The average UK university graduate has a lot to ponder as they leave their university for the professional world. Graduates need to concern themselves with everyday issues like where they are living, how they will get around the city, and paying off bills and utilities. However, the biggest concern for graduates is finding the right job to fit personal and professional goals. Indeed, many graduates begin worrying about this in their final year of university studies and try their best to do a job search while in school. In fields like sales and marketing, recruiters come to university campuses to recruit upcoming graduates for trainee or entry level positions. However, graduates need to seriously consider how every job they apply to meets their overall needs as a professional.
There is the obvious concern by graduates about paying the rent, bills, and student loan debt. This means that financial incentives and benefits are important to every graduate entering sales or marketing positions. Some sales positions offer a lower base pay with the promise that the commissions made off of sales to individual customers will more than make up for the base pay. However, there are plenty of sales jobs and graduate training programs where an exceptional candidate can earn plenty of money right away and have an opportunity at weekly, monthly, and quarterly bonuses. These considerations are incredibly important and shouldn’t be taken lightly by sales and marketing professionals.
In addition to financial concerns, a candidate for a sales or marketing position needs to ask themselves if they can see a particular job as part of their future. Marketing professionals with youth-oriented companies, like cell phone providers or retailers, may not feel that they can stay updated with the youth trends throughout their entire career. Sales people may want to take a job that allows them to move from the field into the office place as they progress throughout their career. In essence, flexibility and advancement options are critical for sales and marketing jobs.
Finally, sales and marketing professionals need to ask themselves if the product that a potential employer offers is something they can stand behind. A marketing graduate who does not like a particular brand of clothing may not want to enter that particular field. A sales graduate who has used a particular cell phone and cannot stand behind it should not be selling it. This is an important consideration as a graduate’s professional life is concerned with getting people to use these products.
By: Mark Doherty
Posts Tagged ‘Finding The Right Job’
Sales and Marketing Jobs That Meet your Needs
October 30th, 2009Writing Resume For Your First Job
September 11th, 2009A good resume is the most important tool in finding the right job irrespective of the number of years of your experience. However, when it comes to your first job, there is nothing as important as your resume that should go right. In today’s competitive world, there are many graduates competing with each other for fresher jobs. Especially in these times of economic slowdown, it has become all the more difficult to get jobs for freshers. However, a well written resume can help you.
Your resume is like an advertisement for you. It will sell you in front of the recruiter. So, unless the advertisement is right and is able to highlight your key strengths, the recruiter will not be convinced no matter how good you are. So, grab this opportunity to sell yourself perfectly. There are a few tips that can help you make good and impressive resume writing. Follow these tips and come out with an effective graduate resume for that coveted first job.
Start your resume with your name in the top center. It is not required to write ‘Curriculum Vitae’ or ‘Resume’ at the top as that is already understood. Write your name in a larger font than the rest of the text so that it becomes prominent and gives a higher recall to your resume. Below this you need to mention your contact address such as phone number, permanent address and also your university address if your term is yet not complete. Also, mention your e-mail address.
For your resume, it would be really great if you mention your career objective and aim in the beginning itself. It is optional but if written well, it leaves a very good impression on the reader as the recruiter gets an instant idea of your personality and the way you view your career in future. When you apply to any freshers job, this part should be custom-made to suit the requirements of the job. This does not imply that you have to lie there but you should project yourself in words that are suitable for the job and will catch the attention of the recruiter immediately. But remember that it has to be presented very well otherwise it may backfire.
Now, mention your educational qualifications. Start with eth most recent first. Whether it is a graduate or a post-graduate qualification, it should be presented lucidly. With the degree, mention your division or marks prominently if they are worth boasting. Mention the name of the university clearly. Also, mention corresponding dates and degree titles here. Apart from your formal university education, if you have ever taken any other professional training, do mention it on your resume. This will give you an edge over other applicants. Also, if there are other events, clubs and societies that you were part of at the university and school level, mention them here as it will give an idea to the recruiter about your extra skills and ability to participate an lead.
Since you are a fresher, there would obviously be not any work experience to mention. However, here you can mention any internship that you might have undergone. Mention the projects that you handled in detail. Write about your role in eth project and what you learnt during the internship. This will be of paramount interest to the recruiter. If you have done any part-time or summer jobs, do mention those also. Also, if you have one nay community or voluntary work, recruiters would be interested in knowing about that too. These may or may not be directly relevant to the kind of job that you have applied for but this will give recruiter an idea that you are willing to take up responsibilities.
When you have prepared the resume, proofread it for any spelling or grammatical mistakes. Nothing puts off a recruiter more than this. Also, it reflects on your ability, competence and attitude. Since the primary aim of your resume is to get you interview calls for jobs for freshers. So, you must leave no stone unturned to ensure that those calls come your way. Also, take the final resume to an experienced person to get it checked once. There might be flaws or improvements that you may have overlooked but an experienced eye can tell those. Your well-written resume is your ultimate tool and it is this on which your interview would be based. So, prepare it well and go through it many times before appearing for the interview.
By: Geetiika Jain
Finding a Job at University
August 28th, 2009One sure fire way to solve most of your money issues, or finance your extravagant lifestyle at university would be to get a part time job. Most companies are always looking for good hard working employees, especially if you’ve moved to a big university city; there will be a high turnover of jobs, especially over the summer due to students leaving.
I’ve put together a small list of suggestions and tips on finding a term-time job at university.
Jobcentre
In most towns a and cities there is a job centre, maybe even two or three, here you will find very friendly staff who will assist you in finding the right job, but remember not to be too fussy, when your desperate for money beggars can’t be choosers. If you don’t want to talk to anyone, you can easily walk in and have a look on their interactive computer system where you can search the database for local jobs and print out your favourites. Or if you’re even lazier, you can go to their website on http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk and search the database there. Another tip I can give you is don’t dally around and rest on your choices or they’ll be gone before you know it.
Supermarkets
These are the type of places I was saying at the beginning who have a high turnover of employees as they offer a large amount of part-time work for students so be quick and on your application form apply for all jobs, whether it be shelf staking, tills or even trolley collecting, it all brings in an hourly wage so again don’t be fussy or you’ll get nothing!
Local Paper
A lot of companies advertise job vacancies in the local paper, so sit down with a piece of paper and a pen, go through the paper and not down any jobs that interest you or you think you could do. When you’ve finished this, straight away starting phoning you’re leads, or again they’ll be gone or you’ll forget about them.
University Careers’ Officer/University Website
Most Universities or Colleges will assist their students in finding a job if they’d only ask! Pop round to your careers office or visit the website, which will have a lot of useful information or may even have a database of local part-time work especially for students.
Research
Just have a look around, some companies especially retailers will put up posters on the window advertising if there is a job vacancy available, even ask around your friends who have jobs etc. There are many websites out there too such as monster.co.uk who have thousands and thousands of job vacancies advertised.
Final Word
Once you’ve been successful in getting a job, remember it’s really important to have a balance between free time, work and university work. Too much hours can leave you with hardly any time to do your university or collage work or just to relax and get your brain in order. The recommended weekly hours for a student is 16 hours, so don’t go much over that if you’re in full time education, or failure could be on the horizon. Once you have an effective balance you will notice you will be receiving a steady monthly wage, this will be a huge weight off your mind and will be enjoy yourself more in your time at university.
By: Martin
