Posted in Candidates

Less than 1 in 10 CVs received by The Works in response to advertised positions are good enough for their consultants to consider contacting.

Whilst target searches and headhunting allow us to deliver the quality of candidates required, there’s a lot you can do to ensure your CV makes the grade, not the reject pile.

Here, we highlight the ten most common CV mistakes to avoid:

1. Don’t include your date of birth. Even without age discrimination legislation, it’s irrelevant. A company wants to know about your experience, what makes you better than your peers and how you can deliver quantifiable results, not how many candles you’ll be blowing out next birthday.
2. Unnecessary personal information such as marital status, number of pets, children’s names. Ditto mundane personal profiles.
3. Photos of yourself. Save them for Facebook. Or your mantelpiece.
4. Outdated work experience. Again, irrelevant. Yes, even that three weeks delivering newspapers in 1987.
5. Jargon and abbreviations that only you and your current work colleagues understand.
6. Colour. Textures. Glitter. OK, the last one’s an exaggeration but you get the gist. Don’t make it pretty. It’s a document, not a work of art.
7. 5 page CVs. The CV is a door opener, not a literary tome. Two pages maximum is an industry standard for a reason. That means no purple prose, no listing off responsibilities taken from your job spec. Bullet points can help, though.
8. Using the third person. Unless you’re royalty, of course.
9. Spelling mistakes. With stiff competition and hiring deadlines, including a spelling mistake is an instant rejection, fast-tracking your CV to the shredder. Take particular care of the word ‘liaise’. Liaise. Liaison. Liaising. No creative alternatives, please.
10. Weird interests can make you look like an oddball to those who don’t share them. Cultural fit is one of the criteria employers will be looking for.

Posted in Communications, Corporate Communications, PR

Not everyone would describe being pelted by stones and tear gas as a career highlight but there again, Christian Mahne, Director and Head of Lansons Live, the consultancy’s Direct Communications arm, is not ‘everyone’.

For a start, there’s his unusual career progression which has seen him swap stockbroking for (Board-level) PR, with a decade of journalism (and afformentioned tear gas / stones) in between, something he aptly describes as a very ‘unique sandwich’.

Stones? Tick! Sandwiches? Tick! High flyer in leading PR and Public Affairs consultancy? Tick! Dr Evil? Tick (yes, really). Read on to find out why this month’s profile truly deserves the title ‘rising star’. Be educated. Be informed. Be entertained. We were…

Name: Christian Mahne

Position: Director and Head of Lansons Live

Company: Lansons Communications (http://www.lansons.com/)

Can you summarise your career path to date?

Two years stockbroking, ten years journalism, two years public relations. It’s a unique sandwich which gives me a different perspective on communications.

Describe your role:

I run Lansons Live, the Direct Communications arm of Lansons. We are all about disintermediated communications, putting clients and customers together through content, with no-one in between. We have a studio and production facility in the basement and do a great deal of original production (live programming, edited films etc.) for our clients’ internal and external audiences.

What’s been your career highlight to date?

Getting on the Board at Lansons has been a wonderful highlight and recognition of the value and importance of content driven strategies in the new PR world.

Getting pelted with stones and tear gas while stuck in no man’s land between both sides while covering the G8 summit protest in Prague a few years ago comes a close second.

And greatest challenge?

Anything on the cutting edge can be hard to get signed off because of the uncertainty associated with new things. In risk-averse times budget holders understandably want to be certain of the outcomes before committing. Luckily being right at the forefront of developments enables us to provide added value consultancy and our clients know they can rely on our advice.

And your ambition?

Oh, my ambitions are limitless. Austin Powers’ nemesis Dr. Evil has nothing on me – “The world is mine… the world is mine…”

What advice can you offer to other comms professionals who want to get ahead in the current climate?

Don’t underestimate the power of original thought. Copying the last successful idea will only get you so far! The approach to public relations consultancy is undergoing a revolution with new direct communications channels opening up between brands and their audiences. It’s an exciting new environment where the rules haven’t been written and there are no maps yet. So, fuse your gut instincts with existing industry knowledge and generate true innovation. Just look at Dali, whoever would have thought about putting a lobster on a telephone, but it kind of works doesn’t it? (http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=2988)

The other important thing, play the long game. You’re not in a race with your cohort to achieve greatness. The road to success is littered with the carcasses of people who ran out without looking first.

How do you feel about what you have achieved so far in your career?

People need different things at different times in their life. When I started out in journalism I just wanted to see myself on television. Now I get a buzz from understanding communication in its entirety. I was zoomed in but the big picture is actually the more interesting one.

The more I’ve done, the more my perspective has widened. You can’t learn good judgement; it just comes through experience, so get as much breadth in your life as you can.

What recent current affairs issue are you most interested in, and why?

Right now, the BA strike actually. For three reasons, one – I’m flying with them soon (or not as the case may be). Second, it’s about as high a stakes game of reputational poker as a brand can play and I’m interested to see their strategy and thirdly, I love aviation and learned to fly while I was based in Australia.

What challenges are you facing in your current position?

I work in a hot area. Lots of competitors, lots of bright people with great ideas. The challenge is to bridge the old and the new. Successfully combining the latest tools and techniques with the proven essentials of communication, unchanged for decades. Ultimately, it’s about helping clients tell compelling stories, or as Lord Reith (first Director General of the BBC) put it so well: “educate, inform, entertain”

Do you have an unusual, impressive or inspirational career path? Are you able to offer sage career advice to other communications professionals? If so, we’d love to hear from you! To nominate a colleague or be featured as the next ‘rising star’ yourself, contact us at: sarah@the-works.co.uk or tel. 020 7559 6690.

Posted in Candidates, Clients, Communications, Media, PR, Salary Survey

Whether propelled by looming public sector cuts and redundancies or just the unsettling prospect of change, enquiries from communications professionals from local councils and central government are flooding in ahead of the upcoming election. We have seen a 60% increase in applications over March compared to February.

Posted in General News

With the news that nearly half (47%) of chief financial officers and finance directors reporting they felt more confident at the economic prospects facing their companies in the next six months, we’re witnessing multi – job offers and great candidates being fought over in bidding wars. Financial services PR agencies are looking for talented people from junior to director level, particularly to work on asset management companies. If you’d like more information about how we can help find and fill financial services positions, please call us on 020 7559 6690 or e-mail us at:recruit@the-works.co.uk

Source: The Robert Half CFO Confidence Index. For more information, click on the link athttp://www.roberthalf.co.uk/press-room

Posted in Candidates, PR

With a recovering economy and financial reviews at the major agencies either completed or underway, increasing numbers of candidates, frustrated by the stagnation that typified the recesssion, believe they deserve that long-awaited pay rise. Now.

In the past two months alone, we’ve had candidates – all talented individuals with great track records – submit ambitious, punchy salary requests either to move jobs or put the pressure on current employers. We’re not talking £2 – 3k, but £7k increases. More than one person has asked for a £20 – £25k pay hike at manager level.

Whilst we understand that the challenges of recent years has put the kybosh on promotion plans or new positions and can fully appreciate the desire to ‘return to business’ asap, expecting a salary rise of any substance may be premature.

Why? Because although many sectors are at last emerging from the economic equivalent of a cash coma, the recovery is still in its infancy and employers remain understandably cautious. A recent survey of 250 PRO’s, for example, found that only digital and consumer practioners in agency jobs have seen their salaries increase in the past year.

Post recession, it’s (still) all about patience. But take heart, advises Sarah Leembruggen, The Works, Managing Partner, “it’s not a question of if salary rises will return, but when.”