First contact marks the beginning of our interaction with you, the graduate. Yet before that date, you have embarked on your journey through your choice of educational institution and type of qualification. It is not a secret that IMM GSM graduates are asked for by name. The IMM GSM has a reputation of over 60 years of educating marketing professionals which is held in very, very high regard among companies looking to attract the very best marketing talent. That's not just a sales or marketing pitch from us, it's simply a reality.
We receive literally thousands of cvs and phonecalls from graduates and students looking for work. Some are looking for part time work, others for full time employment. Some have just started out while others have been looking for a while.
Cvs reach us either by way of a response to our various job postings (among others we use our website http://www.imm.co.za/) or via word of mouth, or directly as a result of graduation day. Whilst we would love to reply to each and every cv that comes in, we have to keep focussed and target primarily those cvs that meet current vacancy requirements. However, that does not mean to say that we ignore or delete other applicants. Each cv is viewed, each candidate assessed and then placed onto a database of available candidates. Our candidates can be assured that when and if a vacancy emerges for which they would be ideally suited, we will be in touch.
Enter, then, into the "meet and greet" or "intake" interview. Ethically all agencies should interview their candidatess prior to submitting them to an agency. Such interviews can be done telephonically or in person, yet we find that the personal approach is best and so prefer to conduct personal interviews.
For the graduate, it can be frustrating to attend interviews with agencies and then wait for a "call up" for an interview with a company, yet it must be understood that the one cannot take place without the other, and that the latter does not necessarily and automatically flow from the former. There are times when we interview towards a job spec, and there are other times when we interview simply to get to know our candidates a little better, so that we always have candidates at our fingertips that could fit a specific vacancy.
Agency interviews are not a bad thing, then, as frustrating as they can be, but there is certainly a trick to it, for the graduate- and that is, to not send your cv out as a blanket cv to all and sundry.
The very first piece of advice we can offer a job seeker is that they be selective about who and when they send their cv out.
There really is no point sending one's cv to an IT recruitment agency, a Temping agency, a specialist marketing recruiter and everyone else. It is rather defeatist behaviour; firstly because agencies that do not specialise in marketing are not equipped (in many instances) to deal with the specific requirements of this industry. Hence, the candidate will either never be contacted or go into an interview where they are not appreciated for their specialist skills. Secondly, the candidate that sends out hundreds of cvs will begin to feel that "nothing's happening" and grow negative about their career choice and possibly themselves, in the case of the younger graduate.
The other mistake that many job seekers make at this point is that they do not read the advertisements they respond to. We cannot emphasise enough the importance of reading not just the educational requirements of a particular job but the experiential requirements too. Too many times candidates who have grown desperate (possibly because they've sent too many cvs! see above..) will "Tata ma chance" (in their own words) and send out cvs to anything and everything that is however remotely associated to their career choice.
We as agencies quickly pick up on this because we will receive the same cv 5 or 6 or 12 times, each time with (hopefully) a different subject and sometimes (often) no heading.
The most important step in first contact, then, is to be selective about what vacancies you apply to as a job seeker. Look for the vacancy that speaks to what you can do, what you will be comfortable and happy doing and what will get your foot into the proverbial door of employment. Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is that a candidate lands the job they apply to - only to find that it is either above their head and setting them up for failure, or not at all what they want to do. Just because one has a degree does not mean one can do it all. Essentially, in the beginning, one must simply begin. And to begin one must read through advertisements as though looking for something lost - something that the candidate knows is theirs and they must retrieve - not something they aspire to but is unrealistic or for which they are not honestly ready. It requires integrity and it requires the simple of honesty of desire to begin. Certainly, once experience is earned and confidence grown through small acheivements, then a job seeker can move to a more demanding role; but in the beginning, one must begin.
Therefore, read adverts carefully. Identify your strengths, weeknesses and career aspirations, and understand your own particular limitations. You don't need to know where you'll be in 10 years - when you are starting out, you only need to know what your next step should be. If we all look to the next step each time we take one, we can look back one day over the path we have travelled and realise that we have crafted our career from a premise of personal truth and passion; and is that not true success?!
Happy Job Hunting!
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