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- 31 7月
Candidate Newsletter – July 2019
RECRUITMENT MARKET UPDATE
The Legal market for July has been a little slow compared to last month, which is fairly usual as we approach the holiday period. Companies with overseas hiring managers especially are slowing down their interview processes, and new jobs are on hold, probably until September. Candidates are also a little difficult to confirm for interviews, but telephone or Skype interviews are usually feasible.
For job activity, compliance for healthcare remains an active area, with the number of opportunities exceeding candidates at all levels. One trend with our clients has also been to look for candidates with no legal experience, who have just graduated or been with a company a short time, and then offer training. This reflects a general need to strengthen legal teams and have them adapt to business needs as well as legal risk.
For the Finance and Accounting market, we are seeing a lot of roles open at growing companies in the IT and Healthcare sectors. We are seeing roles in start-up companies where the accounting section needs to be built from scratch, which allows a lot of scope to take on new tasks and expand your responsibilities. In addition to in-house roles, there are several open positions at accounting, tax and auditing firms. These offer a great chance for candidates to acquire more specialized skills. Tax experience is in great demand in-house and with specialist firms.
As usual, the market has a high number of in their 40s and early 50s. We feel these type of candidate offers great value in the market, many of our clients seek candidates in their late 20s/early 30s but they are very difficult to source. Overall the job market in accounting area this month is still active, especially with business planning and financial analyst positions.
The following are some examples of offers out this month:
Legal
- European Pharma – Associate Counsel – 12M
- US Data Company – Legal Counsel – 12M
- Japanese FMCG – Legal Specialist – 8M
Accounting & Finance
- US Service Company – Accounting Director – 15M
- Europe manufacturer – Senior Accountant – 7M
- Europe Consumer Goods Company – Senior Accountant – 7M
Recruitment 101 – Skype Interviews
Skype and other videoconferencing technology has come along way in the past 10 years or so and is now reliable enough to be commonplace in interview processes, particularly for international companies. If you are actively interviewing there is a high chance you will have to take and perform well in a video interview.
We have handled many such interviews for our clients, and can offer our advice for a great Skype interview:
1) Check your connection and equipment
While it is certainly more reliable than it used to be, you should take some time, at least a day before, to check your camera, and microphone. Ask a friend, or your agent, to go through a test run and give you feedback. As well as the connection quality, they can tell you about how the picture quality and the background.
You should always use your PC or laptop over a phone wherever possible, and an Ethernet connection will be much more reliable than wi-fi or Bluetooth.
2) Dress the part
While you may be at home, in a more relaxed environment than the office, you should make sure to dress as if you were attending a face to face interview. The interviewer will only be able to see your head, shoulders and upper body but please do not be tempted to skip your usual trousers or skirt (some people really do this!). If you have to stand up during the interview, say to adjust the camera or handle some other disruption and are not properly dressed from the waist down, you will certainly hurt your chances!
3) Check your background
If you are at home make sure that you are in a quiet, business-like area, and the view behind you is clear and uncluttered with personal items. You do not want to distract the interviewer from what you are saying, and want to present yourself as well-organised and focused. Also, make sure you let anyone in your house know, including pets and children, you will be having an interview, to avoid any surprise interruptions.
4) Practice active listening
It will be important for you to respond to the interviewer while they are talking, especially in English. You can use responses such as ‘uh-huh’, ‘I see’ or ‘right’ and occasionally tilting or nodding your head will show the interviewer you are engaged and listening carefully. When on a Skype call, it can be difficult to tell if the other person has heard or understood properly, in the worst cases interviewers may even think the screen is frozen if you don’t give any response.
5) Feel free to cheat!
One plus point of a Skype call is that you can have and use notes without the interviewer seeing. You should take advantage of this and have some notes prepared on the job and the company, as well as your talking points and questions. Do not, however, read exactly from a script – the interviewer can easily tell and this will ruin your chances. Make sure you are familiar with what you want to say and use notes as reminders only.
6) Maintain Eye Contact
In a Skype interview, it is natural to look at face of the person you are speaking on the screen. However you should concentrate on looking at where the camera is on your PC. Looking at the camera rather than the image will help you maintain eye contact and appear a more natural communicator.
7) If anything goes wrong
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, there can be issues with connectivity or sound quality and this increases the potential you will not do your best. You should address any issues like this with the interviewer immediately, don’t try to battle through or think it will get better. Suggest you switch to a phone interview or reschedule for another time and hopefully you will have better luck with the connection.
We provide a free consultation and training session to help clients improve recruitment activity and perfect their agency relations.
For further information on this topic or any other recruitment-related questions, please contact ken@alberto-recruitment.comComments are closed.
