No job yet? What next?

So it's 2011, Christmas has come and gone, and you still haven't secured a permanent role much as you'd hoped to have one 'in the bag' by now. Where to go from here?

Well, firstly, all is not yet lost. Many consultancies and banks aspire to have everything filled by Christmas - and some do - but there are usually still graduate roles to be had right up into March/April if you are willing to be a bit flexible on the role / location / company you want to work for. You should also be sure to keep your eye open for roles around May/June/July time. This is usually when banks start to get reneges from graduates who have accepted 2, or even 3 roles, as they were worried that some might be pulled by the employers, or because they couldn't make up their mind. If guaranteed graduate numbers are required, some banks will look to fill these at the last minute. Efinancialcareers.co.uk is a good place to have a look, along with Targetjobs or Totaljobs.

The second major point is don’t panic and start applying to every job you see that is vaguely in the right ballpark. This will take time and effort. The most important thing to remember right now is don't sacrifice your 2:1 - keep studying!  As long as you have a 2.1, you are not closing the door to a whole range of options you have with regard to the way forward. Settle for a 2.2 and you can pretty much give up hope of getting a role on a banking or consulting grad programme, regardless of the route you take.

Many people at this stage wonder whether they should 'hold out' for another year and give the application process another go to see if they have any luck getting a role in the next cycle. To make the right decision, it is worth consider how close you came during this cycle. If you applied to 5 or more banks and didn't secure any interviews, then it's possible that your profile and background unfortunately are just not right for the industry and the level of academic and extracurricular endeavour it demands from its applicants. If you got through to a couple of interviews, or even an assessment centre, then you got past the first CV review hurdle, and so with the right practice, research and further "propping-up" of your CV with more employability indicators, its entirely possible that you might do better next time around.

For the entrepreneurial amongst you, it might be worth considering starting up on your own. There is great advice, and even some financial assistance available, if you go to the right place and have a good idea for development. Check out the Princes Trust website, Shell LiveWire. Local councils also offer advice and help to new start up businesses in their area. Also check out BraveNewTalent.com.

There are still graduate programmes in Financial Services that are open to applications at the moment. Try Man Group, Prudential Momentum M&G, ING, Markit Group …. all considerable players in the FS field, even though they are perhaps not mentioned in popular media as often as the Investment Banks.

Many people will also consider going on and doing a Masters if their graduate degree has not got them the job they were hoping for. This route proves successful for many, but with a huge number of Masters Programmes and candidates out there, it might be worth considering alternative ways of developing your employability. Perhaps think about a Mountbatten Internship in New York / London, or applying to TeachFirst UK Programmes if you have the right background? Volunteering may be an option for you - there are many of the other volunteering companies out there - although beware, volunteering is often a costly business - "voluntourism" companies can charge considerable amounts, so shop around. The Global Volunteer Network offers good value for money from what I've heard. If you have an ambition in relation to volunteering, it might be worth seeing if you could do some sort of fundraising exercise to help you on your way. Volunteering can be a great way to build management skills, leadership ability, entrepreneurial experience, etc, as well as many other life skills.

Hope that's given you some ideas. And remember, some of the applications you have made you may still hear back on, so don't give up on them completely just yet.... but maybe get a Plan B in place too, just in case. Think about doing an internship instead, if you can find one. Sometimes the application dates are later and they can lead to a full time role if you do a good job.

So you got yourself a job....

Firstly, congratulations. Seriously. It's incredibly tough out there and if you've secured yourself a role on a graduate programme, then you've done very well indeed for yourself and hopefully you're happy that your hard work has paid off.

A lot of grads get very enthusiastic about their new role and ask what they can do to prepare to really hit the ground running when they join, so I thought I'd offer some advice on this topic.

The first point I always make to grads is to relax, enjoy and make the most of the time off you have been end of exams and the start of your job. You're probably about to enter a period of at least 40 years of work with 25-30 days holiday and maybe a couple of career breaks if you're lucky. Go and do something fantastic that you've always wanted to do - take out a small loan if you have to (just my opinion) and go and travel around Vietnam / climb Mt Kilimanjaro / drive Route 66 / bungee in South Africa. You might not get the opportunity for a while.  In addition, it works out better for us as an employer too if you come back refreshed and happy after a good break and ready to face into the start of your career. Sometimes grads who start work too quickly after Uni are the first to ask about career breaks after 18mths and that's not great for either side.

Keep up-to-date as best you can with what's happening in the industry. In this time of newsfeeds / news letters / twitter / google news alerts, etc, it's not hard to make sure that information is 'pushed' to you rather than you having to pro-actively go out and search for it constantly, so set up a few key notifications and a little time to run through them every now and again and you will be up-to-date. Keep in mind you don’t need to understand the same level of detail as you do for an interview. No one is going to sit you down on your first day and say 'tell me what was on the front page of the FT last Thursday' (unless you're very unlucky!), you just need to have a reasonable idea of what's going on. Obviously if you're going into a Trading role, then it will probably be to your benefit to stay even closer to the news.

Keep up to date too on the company you are joining. Have a look on their website on what they have that you can sign up to. Read the annual report (these will often come out in April/May time) to see how things are going. Keep an eye on the share price (if applicable), keep an eye on the Communications / Investor Relations pages for what's going on with the company.

Have a look for Facebook Groups being set-up by your soon-to-be start group and if you can't find one, consider setting up one yourself. It's a good way to start to get to know people in advance of day 1. Sometimes the company has already done the set up of a group for the new starts, so might be worth checking.

The one skill that I would tell any graduate to work on in advance of starting a new graduate job is Microsoft Excel skills. It sounds really boring, but it is the skill that the majority of grads working in finance / consulting will need in their early years. In addition, many of the grads who really make an impact are the ones with great Excel skills and you become a 'wanted' resource. That's not to say that all you end up doing is Excel, but it’s a great way to find yourself in a key position, in demand, and therefore able to make an impact in many ways over and above your Excel. It can be a 'way in' that can lead to lots more. No matter what your level of Excel is, there is always more to learn. If you only know the basics, teach yourself how to use functions and tables. If you can do that, teach yourself Pivots; if you can do that, teach yourself Lookups; if you can do that, teach yourself Visual Basic… the list is endless. I promise it will stand to you very well if you are good at Excel and can move knowledgably and effortlessly around the software. There are loads of great tutorials online, so if you are interested, take some time to 'upskill' yourself a bit.

The other area that might be worth putting some thought into is self-awareness. Being self-aware means to understand your own strengths, and your own limitations, and the impact that these can have on you and on your team. You should also note that you need to develop both your strengths AND your weaknesses. Sometimes people focus on trying to improve their weaknesses at the expense of continuing to develop your strengths. Your strengths are what will make you shine and be successful. Your weaknesses are what hold you back. You need to keep improving both at all times. Have a look at this site on Jung Types to help identify what your preferences are. http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp  If you get the opportunity to do Myers Briggs / Belbin types during your graduate training, this will further enhance your self-awareness.

Hope that helps… congrats again on the new job.

Which CV are you?

Whilst the process of CV selecting is slightly different at most firms, there is usually a pre-screen, either by HR/ Grad Recruitment / Agency before the CVs are forwarded as a CV Book / a block of attachments / etc to the business. This is the first hurdle that any applicant has to get passed. Most CVs fall into certain categories which determine whether or not they will get sent onto the business. Here are some of those categories for you to consider where yours might fit:

The "Passed Around" CV
This is the one that everyone acknowledges is a good CV - good education, good experience and great potential. The problem with this CV is that there is no clear home for its owner.  It doesn't tell a story which has a definite, or at least reasonably conclusive, answer.
The result is that everyone feeds back to HR "Good CV, but not for our team, try.. XYZ", and then XYZ say the same and so on.  Whilst it can happen that the CV 'finds' the appropriate home through these means, there is a considerable danger that it will get forgotten about... always on someone's 'to do' list, but never quite actioned. And then eventually all the roles are gone and you become an 'almost made it' CV.
Make sure your CV or app form points you towards a definite home to make sure this doesn't happen to you.

The "Should have been selected but isn't" CV
Two people with exactly the same qualifications, experience, education, etc, can very easily end up on two sides of the selected/not selected scale. You must remember that it is not enough to have the experience for the role, you must describe and explain it in a manner that really puts it across in the strongest possible way.  I see CVs like this and comments like "I'm not sure s/he has the depth that we are looking for", "doesn't seem to be a lot of effort put into the CV - if that's representative of what s/he will do here, then would rather get someone else in".
No matter how good your education and experience is, you still need considerable effort to go into your CV to guarantee you the interview.

The "if only" CV
Possibly my least favourite CV to encounter as they are the ones with the silly mistakes - spelling mistakes, no degree result put on there, the wrong company mentioned in the accompanying letter, etc - but which are really very good CVs. Sometimes if a recruiter is feeling generous, they will correct silly mistakes before sending to the business, but more often then not, they won't. It's not really fair on the other grads who have taken the time to make sure everything is perfect.
Also, there is an increasing tendency by grads to supply a CV in PDF format, which is fine, but it does mean that if you do make a mistake, you are 100% guaranteed to get binned. HR wont forward a CV to the business with mistakes on it, because it makes it look like we haven't bothered to screen it.
Get someone else to look at your CV before you send it to a company. When you have been staring at something for such a long time, it is easy to miss small mistakes. A third party will usually spot them a lot easier than you will.

The "let's give him/her a shot" CV
This is the CV that isn't quite as strong as some of the others that you have seen, but it is clear that the person has worked very hard to date, has put a lot of effort into extra-curricular activities to build their transferable skillset, has done work for the community/a charity, etc. They usually have to be accompanied by a strong cover letter as well, but if that is the case, then they have a reasonable chance of being included in a pack sent to the business for consideration.

The "everyone wants him/her" CV
This is the CV that all of the teams that it's forwarded to want to see.  This is generally a good place to be as there can be a lot of internal rangling as to who gets to interview him/her first, etc. The downside is that sometimes it is the team that has the most internal 'power' that will get first dibs on seeing you - which might not always be the same as the team that you want to be in - but there is usually a way of negotiating your way (carefully, and not too early in the process) to where you want to be. Be careful not to come across full of it if you start to realise this is the position that you are in, because you can find yourself not wanted by anyone very quickly if it starts to sound diva-esque....