The World of Difference UK programme, delivered by the Vodafone Foundation, launched on 23rd September 09  to give 500 people the power to make a difference by putting something back into the community. The two month programme gives people the opportunity to take a paid placement with a UK charity of their choice. World of Difference UK is open to anyone over 18 in the UK who has the passion, drive and commitment to donate themselves to a charity. Taking part involves finding the right charity to suit interests, skills and experience and completing an online application form at vodafone.co.uk/worldofdifference by 3 November 2009.

Finding the right charity is easy as the website has a unique online Charity Matchmaker tool, developed in consultation with the UK’s leading volunteering charity, WorldWide Volunteering. If you’re successful, the Vodafone Foundation will pay the charity you choose a total of £2,500 and you’ll get the balance when tax and National Insurance have been paid.

In addition, Vodafone UK will donate a new mobile phone and pre-paid credit to each of the 500 successful applicants so they can share their experiences with friends and family and inspire others to make a difference. The deadline for applications for World of Difference UK is 3 November, with the first placements beginning in January 2010.

“For people who feel passionate about a charity or cause, or for those who simply have time on their hands, Vodafone’s World of Difference programme offers an ideal opportunity to help others whilst gaining valuable life and work experience,” said Andrew Dunnett, Director of the Vodafone Foundation. “We’ve seen a huge surge of interest in UK-based charity placements, with over 127,000 Facebook fans following us on facebook.com/worldofdifference when we launched our International programme earlier this year. World of Difference UK gives people who want to donate themselves, and get paid, the chance to put that passion into practice.”

Eight UK winners from the Vodafone Foundation’s World of Difference International programme have been confirmed today. The winners (Nick Eastcott from Dorset, Kathryn Becher from Devon, Lucy Buck from East Sussex, Max Griffiths from London, Naomi Pendle from Bath, Zoe Vowles from London, Rebecca Webb from Southampton and Jain Reid from London) beat 1,000 applicants to work for their chosen charities overseas for 12 months, with salary and expenses paid up to £45,000.

For further information on the World of Difference programmes visit vodafone.co.uk/worldofdifference or join the World of Difference Facebook fan page facebook.com/worldofdifference

        

One common misconception is that career planning is a one time process that is usually done at the end of obtaining formal educational qualification. But the truth is career planning is a lifelong process.

Its importance can not be over emphasised as how effective you do your career planning determines how successfully you lead your life.

Career planning covers the following

• Selecting a career/profession
• Getting a job in the chosen profession
• Managing job changes
• Career advancement

And the final retiring stage can also be considered a part of career planning. Career Planning – The 4 Step Process. In effect career planning is a 4 step process. The crucial steps involved in career planning are:

1. Self Assessment
2. Analysing the job options
3. Selecting the right job
4. Setting the action to get the selected job

Before you lay your eyes on your dream job, you have to assess yourself carefully. You need to know where your strengths are, what are your skills and knowledge; your qualification, values and interests. Once you clearly know your interests and abilities, start searching for the job options that match the results of your self assessment.

Evaluating the different job options considering their futuristic value is very important in planning your career advancement. Once you selected the right job for you, after analysing all the important parameters, the final step in your career planning process is to act to reach your goal-getting the job

For further help and advice in planning your career please feel free to contact the WoWMyCV(UK) Team our contact details can be found on our website @ www.wowmycv.co.uk

        

It’s been a while since we made any posts on The Career Engineer’s Blog we’ve been busy helping our clients secure new jobs. Over the past few weeks we have been carrying out a review of our pricing policy and have revised our prices DOWN.

All our CV Writing services are now at much lower rates than ever before. WoWMyCV(UK) are proud to provide a high standard of CV Writing and Careers Advice services to our wide range of both private individuals and corporate clients across the UK.

We are always looking for ways to improve the service we offer to our clients and our recent restructuring means that we can now offer our range of high quality CV Writing services at lower rates.

To see our new rates click here

        

From our stand point to be either a “qualified” or “experienced” CV Writer you need to have many years of actual experience of producing CV’s across many different industry sectors and many different levels.

Lots of CV Writing companies use their CIPD registration as a formal qualification as a CV Writer, however the CIPD is designed for personnel managers, personnel officers and recruitment consultants and doesn’t contain any element that qualifies an idividual as a professional CV Writer.

When you are working with a professional CV Writer you need to know that they have lots of practical CV Writing experience, just because they have worked in the recruitment industry for however many years doesn’t make them a CV Writing professional; yes it means they have read many CV’s in their time and have seen some bad ones and good ones but it doesn’t always make them experts.

Speaking from our own perspective our Director Shaun Thomas who is responsible for ensuring the quality of all the CV’s we write for our customers has worked within the field of Employment Training and advice with both private and public sector training providers as well as the recruitment sector since 1996 and has personally written in excess of 1000 CV’s in that time for a wide range of customers from Warehouse Operatives to Corporate Lawyers and has been personally responsible for helping in excess of 500 individuals back in to sustainable full time employment and has gathered a vast amount of knowledge and experience across many industry sectors which enables WoWMyCV(UK) to produce high quality professional CV’s for our customers.

We can therefore not only produce a CV that we know will work for your specific industry we are also perfectly placed to provide quality advice on career progression and the qualifications you will need to either enter or progress within your chosen career.

Together with Shaun’s many years of experience in providing one to one and group training sessions covering subjects including: CV Writing, Letter Writing, Interview Skills, Personal Presentation, Disability Awareness amongst many others, Shaun has also written countless training programmes for a variety of groups of people including adults with basic skills needs.

We believe that experience counts when it comes to providing a professional CV Writing and Careers Advice service in the UK, we have seen many companies make claims to be the best or the UK’s leading but when we question these companies (which of course we do on a regular basis) we can find many holes in their abilities or claims, Shaun Thomas started WoWMyCV(UK) to provide that first class service using his many years of hands on CV Writing, Careers Advice and Training experience to provide a first class service to our customers, if Shaun wouldn’t be happy sending any CV we write to an employer then it doesn’t get sent out to our customer.

We have a passion for helping people to achieve what they want in life, and we work with people on a personal level to ensure we are providing the best advice we can, and of course provide the absolute best quality CV that we would be proud to send to any potential employer.

We invite you to call us and speak to Shaun Thomas and see for yourself the passion he has for our business and the passion he has for providing nothing but a first class service.

We look forward to talking to you and helping you find your next job.

Shaun Thomas
WoWMyCV.co.uk

        

In the office today we had Prime Ministers Questions on the TV and noted not one question to Gordon Brown from either the Conservatives or Liberal parties was directly relevant to any of the actual issues we have in the UK, in our opinion as a careers advice company the issues that Government and opposition parties should e concentrating on are the issues that matter to the people of the UK namely:

How to solve the current financial crisis

How to get companies employing again

How to reduce the numbers of companies having no option but to make redundancies

After PMQ’s we had our own debate in the office prior to writing this article to see where we all stood as individuals and the overall feeling was:

Although we don’t all have the same politics or support the same political parties we agreed that calling a general election now would be of no benefit to the country on issues like employment, wasting time with MP’s and ministers rolling around the country on the campaign trail would take all the emphasis off the real issues the country faces.

Issues like employment and the economy would all just be talked about and nothing actually being done to resolve the issues. And another important point as pointed out by our Training Services Director Shaun Thomas, should we have a general election now and the Labour Party no longer be in government then there will be a lot of services/programmes specifically designed to help the unemployed of the UK would be scrapped by both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats programmes like:

New Deal 18-24, New Deal 25+, New Deal for Disabled People, Entry to Employment plus the many other programmes designed to help the UK’s unemployed back in to sustainable employment which would just be scrapped and replaced by nothing, meaning the UK’s unemployed would just be left to it with no real support or training to help them back in to work.

So in our opinion calling a general election right now would not help the country come out of the recession and will not help the unemployed or those facing unemployment to find new jobs or retrain for other jobs.

But that’s our opinion we’d love to hear your views, do you think we should have a general election and if so what difference do you think a new government could make to unemployment in the UK?

As we are a careers advice company we only want to discuss this issue in terms of subjects related to employment, so please only make your views/comments on issues related to employment and jobs in the UK.

        

So we’d like to ask your opinions, if you would like to join the debate just answer the following questions:

For Jobseekers:

Have you considered creating a video CV?
If so how did you go about creating your video CV?
How have you toild employers about your video CV?
Have you had any response from your video CV?
Have you got a job because of your video CV?

For Employers

Have you considered watching video CV’s?
Have you used video CV’s to make an interview offer?
Have you hired someone because they created a video CV?
Have you rejected an application based on a video CV?
Do you think video CV’s are the future?

We would love to get your input in to the subject of video CV’s if you think it is something that you would use then we can look at offering video CV’s as part of our services in the future.

        

Key Test Areas Include:
Ease of use, Content, Signup process, Availability of UK Jobs, Customer support

Job Site of the week June 1st 09
The Nursing Jobsite

Our Ratings
Ease of use *****
Content ***
Signup process *****
Availability of UK jobs ******
Customer support *****

Report
The signup process for TheNursingJobsite.com one of the easiest signup’s we’ve seen in a long while of dealing with job sites

Overall
TheNursingJobsite.com is simply one of the best websites to visit if you are looking for work within the nursing filed.

        

Children’s nurses can work within hospitals or the community. Their duties will usually include:

• assessing the needs of children who may be ill, injured or disabled
• evaluating the level of nursing care required (taking into account the child’s circumstances)
• creating and delivering a care plan.

Where possible they work closely with the child’s family to support them through the range of emotions experienced when a child is ill and teach them how to provide care and treatment.

Children’s nurses provide practical nursing care which can include:

• checking temperatures
• measuring blood pressure and respiration rates
• assisting doctors with physical examinations
• giving drugs and injections
• cleaning and dressing wounds
• administering blood transfusions and drips
• using hi-tech medical equipment.

Qualified nurses may go on to specialise in areas such as burns and plastics, child protection, cancer care, neonatal nursing and intensive care. Further training can lead to work as a practice nurse in a doctor’s surgery or health centre. For more information on being a practice nurse, check the Nurse (Adult Branch) job profile.

Hours and Environment

Nurses in the NHS generally work 37.5 hours a week, which can include evenings, weekends, night shifts and bank holidays. Many hospitals offer flexible hours or part-time work. Extra hours may be available as overtime, or through nursing agencies.

As a children’s nurse you can work in special children’s hospitals or hospices, on children’s wards in general hospitals or, after further training, in paediatric intensive care. You can also work in the community, within a GP practice or health centre.

Skills and Interests

To be a registered nurse, you should:

• have a genuine interest in helping children with their problems
• be observant, able to notice changes or symptoms of an illness
• be persuasive and comforting
• have the authority/confidence to deal with children or parents under stressful circumstances
• have good time management skills
• be able to remain calm under pressure
• be able to teach medical procedures to people with no medical background
• have excellent communication and listening skills
• be aware of the different ways people relate to their children.

Entry

To qualify as a registered nurse you need to complete a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) approved degree or Diploma of Higher Education in Nursing, specialising in the child branch.

To get onto an approved course you need to meet some general requirements set by the NMC. These include:

• providing evidence of your literacy and numeracy, good health and good character, and recent successful study experience
• meeting the minimum age requirement for nurse training - 17.5 years old in England, 17 in Scotland, and 18 in Northern Ireland and Wales
• agreeing to have a criminal records bureau check (a criminal conviction does not automatically exclude you from working within the NHS).

Course providers can set their own academic entry requirements, which can include:

• nursing diploma - five GCSEs (A-C)/S grades (1-3) preferably in English, maths and/or a science-based subject
• nursing degree - usually the same GCSE/S grades as the diploma, plus two or three A levels/H grades, possibly including a biological science.

If you do not meet the course entry requirements listed please check with universities because alternatives, such as an Access to Higher Education course, may be accepted.

Some institutions offer an NMC approved Advanced Diploma in Nursing. This qualification and the entry requirements for it lie between diploma and degree level.

Applications for diploma courses in England are made through NMAS (for all other regions, check the contacts listed in Further Information); for degree courses you apply through UCAS.

Alternative entry routes:
Cadet scheme - if you are 16-19 years old you can prepare for a career in nursing by doing a two-year Cadet Scheme. The scheme includes clinical placements and working towards a qualification such as an NVQ Level 3 in Health, or Health and Social Care. Entry criteria can vary, so it is important to contact your local hospital trust or NHS Careers (in Further Information) for details.

Working in a caring role - if you are a healthcare assistant or support worker, for example, you may be able to work towards a related NVQ/SVQ at level 3. This will often satisfy the entry requirements for a nursing diploma; check the Healthcare Assistant job profile for more information.

Accelerated postgraduate courses - as a registered nurse in an alternative branch, or a graduate with a first degree in a health-related subject, you may be able to qualify by taking a fast-track two-year postgraduate course. Check with individual institutions for entry details; applications are made through NMAS.

Overseas trained nurse - if you are a nurse who trained overseas (outside the UK and EEA) you may need to complete the NMC approved Overseas Nurses Programme (ONP) in order to begin professional practice in the UK. For more details contact the NMC in Further Information.

Training

During nurse training you will divide your time between university or college, and supervised placements in local hospitals and the community. Courses usually take three years of full-time study (four years in Scotland).

The first year of an approved nursing course follows the Common Foundation Programme. This will include:

• an introduction to the four branches of nursing and maternity care
• developing observational, communication and caring skills
• studying anatomy, physiology, psychology, sociology, social policy
• learning core practical skills.

In the remaining two years of training, you specialise in the child branch of nursing, and study the development and care of children who are healthy as well as sick. You will attend relevant clinical placements in a variety of settings; this accounts for around 50% of the course.

Funding is available for nurse training. Nursing diploma and degree courses attract a non-repayable bursary to cover living expenses; bursaries for a diploma (or Advanced Diploma) are non-means tested; bursaries for a nursing degree are means-tested. Course fees are also usually paid. For more details about student financial support, check the NHS Careers website in Further Information.

As a qualified nurse you need to renew your professional registration with the NMC every three years. In order to re-register you must complete a minimum of five days’ (35 hours) related study within the previous three-year period, which can be anything that has helped you maintain or develop your role within nursing. Check the NMC website for information on additional criteria and advice.

To specialise in community child nursing you need to complete further training after registration; this usually takes around 30 weeks. You can also go on to qualify as a health visitor or school nurse; check the relevant job profiles or NHS Careers website (in Further Information) for details.

If you are a former registered nurse wishing to return to the profession, you can take a return-to-practice course; available throughout the UK, these courses consist of a mixture of theory and practice. Contact NHS Careers (in Further Information) for details.

Opportunities

As a nurse you will find most job opportunities within the NHS, however, you can also work in the private sector and schools.

As a nurse in the child branch you can go on to train in another branch of nursing - adult, learning disability or mental health. You can also move into health visiting, school nursing or practice nursing in a doctor’s surgery (check the relevant job profiles for details). There are also opportunities for self-employment, and working with nursing agencies.

As a qualified and experienced registered nurse, you may be able to progress into the role of sister, ward manager or team leader. In this role you will be responsible for efficiently running a ward, or team of nurses in the community, conducting appraisals and performance reviews.

You may have the opportunity to continue in a management role as a matron or director of nursing. Another way to progress in your career is to pursue a clinical specialism, seek promotion as a nurse practitioner and ultimately become a nurse consultant.

As a nurse consultant, you will spend at least half of your time working directly and independently with patients. This role will also include conducting research in your area of expertise and creating and implementing training. To be a consultant, you need a Masters degree or PhD.

Annual Income

Figures are intended as a guideline only.

Newly qualified nurses working in the NHS earn between £19,200 and £24,800 a year.
Nurse specialists can earn up to £31,000.
Team managers can earn £36,500.
Nurse consultants can earn between £35,000 and £61,000.

Extra allowances may be paid to those living in or around London.

Further information

School of Nursing
Shore Road
Newtownabbey
Co Antrim
BT37 0QB
Tel: 08700 400 700

Rosehill
New Barn Lane
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GL52 3LZ
Tel: 0870 1122 211

School of Nursing and Midwifery
Medical Biology Centre
97 Lisburn Road
Belfast
BT9 7BL
Tel: 028 9097 2233

Tel: 08000 150 850
Email: learning@nhscareers.nhs.uk

Innovation House
Bridgend Road
Llanharan
CF72 9RP
Tel: 01443 233 333

Rosehill
New Barn Lane
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GL52 3LZ
Tel: 0870 112 2206 for general enquiries
Tel: 0870 112 2200 for application packs

23 Portland Place
London
W1B 1PZ
Tel: 020 7637 7181
Registration contacts
Overseas: 020 7333 6600
General: 020 7333 9333

22 Queen Street
Edinburgh
EH2 1JX
Tel: 0131 226 7371

PO Box 376
Bristol
BS99 3EY
Tel: 0845 606 0655 http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk

Further Help and Advice

WoWMyCV(UK) can offer further help and advice on any Career path held in our Career Profiles Database, our help and advice centres on Preparing a CV, Interview Techniques and Suitability for a specific Career if you need any further help please feel free to call us on 0845 619-6953 or drop us an email to office@wowmycv.co.uk where a member of our expert team will be on hand to help.

Don’t forget about our FREE CV Review Service, any visitor to the WoWMyCV(UK) website can claim their 100% FREE CV Review in two easy steps, Click Here for further information

        

For those of you that don’t know what Speculative Job Search is, it’s simply where you send out your CV with a well written cover/introductory letter to selected companies in your industry that are not currently advertising for staff just on the off chance that they may be considering taking on staff at some point in the future.

A few years ago when the UK economy was on the up and things were looking good the speculative job search approach worked really well and countless numbers of people found new jobs just by getting a foot in the door and letting employers know that they were available, but we question whether this tactic is now just a waste of the money on the paper and stamps.

So we’d like to get your thoughts on the subject, do you still try the speculative job search approach and if so has it gotten you any interviews?

How many speculative CV’s have you sent out in the past few months and have you received any replies even if they are the thanks but no thanks letters?

If you haven’t used the speculative job search approach would you consider trying it?

If you are an employer do you still receive speculative letters and CV’s and if so have you ever employed anyone who has applied in this way?

As an employer do you take the time to reply to people that have written to you using the speculative approach?

© The Career Enginer

        

But on the other hand we also receive a number of CV’s that on first sight we can understand exactly why they are not winning the owner an interview, and some of these are very basic things, in this article we want to try to show you some of the things we receive in CV’s from people; now obviously for Privacy reasons we cannot re-produce CV’s that people have sent to us in our professional capacity, but we can give you a flavour of some of the things we see written in people’s CV’s that really shouldn’t be there.

One of the most common things we see is where people actually use Curriculum Vitae or Resume in big bold lettering at the top of the page, there is no need to be stating the obvious in your CV when the recruiter receives it they know what it is there really is no need to waste that one valuable line telling the reader what the document is. You could equate this with having your own name tattooed backwards in big letter on your forehead so you know who you are in the morning when you wake up and look in the mirror.

The next basic mistake is again all about people stating the obvious; they lay out a CV as follows:

Name: Joe Bloggs
Address: 15 Any Road, Any Town, Any County, BB1 7HH
Home Telephone: 020 1234567
Mobile Telephone: 07722 111111
Email: whoever@something.com

And then to really point out the obvious they have Name, Address etc in bold to point them out. Ask yourself this question: When you write a letter to anyone do you write your name and address in the same format? If the answer is NO then why have you written the details in that way on your CV?

So many people also have a habit of thinking if I use a nice designer font for my name that it will make me stand out more, the simple fact is that it doesn’t make you stand out if you use a nice big bold fancy designer font, the one way to stand out is to use the right words that answer all of the recruiters questions, and the recruiters standard questions they are looking for answers for from your CV are:

1.    Does this person have the skills we need to fill the position?
2.    Does this person have the experience we are looking for?
3.    Does this person have the qualifications we are looking for?
4.    Does this person have the right aptitude to fit in with our company?

They won’t find this answer in fancy, designer and multi coloured fonts or nice patterned borders around the edge of the pages, or big boxes all over the page.

We have talked before in a previous article about the importance of having a personal profile at the top of your CV, you chance to tell the employer in a few short sentences just what you have to offer them in terms of your skills and experience but so many times we see people’s CV’s with personal profiles written along the lines of:

I am a dedicated and willing person always happy to get stuck in to a challenge, putting myself forward as a leader and showing my potential through hard work and dedication. I strive to impress and exceed all expectation and I work really well both on my own and within any team.

Nine if not ten times out of ten a personal profile written in this style would be of no benefit and will not score you any points with the recruiter; in fact you’ll be extremely lucky if your CV isn’t thrown away at this point.

The next section of mistakes comes within what some people calls Skills Set or Skills profile (there are many other variations of this) but the basis is the same, this is where you can showcase specific skills you think they potential employer should know about you; but again we see all too many people wasting this opportunity to really show their talents by using the following “skills”

Works well in a team
Great time keeper
Expert in my field
Excellent manager
I’m not good working on my own
I’m the joker in the pack
Making people laugh
Love working hard

Some of these may sound as if we’ve simply made them up, but we really do receive many CV’s with those exact words written in them. Your CV is designed for one thing and one thing only to get you an interview.

It is a sales document designed to sell the idea in the recruiter’s mind that they really want to meet you because of what you have written in your CV. Even for what some people would see as a mundane job you can really impress a recruiter with your use of words and putting the right words in the right place can make the difference between being offered an interview or having your CV thrown in the bin.

Words like Achieved, Delivered, Organised, Prioritise are the types of words that you should be using in your CV they are known as Power Words because they have impact and stand out, and they stand out far more than a size 24 font in thick bold lettering that just says Curriculum Vitae.

Your CV is all about delivering impact statements, short punchy lines that contain power words that deliver your point and give the recruiter the ability to put a quick tick on their checklist against your name.

The next set of common mistakes comes within the Responsibilities/Duties section of the CV again we see many CV’s with the following lines written in them:

Open up in the mornings
Make the coffee for everyone
Type letters for my boss
Cover for my supervisor when he skives off
Drive a van round the county
Work in a warehouse
I did all the packing work
I wrote all the invoices
Chased people round to get results

Again you’ll see none of these statements really mean anything, they don’t contain any strong power words, and they don’t make you stand out as someone that can answer the recruiter’s questions we listed above.

I wrote all the invoice for instance could be changed to Produced all the companies invoices, you’ll notice how different this statement now sounds; removing the I and replacing wrote with a power word Produced gives that relatively simple statement far more impact on the reader.

As you see from the simple example above changing just one word can change a mundane boring line in to a line that carries far more impact and can make the difference between being offered an interview and having your CV discarded at the first sift.

One the other common mistakes we see on CV’s people send to us is the use of the incorrect spell checker, MS Word is set to a default of English US and not many people carry out the simple task of changing that to English UK, which means when they run the spell checker words like Organised are changed to Organized (z is the American spelling) but many people place blind trust in the spell checker and assume that they spelt the word wrong and that the spell checker must be right.

There is an art to writing a CV and it’s not art as in how the page is designed, i.e. how much time you spend deciding which designer font to use, or what colour your headings or boxes should be, the art of CV writing is in the words you use in the CV to show the recruiter who you are and what you can do.

Now look over your own CV and see if you would honestly receive the ticks on the checklist as a recruiter for the way your current CV is written, here are the questions again:

1.    Does this person have the skills we need to fill the position?
2.    Does this person have the experience we are looking for?
3.    Does this person have the qualifications we are looking for?
4.    Does this person have the right aptitude to fit in with our company?

If after giving your CV the once over you find that in your own opinion you wouldn’t seriously consider offering yourself the interview it’s time to get your thinking cap on and get stuck in to re-writing it, or of course you can send your CV to us at WoWMyCV(UK) for our free CV review service and let our team of experts give it the once over for you.

© The Career Engineer
WoWMyCV.co.uk