Your story, your brand - your CV

Spencer Owen

Once you've started searching for a job it's time to get thinking about how you can stand out from the crowd when tailoring your CV to a specific job whether that's through a CV or an application form Now question I'd love to ask you Marcus alright as obviously a great career but it started somewhere for you as well. There would have been a point in time where you didn't have a job and you had to make these same moves. How is it for you when you had to make an employer see you as someone valuable?

Marc Allera

Getting that first job was a hard thing and I remember I remember getting the you know, that we didn't have emails in those days we had letters, you know that that used to say no sorry no so, you know come back but but you know kept trying and and you know that the the interview I had I was lucky enough to to be at a company and and for a person I just really really wanted to work for and I every every objection that they came up with as to why I wasn't the right person for that job.

I just I just found a way of saying well I may not have those skills but I can bring you this so I may not have that experience but I can try that and I guess that comes to that sort of if you know resilience and perseverance but also the enthusiasm that I showed I think for that job and that company made them say, okay, well we'll give this person a chance.

Spencer Owen

Yeah. I mean it's amazing story everyone starts somewhere you could be a future Marc Allera watching a home It's very possible and it's important to have that lines you don't need to have had a job to have had skills of experience. So you can talk about it interview situation.

Of course an important part of any job application process is the CV putting that together and you're how can these things start to appear in a CV format?

Marc Allera

Yeah, I you've got it you've got a really think about a success before the the it particularly at the beginning you. I'm sure there'll be people out there thinking what can I put on my CV if I haven't got the experience. I haven't had that. First job what do I say but if you think really hard about the experiences you've had the the groups your part of the volunteering you may have done the sporting groups you're part of it could be the arts or entertainment or or or anything really.

Everyone's got something that they bring to the party and they may not feel it but they do and that that is important, you know, every everyone's got you know, special skills special things that they can bring to any company and you know, our job is to try and find them and the candidates job is to is to try and bring them out as well. So, you know, I would speak to friends and family and other people and say well, What are things that you know you are really good things about me that I would bring to a team or a company and start writing them down and and if you feel you haven't got enough then maybe do some volunteering and and approach some people to see if you can help to then have that conversation when you do have your first interview

Spencer Owen

I think that’s a  really good point and I think about my experience personally I wasn't doing it knowingly at the time but a 16 I put together a football team and it's purely because of a means to an end our team since it ceased to exist so I raveled up some friends I said this cry of football team and by making myself a secretary of a football club at 16 I have to take on certain responsibilities I had to go to the local council to ask for a grant to allow to pay for our kids We had to you know arrange that the guys for training and matches book the pitches deal with the league officials. These are all really important administrational organizational communication skills that I was getting about even meaning to. Yeah, so I think that's a really good example of how your your passions and hobbies can actually help you in employment. Shanissi, you started off probably similar to me I imagine at a point in time where you felt why would someone employ me.

What is there? I can put on this CV unsure of whether Had what people looking for. My question to you is A how do you go about a working out what soft skills you did already have and B how did you demonstrate them?

Shanissi Mbamu

For example for the soft skills first of all, I didn't know what kind of what soft skills were.

I didn't even know what hard skills were but as I went on this program that I was doing the work ready program that just taught us that you know, you do have soft skills such as myself because I used to play football and what does football include you know teamwork you know being a leader you know organising your team, you know being like motivated and passionate and this collaborate with your other team members and have a goal which is teamwork is a soft skill and you know collaboration being able to talk to other people and to listen to other people listening skills and everything they're all soft skills, so that's the way I was able to then demonstrate it also on my CV.

Spencer Owen

This is all about showing up at your best to do this you need to pull together all the advice we've talked about. So far to tell others about your skills your values and your interests and how they would benefit the business you're applying to but having a list of skills and experiences and reading off like a shopping list isn't going to show who you are but what you care about and what you can bring to a job is all important things you need to add in your personality to the conversation and this is called telling your story through your personal brand your personal brand is about how you engage the person reading about you or listening to you and how you show who you are through your personality and your life experiences we thought we get some advice from someone who's great engaging others through her personal brand. To bring her best to each job, she does that's television and radio presenter Maya Jama so last week Chelsee spends some time with Maya to find out more.

Chelsee Grimes

Okay so we're here to talk about personal brand and how we can you know make the most of telling our stories to employers and explain you know, what we've done in the skills and behaviours we've gained from our experiences and it can be a tough time, you know, it's challenging for everyone right now but what I'm looking forward to you know, talking and hearing about your experiences and hopefully getting a little bit of advice

Maya Jama

yeah, I'll see what gems I can drop okay,

Chelsee Grimes

all right, let's get into it, well listen, you always look great anyway, but there's a danger that you know, people think A personal brand is just about how we look on the outside so when someone says use your personal brand what does that mean to you

Maya Jama

I think it's quite a confusing word for a lot of people myself included at the beginning when people be like what's your brand how do we sell you as this brand im like huh I don't know what brand is I'm just a person and and I think yeah, you're right people can get confused and think that it's just looking a certain way which is just like the tiniest bit of it all of course when you go somewhere you want to try and look your best or show like your personality through your outfits or hair or makeup or whatever it is but at the same time it's also like what you believe in and what makes you happy what you enjoy your hobbies your talents your passions, it's basically all of you into one little word brand. I think you just have to try and be unapologetically yourself but your USP is that there's only one you in the world and I think as soon as I realize that that there could be somebody prettier or smarter or could read better or funny or whatever it is, but they're not me that's when you can learn like that's when you start utilizing your talents and your skills.

Chelcee Grimes

So you know why do you think personal brand is important when writing job applications or creating CVs and showing who you are an interviews

Maya Jama

it's basically writing out every skills that you have selling yourself in the best way possible add in some personality into it as well because yeah that goes a long way and you're just thinking what would I want to hear about myself if I wasn't myself

Chelcee Grimes

that's good I'm gonna remember that one for my next CV so I guess we're in a bit of a similar situation so quite a few people we're gonna be doing a lot of online interviews which you know, I kinda like them. I'm not gonna lie but well how do you go about prepared and for interviews like this

Maya Jama

I think it's good to just have like your own life story written out your biography what you are what you've been do and then work out what you've learned from those experiences and life changes because you can never be too prepared for something. I don't think and especially if it's a job that you really want put in the extra hours and it's an easy way to just go through everything and actually know straight away like wow, okay going through that experience gave me that experience and that's a key that they would want to use also just thinking about what kind of questions they would ask me.

Because we all know the obvious of just like okay where'd you live what school did you go to what's the GCSEs then what other skills are they looking for what questions would really stand out that you might not know the answer to straight away that you can mentally prepare for before

Chelcee Grimes

like you said you went then retail and stuff like that for me if I was going to fill out a CV even though I might not have you know been an engineer or if that's something I wanted to be in but teamwork was a big thing. I'd use actually I played football for 10 years, so I know how to be a team player and I'm not a one-man show or whatever one woman show and so I get I definitely say young people make sure whatever you've done even if it's completely different you will find correlation or similarities in probably 90% of the jobs that you're gonna be going after from what you've done, what's retail for you like what are the things that you've taken into TV now or radio

Maya Jama

Just being able to speak to strangers like when you're working on the change in rooms or you're at the door and you're like, hey, how are you welcome or you're taking somebody around and you naturally start conversation and I think a massive skill of being a presenter is just being able to make people feel comfortable talking to you and have conversations and you know, That's that's a life skill at the same time so in retail you pick that up

Chelcee Grimes

just before we finish obviously I mean I followed you on Instagram for so long now and you want to be favourites but social media now has become a really big, you know thing or waiter, you know track people down you only have to google someone now and the first thing that'll come off is probably the Instagram or the Twitter and stuff like that and it's I actually have people who've not got a job and through that so be you what advice would you give about maintaining a positive personal brand and one that can support your career on social media.

Maya Jama

I always say the same thing I think social media is like the biggest blessing but it's also the biggest curse depending on how you use it so yeah utilize it as much as you can but be careful be kind and remember that anything you put online is there forever so don't take that lightly

Chelcee Grimes

do you have any more encouragement or words of advice for anyone looking for work right now

Maya Jama

I would say keep hopeful keep faithful don't get disheartened by the nose just be consistent because there are loads and loads of jobs out there and I think a lot of us don't know what kind of jobs we could get we just think of the the standard ones we're told about in schools, so yeah do research into people you're looking up to or people you like in different positions find out what jobs they did to get there and yeah reach out to people do the proactive work and go get it go chase your dream.

Spencer Grimes

I like that go check your dreams it looks like you had some fun there with Maya

Chelcee Grimes

it was good you know it was it was really interesting actually to see how she used you know working at retail you know people just see Maya now as TV radio and it was good that she still you know users that part of the life to go into the new one

Spencer Owen

definitely and let's talk about this this brand is personal brand, you know, I like to know how you tell your story if you were applying for a job now i know you you're in a different kind of world we might be not going to introduce in the same way the singer songwriter and whatnot, but let's pretend that you were trying to get job at a cafe something like that, how would you use your past skills and experiences to show that you could be about person for the job

Chelcee Grimes

well like I said there you know I think me playing football from the age of 9 I rise up to now which is a long time you know it's taught me teamwork I'm good put me in any situation if it's more than me just being solitary I'm good, you know getting on also competitiveness. I want to be the best that anything so if someone's gonna employ me, I'm gonna make sure that I'll make you the best coffee ever so that's come from it and obviously a music and stuff like that timelines I've running on a diary so I'm always on time I can't be like do it dua lipa I'm gonna be late for the session so yeah,

Spencer Owen

right I'm not gonna lie to you I've had a lot of different applicants, but you've got the job

Chelcee Grimes

thank You thank you

Spencer Owen

no I mean it shows you how many skills can be used across different things and you've obviously got your own personal brand which is all about what you can take from other experiences at to your next job, you know and how you can get people to value you and believe in you what you're capable of right yeah I do.

Chelcee Grimes

I think it's all about using you know, there's some realistic skills values and experiences Andrew and I talked about earlier, you know, you need to look at your list each time you apply for a role and pick out what's gonna help show you off and what you have to offer and you know each job you apply for it's gonna be different so I suggest that we suggest that you know you tailor each application and each CV to you know to make it suit to that role and you know a demonstrate your transferable skills and you know, we had from marketing these are the skills that employees are looking for when you tell your story to them

Spencer Owen

definitely I'm gonna ask a favor now, right? I think I think the crew here I've got a challenge for us, okay, you can help me with so on this screen behind you right now, we're gonna put a phrase up there and it's gonna say I play football and Saturday which is something that we can both yeah might as well Sundays to be honest, and we we're gonna try and work out how someone who Plays football in a Saturday because use that for example to get a job I don't know working in a furniture shop selling furniture

Chelcee Grimes

okay well do you want to go for it

Spencer Owen

well I'll tell you what I would say straight away so play football Saturday, you can see customer service we're on the furniture store.

I would say you've touched on it there. I would say communication it's one of the things the managers always say to him, but we've got to speak to each other and sometimes that just means you know, my ball when

Chelcee Grimes

Man on woman on

Spencer Owen

but it works it definitely makes you better yeah and I think that's gonna be true and too two different places in that that job one communicating customers as maya talked about but also community came with your yeah people you work with getting the best results so

Chelcee Grimes

yeah I think people want to know as well that you can be on time I think being a footballer like I said you can't say turn up at half two if kick off is at two o'clock or you getting a fine find and same with training and I think you know it, you know, it's one of them so I definitely think being on time I can't stand people not on time so put that in there

Spencer Grimes

if you guys play football doesn't have to be football could be any kind of not even sport any kind of arranged thing think about the things you want to do to impress your your football manager yeah and that's gonna probably impress an employer but Chelcee thank you very much it's been really useful listening and thinking about how, Ways that using the right language and getting second opinions from friends really can help ensure that your describing your skills and qualities in the strongest and most engaging way so that your personal brand can shine so all the great things that Chelcee and Maya talked about are also featured in the work ready webinar called make your CV work for you and you can find it a bt.com/skillsfortomorrow/events, so sign up to find out more now, let's remind ourselves what we've learned from Maya and Chelcee.

Maya Jama

Our top tips for telling your story and creating your personal brand are be yourself you really can't be anyone else tell your story for your skills and experiences and show everyone what's important to you through your personal brand know that you have skills and abilities that employers need even if you haven't had a job your values and life experience have given you a set of unique talents that businesses are looking for create a summary of everything you've done make sure you include the skills and behaviors gained from each experience and get a friends opinion too use clear engaging language in. Writing your CV application form and when talking in an interview.