job hunting

[Winder]

What MOD jobs have you been applying for mate? Might be able to put you in touch with some folk in the recruitment game. I was looking for work in and around your area a few years ago when i left the mob and most jobs i got were from gumtree, if people wanted a driver or labourer etc i was on the phone

BAE systems, MBDA, AWE,DSTL, MI5/CPNI, GCHQ, Home office, other companies that require a sucruity clearnance.

I been expanding my search to almost any job at the moment. and i have been volunteering since christmas. starting to notice that third party recruiters are useless. REED/ graduate recruitment agencies / monster jobs/ total jobs.

[Winder]

securityclearedjobs.com and ex-mil.co.uk are pretty good sites and are updated regularly. If you are DV there'll be something out there with a good pay packet.

[MisterTommyH]

IMO those 'general purpose' recruiters are going to be useless for you.

I see them as more of a JOB recruitment consultant rather than a CAREER recruitment consultant. They are far too diverse and don't have enough specific knowledge or contacts for the area you are looking at - yes they can help you find out about advertised jobs that you may have missed, but at the end of the day they're just paper sifters.

Thats not to say that recruitment consultants as a whole are useless (although they are often a bit mercenary). Around my industry there are specialist recruiters, and you'll use a different one depending on whether you are site or office based, and contractor or consultancy based. TBH my company would only use one of these, and something coming from a company like REED would be treated no different to a unsolicited application.

Are you on LinkedIn? You can sign up for the free version, and there may be more targeted recruiters on there, and you can certainly look at industry groups.

Edit: Oh, and I know that this is just a forum and you're probably just tapping away, but tigersaw is right. Get into the habit of making sure everything you write down or say uses the correct grammar and is spelt correctly - and go back and check what you have written several times. It might seem pedantic, but it's an easy thing that you can do that may be giving another candidate the advantage at the moment. An employer who sees 'sucurity' on an application from a degree holder might be put off.

as my son has told me when he left uni with a degree,the degreee wont get you the job,only through the door to get a interview,he spent 3 years on computer programing,and a year at home learning a different computer language as nothing he did at uni was any good in the real world

[yorkie_chris]

What sort of jobs are you applying for?

Yes it's crap, yes it's frustrating. At least you're getting to interview, the vast majority of the applications I made after I finished my degree didn't even get a letter back.

My advice get out there knocking on doors that are remotely in the same field. Your goal isn't to get a job directly from this, if they offer, they offer. Your goal is to chat them up, see who is doing what, if you get a cup of tea out of it then result.

[Pete7]

Civil Service offers a fast track scheme to those who may one day end up as Sir Humphreys We see them in the MOD for a tour or two.

You must have a bit of nous to get a 2:1, so worth a try:

http://faststream.civilservice.gov.uk/How-do-I-apply/

Pete

These two posts say it all.

Originally Posted by ClunkintheUK

I feel your pain. I was in EXACTLY the same situation 5 years ago. (same degree, same lack of experience). My problem was getting the interviews though. Got one interview and got the job, but had sent out hundreds of CVs to get that interview. My suggestions below are stolen shamelessly from a very good book on the subject.

You may have already done this, but can I suggest looking at it from the point of view of an employer. You have not done anything wrong to get rejected, but there are hundreds of people out there with good degrees going for these jobs, some will have work experience, some won't.

When preparing for an interview think what your unique selling point is. Make sure its just one, and that it is one that is going to make the interviewer/hirer (not necessarily the company) look good/their job easier.

Next think of the sort of questions that they will ask, and your stock of answers to these (the time I did X and Y blah blah). These will show all your backup skills (numeric, hard working all those things which everyone has).

Now how do all these responses back up your prime selling point. Every single response should back up your prime selling point, and therefore ultimately make the person with the power to hire look good.

Also have some questions. Written down even, taking in a few notes is no bad thing. Consider at the end of the interview and they ask "Do you have any questions for us" which is better; "No, I have asked all the questions I wanted to ask already" (this is the same response if you had no questions or just want any job), Or taking out a small note pad, quickly looking through and "I've made a few notes of things to make sure I ask, and I think we have covered them." (You are organised, prepared and interested in the company)

Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble or a teach-grandma-to-suck-eggs post, but hope it helps.

Originally Posted by Bri w

Virtually every cv I see has a degree on it. Those that are looking for their first (career) job have a history of part time work and volunteer work.

If you've got through the paper sift and are sat in the interview, your degree means very little as a differentiator from any of the people I'll see that day. I'm looking for a personality that will fit in the team, and a passion for the job.

How you present yourself in the first few minutes of an interview is absolutely crucial. I've made up my mind how long much of my time you'll get in the first 10 mins.

Watch out for questions like, "why do you want this job?" If you give the impression that its a lifeboat to escape what you currently do, or a stepping stone onto something else, you won't get the job.

[jambo]

Just to point out something here, you're getting interviews. Your CV is clearly strong enough to rise to the top which is an achievement. If in any doubt get someone to read through it that has some experience sorting similar CVs. I threw my whole CV out and re-wrote it from scratch twice in the last 3 years.

The chances are that interview technique is letting you down. It's unlikely they're interviewing you to waste your time, they're interviewing you (and perhaps 10 other people with very similar CVs) to find out if you'd be a good fit to their company, reliable, hard-working and competent.

I've been both sides of the table, and one thing I'd say is there's a huge difference between people who talk to you like someone giving school textbook answers and someone talking confidently about how they'd practically get stuck in.

Be confident, really listen to their questions and make sure the answer you're giving fits. I've had to ask people to stop answering in an interview before as I got the feeling I was going to get pages of text regurgitated, I can read a textbook myself thanks. Generally the people in the room know at least as much as you do (in all probability more) about a given subject. One interviewer I knew always used to throw in a question that they couldn't be expected to answer given their CV. The ones that tried to bluff their way through it lost marks. The ones that said "I'm not sure on this one, but I'd find out this way and get back to you" did pretty well.

Don't let it grind you down, I've been in a similar situation twice before and found it very frustrating, but got a useful job at the end of each dry spell.

My job is currently decidedly at risk, so this isn't advice I'm giving without having to follow it myself.

Jambo

The older I get the more I realise it's all about the who you know and not the what you know. Everyone applying for those jobs has pretty much the same qualifications as you and so you have to stand out.

A lot of companies now use automated software to search for candidates and so the more catch phrases that pertain to the advert you put in and the more times they appear the more the software likes you. But none of that compares to actually knowing someone on the inside.

Time to start stalking people. find out their interests, and casually bump into them while they are doing it.

I feel for you on the response thing! An Email costs nothing for them to sent at at the very least they could be courteous enough to send one saying good luck for the future etc., etc.,

and +1 on your spelling and grammar, there are quite a few mistakes in the OP. Then and than especially!.

The best piece of advise I can give you? Start drinking in the bars of Business hotels. Lots of lonely Executives, who've been on the road for weeks, dying to talk to someone and they'll buy the beers because they have the expense account. I know because I used to be one of them.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong with being a bit sneaky too. If there's an interview for a particular job you fancy, call the company and ask for the name of the person that's head of the department (and likely to be overseeing the interviews) and send *two* CV's. One to HR and one, in a brown envelope, directly to the guy that runs the department. That way he'll already know your name when the interviews start. Even better if you can find out who's under him too and send them one too.

C