Becoming a Contractor

Becoming a contractor has both positives and negatives which those who make the career change to working as a contractor may not expect. Yes, you do have the potential to potential to earn more money, and yes, you do have the ability to choose your own work hours and often the chance to choose your own work hours, but the opposite for all of this can also be true.

Often times, because a contractor will be taking work with numerous different companies, they will have to travel a lot for new work, and occasionally a requirement of the job is to work on site. If you’ve become a contractor so that you have more freedom, then this could quickly disenfranchise you.

You may say at this point that you have the freedom to take and refuse whatever work comes your way and you’d be right, mostly, but when work is few and far between and you have zero job security, you’ll often find yourself having no option but to take every job you can which comes your way.

The last drawback to working as a contractor to go into, is that you only get work and only of a certain quality as to fit your reputation. Now this doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but if you make a mistake, or take a lot longer to do something than you quoted, this could damage your reputation and damage your ability to continue to find work.

 

Indeed Advertising – How to Use and Why

Indeed advertising is a type of advertising where you pay money in order to place a job opportunity (an advert) on there search results. Every time that link gets clicked you get charged a certain amount of money based upon a number of criteria, mainly competition. It is worth bearing in mind that you don’t need to pay to appear on indeed, only to make your sponsored jobs more prominent at the top of search results.

For recruiters and recruitment agencies indeed offers some truly invaluable opportunities. It is effectively the principle method of advertising jobs online, as most people looking for jobs will tend to visit a place like indeed to see the jobs available which are specific for them

It is valuable for both job seekers and recruiters because it focusses exclusively upon the employment market. This means that more specific information can be provided than could be found through a search on a typical search engine, and even when compared to more traditional methods of advertising jobs, such as in newspapers, more information can be provided.

Improving Your Chances of Finding Work

A lot of people find looking for a new job a very stressful experience, and this stress can get in the way of success. You may find that you will experience a lot of rejection before succeeding, but even if that’s the case remaining positive is essential.

So what can you do to remain confident, positive, and ultimately improve your chances of finding work? Well it depends largely upon your experience in the industry. If you’re looking for a new career, getting additional experience in the industry is very important, which can be done with internships and vocational courses, but if you’re already pretty experienced the problem could be with your CV or your interview manner. If this is the case then practising interviews with a professional if possible and friends and family if not can help, and getting a professional to review your CV can as well, whether that professional be a recruitment agent or somebody with experience at reviewing CV’s.

Should You Include all of Your Employment History in a CV

Writing a CV can be a daunting part of any job application, but it is also one of the most important parts of it. Writing a great CV is essential, and what you want to focus on to do this is making it concise and to the point; 1 or 2 pages long is typically the right length, but it can be longer for more technical and skilled professions.

A very important part of any CV is your employment history. It can be difficult deciding what to include and what not to and how much detail to go into, but generally speaking you want to include all of the jobs you’ve had, but only go into greater detail for the jobs which were more important and/or relevant to the one you’re currently applying to. It is very important that you include all of the jobs you’ve had and the duration of the employment, as any gap in employment is going to be a bit of a red flag for any prospective employer.

Don’t lie in your job application

A lot of mistakes are regularly made in job applications, and one of the most severe is lying on an application. Whether the lie is about employment history, academic qualifications, or even somebody deciding to write their own reference, the lie can be easily found out, resulting in the liar losing their job and even having their reputation destroyed. Some even risk getting charged and sued for fraud.

An ideal job application for both employers and employees is one which demonstrates clearly and concisely the unique skills of the applicant. This means that some embellishment is okay, and brushing over some of the less desirable characteristics is as well, but lying is still a big red flag. Being honest can help an employer form a correct impression of how good of a worker you are, so that when the job begins they don’t have any nasty surprises.