How To Love The Job You Already Have

job searching woman in tech and IT

How To Love The Job You Already Have

Recruitment was something that I ‘fell into,’ like most people I know in the industry.

I spent the first five years of my career routinely swinging between different possible exit strategies. I would drop everything and travel, or enrol in a Master’s degree, or become a secondary school teacher, a physiotherapist, a marketer, an accountant, an astronaut. Name a profession, and I had probably spent a few hours Googling ways that I could get into it.

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By NGAIRE WALLACE

Recruitment was something that I ‘fell into,’ like most people I know in the industry.

For the most part, I enjoyed my job. The pay was good, my colleagues were a decent bunch and the rough edges were smoothed over by generous performance bonuses and a well-stocked staff wine fridge that we routinely emptied every Friday.

Nonetheless, I spent the first five years of my career routinely swinging between different possible exit strategies. I would drop everything and travel, or enrol in a Master’s degree, or become a secondary school teacher, a physiotherapist, a marketer, an accountant, an astronaut. Name a profession, and I had probably spent a few hours Googling ways that I could get into it.

I didn’t mind what I did for a living. But I always felt that somewhere out there, at the other end of an imaginary career development rainbow, was ‘the job’ – the vocation that I was destined to have. In my mind, recruitment wasn’t it.

That all changed in a heartbeat in September 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the bubble of the City’s financial services industry burst along with it. Suddenly my evening Metro was full of pictures of be-suited office workers walking out of their glass towers with their worldly possessions in archiving boxes and job applicants were calling my desk line to make a general enquiry between floods of tears. My two biggest clients made sweeping redundancies that same week, and my entire desk was wiped out. Clients became candidates as the HR representatives and internal recruiters for whom I recruited lost their jobs.

Since my job was filling other jobs, and very few of those were now around, it was a miracle that I still had one. From that moment, and for the next two years as I managed to cling onto the job I had until the market turned around, I loved every moment that I was gainfully employed, and I’ve loved it ever since.

Hopefully you won’t need to experience the fear of redundancy or a recession as a catalyst, but there’s all sorts of reasons why staying in your current job, and making it a better place to be, might be a better career move than finding a new one.

You might have a patchy CV history and need a longer stint in your current job before looking at a move. Maybe you are nearing a step up in seniority and you need to stay where you are and get a promotion before moving on at that level. Perhaps you are lucky enough to be paid over the market rate in your current role, or the circumstances of your job might suit you, like flexi-time or a short commute. Whatever the reason, if you are stuck where you are for now, here are 11 ways to make it better before you fall back on ‘grin and bear it’.

  • Change your attitude. It might be hard to hear, but if you have a habit of hating your jobs, it may be that the problem is you. You have two choices here – carry on and be miserable, or talk yourself out of hating your job. How to make that happen? Write a list of all the things that you enjoy about your job, and another of all the things you don’t like. Go through the ‘don’t like’ list, and cross out anything that could be improved, delegated, or simply doesn’t need to be done. Go through the ‘love list’ and highlight anything you could incorporate more of. Perhaps there’s something you can trade. For example, if you love sales but hate spreadsheets, can you negotiate a task swap with a tech-friendly colleague?
  • Change your job – or at least, one task. Even the most motivated person can become stuck in a rut, especially if they have been in a cycle of ‘same old’ for so long that every day feels like ground hog day. Even the smallest step forward – such as embracing a new technology, or absorbing new information from a webinar or training course – can help to put a spring in your step.
  • Change your environment. When was the last time you cleaned your desk? Cleared out your old files? Take some time to clear your inbox, straighten out your paperwork and put a motivating image on your desk top. Your spruced up environment will give others the impression that you care more, and their positive impression of you will no doubt make your working life easier (and maybe make that promotion come quicker).
  • Change your colleagues. Okay, so maybe this one isn’t so easy. Entrepreneur Jim Rohn is famed for saying “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” and considering how much time the average person spends at work, this number probably includes your workmates. Maybe you love them, maybe you hate them, and maybe you’re stuck with them either way. Try adding to your inner circle of influence by using networking sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter to connect with professionals in your industry and gain exposure to new ideas, methodology and enthusiasm for your profession that you might not be finding on your team. Attend local networking and business events. Arrange to meet up with entrepreneurs in your industry – anyone who is running their own business is almost certain to be full of passion for work that will hopefully rub off on you.
  • Change your attitude to your colleagues. How well do you know them really? Maybe if you invited Ted from accounts or Sarah from I.T out for a beer or a walk over lunch you might find that they had a good reason to turn down your recent request for a new client credit limit waiver or a hardware upgrade. Perhaps you can bond over the fact that you both hate your jobs. A sense of community can be a great antidote to an unfulfilling job. Even the most painful of tasks fly by when you are working with a team that you love. Even if it seems painful at first, join your company sports team or poker night and try to build relationships. You spend five days a week with these people, you may as well try to enjoy their company.
  • Volunteer for something new. If for practical reasons, your manager doesn’t have the budget to send you on a training course, or any new work to offer you in place of your existing tasks, why not offer to attend training or complete an extra project in your own time? Sure, you will be working for free for as long as that takes – but you will learn new skills and gain new experience during that time, and your employer may be so impressed with your willingness to change that the next time a new project comes around, you may win it. At the worst, you can always add it to your CV.
  • Work pro bono for a charity. If you feel like the corporate grindstone is paying your bills but sucking out your soul, but you can’t afford to work in the public or charity sector (or you haven’t been able to land a job in this area) then try giving away your skills for free. Volunteering for a good cause is bound to make you feel good, and seeing your skills and experience actually helping someone in real-time may make you feel a whole lot better about what you do day to day.
  • Do something you enjoy outside work. Skip Friday work drinks, and take the salsa dancing or taxidermy course that you have been dreaming about. A rewarding life outside work will make you a happier person to be around in the office, and give you something to look forward to when the clock strikes home-time.
  • Take a holiday. Sometimes the best way to get over a bad week at work is to take a week off. If you can’t afford a sun-filled off-shore extravaganza, just take a day off and spend it being a tourist in your own town. A holiday might be as good as a change.
  • Update your CV. You don’t need to use it, but seeing all your skills, experience and achievements written down will bolster your confidence, and if you are considered for a promotion, you will be able to immediately summarise why you are the best person for it, and why you deserve a raise at the same time. Checking out the job market, even without the intention of changing jobs, will enable you to identify what skills you lack in comparison to your peers, and you can use this information to flesh out your skill set and knowledge base with targeted learning. And, you’ll be safe knowing that if the perfect position with another company does pop up, you can fire off an application immediately.  
  • Adjust your expectations. There’s a million blogs, self-help books and YouTube videos telling us all about how to create the perfect life and the dream career. The truth is that none of us will ever be perfect, and even the best jobs are awful at least some of the time (while I’m at it, detoxes are a myth, and kale tastes dreadful). Chances are that even though you feel stuck in the doldrums right now, things will pick up in time. 

How To Answer ‘Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years’ Time?’

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How To Answer ‘Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years’ Time?’

Career coach, writer and entrepreneur Emile Wapnick opened her excellent TED talk ‘Why some of us don’t have one true calling’ by posing the question: “How many of you have been asked ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?”

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By NGAIRE WALLACE

Putting aside for now whether or not we do have one (or more) true calling/s, how to re-write your CV once you find yours and want to move into it, and what to do if you have no idea where to start – which I will address in future posts – let’s take a look at how to respond to the ‘grown up’ version of this question that arises time and again in interviews: “Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?”

As a job-seeker, you may roll your eyes inwardly each time you are asked this. As an interviewer, I internally cringe whenever I ask it. Cliché or not, it is a question will continue to arise and is likely to have a major influence on whether you land the job of your dreams (or any job at all).  

The key to a successful response is empathy.

Consider “Why is my interviewer asking this question?” Or, in other words, “what do they want to hear?”

Imagine the following scenario:

You are meeting your Tinder crush for the first time. Over a pint of your favourite bitter (or a crisp glass of rosé), the script of a B-grade movie strikes and you are suddenly gifted the ability to read your date’s thoughts. Hoping for an ego boost, and a clue as to whether they might be ‘the one,’ you gently probe to find out why, out of all their other ‘swipe rights,’ they chose to spend a Tuesday evening with you.

Now, which of these two outcomes would make you more likely to see that person again?

One: You discover that after their initial attraction to your homepage your date has read your profile in detail, identified with your fondness for obscure anime and your passion for dancing poorly to eighties’ ballads, and hopes that an introductory meeting may lead to establishing a mutually beneficial relationship.

Two: Your date has not bothered to click beyond your picture. They were already sold on your convenient location and immediate availability, and frankly, they’ll consider dating anyone who meets certain basic criteria. Winter is coming and they’d quite like to not be single, at least from November to February.

Job searching is much like dating. Like any ordinary human, your interviewer wants to know that you have chosen them, and that you specifically want what they are offering. They do not want to feel like you turned up simply because their office is on the Northern line and Google didn’t call back.  

You may think that the ‘where do you see yourself’ question is the fodder of inexperienced interviewers or a death knell that signals the interviewer has made their mind up already and is just scratching to fill a lull in conversation, but in fact, the answer to this question gives valuable insight into an applicant’s aspirations, level of commitment, likely level of engagement in the role, background research, and plain old common sense. If I had a pound for every person who applied for a job as an accountant and then told me they want to work in sales, I would have at least a quarter of a London flat deposit by now. 

TL;DR: Save the fact that you still don’t know what to do with your life – or that in five years’ time you see yourself drinking a margarita on a beach in Hawaii – for TED talks and your friends in the pub. In your next interview, impress your potential future employer with your in-depth knowledge of their company, product, values and culture, and tell them that the job they have on offer is a perfect, and logical next stepping stone in your planned career path. Help them to believe that this is your dream job, and consequently, hiring you is in their organisation’s best interests.

However, remember that even the best metaphors have their limits – don’t tell your next internet date that in five years’ time you see yourself settled down with them, and possibly in a Management position, or you may find yourself facing an very early retirement.  

The One Quality That Every Job Seeker Needs

Job Seekers 2

The One Quality That Every Job Seeker Needs

It sounds like click-bait (and in many respects, it is – we do want you to read our blog, after all), but please bear with me.

There is one overarching theme that I see in every successful job seeker. I would argue that successful in-house and agency recruiters possess the same quality.

Empathy.

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By NGAIRE WALLACE

Think of it this way: traditional recruiters and hiring managers often talk about finding someone who is the right ‘match’ for their job role and organisation. What they really mean is that they want to find a person who fulfils their current needs. They are looking for a puzzle piece to fill a pre-defined hole.

Often, finding the right person happens by happy accident (although it is highly influenced by a recruiter’s innate biases – a subject for other posts).

Job-seeker sees an advert that appeals to them, and they apply. Recruiter calls job-seeker and inwardly lights up when a phone screening reveals the perfect marriage of skills, experience, knowledge, personality and circumstance for the organisation and job role they are recruiting.

An in-house interview with the team’s Manager confirms the recruiter’s judgment, and a job offer is made.

Wonderful – for everyone except those applicants who have been overlooked.

If you are one of those applicants, perhaps making a career change, reaching for a role higher than your current level or coming back after a gap in your career, then there is fast-track to job application success, beyond the usual CV-writing and interview tips.

Empathy. Find out what your recruiter needs, and give it to them. Then find out what your interviewer needs, and give it to them.

There is a famous scene in the film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ in which Leonardo DiCaprio instructs his audience to “sell me this pen.” I won’t link the scene here, as the language could be deemed inappropriate for a professional forum, but you can find it on YouTube. And I would not suggest that DiCaprio’s character is in any way empathetic, but he does demonstrate one element of empathy, which is also a component of successful sales technique. He shows the importance of finding out what your customer needs, and then supplying them with it. In commercial terms – supply and demand. 

Here are four ways to apply empathy to your job search.


  • Read the advert, and the job description very closely. Look for the key requirements and pitch your application to fit them. Don’t just ‘sell yourself’ i.e. highlight your positive attributes without any thought as to whether they fit the actual requirement; market yourself as the solution to your interviewer’s problems.

  • Find out why the position is vacant. Are they expanding due to continued growth? In which case, they might have a job role that is somewhat vague, as the position has never been filled before. Show that you can work under your own initiative. Has someone resigned and left at short notice? Show that you are flexible to help out the team wherever needed, and that you don’t mind performing tasks outside of the assigned remit.

  • Recruiter hasn’t called you back, or sent you the information about the job that they promised? (Yes, we know this is frustrating, and I apologise on behalf of recruiters everywhere). Rather than expressing your frustration, empathise with them. “I know you must be busy – I have started my research already by reviewing the organisation’s website.”

  • Hiring manager is called into a meeting at the last minute, after you have already travelled an hour to get there? Yes – this is out of order, and in a skills-short market, you may be well placed to simply write off the opportunity and apply elsewhere. But if it’s a job that you really want, think about the outcome you are trying to achieve (a rescheduled interview, and a grateful interviewer), and tell them that you understand their situation and are flexible at their convenience.

The take away point: rather than approaching your job application by pointing out your best features and demonstrating you can do the job, try to find out what the interviewer and the organisation need and market yourself as the solution. And be nice to everyone that you are in contact with along the way, even if they don’t deserve it.  

Simplify Your Job Search

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Simplify Your Job Search

Job searching  irrespective of the length of one’s career can be daunting and frustrating, especially if the process stretches on for longer than you may have expected.

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By NGAIRE WALLACE

Despite the talent market being extremely buoyant, as we enter into the second half of the year, employers are still acting with caution. This more often than not leads to a longer application and interview process for roles in comparison to the talent market of previous years. 

Below are a few of Project Recruit’s top tips to deal with this anxiety and make the whole process simpler.

Don’t take rejection personally. It is tough when you are rejected for a job that you thought you were perfect for, but you will be serving yourself better by removing your emotions from the equation as much as you can. Job searching is littered with rejection. It is unfortunately part of the process that one must go through. Remain positive and resilient, the perfect role for you is out there. 

Time lag is normal. When you’re job searching, time often feels as though it’s moving incredibly slowly. While you are anxiously staring at your phone waiting for it to ring, the hiring manager may not even have begun to wade through their stack of applications. It can help to remember this difference and not get too worked up about why you haven’t heard from them yet. 

Hiring managers are juggling lots of other priorities. Hiring the right candidate is paramount for them, but this process of selection all takes time. Be patient and continue searching or channel your focus elsewhere. Mentally move on right away; it’s far better for your peace of mind to put that job out of your head as soon as you have submitted your application because there’s nothing to be gained by pondering.

Job Searching, The Basics

Job Searching

Job Searching, The Basics

Irrespective of your current work situation, if you are in the market for a new role there are some channels that you should be exploring in order to maximise your reach as a candidate.

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By NGAIRE WALLACE

Recruitment Agencies

Registering with recruitment agencies that specialise in the roles you are looking for, be it in your local market or internationally, is a good way of beginning the job search process. Typically you can apply for a role they are hiring for or register with them online. This normally prompts a specialist recruiter to give you a call and discuss your CV and requirements in more detail or to arrange a meeting at their offices so you can meet face to face. As and when roles become live that match your skills and experience they will contact you to discuss relevant opportunities in more detail.

Online job boards

Direct applications through online job boards have become increasing popular over the past decade. The rise of digital media is now wholly applicable to the talent market, with many employers now choosing to advertise their vacancies on job boards as well as briefing recruitment consultancies to source candidates. 

Registering with both niche, industry specific job boards, as well as generalist job boards, will help you keep on top of new roles coming onto the market. Once registered, it is best to save job searches in your profile, as well as setting up job alerts. You will then be emailed when new roles matching your searches are advertised. 

Social Networking

Social media has very quickly become one of the preferred mediums for employers to attract top talent. LinkedIn is in the midst of its transition from a business networking tool to a job search engine with the largest number of registered professionals on a single website, globally. Having a complete and well written LinkedIn profile increases your chances of being headhunted by recruiters and contacted by employers who are advertising a role that may have applied for.

How To Write A CV

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How To Write A CV

I have worked in the recruitment industry for close to 11 years. Over the course of my career I estimate that I have read roughly 200,000 resumes, give or take.

Here are my top tips for writing a successful resume.

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By NGAIRE WALLACE

I have worked in the recruitment industry for close to 11 years. Over the course of my career I estimate that I have read roughly 200,000 resumes, give or take. I have seen countless spelling errors and ‘creative’ applications (including photographs of candidates at parties, on safari, and one particularly memorable applicant who included a pic of himself dressed in a frog suit.)

Here are my top tips for writing a successful resume.

  • Spell check. Have a friend read it for you and pay attention to spelling in context, as some words will be missed by an automated spell checker (for example, you are applying for a  ‘role,’ not a ‘roll.’)
  • Stick to plain and simple. Recruiters and hiring managers are in a hurry, and may not read between the lines. Make it easy for us to identify that you have the skills and experience we are looking for. 
  • Use a plain font and avoid pictures, graphics, colour and borders, unless you work in a creative industry (and even then, remember that taste is relative and use your flair with caution). Avoid using tables when applying through a recruitment agency as these are difficult to reformat, and many agency recruiters will be required to amend your CV to match their company branding before sending to a client.
  • Where possible, tailor your CV to the specific vacancy that you are applying for. If time prevents you from preparing a new CV for every application, at least write a couple of CVs to suit roles in particular sectors. Do not send a CV to a marketing role that includes a profile stating your dream is to work as an accountant.
  • Do not lie. It’s not worth the risk. 
  • If you are applying for jobs globally, or you have relocated, check the standard format for CV writing in your new or desired location. For example, in the UK recruiters remove (or at least they should) photos from CVs in order to avoid bias in the recruitment process. 
  • Be sparing with superlatives. If you are a recent school leaver, stating that you have ‘extensive experience’ in any area will come across as naïve at best. Regardless of your level of expertise, use phrases that indicate measurability, such as ‘I have advanced Excel skills’ rather than ‘my technical ability is outstanding.’ Confidence should not be confused with arrogance.
  • Listen to your recruiter’s advice. They are likely to have an intimate knowledge of their client’s individual quirks and preferences and can tailor your CV accordingly. 
  • Do include a hobbies section, but try to keep it professional, truthful and take care with humour. Do not claim to have a keen interest in netball if you haven’t played for ten years, as you may find yourself, as one of our candidates did, in an interview with a leading netball umpire who will very quickly discover your exaggeration. 
  • Don’t reference a personal blog unless the blog relates to a professional topic and is written with the same care that you have used throughout the rest of your application. 
  • When you think your CV is perfect, read it again