage you to talent pool on Recruiter all data stays with LinkedIn. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why they do this. LinkedIn believe they have the best tool to pipeline talent  and they want to increase your reliance on their products. But…if the data is on LinkedIn, you need to pay to engage with your talent pools…every time. This means you need to attract a follower…then push a sponsored update to them…then have a job advertised to them…then send them an InMail…then…then…then…you see where I am going here? Every action costs more, and so your cost rises to attract. So, how can we use LinkedIn to deliver data to our systems and ROI in our strategy? 1. Targeting sponsored updates This can be done through both your LinkedIn account manager (if you have one) and through the LinkedIn ads platform. LinkedIn’s ads platform is really meant to be used by marketers and sales people, but there is no reason not to use it for recruitment too.   Follow these steps: Decide what you want to drive traffic to. This could be a landing page or job advert. I recommend you drive traffic to a landing page so that you can convert candidate leads, rather than just applicants. To do this, you will need software to create the landing pages, data capture forms and a database to follow-up with your leads. Again, visit the #tahack channel on YouTube to see how this is done. You will pay anywhere from £1 to £15 per click, but bear in mind if you set up the targeting well, then your audience will be perfect…none of theses ‘apply for everything’ applicants, only quality candidates. 2. In-Mails not just for recruiter users Ok, you might spot a trend here. Yes, we are going to use the Ads platform again and, yes, I believe this is meant more for marketers than recruiters but hey, it is there, it works, so why not get the value while it lasts! Within the ads platform, select the InMail option, create your cold InMail, select your audience, and choose how much budget to commit. You will notice that this option is great value at anywhere from 50p to a few quid (dollars for my Aussie/USA colleagues) but you pay per send, so you will need to think carefully about the best way to convert a send into a candidate lead. Here are a couple of ideas: Agency: Provide a salary survey. Within the InMail, ask the questions ‘Are you getting paid the market rate?’ along with some nice fluffy and engaging copy, then offer the recipient the salary survey as a download behind a data capture form, thus converting them into a lead. Corporate: Have your hiring manager, their head of function or a successful person in your business create valuable content and, as above, offer it as a download. Think along the lines of  5 skills that the *target audience* need to develop quickly to address *industry changes/challenges*’ or ‘how to grow your career quickly as a *target audience* without losing your work-life balance’. Just some off the top of my head ideas. I am sure that with a bit of brainstorming, you can come up with some ace lead conversion tactics. 3. Re-targeting The secret sauce Ok, not everyone will be able to do this, but this is where you can make use of drop-offs and drive serious engagement. Firstly, you need to install the LinkedIn pixel on your website, and you will need to reach out to you website owner/agency to help with this. Once you have installed the pixel, every visitor to your website and careers pages will be recorded. The real strength here is that you can now use this audience to push out advertising in the future. Here are a couple of ways to use this: If a person visits a job advert but doesn’t land on the ’thank you for applying page”, then they didn’t apply and were a ‘drop-off’. Use this audience to drive drop-offs to content that will encourage them to see you as an employer of choice and help them WANT to work for you. Alternatively, just remind them that they still need to apply! Run an ads campaign to your target audience, and send them to a landing page. Once someone converts into a candidate lead, send them to a thank you page. Create a pixel audience of people that visit this page and remove this audience from future campaigns, as, after all, they are on your database so you can contact them without paying LinkedIn! There are some way cooler things you can do, but, by starting with the above, you will get to grips with how it works. So, there you go; some helpful ways of increasing your recruitment marketing ROI on LinkedIn. If you want to know more, then reach out to me on LinkedIn.

My Personal Branding Journey Part 7 Strategies for Creating an Online Presence - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

My Personal Branding Journey Part 7 Strategies for Creating an Online Presence - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career This is the seventh of ten posts where we follow Marcos Salazar’s personal branding journey, as he uses the concepts and four-step process outlined in Me 2.0 for his own career. Whenever I get a notification that someone is following me on Twitter, I visit their profile and take a look at their website. If they don’t have a personal website or simply link to their company site, I usually don’t follow them. Why not? Because their online presence is giving me the impression that they are most likely not going to contribute much to the conversation. In my last post, I discussed how to use the techniques of narrative, being a purple cow, and understanding context to create a strong offline presence. These same principles can be used to create a powerful online presence as well and prevent incidents such as the one above from happening to you. Below is how Ive learned to use these strategies to help differentiate my personal brand online and how you can use them to create a brand that grabs your audience’s attention and keeps it. Using a blogsite to create a narrative Whether we realize it or not, we are all creating a narrative about ourselves online. Everything we post, comment on, or upload is contributing to the story of who we are online â€" potentially to millions. And even if you don’t make a conscious effort to create an online presence, that too is a narrative because you are leaving your personal brand to chance. This is why a blogsite â€" a hybrid of a blog and a website â€" is so essential to creating a strong online presence and is one of the main principles found in Me 2.0. By having a website that allows you to both blog and provide addition biographical information, you can take control of your online narrative and begin telling people the unique story of who you are and what you think within the field that interests you. Before venturing on this personal branding journey, my blogsite focused on personal development for young professionals. However, if you visit my main website youll see that the focus of it has shifted due to what Ive learned on my personal branding journey. Now my site is centered around being a Renaissance Worker, Career Adventurism, and Psychology Development for Young Professionals. And as time goes on I will be providing more and more content that not only benefits people within these topics, but also adds to my narrative and makes my brand stronger. Being a purple cow online One thing you always want to do is try to differentiate your blogsite in some way. Common strategies are covering unique topics or through unique site design. For example, a great title to your blog such as Matt Cheuvront’s site Life Without Pants can turn you into a purple cow and draw people in to ask why you named your site a certain way. Or you can create a memorable logo and display well known news outlets associated with your site such as the ones found on the Personal Branding Blog home page. Another great technique is to have a unique picture on your website. Seth Godin’s image is a great example of this. He is well known for his bald head and if you go to his site, he has a picture displaying the top of his head front and center. It is not a loud or crazy image. It simple, shows his personality, and draws you in. In redoing my blogsite, I decided to use a simple and easy to navigate design as well as have a fun and interesting image on the sidebar that provides a visual representation of being a Renaissance Worker capable of jumping from project to project. My friend Wendy Ploger originally took the photo for my website BoroThreads and I had her get a little creative and alter it a bit for my personal website. I have gotten some great feedback about the photo. Such images can add to your narrative by providing readers with a sense of your personality, creativity, and display a more human side of you that can increase interest and make visitors want to find out more about your personal brand. Online social networks and context In many ways, social networks are extensions of your main website and can fill in important details to the narrative you are trying to create for your personal brand. For example, your LinkedIn profile provides people with a detailed look at your professional life and allows other to give recommendations that can add rich information to the story of who you are. Flickr can provide a concrete view of things you are involved in such as events, trips, or project. And YouTube allows you to create content that gives your narrative human elements and lets people see more of your personality. But in thinking about each social network, it’s important to keep context in mind. For example, you won’t want to post information that is too personal on LinkedIn because this is where your professional network resides and you don’t want to potentially damage your reputation. You may use Facebook more for keeping up with friends, so will not want to inundate them with lots of posts or updates about things happening within your field. Or on Twitter, where everything posted is on public display, you may not want to post highly personal information that can make you look unprofessional or damage your brand. How does this impact my narrative? When using these (or just about any strategy) in developing your personal brand, one thing to always keep in mind is that anything you post could have an impact on the narrative you are trying to create.   So when forming a strategy, ask yourself, “How is this going to contribute to the story I want to tell?” Finding answers to this question will provide you with a good guide in developing a strong personal brand both on and offline. Author: Marcos Salazar is the author of The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, which focuses on the psychology of life after college and what graduates go through as the make the transition from school to the working world. He writes a career adventurism and psychological development blog for young professionals at www.marcossalazar.com. You can connect with him on Twitter @marcossalazar.

Get the Most Out of Your Resume by Using Professional Resume Writing Services

Get the Most Out of Your Resume by Using Professional Resume Writing ServicesResume writing services are well worth looking into, as they can help you achieve better career success. Even if you have the technical skills to write your own resume, it may not be that easy for you. It takes a lot of effort and practice to write a perfect resume that shows all the aspects of your professional capability.Do you know what is the number one mistake that most job seekers make? The top job search services allow you to create your own resume, either with or without the assistance of a professional resume writer. They give you a variety of tools and templates to help you produce a cohesive resume that shows all the facets of your professional expertise.Some professionals will guide you through the process of creating a resume that will stand out above the rest. This will give you the advantage of getting noticed by employers when you submit your resume online or in person. The simple fact is tha t you will be remembered when you use an experienced professional who understands how to structure a resume correctly.The professional resume writers will take the time to understand your skills and your past experiences. They will build your resume around the key qualifications that you offer. You can feel confident about this, because their experience gives them the ability to draft the perfect resume that will highlight all the best parts of your personality.When you hire a professional resume writer, you get a better chance of being hired for a position that you would be happy with. You don't have to stress over your resume, because it is being used for you. A resume is the only documentation that a hiring manager has about you can be confident that the person reviewing your resume has had at least 20 years of professional experience to create a successful resume.When you hire a professional resume writer, you know that they are going to be upfront and honest about your resume. You don't have to worry about an inconsistent presentation of your resume, since it will be constructed based on the skills and experiences that you bring to the table. In addition, you will know that the resume is going to be professionally formatted, which is very important to getting your resume noticed.You can also tell the professional writer about your career objectives. They will be able to help you customize the most appropriate resume that showcases your talent and abilities. You can look forward to a resume that will focus on all the best things about you.Hiring professional resume writers will be one of the smartest career moves you make. The resume writing services that you choose can make a big difference in the type of employment you receive. You can end up with a job offer or promotion if you are able to build a great resume based on the information you provide.

An Easy Way To Stand Out From Your Competition

An Easy Way To Stand Out From Your Competition An Easy Way To Stand Out From Your Competition Job Search / Thank You Notes Differentiating yourself from the pack is one of the keys to a successful job search. A strong resume and robust LinkedIn profile will contribute to that. Having great interview skills will set you apart as well. A search on Google will turn up a ton of articles on these job-search topics. Many appear on my blog. One thing that’s not written about as often is the importance of sending a thank you note after a job interview. Sending a thank you note is one of those things that everyone knows they should do, yet very few people actually do it. Since so few people do send thank you notes, sending one will make you stand out. A well-written note can propel you along the interview process. It may become a deciding factor when it’s the end of the interview process and the choice is between you and one or two other candidates. While sending even a basic thank you note, for example thank you for your time, blah, blah, blah, will help, making a strong case for why you are the best candidate for the job is a much better way to turn the tables in your favor. One of the reasons people dont send thank you notes is because they dont know what to say. Here are five suggestions: Reiterate your enthusiasm for the company and the position. Maybe the company’s mission statement aligns with your values or the job makes great use of your preferred skills. Offer a solution to one of the problems discussed during the interview. Give them a taste by providing the first 1 or 2 steps of your 30-day plan. Mention something you forgot to say during the interview. This might be how you solved a problem they are currently having. It might be something outside of work that will enhance your candidacy. Use this as an opportunity to correct any misconceptions that may have occurred. For example, if you misstated something or felt that you weren’t strong enough in your responses. When you meet with several people, make sure you don’t send exactly the same thank you note to each person. Change the message to address your interactions with each person. Never, ever send a blanket email to everyone. During the interview ask each interviewer for his or her business card. That way you’ll have their titles, the correct spelling of their names, and their email addresses. Send a thank you email within 24-hours. Be sure to ask for the job in your thank you note. Be clear in your intention.  For example, instead of saying you hope to hear from them, say you look forward to working with them. This may be your last chance to sell the hiring manager on your ability to solve his or her problems. Don’t waste it. A strategically-written thank you note may be the deciding factor between you and your strongest competition. Updated 9/4/18

Happy birthday to... - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Happy birthday to... - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog This blog is now five years old! I cant believe it!! If you cant either, I can prove it: heres my very first post. Its been quite a ride. For the first three and a half years it was pretty quiet around here with wildly irregular posting and just a few faithful readers. And then, last year, it took off like crazy. The day before my own birthday, incidentally. Some stats: This is post number 1,203 There are 5,325 comments on the site Akismet, the spam blogging software I use, has blocked 167,674 spam comments. Sheeesh! In the last year, this blog has been read by 1.5 million(!) people. I feel truly grateful and proud to work on something this big. And it makes me really happy because it tells me that people all over the world have a deep, lasting interest in happiness at work. Some of my proudest moments with the blog have been: Writing posts that get read by tens of thousands of people Getting feedback, ideas, tips and criticism from so many nice people Getting email from a lady in Hong Kong who quit her crappy job because of something she read here Being invited to speak in India, because of the blog Asking for help and getting it Now: if youd like to give this blog a birthday present, I ask for the gift of feedback! Id love to ask you: What do you like about this blog? What could I do to make the blog more useful to you and even more popular? What has been the most inspiring or useful thing youve learned here, that has helped you become happier at work? If youd like to answer one or more of these questions, please write a comment. And most of all: Thank you for reading this blog! Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related