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Megan Alexander: Robert Half Managing Director offers tips for standing out in the job hunt · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks EDB follow
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  Speaker 2: But first, it is fair to say it is a
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  Speaker 2: tough time if you're looking for a job at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: Seek reported this morning the job ads fell two percent
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  Speaker 2: in December and we're down twenty two percent compared to
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  Speaker 2: December twenty twenty three, so there's not many jobs. At
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  Speaker 2: the same time, a survey by recruitment agency Robert Half
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  Speaker 2: has found sixty four percent of employees want to pay
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  Speaker 2: rise this year. So Meghan Alexander works for Robert Half
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  Speaker 2: of Fact. Megha and Alexander is the managing director of
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  Speaker 2: Robert Half and joins me right now, Good morning, So,
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  Speaker 2: good morning, good evening, Mega, Hi Andrew. So people are
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  Speaker 2: looking for jobs. How do you stand out?
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  Speaker 3: Look, you have to definitely have the full package in
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  Speaker 3: today's climate. So you've got to have an experience that
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  Speaker 3: is relevant for the job. You've got to a tick,
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  Speaker 3: relate it really well. You have to demonstrate proactivity using
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  Speaker 3: initiative and all those people skiol elements are being able
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  Speaker 3: to communicate, and so you really have to turn up
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  Speaker 3: and make it count when you go to interview and
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  Speaker 3: then be able to follow it through. Obviously, your past
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  Speaker 3: will catch up with you. So if you haven't been
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  Speaker 3: demonstrating that in the workplace, now is a very difficult
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  Speaker 3: time to start turning up to an interview without having
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  Speaker 3: that behind you, because people are going to reference you,
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  Speaker 3: and so it is a case of actually really selling
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  Speaker 3: yourself well.
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  Speaker 2: And obviously we don't have to know every minutiae of
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  Speaker 2: your life lived.
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  Speaker 3: No, you have to think about the relevance to the
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  Speaker 3: job that you're applying for, and thinking about the receiver,
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  Speaker 3: the interviewer. What information do they think is pertinent that
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  Speaker 3: you can relay good examples of how you've got advantage
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  Speaker 3: for an organization or done something similar so that they
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  Speaker 3: can see why they would want you on their team.
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  Speaker 2: Portrait pictures on cvs, what's the thing?
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  Speaker 3: It shouldn't be right, So and so these to me
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  Speaker 3: are a sales document that should portray your skill sets.
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  Speaker 3: But you certainly don't want people making preconceived ideas about
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  Speaker 3: the way you look. And so I think portraits are
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  Speaker 3: things that shouldn't be on a CV.
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  Speaker 2: But what if you look awesome?
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  Speaker 3: You look awesome. It's always in the eyes of the beholder.
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  Speaker 2: That's true. Okay, so it's a punt where you have
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  Speaker 2: to say it's a punt. What about flexibility, because many people,
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  Speaker 2: especially over the COVID period and after that, started asking
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  Speaker 2: for flexibility more and more demanding it at some stages,
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  Speaker 2: but at this moment in our economic cycle, other times
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  Speaker 2: of working from home and asking for heaps of flexibility over.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we definitely saw a significant change at Robert haff
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  Speaker 3: come through all the different industries last year. So certainly
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  Speaker 3: office workers have been called back to offices. Know SMI,
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  Speaker 3: New Zealands was never really a huge fan of hybrid
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  Speaker 3: working and so they sort of called back people earlier.
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  Speaker 3: But some of the big corporates were slower to adapt,
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  Speaker 3: and we've seen a lot of big corporates go from
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  Speaker 3: a three to two three days in the office to
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  Speaker 3: at home or vice versa, back into a four to
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  Speaker 3: one model being four days in the office and one
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  Speaker 3: at home. So some companies have still got a little
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  Speaker 3: bit of it, but it's a lot of it went
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  Speaker 3: last year. What the employees I'm looking for is a
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  Speaker 3: lot more flexibility. So if I've got to drop the
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  Speaker 3: kids or pick up the kids, or if I've got
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  Speaker 3: the plumber coming today? Can I work from home on
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  Speaker 3: that one day versus I want a set day every week.
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  Speaker 3: So that world has already changed. It changed significantly in
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty four.
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  Speaker 2: Now your company, Robert Half to the survey, I found
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  Speaker 2: that sixty four percent of employees want to pay rise
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  Speaker 2: this year. I mean every year, almost one hundred percent
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  Speaker 2: of employees. I would have thought, we'll want to pay rise,
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  Speaker 2: But the thing is it's hard times. So for those
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  Speaker 2: employees wanting a pay rise this year.
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  Speaker 1: Do you get that.
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  Speaker 3: If you really perhaps of worked very effectively and showed
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  Speaker 3: that you've been at the top of the third chain,
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  Speaker 3: that you've really added value to the organization, gone over
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  Speaker 3: and beyond. So if you're going to ask for a
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  Speaker 3: pay rise, you've actually got to demonstrate that you've been
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  Speaker 3: able to deliver value to that company. I mean, salaries
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  Speaker 3: are not moving it significant rates anymore, and so some
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  Speaker 3: people are asking for pay rises because they were sort
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  Speaker 3: of used to them over the last three or four years.
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  Speaker 3: Although they started to drop away last year, so that
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  Speaker 3: was it was normal years, right, and so to go
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  Speaker 3: back in time, salaries used to rise at say three
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  Speaker 3: or four percent, So what we saw last year was
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  Speaker 3: high performing people would get pay rises at maybe six percent,
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  Speaker 3: and lower performing people weren't getting them. And so we've
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  Speaker 3: got this disparity that crept in last year.
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  Speaker 2: All right, but you can't really suggest that to a
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  Speaker 2: future employer, though, can. You just have to hope that
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  Speaker 2: they realize this as well. So this is a message
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  Speaker 2: you're sitting out to employers too.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, you have to you have to back up
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  Speaker 3: with the goods of your performance, right, So if you're
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  Speaker 3: going to ask, you need to have you need to
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  Speaker 3: come to places like Robert Half and get market information,
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  Speaker 3: because there's no point in asking for a salary rise
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  Speaker 3: if the market is not feeling that for your swim sets.
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  Speaker 3: So first and foremost you need to look credible with
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  Speaker 3: market knowledge, and then you have to have examples of
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  Speaker 3: how why you believe that you should be getting that
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  Speaker 3: pay rise based on your performance good?
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  Speaker 2: Never justify that good Steff Meghan Alexander and Meghan is
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  Speaker 2: the managing director of Robert Half.
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