What to Consider if You’re Looking for a Career Change
Change is never an easy thing to manage, particularly when it comes to a career change.
Whether you’re desperate to the leave the current role you’re in, or you’re just looking to have a go at something new – a career change can sometimes be just the thing you need to revitalise your passions and desires.
The good news is, changing careers is often about getting yourself into the right mindset to develop a positive attitude, which is often enough to get the ball rolling.
In this blog, we’ll be covering a few things that you should bear in mind before making the leap.
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What Are the Benefits of Working with Hales Group?
While job boards, social media, and job advertisements are good ways to find a diverse array of options for your next hire, a good job agency is capable of offering numerous benefits for your business.
It’s thought that over 52% of job seekers are applying for jobs that they aren’t actually qualified to do. Among other benefits, using a recruitment agency means you filter out those candidates that are wrong for the position, and those who don’t have the skillsets for the role.
Access to Top Talent
Hales Group will work with you to understand your needs and actively search for the talent that is capable of fulfilling those needs. On top of this, the knowledge that our recruitment consultants possess on how to avoid hiring the wrong candidate can be extremely advantageous. Our recruitment specialists have the experience and expertise to filter out the wrong kind of candidate from the very moment they speak to them.
From the point in which a client has decided to hire someone new and established the criteria for the role, Hales Group can then begin to find the right person for that position. Quite often, the right candidate is one that is not actually actively looking for a new job but would be open to one if a good opportunity presented itself. Hales Recruitment Consultants have strong networks and the time to find these individuals; an employer will usually have neither of these available to them.
At Hales Group, we take the time to talk to potential candidates about their experience, background, skills and much more. Only then will we decide whether this candidate is a suitable one for the position.
Save Time & Money
Utilising a recruitment agency is quicker than hiring internally, in fact, at Hales Group it takes us, on average, just 12 days to fill a permanent role for our clients. Additionally, you’ll also save yourself a good deal of money. This is because our Recruitment Consultants can collect and assess CVs, double-check references and interview the candidate, so you don’t need to.
When a client chooses Hales Group, they also get the advantage of advertising their job across multiple leading job boards without the cost, a vast social media network and specialist consultants to screen and interview candidates. This results in a selection of only the most suitable candidates CVs.
Industry Knowledge
Hales Group has a combined 163 years of recruitment expertise, having been established since 1999.
The right recruitment agency will often employ recruiters with specific knowledge of a particular industry. This is why it’s so important to partner with a recruitment agency that understands the industry you’re operating in since they’ll be abreast of market trends, salary levels and the skills required to fill your role.
At Hales Group, we have a combined level of experience totalling 163 years and have been operating in the job market since 1999. With specialist recruiters throughout the company, this has given us a unique understanding of the local job markets and our clients’ industries, which is why 75% of our client base has been entrusting us with their recruitment for five or more years.
Salary Expectations
As an employer, you certainly don’t want to get to the end of the recruitment drive, thinking you have identified the perfect candidate only to discover that you’re absolutely miles apart when it comes to salary.
At Hales Group, we ensure that we find out the salary expectation of any prospect we put forward for a role to ensure that both you and the candidate are on the same page from the outset. This removes any ambiguity, any chance of offending the candidate with an offer that is well under their expectation and increases the likelihood of ensuring both parties are happy.
Industry & HR Legislation
The laws and legislation around employment are frequently subject to change. Most recently, of course, due to the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve seen a raft of changes around furloughing employees.
These changes can often be relatively complex and take a bit of time to understand. Other common areas for confusion centre around diversity in the workplace, wages, maternity and paternity leave and unfair dismissal.
At Hales Group, we see to it that we are always on top of any changes in recruitment to ensure there is no chance of any legal complications. We always ensure that our recruiters are kept abreast of any industry changes so you can be completely comfortable in the knowledge that all the correct procedures have been followed from the outset.
Helps Business Innovation & Growth
At Hales Group, we’ve worked with companies of all sizes over the years, from new startups to national corporations. Working with us can give your business the impetus to grow and innovate.
We don’t just provide people; we also offer the talent and support you need to take your business to the next level. To us, it’s always more than just recruitment.
If you’re interested in finding out more information about our recruitment services, don’t hesitate to contact us today.
New Recruitment Processes to Know About
Traditional recruitment processes such as perfecting your CV, and undertaking both phone and face to face interviews can all be daunting experiences, especially for those candidates without much experience in the field of job hunting.
However, it’s now becoming standard practice for businesses of all sizes to adopt new recruitment methods that delve deeper into a candidates personality and ability, in order to determine if candidates are not only going to live up to their performance promises made on paper; but also if they can think and adapt their skills quickly, and if their personal views and ethics are aligned with that of the company.
For businesses, recruitment can be expensive, and for those looking to further their career, it can be a long-winded procedure. Neither party wants to see their searches go to waste, and this is why new processes and methods such as emotional intelligence testing and practical assessments are being used to identify hidden qualities and behavioural traits to ensure that both parties will enjoy a long and successful career relationship.
Below, we will run you through some of the processes that you can expect to encounter whilst on your search for your next role.
Psychometric Assessments
Psychometric tests use a method that measures the mental capability and behavioural style of an individual. These tests also measure how suitable the candidate is for the job role they are applying for; by measuring a person’s aptitude and characteristics against what is required for the role, you will able to forecast how they will perform.
Employers use these tests to draw out hidden characteristics that are notoriously difficult to identify during an interview.
Psychometric tests are objective and are often split into two types; aptitude and personality.
Personality tests explore areas such as your interests, personal values and what motivates you, and analyses how your character would fit in with the company. They ask you a series of situation-based questions that scrutinise your emotions and behaviours, along with relationships based on varying situations.
The test will provide you with a statement about ways of feeling or acting, for which you mark how much you agree with the statement on a scale.
Aptitude tests assess your ability to reason and determine whether your skill set is aligned with the role. Your results are compared to a benchmark, and usually, a certain score must be achieved in order to ‘pass’ the test. These tests look at your numerical, verbal and abstract reasoning, situational judgement and how effective your response is in varying situations and how quickly and accurately you can error check.
There are varying psychometric tests to sit; you will be provided with a range of statements, which after reading, you will be required to answer a true or false question about. You will also be provided with images that have a pattern or sequence that you need to determine or be asked to look at graphs and charts and analyse and summarise the results that they depict.
The most common type of psychometric testing is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ).
Emotional Intelligence Tests
In the academic and business world, there is a legacy of an emphasis being placed on aspects of intelligence such as mathematical and verbal skills and logical reasoning; but in recent years, that emphasis has been also placed on the value of emotional intelligence.
An emotional intelligence test evaluates an individual’s capability to recognise their own varying emotions, along with the emotions of others, as well as using this emotional information to help them in their thought process and actions and ability to adapt to situations and environments successfully.
Emotional intelligence tests will provide you with a number of statements, such as, “I like learning new things”, “I am not satisfied with my work unless someone else praises me” and “I express my opinion even if there is a good chance that other people will disagree with me”. Candidates are required to choose how true or false the statement is with regards to you and your actions and feelings.
Practical Assessments
Hiring managers are often concerned that traditional processes such as the usual face to face interview, weren’t effective at extracting the right information to determine how strong a candidate would perform in a role.
The practical assessment technique was introduced in order to see how an applicant demonstrates a work-related skill, and also under some pressure, to see how true their knowledge and skills are that had been put forward on their CV.
Practical assessments usually come in the form of a written assessment such as an essay or report on a specified topic, or you may be asked to review and proof read documents before being asked to provide a summary; they usually last between 40-60 minutes.
Other examples of practical assessments include ‘in-tray or e-tray exercises’ and require the candidate to organise a workload in a synthesised business scenario; usually lasting between 30-60 minutes, candidates are asked to work through items including emails, reports, minutes and policy documents, prioritising them and explaining the response and strategy. Recruiters look for candidates who can work quickly, accurately and logically and who can justify their thoughts and actions.
Group Activities
Group activities usually involve up to ten candidates and are often used when organisations are recruiting for multiple vacancies. This process is used to assess an individual’s competency when it comes to team work, enthusiasm, and decisiveness and persuasion, as well as problem-solving and critical thinking.
Group exercises are likely to include ‘ice-breakers’ that encourage individuals to relax and a team to bond. This is usually followed by a discussion task, whereby a team is asked to reach a logical conclusion of a business scenario – all candidates are expected to contribute and be able to justify the conclusion.
Another common aspect of group activities is role play, such as mock meetings.
All of these processes are designed to gauge a candidates suitability for a role, so that an organisation is able to choose someone that will perform at a high level, and whose values and ethics are aligned with the companies, meaning that they will remain in the business for a significant period of time, and reducing the need to hire regularly – an expensive and inefficient model.
