Jobseeker Basics

My new book - A Recruitment AiDE

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:50:51 GMT

I'm thrilled to announce the publication of A Recruitment AiDE. A guide, philosophy and discipline for effective key hire recruitment.

The timing’s perfect, given the deluge of AI content that floods our feeds. Imagine how these similarly produced generic adverts land with people you want to talk to.

"We're thrilled to announce we want, we need, here’s our shopping list, why aren’t you responding and oh what’s this flood of AI CVs?"

It doesn’t have to be this way.

This has taken twenty-five years of hard graft - talking to job seekers, researching the market and recruitment practice, learning about candidate resentment, problem awareness, marketing, copywriting, and the psychology of what moves people. With the evidence that backs this up.

The result is something that may make you rethink your approach to recruitment. That will improve the number of qualified candidates, while reducing the total number of applications.

It's too early to prove, but my expectation is this will reduce the number of AI CVs too, given there is less for AI to grab when you speak to professional identity.

You’ll have to be bold, go against the grain, do something that feels counterintuitive, especially if someone has their hand on your shoulder saying "This isn't the company style!"

But then, what does it take to stand out from the crowd? And if you really want to attract the best people, shouldn’t your first step be focused on them, and not you?

Kindle version out now. Here's the link: https://amzn.eu/d/03idlAVM.

Paperback in two weeks. If you don’t like Evilcorp, let me know and we can work something out.

Content strategy and philosophy

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:47:56 GMT

What follows is Chapter 40 of A Career Breakdown Kit , and part two of a three part series on Personal Branding.

Except it isn't. There are various definitions I revolt against, with good reason, in a job search.

Personal branding, hidden jobs markets, ATS compliance, and all the others. Terms that seem to hide secret wins, not replicable steps, especially when hidden behind a paywall.

I call it the title that's expected because of the questions job seekers ask me.

You may recall my article on the Hidden Jobs Market breaks it apart and rebuilds it into a cohesive multichannel marketing strategy that allows you to access the whole of your jobs market.

And so it is with my personal branding series.

This isn't about your brand. Or even about your reputation.

It's about pushing content that starts conversations with relevant people - such as peers, former colleagues, recruiters with a vested interest in these content areas, and even people that can put you closer to a job. Not forgetting fellow job seekers you can share experiences with - as long as you don't dwell on the negative.

And it's also about writing in a way that is both true to you and your profession - because conversation has to follow in the same voice as you write, and should support your work, when in work.

It's a strategy and philosophy that mirrors earlier chapters on networking, doorknocking, getting found and converting interest.

It isn't about writing credible statements in a content savvy way that shares unprovable anecdotes, hacks that lack substance, and where a funnel means more than a lesson. That way is the way of social media marketing - this is about conversations that matter.

40 - Content strategy and philosophy

While a personal brand might be the goal, your content strategy should be the priority. It can be applied even if you don’t like the idea of branding.

Much is made about LinkedIn’s algorithm and how you need to do this that and the other to get engagement.

You can look at it differently, ignoring the algorithm on the whole, and still achieve much the same.

These are the outcomes I aim for and see when writing content:

Start conversations
Help others
Sharpen and spark ideas
Raise awareness and trust
Have a laugh and a chat

I’ve gained friends I’ve never spoken to and friendly acquaintances I only know through ‘comments.’

As well as paying clients who have benefitted from my service.

Just as importantly, I have more credibility with candidates who place weight on LinkedIn content.

Content makes it easier for me to start conversations.

It’s important for me that I either enjoy the content and its consequences or find it fulfilling.

I don’t talk openly about my personal life, family or challenges. Something I agreed with my wife when I started publishing content.

Instead, I show all of myself in my words - quirks and all. So that if we ever speak in real life, there isn’t much of a disconnect.

Start with other people’s content

Find content writers who inspire you and use them as a catalyst for your own words.

There are two ways to do this.

Firstly, if you’re thinking about writing on LinkedIn, you are presumably already reading content.

What inspires you? What do you enjoy reading? Which authors resonate with your career, your values, your goals and the problems you solve?

When you read their content, do you engage and comment? Do you connect with them? Do you ask them who they recommend as writers in your field?

Secondly, look within.

What do you want to be known for in your career?

Maybe it’s procurement or your CIPD membership. React or agile. 5 Whys or Gemba.

If these are areas that interest you, use the LinkedIn search bar to find posts on these topics.

Now filter the results by ‘Posts’ and ‘Sort by’ latest.

Read through the results both for posts that interest you and those that have high engagement (less likely on a niche topic).

When you’ve found inspiring content, what next ?

One first step in content creation is to respond to these posts with your own ideas. Less ‘Agree’ and more how you might respond in a real-life conversation on this topic.

Commenting on other people’s posts is a good way to find your voice, particularly if the conversation continues.

Like any skill, writing takes practice, and comments are a low-friction way of developing your tone.

If a comment sparks interest from other readers, it can be a concept to build on as a post in its own right.

The other benefit of this kind of niche content is that those who engage are likely to have similar interests to you.

Make sure to read other comments and see if there are more conversations to be had.

The comments you build with them can be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship.

Check out their profiles - do their interests and values reflect yours?

These are people to connect with, then DM to continue the conversation.

Check out their posting history, which will be available on their profile - there may well be a lot of interesting content to absorb.

With conversation comes content. Ideas and discussion that grow are an effective way to share your voice.

Here’s a suggestion for how you can do this in practice:

Look for 5 posts daily that interest you professionally - manually, using a search, or checking what your valuable connections are up to
Engage and comment on each
Check out new relevant profiles - connect and follow their content
On each post, look at who is engaging and respond naturally
Try to connect with 5 new relevant people from these interactions
Perhaps follow up with a message
Take note of the most interesting conversations and at the end of the week pick at least one to inspire your own posts
You don’t need to publish them if you aren’t comfortable - save for later if not

I’d avoid the viral content that combines relevance + relatability + entitlement + readability. These writers are more interested in engagement numbers than your specific interest.

You can see the truth of their words in how they respond in the comments sections.

From a marketing perspective, different types of content have different places in your lead generation:

Awareness
Interest
Consideration
Evaluation
Purchase

Each post, comment, DM and real-life conversation can relate to these steps and support your goals, even if you aren’t treating these as a marketing activity.

Time and time again

There’s a lot of investigation into optimal times to post. It’s more important that you are available to reply attentively in the first hour.

The course of a post is often dictated by the performance during this time.

I actively reply to comments for around an hour a day with LinkedIn on in the background of other work.

How much time can you set aside per week and per day for content?

Even if you only write a couple of posts a week, this will probably take a couple of hours.

You can expect low performance initially, with some exceptions, as it takes time to build inertia.

Set aside a sustainable amount of time each week and commit to it over a period - try for 10-12 weeks and track how things have developed.

You may find it becomes an enjoyable task. Try not to get distracted by engagement for its own sake and keep your goals in mind.

Types of content to try

Engagement on LinkedIn is built primarily on relevance and relatability. Even ragebait, given it drives strong feeling.

You can write a 100% relatable post that everyone takes relevance from and see massive engagement. Though that engagement may not serve your goals.

Or you can write a post that is 100% relevant to the problems you solve in your career, and the people who will find it relevant are from a small niche facing the same problems.

This is why a photo of you with your dog will fly, while a carefully thought out post about the optimisation of widgets in a byzantine setting will appear to be shouting into a void.

Or you can blend the two through storytelling, pivoting observations into business content, and copywriting formulae like AIDA (attention interest desire action) and PAS (problem agitation solution).

Everyone will have different forms of content that will be effective for them.

What do you want your ideal readers to experience?

What would ‘you five years ago’ would find helpful?

Do you want readers to see you as a credible expert?

Someone who is authentically vulnerable?

Your warts and all personality?

Someone who stands out in a sea of competition?

Someone who is thought-provoking, helpful, or altruistic?

The answers are much the same if you posed these questions of interviewing.

This is no coincidence, given your message should be consistently delivered no matter where it is received.

With that in mind, here are some content ideas you can try:

How you might solve a problem specific to your industry
Stories from your everyday life
The challenges in your job search
Observations on a news story and how it relates to your work
A flair post highlighting your availability
Asking for thoughts on an idea you are interested in
Sharing insight you find fascinating, whether that’s films, video games, science or sport
Stories from your career where you can show growth (everyone loves a hero’s journey)
Business frameworks, processes and techniques you find useful - Pomodoro Technique, scientific method, STAR, what do you use?
Equipment you use for work
Developments in your workplace and culture
Thoughts on content you find inspiring
Memes, humour, satire

Google content ideas for LinkedIn or ask ChatGPT, Claude and others.

I wouldn’t use AI to write articles. I do use them for ideation and to sense check.

‘Write me a post for LinkedIn that shows the link between Tesla cars and how to develop an HR strategy.’

The vulnerability of writing

You can be a content creator without ever publishing a post if you continue conversations through comments, connections, DMs and real-life.

This avoids sticking your head above the parapets and is low risk, but misses the gain of publishing your own content.

I know that some people are held back for fear of failure. I can tell you that clicking ‘send’ is always a high point of anxiety for me in sending newsletters. Imagine how I felt when I clicked Publish for this book.

What’s the worst that can happen with a carefully thought-out post?

Tumbleweed?

If no one reads it, you can always post it again another time.

Disagreement?

Loads of people disagree on my posts - you’ll see from my comments that I am always constructive in my dialogue and typically this supports the intent of my post.

Everyone has an opinion and they are welcome to theirs - as long as it’s constructive, there is always a learning opportunity.

Trolls?

These people exist and will at some point rear their ugly heads. I imagine them naked on the Underground, which takes the sting out of their vitriol. I’m sure it’s their unhappiness that drives their behaviour.

Marriage requests?

Unfortunately, dubious and toxic behaviour isn’t uncommon.

Don’t be afraid to block and report if you receive harmful messages.

As long as you are constructive in what you write and you work to build a conversation, it’s unlikely anything bad will happen. You will open yourself up to the opportunity of new relevant people starting conversations with you:

hiring managers, recruiters, peers, fellow job seekers, and friendly strangers.

Weight and depth of opinion

A couple of years ago, I had a message from an out-of-work Sales Director asking for some feedback.

He’d shot a video for LinkedIn where he talked about why he should be snapped up and received a lot of praise for the post. However, he was confused because a CEO he trusts told him it was poor and made him look boring.

He knew I’d give him unvarnished feedback, which was what he needed to find some clarity on what had happened.

Truthfully, the CEO was correct.

What had happened?

All of the positive engagement was from fellow job seekers and people who wanted to support him. That he’d done it was praiseworthy in itself and was rightly celebrated, rather than the quality of what he had produced.

None of them had hiring authority or were in a career similar to someone who would be his line manager.

The video didn’t show him how he comes across in person either.

While the positive feedback was fantastic for validation, his video worked against him. What might happen if a hiring process thought his video was boring when the role being recruited for has persuasion as a key requirement?

I’m pleased to say his redo was excellent, showing off his charisma while delivering the same message.

Who can you rely on to be this CEO for you in your career?

Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months.

Starting cold on LinkedIn can take time to get traction.

When your first post bombs you might never think to do a second.

Going in with the expectation of little impact for the first three to six months is healthy in making a sustainable habit.

If you’re out of work though, three to six months may seem too far off to be worthwhile when there are many activities that offer a quick turnaround, such as applying for jobs.

I’ve spoken to many job seekers who’ve been out of work for more than six months and had decided not to write content at the outset of their search.

If they had, they might now be seeing the benefit of their work.

Better use of job boards

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 13:41:12 GMT

On Tuesday 28th April at 1pm BST, Simon Ward and I will be joined on our weekly LinkedIn Live by CV Library.

I'll share the details of this free interactive session as soon as the event link is available - bring your questions.

If you don't know CV Library it's one of the main job boards in the UK. While they might sit behind others in terms of coverage, I find them easy to work with and helpful - they are responsive, they have fewer fake jobs than LinkedIn, they have a CV database I can search across that is in many ways more effective than #OpenToWork.

They'll be showing how to get a better mileage from their CV database, as a job seeker, and many other helpful things - points you can apply to LinkedIn too, as an inbound sources of recruiter searches and the principles we use to look for viable candidates.

It seems timely to share this updated chapter from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) , which I will no doubt update with learnings from the session.

38 - Better use of job boards

Job boards are often the first port of call when new to a job search.

It’s a natural inclination that they are where vacancies are to be found. Quickly followed by disappointment, anxiety and frustration when you get close to 0% hit rate.

And not even a single reply.

Let’s take a step back, look at the overall picture and make a plan.

There are many job boards in the UK that sell their systems to employers and recruitment agencies.

You may be familiar with Indeed, Reed, CV Library, Jobsite / Totaljobs, LinkedIn (yes, it is a job board, disguised by being a social media platform).

Aside from the generic, there are also many sites specific to your niche. As well as ATS platforms themselves.

Job boards sell two things to their clients - advertising and access to their CV database.

Although LinkedIn differs in how it is wrapped up with content and networking, it does have a form of CV database in how we can use the Recruiter Licence to search profiles (we can even make do without through more advanced techniques such as X-ray searching and programmable search engines).

There are also aggregator websites which scrape content from one job board to their own or a third party. You can often tell because when you click apply it takes you to another website instead of properly starting an application.

Job board priorities and what that means for you

Job boards want to sell their services and make money, which is entirely sensible.

To support their argument they use all sorts of metrics such as the number of CVs on their database and the number of applications made (by job or month).

It’s to their advantage that adverts receive as many applications as possible - their advice on improving advert performance is geared around volume. Rather than around suitable candidates.

This disconnect happens because clients often lie about how effective adverts have been by the measure of vacancies filled - because of concern it will affect renewal prices. This is feedback given to me from account managers at two different job boards when researching job search advice. Job boards can only prove the number of applications, so that becomes the target.

The most effective job adverts have fewer applications and a higher number of suitable candidates - what I aim for in mine.

To maximise the number of applications they do things like scraping, aggregation and affiliate arrangements.

They offer services like automatic relisting where an advert is reposted as new once a week throughout the term of the listing (could be up to 6 weeks by default, or longer by choice).

These are sold as benefits to employers which might help when there are limited candidates, yet often hinder when there are too many candidates for jobs.

You may remember the same from Fake jobs (p81).

They make it as Easy as possible for you to Apply for these jobs, so that you can be an additional metric.

As Goodhart says, ‘When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’

The consequence for you as an applicant is twofold.

You are encouraged to be one of the numbers of applicants to purposefully generic adverts you are not the most suitable for.

When you are the most suitable, you are in competition both with people from the line above and people who are wholly unsuitable.

I should point out I don’t think job boards do this cynically. They do so because they think high numbers are best.

It’s also a problem for recruiters who may find it impossible to deal with this volume unless through automation or by finding ways to manually eliminate applications at scale.

Job boards, employers, agencies and candidates are all wrapped up in this cycle of speed and volume. And with use of AI-style automation, so too are many job seekers. Where's the specificity and accuracy?

Though it might be the best way to make money.

Job seekers are accountable too, partly because of how they have been trained to apply.

Don’t blame recruiters.

Don’t blame employers.

Don’t blame unqualified applicants.

Blame the system we are all part of.

And if you ever find yourself a hiring authority - be the change you hope for.

Better use of job boards

Let’s go back to that point about applications.

In the current market, it’s not uncommon to see hundreds to thousands of applications per vacancy.

Rarely are those applications qualified candidates.

For a typical job description templated advert you can expect the high majority of applicants to be wholly unsuitable.

What do I mean by wholly unsuitable?

People who require work permits when a role doesn’t sponsor them.

People who don’t meet the minimum requirements set out in an advert.

People who are clearly unsuitable for this role.

When you see a number, don’t be disheartened by the number alone.

As a job seeker, your minimum requirement to apply for a vacancy should be that you can logically prove to yourself you are qualified based on the evidence provided. Read back through Should I customise my CV? (p178) for more on this.

… tips and bits

Finding vacancies is as important as applying for them. Collect those synonyms you’ve been tailoring your CV with and use these in your searches.

If you find an obscure term which represents what you can do, why not search solely on that term?

You might find a horribly written advert whose only correct word is that term.

It’s a trick we use to find candidates too - occasionally I might search on something like ‘egnieer’ because typos don’t make a bad candidate.

Location is a key search criterion.

Most people search from their home address. How about running tight searches where you are prepared to work - e.g. 1 mile from CB4 0WZ (a hub for business parks in Cambridge where I worked many moons ago).

How to optimise for CV databases

When you apply for a vacancy on a new job board they will likely have a CV database tethered to your application.

Your permission to have your CV added may be hidden in their terms and conditions.

A CV database is an opportunity for you to be found.

Sometimes this will be for vacancies that are never advertised, such as the example I wrote about earlier.

You have an opportunity to leverage CV databases to improve the number of inbound enquiries you receive.

Log all the job boards you’ve applied through
Make a list of all that have CV databases, including login details
Ensure your CV is up to date containing the keywords for the job you are most suitable for
Check your contact details are correct
Check all the details on your account. Salary details, location, preferences should all be current.
Register your postcode for where you want to be found. If you plan to move to Scunthorpe in April, that should be your current location. It’s where we will look for you
Update your CV and profiles once a week. It shouldn’t take long. If you are active in the past week, this will show up in recruiter searches, assuming a recruiter only looks at activity from the past 14 days

The CV databases at the back end of job boards are one of the resources I use to fill roles whether advertised or not. They’re a good marginal gain and may bring you leads you’d never hear about otherwise.

A note on the ATS

Whenever you come across an advert linked to an ATS like Workable, many companies will use that ATS. These may recruit for relevant vacancies in a commutable location.

Try this command in Google -

site: workable.com London “Marketing Manager”

Site: directs the search to a particular website. Change the location and job title to ones relevant for you.

Some of these vacancies may never make it to a job board you are aware of.

Why you should hack LinkedIn advert results

URLs (website page addresses) are a funny thing - they often contain commands for a website related to your requests.

Changing certain points can have interesting results.

For example, here’s a URL for a job search for Marketing Manager near me over the past 24 hours:

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search-results/?f_TPR=r86400&keywords=Marketing%20Manager&origin=JOBS_HOME_SEARCH_BUTTON

Don’t worry about the bulk of the URL. Take note of the bold - r86400 which matches seconds in a day.

Let’s say you log on at 9.30am and you want to check jobs posted in the last hour. This feature isn’t available as standard in the search tools.

However, you can edit the URL from a standard search to:

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search-results/?f_TPR=r3600&keywords=Marketing%20Manager&origin=JOBS_HOME_SEARCH_BUTTON

Because there are 3,600 seconds in an hour. Try it and see what happens.

(Edit: in error checking for this article, originally updated in January, this particular ‘hack’ no longer appears to work. Why not try it yourself on a job you’re interested in and let me know if it works for you? I’ll update this properly for the next book update. I've left it here to show how this kind of tactical advice can change so quickly as to make it obsolete.

Next week's article is on Content Strategy & Philosophy for promoting yourself on LinkedIn. Call it personal branding, call it copywriting - expect some people to jump on with strong opinions without reading the article)

A social superpower - the big truth about little lies

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:36:11 GMT

(With luck she won't sue me for copyright infringement)

I was reminded about the imperative to lie at times, when commenting on a post about namism this week.

Namism is discrimination against uncommon names, with proof that a change of name improves the likelihood of getting an interview from an application.

A lie that mitigates the worst behaviour in a recruitment process seems reasonable behaviour to me.

What follows is an article released around the same time as my sister's book, as a tribute to her fine work.

At the time I planned to call it "Nothing but the truth" the name she refused to use, because her publisher told her negative titles don't sell - he clearly hasn't seen a Bond film.

Instead, I went for a House quote, "Everybody lies", because like it or not, everybody does.

June 2023

At the end of her speech, my sister made a simple request:

“Put your hand in the air if you’ve lied today.”

Only one person didn’t put their hand up – me.

Lying’s not in my nature, except in a couple of specific situations where no harm is caused.

You can believe that or not, up to you.

The earlier part of the speech touched on all those little moments in our lives where we tell a little lie, either to ourselves or someone else.

Sometimes it’s to protect feelings. Sometimes to protect ourselves.

Sometimes it’s to keep up the narrative of how we are perceived because we don’t want to share our secret selves.

It was a great launch for a book on how society doesn’t just put up with lies to function, it may even rely on them.

She interviewed a wide range of experts on lying including spies and toddler scientists, showed how the face can lie, and talked about her amnesia and what it was like to be in the closet.

She didn’t interview me about recruitment, so I’m putting that right today.

Lies are rampant everywhere you look in recruitment.

In a survey last year, 51% of respondents admitted to lying on their CVs.

I expect the true number to be higher, considering some won’t even admit a lie to themselves.

It’s common to extrapolate behaviour from what we experience. One lie may lead to more, and that may be the only reason you need to reject a candidate.

Not all lies are born equal.

Broadly I differentiate them between lies of impact, lies to protect, and lies of inconsequence.

A lie of impact is one which leads to a decision based on that lie.

Here an example would be John Andrewes , who lied about his experience and qualifications to land a top NHS job.

He was jailed for 2 years and required to pay £100k, the remainder of his assets.

Fraud.

Or lying about reasons for departure – they say redundancy, they meant gross misconduct.

Misrepresenting capability and qualifications.

Mispresenting a role to make it more appealing.

£Competitive salary, when you meant lowball to get a deal.

The lies we should find and cull at the earliest opportunity.

A lie to protect can be many things.

I remember an HR candidate early in my career who changed her name twice. It was highly suspicious to me at the time.

“Apunanwu Oluwayo” became “Apunanwu Roberts” became “Judith Roberts”.

This first change suggested a marriage or divorce. The second I couldn’t fathom.

What a liar, 2005 Greg thought.

Of course, now I know better.

It’s likely she changed her name to a British one because she suffered from namism – one report indicates candidates are 60% less likely to receive a call-back with a foreign-sounding name.

Despite my ignorance, I gave Judith the benefit of the doubt and invited her to interview.

You can see why blind CVs are a fair measure to prevent this happen, although I wonder if it’s better to treat the illness rather than rely on palliative measures.

How about not disclosing identifiable education for the same reasons?

What about disability and neurodivergence?

If a condition requires an accommodation to fulfil a role, is non-disclosure a lie by omission?

Another could be lying about reasons for departure – they said ‘left to focus on a job search’, they meant they couldn’t put up with a harmful environment any longer.

A lie of protection, which isn’t one of impact, should be clarified but, in my opinion, not penalised without investigation.

The lie above is one of protection – I changed the names to protect the individual, one of the situations in which I will lie deliberately, with good reason.

How about a lie of inconsequence?

By this I mean a lie that doesn’t impact employability, reflect capability or have any bearing on what that person is like to work with.

Examples here might be fudging employment dates to prevent the question “Why were you unemployed for 2 days in 2012?”

Or perhaps they might say People Business Partner on their CV, which they fulfilled functionally, yet had a misrepresentative job title of Operations Manager.

Sometimes what seem to be lies of impact, might be lies of inconsequence:

I once had a candidate withdraw from an interview.

Aladdin said his father had passed away, and he had decided to suspend his job search.

I spoke to the hiring manager, Jaffar, and said “This smacks of lying” principally because of a change in behaviour that didn’t seem related to grief, and the very high mortality rate candidates sometimes experience throughout recruitment.

It was a tough vacancy to fill, so we made a plan. Jaffar would contact him directly a couple of weeks after, to check in and see if he fancied a pint.

We put our suspicion aside, while also considering how he might have perceived his relationship with me.

Long story short Aladdin took the job and was there for eight years. He gave me a lovely recommendation too.

I’m pleased to say his father made a full recovery.

While this appears to be a lie of impact, it’s actually one of inconsequence.

He lied because he didn’t feel safe telling me he was having second thoughts. That’s on me, because it is my job to create a safe space for candidates so that they trust me and tell me inconvenient truths.

It’s not dissimilar to the hilariously high rate of car breakdowns in recruitment.

Have we considered our part in that lie?

These three types of lies are a gross simplification to paint the picture.

Our perception of lying is highly subjective, and there is no one right answer.

I think it’s understandable to feel a lie is a dealbreaker.

For lies of impact, this should be the case.

For other lies though, perhaps a judgment call is better than an assumption. Why did that person lie? Could it even be something we did?

Does that lie really matter?

And if it does matter – how many times have you lied in the same way today?

The next eminently-an-epistole is on technical debt in recruitment, and why we should consider the long-term impact of a short-term compromise.

Regards,

Greg

P.s. if you’re interested in Kathleen’s book, you can read about it here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Superpower-Truth-About-Little-ebook/dp/B09MDWNL44

LinkedIn profiles that convert

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:38:08 GMT

What follows is Chapter 37 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) .

I expect you've read and heard many arguments about how important is to have a discoverable LinkedIn profile - one where recruiters can find you for their vacancies, including the ones that aren't advertised.

Indeed, when you hit the market, your LinkedIn profile is one of the first activities you should try and get right - because your job search can optimise for inbound leads before you think about anything else.

Yet a lot of the focus is on getting found, and there's a consequence to this that I think is worse than not getting found at all: the recruiter who reads your profile for an ideal vacancy and decides not to contact you.

And because Recruiter Licence accesses your data in a different way to the platform you use, you'll never know.

So this Chapter is the direct follow up to LinkedIn Profiles that Get Found , one which aims to convert an invisible reader to someone that contacts you for legitimate reasons. I'm going to be updating that chapter soon, with some additional findings, such as why your headline doesn't carry quite as much weight as you might think.

I should point out, as a recruiter I am quite happy for you to have a weak profile, given it means I am more likely to find you through rigour, if others rely on well specified information.

For example tomorrow I will be setting up an interview for someone who has 1 LinkedIn connection and only a job title and company name - nothing else. He came up for me because his job title matched my search, and I used an industry term in the "Company Name" section - an approach that is common for employers in that niche industry.

But as I always say - it's better to help the weakest link in the chain see you as a viable candidate because same work helps everyone.

37 - LinkedIn profiles that convert

An Amazon (job) search

When I buy a commodity item on Amazon there are two stages to my buying process.

I know what I want and I have to find an acceptable shortlist of possibilities. Only then do I assess and decide on what to buy.

As a sweaty runner that clocks up 50-60km a week, I burn through Bluetooth headphones regularly.

I’m also deaf in one ear and can’t tell the difference in higher quality sound.

My context is a little different to the normal buyer although likely no more different than most buyers are from each other.

A search on ‘Bluetooth headphones’ brings up over 2,000 results, which is hardly manageable. I change the search to ‘waterproof Bluetooth headphones’, and filter by:

£15-£30, in ear, Prime, running.

125 results. Much better.

Now I scan down the list and I ignore Sponsored. I’m not sure why.

Click on the first one with a relevant headline promising 50hrs playtime and skim past all the marketing twaddle. Who cares what they say - what do their buyers think?

I go straight to the three-star reviews because they are generally good with caveats.

One of the three-star reviews says they were offered a discount to change it to five. That’s BS that turns me right off.

I click through a few more products and buy one. The decent guarantee swung it for me.

I didn’t get past the first 40 results.

Now think about your own commodity purchases, where you have to do differing levels of research to get what you need.

What kind of search criteria do you use?

How do you filter?

What informs your decision to buy?

Perhaps you already know what you want to buy, having researched buyer guides, YouTube videos and user forums, and are just sourcing the best price.

Or maybe you need something adequate, and literally anything above an acceptable threshold will do - 5 minutes and done.

These are examples of a buyer’s journey across a transactional process.

Which isn’t far removed from how recruiters might search for candidates.

On LinkedIn and other channels.

Bringing it back to your job search

LinkedIn and Amazon - what’s the difference?

In a hiring process, they are both volume, transactional marketplaces that allow searches and filters to create an appropriate shortlist to read through.

As with a product on Amazon, your LinkedIn profile is one of many that fit similar criteria and might be found at any stage in a recruitment process.

From a search through the Recruiter Licence
A hiring manager reading more on a shortlisted candidate
Their boss researching you at final interview
Out of curiosity from a comment or post you wrote
Checking it out on receipt of an application
Because you were recommended
Because you worked at a certain company

In the same way customers might visit a product page on Amazon, so too might someone hiring visit your profile.

This means that it doesn’t have to just stand on its own merits, it has to corroborate and support any other documentation a reader might have come across:

Your CV or application
Your LinkedIn posts and comments
Something you did that’s in the public domain - an interview, video, article

Where there’s a conflict, such as an overly customised CV that contradicts your LinkedIn profile - that can be a problem.

Assuming your contents all support each other, the aim is to prompt an action.

Unlike an Amazon purchase, you aren’t expecting a sale, simply for the right people to start a conversation that meets your goals.

To convert interest into an action, first, you have to be found.

Think about an Amazon product page and the process you go through to buy - what do you typically read and in which order?

It’s probably something like <home page - search - list of product headlines>. My reading journey on a product page is <headline - price - delivery - three star reviews - buy now>.

How does your profile page cater to the reading psychology of a recruiter?

While a recruiter likely has access to the Recruiter Licence, you won’t. I’ll write this in a way you can emulate as a standard or Premium Member.

A standard search might go across <home page - search - list of profile headlines>. Leading to this reading priority of someone who wants to read everything (!):

#Open to Work banner (your choice)
Headline
Banner
Location / Contact details (depending on connection and privacy settings)
Activity / Featured Section / About (the order depends on whether you have Creator mode or not)
Experience
Education
Projects
Skills
Recommendations

Unlike Amazon reviews, I rarely look at recommendations - if I’m still interested by that point, I’ll get in touch.

You can also download your profile as a PDF, which looks like a CV with contact details, headline, summary and experience.

In both your profile and the downloadable PDF, your headline and summary / About section are going to be read before your experience is.

This is where a lot of the decision to contact you will come from.

While the career section is important, if an attention-short reader doesn’t get that far, it won’t help convert interest.

An exercise to guide your approach to updating your profile

Imagine you have been promoted and are tasked with recruiting your replacement.

The rules are that you are only allowed to search for candidates on LinkedIn through your standard membership.

You have 10 minutes to run and scan through a search and 20 minutes to form a shortlist of 3 top candidates from the results.

Location and salary don’t matter for now.

It’s likely you’ll search on your job titles, job specific skills and qualifications.

What do the results look like?

Pick your three favourite profiles from the results.

Now compare them against your own profile, step by step.

Would you make your own shortlist based purely on the content?

If not, what is it about their profiles that is preferable and how can you emulate the same in yours?

What is it in their content that has converted you from being a passive reader to having them on your imaginary shortlist?

Actionable points to update your profile (and CV too)

You want people with hiring authority to look at your profile and want to contact you.

How can you help them see you as a candidate of choice?

1. A punchy headline that says what you do and how you can help. The first four words count - those Amazon product headlines. If you don’t read further than the first four words, you’ll never know what you missed. Check out how other people’s headlines look on your mobile phone when on their profile or if they are replying to a comment on a post - lead with relevance

2. Scrap ‘I help companies by’ because it’s meaningless. Start with your job title then add a flourish or context. ‘CTO - deep tech scale-up. Equity backed and privately owned. £20m to £120m in three years’

3. Your banner - it’s free advertising real estate. Use Canva; include your contact details in case a reader doesn’t have access through your account

4. Make it easy to contact you by phone or email. Put it in multiple spots

5. About section - who do you help and how? What are your key skills and achievements? Keep it concise and focused on your ideal audience - move away from the ‘responsibilities led’ approach to CVs that get copied onto LinkedIn. Show context

6. While your career section is further down and may not even be read, it should still be fully populated and credible

7. How can you highlight posts, videos and articles to support your candidacy? The Featured Section is a useful facility in Creator mode

8. Keywords. Recruiters search on keywords. Remember all the job adverts and required skills you’ve read - does your LinkedIn profile show these suitably? While these need to be true how might differing acronyms and terminology mean the same thing?

9. Personal branding. How can you showcase your personality in your words? Your About Section is a form of elevator pitch. While it highlights your professional credibility you can also show your personal qualities. What are you most passionate about or best at? Lead with that

10. It’s not about you. It’s about the needs of your reader - tell us what we need to know to make an informed decision on your candidacy. Answer the questions that we should have through your content

11. Keep it simple and authentic

12. If there’s something you want us to know, make it clear. This could be anything from the job you want, to part-time status, to highlighting a recommendation you are proud of

I've mentioned ‘CV too’ because the same principles that let you get found apply in all of your documentation - such as on an ATS, on a job board, or with a referral. And because an optimised LinkedIn profile is a further reason why you might not customise your CV (p178).

The pain mirror. Innovation from iteration, pt 7

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:31:14 GMT

One of the reasons I've always loved recruitment is because of systems thinking.

It's such a multifaceted business, built on marketing, sales, contextual analysis, psychology, copywriting and many other endeavours.

Many of which are fields built on replicable systems that we can apply to recruitment.

What are the systems that drive behaviour, opinions, decisions and action in recruitment?

Well of course psychology has a key part to play.

And isn't it just a little bit fascinating into how we can dig into what keeps people in jobs they shouldn't love?

Where they could substantively improve their lot by taking a brave decision to make change.

Why couldn't we instigate that change through recognising what prevents a decision, through simple messaging?

The pain mirror

March 2023

“I didn’t realise how unhappy I was until my husband told me,” commented a Strategic Marketing Manager, when she accepted an offer I put forward.

I encourage candidates to talk through an offer with their nearest and dearest, as much to allow objectivity, as for the mirror it holds to their emotions.

This isn’t the only time I’ve heard this from candidates, when reflecting on their role, before moving on to a new employer.

The psychology of ‘loyalty’, self-perception, behaviour and decisions is not discussed enough in recruitment.

Psychology that can inform how we approach, engage and build relationships with candidates, especially for those tricky vacancies with a niche requirement.

Three concepts to think about in exploring this, then practical takeaways:

1/ Stockholm Syndrome

A phenomenon in which hostages develop feelings of affection or loyalty towards their captors. Replace with employee and an employer who is demanding and stressful to work for.

2/ Region Beta Paradox

People are more likely to take action over a distressing situation than an acceptably bad one, even if the possible improvement for both is the same. Someone in a mediocre employment relationship is less likely to consider a career move than someone in a Very Bad Situation.

These two concepts are linked to 3/ Career inertia – you can be swept up in a career even if diverges from your core values and aspirations.

Anyone who has been made redundant, or put on furlough, has an opportunity to break this inertia and find something more aligned with who they want to be.

Perhaps that’s something you’ve experienced too.

What a great opportunity for recruiters to help candidates identify where they can break inertia and find a better path.

For anyone to consider a career move, they will need a ‘good enough reason’ and their situation will dictate what experiences they either need or will put up with.

Someone who is unemployed may place paying the bills over long-term happiness. They may put up with an acceptably bad recruitment process to get what they need.

Someone who thinks they are happily employed may place their self-perception and loyalty above the promise of something we think is better… even if it is. What does it take to engage them?

Of course, for many people, not moving jobs is the best decision they can make.

Something we should establish as recruiters as early as possible.

When there is ‘good enough reason’, it is individual to every candidate.

It’s the pain that needs healing and an illness they may not even have symptoms for.

Our job is to hold a mirror up to that pain so that they can identify it for themselves and take measures to rightly improve their lot.

It goes to follow that, in any recruitment endeavour, we can aim to understand the situations, needs and drivers of ideal candidates as a priority.

What’s in it for them? What Candidate Experience do they need?

Whether they might unknowingly suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, and whether they are in Region Beta.

As well as the inertia of a career that may or may not be taking them in the wrong direction.

Write a bad job advert and you’ll only appeal to people who either need a job or find their current situation bad enough to force change.

Who else will they be applying to? (Everyone)

Run a bad process, and candidates will stay in it only if its level of badness is acceptable.

The same goes for your “brilliant vacancy that matches your LinkedIn profile. Can you send me your CV in Word format?” outreach.

Shoddy will work in some situations, but not because of your words – in spite of your words, when situation forces action.

It’s easy to think that, when you appeal to candidates, the people you hear back from are the best available.

Yet if you haven’t given a candidate ‘good enough reason’, what reason do they even have to respond?

Do you even know what you don’t know?

I can tell you, that Marketing Manager at the top had seen my good enough advert and chose not to apply.

Hers was a great job that met her family needs, and this was a solution to a problem she hadn’t identified.

I knew she had chosen not to apply because I coincidentally called her, and during that conversation, we discussed the advert.

We had a great chat, and she said towards the end of the call “it does sound good, but I’m not sure it’s right for me”.

I asked her to think about it, and perhaps we should speak again on Monday. I also encouraged her to think critically about her current situation, as she divulged she knew she was not content, but couldn’t put her finger on why.

What had prompted her to read my advert in the first place?

Perhaps this wouldn’t be the right move, but the next one might be.

Anyway, she got the job – they made it bigger for her and £5k above budget. The MD tells me she is a future director, and she tells me she is enjoying it.

All because we got to the crux of pain she didn’t know she had.

Yes, the opposite holds true. If recruitment is easy and candidates are plenty, shoddy may be good enough, so why bother improving?

That’s what the unsubscribe button is for.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Overqualified - on feedback & discrimination

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 13:14:23 GMT

What follows is an updated version of Chapter 10 from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) .

I've made some additions around what it means to be overqualified, and why this doesn't always mean an employer is ageist.

I'm mindful that the market has been extremely tough for many over the past few years, disproportionately affecting more experienced (older) job seekers.

So it can be easy to assume that what may be practical business decisions may hide an ism. Yet, that's not always the full picture.

In this addition I show that the same advice I give to job seekers about keeping cards close to their chest increases risk of flight risk for employers.

This chapter challenges assumptions that are widely held for good reason: experienced workers have faced genuine discrimination. But as with the ATS mythology, incomplete narratives can lead to strategic missteps. What follows is the fuller picture, even where it's uncomfortable.

The newsletter format is ideal in this way, given I can update the book on the fly, and that even if I repeat releasing a chapter, it's only because there is significant new or changed information to share.

You'll get these chapters here first, with the 2027 edition due for release in the New Year. And don't worry - if you've already bought this year's edition, contact me when the new release is out and I'll send you a free digital version.

10 - On feedback and discrimination

Any fair and reasonable recruitment requires three criteria to be met in filling a vacancy: capability, fit and stick.

Capability answers the question, ‘Can you fulfil the needs of the vacancy?’

This relates to the immediate problems a vacancy solves and can include you being available in the right time frame.

This also includes other dimensions such as forward-planning - for example, looking at the next job as well as this one through succession planning, or having confidential plans that will affect this role in future.

I classify the wrong work permit here in the same way a lack of a hard minimum qualification can be a deal breaker.

If you aren’t seen to be able to fulfil the role, for whatever reason, this is a capability rejection.

The good thing about capability is that this is feedback which should be straightforward to give in an objective process.

Fit is whether you are perceived to fit in or add to the business, culture and team.

Stick is when you are perceived to remain in post long enough for the employer to see a return on their investment. This includes points like salary affordability and even location, if the employer doesn’t believe your commute is sustainable. And ‘flight risk’ for those considered overqualified.

Unlike capability, both these points are mainly subjective.

What even is a culture or a sustainable commute anyway?

Unfortunately, bias and assumptions are a common occurrence.

I say ‘fair and reasonable’ because some employers are not, and even fair and reasonable employers make unfair or unreasonable assumptions.

So - three reasons only, yet each comes together in unique ways, both for selection and rejection.

A typical process

In the market we’ve found ourselves in during the last few years, many vacancies have many candidates who meet all of those criteria above.

The sheer volume alone can make it hard to identify the right candidates, more so when applicants may not know how to make their candidacy discoverable.

By discoverable, I mean enabling the weakest link in a recruitment chain to see your suitability through the principles covered in Part Three.

Here is what a typical vacancy might look like, working backwards, in a 2-stage interview process from a public job advert:

One candidate offered the position
2-3 candidates at final interview
5-8 candidates at 1st stage interview
40-50 applicants who show suitable candidacy
Another 40-150 applicants who aren’t directly suitable yet have transferable skills
A further 150-200 applicants who are wholly unsuitable, which may be for reasons of work permit status or wrong background

That could be a total of 400 applications, where only one person gets the job.

Now let’s say those 5-8 candidates at 1st stage interview are all excellent, with little to choose between them.

What separates those who are selected and those who are declined?

You might be a qualified candidate. What’s to say the others aren’t as qualified in their own ways, some of whom might be more suited?

Sometimes it’s such fine margins that feedback may be meaningless.

I use this example to set the scene - there are other approaches to recruitment, such as headhunting, where the numbers look different.

I expect if you are reading this, you have at some point battled your way through a competitive process. If you were ‘pipped to the post’ as a 2nd choice candidate, take solace in being 2nd out of possibly hundreds - that’s an effective performance to build on.

When feedback goes wrong

If you’ve ever worked in a hiring capacity, you may know that giving feedback can be fraught with consequences.

Some years back, an early lesson on what can happen was a conversation I had with a candidate for an HR Director role.

This was a maternity leave contract. He was a close 2nd to a strong candidate. There wasn’t anything he might have done differently and, had that candidate declined, they would have been pleased to offer him the position.

He took the news and my feedback well, and we agreed to speak again at the earliest opportunity.

The following morning, I had a call from the HR Director, who was aghast. She’d received a vitriol-filled email from the candidate after my conversation with him. Accusations, ill wishes and swear words aimed at a professional who was heavily pregnant.

Even with the best intentions, seemingly good people can be triggered to act abhorrently.

Given that feedback may seemingly overlap with discrimination areas, such as being overqualified, it's no wonder many companies choose to either give platitudes or not to give feedback at all.

Generic feedback

These all tether to the list at the top, either directly or in a way that doesn’t cause issues.

What feedback would you give to someone that is abrasive or offensive at interview?

How about someone with atypical body language or communication style?

Someone who is down in the dumps?

Someone who likes cricket when you like football?

Someone who is arrogant and blind to the damage they’ve caused in previous jobs?

Someone who is a maintenance mode manager in an environment of rapid change?

Some of these descriptions relate to people who are illegally discriminated against, others to people who are simply unpleasant, and many more.

‘ Cultural fit’ may sometimes be the straightforward way to explain a decision.

An easy way out with an individual you shouldn’t employ, something that hides poor process, something that hides discrimination, or something else.

And sometimes a simple way not to hurt someone’s feelings.

Whatever the reason, the worst it can invite is frustration for the candidate, rather than specific feedback which opens a can of worms.

Let’s talk about overqualified.

A popular social media post is that it’s impossible to be overqualified.

The more accurate truth is that there are only two states - you are either qualified or not qualified for a vacancy.

You are qualified if you meet the measure of capability, stick and fit.

You are unqualified if you don’t meet all three.

The use of the word overqualified is a lazy fallback that creates problems unnecessarily in a fair and reasonable process.

The common perception is that overqualification relates to seniority, a level of expertise above the requirements for the role, expense or even age, and this can be true. But these aren’t necessarily the reasons behind the use of the word.

The real issue with the word is its ambiguity.

Hidden context

When I recruit for any vacancy, there is typically a context not visible in the employer’s job description. This might be kept back for an interview or remain forever trapped in their heads.

One example might be the role trajectory - how it will change over time.

It might be a salary budget that has the balance of the team in mind.

It might be that the role won’t change at all. From a retention perspective, more junior candidates have more room to grow before it becomes blindingly boring to them.

Or it could be that the role is hands-on. A strategic expertise may be too far removed.

These might not be articulated clearly yet can be fair selection criteria for declining a candidate - where the recruiter might say overqualified instead.

By identifying these points, I can make them clear in my adverts and conversations, and applicants aren’t left bemused by decisions from hidden information.

And when I am wrong in my decision, I welcome constructive disagreement to allow clarity.

The examples here are simplified - the devil is always in the detail.

In most adverts and job descriptions, this key hidden context is often missing, making overqualified hard feedback to take.

I’d be annoyed if given that from an application to a generic job description-led advert full of innovative adjectives and no insight.

Regrettably, overqualified can also used to hide discrimination.

‘Flight risk’ is a reason for declining a candidate that is often bundled with overqualified.

“We think you’ll get bored.” Is intended to take the sting off, complimenting the candidate on their capability. It feels anything but, given candidates interview with intent and all available facts at their disposal.

Yet, if you consider that one of the primary decision drivers in recruitment is risk, is there a legitimate concern here.

There is a common long term thought process in a tough job search.

The first is to compromise and consider why more junior jobs might be sustainable. Maybe it will let you focus on the work you enjoy without the baggage of further responsibility.

Then if you were to gain the job, simply to be open minded about better opportunities that might be presented to you.

Who knows what the future might bring, and you are likely to commit to this junior role long-term.

Should that better opportunity present itself, you simply make an informed decision based on new information that presents itself.

This is advice I give to job seekers who are offered a more junior job.

Yet, with my recruitment hat on, over the past 2 years, I’ve never seen so many people leave recently taken jobs for better opportunities.

Where the employer had “given them a chance”, something any job seeker wants, then lost that colleague with all the disruption it entails.

This includes referring a friend to a peer, when they were desperate to leave their job. They’d even have taken minimum wage so bad was their current situation. My peer, following a two interview process, gave them a decent offer, only for them to accept a counter offer shortly after.

I wish my friend well – he made the best decision that he could. Yet I have let my peer down through the value of that referral – personal equity.

And my peer has let their hiring manager down through the same.

These things happen – a common phrase in recruitment. Yet, every time a risk actually happens, it makes it harder to consider that risk in future.

What these types of feedback have in common is that they can mean fair, neutral and unfair (and possibly illegal) reasons for declining your application.

Unless you have evidence of the harmful connotation, you should assume there is fair reason.

Here’s another common reason to unpick - industry experience.

Not so much to discuss whether it’s right to reject someone on this basis.

More so because it’s often a rejection that happens after an interview process, leading to the common question,

‘Why did they waste my time, when they knew I didn’t have industry experience?’

Industry experience is an example of how selection criteria shift throughout a recruitment process.

This might be because of the hierarchy of decision-makers. It’s not uncommon for additional decision-makers to become involved late in the process, who may have a strong objection that wasn’t present earlier.

Or how tight calls are judged between candidates.

The closer you get to the offer stage, the fewer candidates you compete with. What weren’t issues before can become decision-making factors at the final hurdle, everything else being even.

Is feedback worth it?

Feedback can be a game changer, particularly when we help candidates overcome blind spots, improve how they play the game, and deliver a better interview.

It’s always worth asking for feedback or ways to improve your performance. If that answer isn’t forthcoming, I’d question whether it’s worth pursuing, or if that energy is better spent elsewhere.

Assuming you perform well at interview, the question to consider is - when has feedback made a difference to you?

If feedback doesn’t make a difference you should act on, is it worth worrying about?

Or is it healthier to draw a line through that application, and move forward?

What can you do instead?

Self-reflection is key. After an interview, think back on the areas you did well and what you might have done differently.

For problem questions, write them down and think of better answers for future reference.

For questions you felt you answered well - run through them with a friend and ask them to time your response. Waffling never helps.

If you find yourself BSing, ask why. Was it a lack of confidence, rusty knowledge, or a gap to overcome?

Did you prepare well enough?

If answers aren’t coming from elsewhere, look within.

How can you better show that you solve the employer’s problems, through your capability, fit and stick?

How to bury a body. Innovation from iteration, pt 5

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:27:55 GMT

What follows is dated in some ways and never more relevant in others.

Originally published in January 2023, pretty much a month after ChatGPT was launched and E formalised.

What E? "Experience", part of EEAT in how Google prioritises quality of content for organic search rankings.

Here it means that content is written by people who have depth of experience in what they claim expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.

Trustworthiness has never been more important, with what's changed in content in the past 3 years.

Something I find lost when wading through the vast amount of quiet signals in LinkedIn AI content.

Something increasingly hard to find in the rising wave of Candidate Resentment , as job seekers wade through conflicting advice and seek succour in beating the ATS bots.

And ironically, in that last point, advice from people who often don't have Experience in any recruitment.

EEAT is a mechanism for improving how the words of your recruitment process rank with the candidates you want to employ, when they compare you to others on the market.

Such as the 12th generic advert of 37, a sloppier communication process than your competitor, or neglecting to show why someone should entertain a conversation with you.

It may not be a ranking factor outside of google, yet they've formed it based on their understanding of what consumers should need from content. The same question we must pose of our recruitment.

I find we are in a time of low trust, and this has to be the priority, flowing from Experience, Expertise and Authority.

The solution for trustworthiness for me, is to place trust in the people we want to bring forwards. Through finding the right balance of radical candour and appropriate transparency, and through simple steps like clearly describing your recruitment process, responding to candidates and listing the salary.

As with previous articles, I leave this intact for posterity, warts and all.

January 2023

I’m sure we all have Google searches we’d prefer didn’t show up in our browsing history.

And while you may not think of researching how to hide a body, no doubt when you have run searches you’ve played around with keywords to get the best results.

Maybe you’ve even surfed job boards looking for a (“HR Manager” or “Head of Personnel” or “People Partner”) or some such Boolean string / semantic search, knowing full well there can be ambiguity in nomenclature.

I don’t know about you, but when I see a page of search results, I’ll typically ignore the paid ads, and dodgy-looking links, then skim down to find headlines that most closely match my intent.

Take my research for this article – “what are the pillars of SEO”?

Crikey the results are confusing, with anything from 3 to 900 key pillars on which you must build your SEO, before requiring me to buy their stuff.

And ChatGPT is unavailable for comment.

Yet each has the common pillars which search engines prioritise to boost those sites’ rankings:

1/ user experience

2/ EAT – expertise, authority and trustworthiness

Interesting isn’t it that a company (Google; YMMV) that spends a huge amount of money on their internet technology and makes £billions from securing users into their ecosystem place emphasis on what is written, how it’s written and how it’s experienced by the reader.

While companies who trade on the internet build their websites around the rules set by those same search engines.

Do they do this because expertise, authority, trustworthiness and experience are nice to have, or do they do it because of the commercial benefit?

Yes, yes, there are technical elements to SEO from web page optimisation, to backlinks, to tools and processes like Ahrefs and SEMrush, to meta tags and so on.

But think about your own internet searches. Which websites do you trust and why?

I’ve no doubt these four content elements have an impact, and with good experience you’ll come back for more.

You can boost the search rankings of a website solely by writing good landing pages, informative blogs with the right content, becoming an expert others ask for content from (driving more people to your own content).

All for the consequence of shifting product.

What happens if we apply those content pillars to recruitment?

Let’s consider that people may come across you because they are interested in a <job title> which you either have now, have had or will have in future. They’ve become aware of you because of the potential of you being a viable employer at some point.

The point of applying these SEO principles is that, when you are ready to hire, and they are open to considering such a vacancy, you’ve done the leg work so that your content sets them in the right direction.

I’d start by asking these questions of any content you may have:

Does it show expertise? Do you know your stuff?
Does it show authority? Or are you hoping for a bite?
Does it build trust? Or is it promises promises with no substance?
What does the reader experience of these words?

What content you ask?

Your job adverts
Job descriptions
Career page
ATS
LinkedIn posts, comments and connection requests
Videos and webinars
Interview confirmations
Communications, written, verbal and in person
Employment contract

These latter points may be ‘in process’ yet why wouldn’t you show trustworthiness and authority, or improve their journey and experience?

Any piece of content someone you may wish to employ, or otherwise work with, comes across is an opportunity.

Of course, I’ve written about similar topics before while discussing the commercial benefit of good candidate experience, conversion rate optimisation (CRO - fundamentally linked to SEO) and last week on branding.

Yet while they are similar topics, with overlap, they are different parts of the same conversation.

Brand raises awareness, SEO helps you look in the ‘right’ place when you need something, CRO converts, while the overall experience informs your final decision and your advocacy.

If you’d like a reminder, click on my email archive .

It’s no wonder there are marketing agencies that specialise in each field, while some offer a one-stop full-service mix, all with the purpose of helping clients sell more.

From a consumer perspective, if you were aware of Nike as a reputable shoe company, love their marketing, needed a specific type of lightweight trainer, searched on google for shoes that meet these criteria, Nike crops up and the click-through leads to an informative enjoyable optimised experience?

Well, you may just end up buying cheap knockoffs at the market, and your feet won’t thank you later.

Or you may see that all these elements can come together to improve how you recruit, and the likelihood of filling your vacancies.

The next email is on the misleading nature of active and passive candidates.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Introduction to personal branding

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 16:09:01 GMT

What follows is Chapter 39 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) .

It's 10 months old, so surely the algorithm has moved on right?

Indeed, my own content performance has tanked if you compare 2026 to 2025.

Around 12 million views of my content last year, while if I extrapolate my year to date performance, it looks like a little shy of 640,000 views.

My LinkedIn feed is quieter, yet real life relevant conversations go from strength to strength, many of which stem from my content.

Look, I don't love the term, but I am a fan of putting your message out there, across multiple means, so that your most relevant audience might become aware of you.

And perhaps your relevant audience is an audience of one, a person who can put you nearer that job.

Which is the only algorithm you need.

This is a three part series, with part 2 on " Content strategy and philosophy " and part 3 on " A flair post ". Click on the links for the unedited versions on Substack.

39 - Introduction to personal branding

Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a free marketing platform, where you can build a reputation through the words of your posts, comments and messages.

Personal branding is a viable tactic as part of a multi-channel approach to your job search and it can bring opportunities to you.

I'll start off by saying I'm not a fan of the term personal branding. It can lead to make-work which can even get in the way of what you should be doing.

Writing and using content to create experiences that support a job search is a great idea and calling it personal branding - as a discrete activity - isn’t a bad thing.

I expect there are many mediums through which you can build a personal brand. I'll focus on LinkedIn because of how entrenched it is in other job search activities.

What a personal brand is

For businesspeople the idea is that by building awareness of your personality, lifestyle and what you're promoting, you also build trust. So that when people are ready to buy, they'll buy your products.

The brand might be personal. The goal is sales.

When you see personal branding on LinkedIn it’s often a business that promotes their services through the account of the author.

‘Here’s my puppy, buy my stuff.’

Take note that the target audience for these advice posts is the businesspeople above. And these posts often seek to part them from their money.

Your goals are similar. If there’s a commercial outcome you want, it’s likely a single job, not a throughput of leads.

You’ll also see that controversial content gets huge engagement and can also repel readers. If you need a job, what’s the danger of writing overly spicy content? Could a reader make a decision against you based on your words?

How much you need any job should inform the experience you want to create for your readers.

How it sits in your wider job search

Publishing content is about raising awareness and starting conversations with the right people. This can be your profile, written posts, newsletters, (bestselling) career breakdown kits, videos, you name it - anything you can become known for.

In many ways the hierarchy of relationships your content appeals to is the same as with networking.

Content can be publishing posts, commenting on the posts of others, sending direct messages. I’d argue even your applications and interviews are part of your personal brand.

I think of LinkedIn posts like a plumber’s van driving around town. Most of the time you’ll disregard the van unless it cuts you up with noxious fumes. When you have a leaky pipe, you’ll surely take note of their number.

It can support an application if a hiring manager decides to surreptitiously stalk your profile.

And it can work against you if it suggests problem behaviour.

A good balance for content is the poster in my daughters’ primary school from a few years back:

THINK.

Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind?

Achieve those five points and content will rarely work against your job search.

Content should be consistent with your wider activity. Which means that everything people (potential employers) experience of you is a complementary and non-contradictory message.

Content that contradicts your CV or cover letter may lead to red flags, whether that’s fair or not.

Content should be intentional.

HOW TO GO viral, and why you shouldn’t

Anyone who writes content will enjoy the sweet, sweet flow of dopamine when you see reactions and comments trickle in.

Such as that first flair post announcing you are available to help your next employer with examples of your achievements and what you are looking for.

Do that and you’ll get loads of engagement. Why haven’t you done it yet? Tag me in and I’ll support you.

Or you can do what most people do and say, ‘I’m sorry to announce I’ve lost my job, please help’ and that will get loads too.

Because it is relevant and relatable to fellow job seekers, recruiters and sympathisers.

Then you feel the soul-crushing defeat of a well-thought-out post, highlighting a problem in your industry, with tumbleweed to follow.

Both types of content have a place. That tumbleweed post is relevant and relatable to a niche audience.

I try to take a land and expand approach to content - job seeker advice, recruitment advice and stories, ponderings and satire, which I use to tackle topics from different directions.

Over the past three years I’ve had between 3m to 11m views of my posts and I’ve gained a bit of business through them too.

What I don’t do is try to go viral anymore.

Because when I have gone viral with a few 1m impression posts, it’s taken weeks to extricate myself from them and there hasn’t been real benefit.

I find my tumbleweed posts start better conversations from lurkers - those that never engage publicly.

I promised you I’d show you how to go viral. Here you go.

Relevance + relatability + readability + entitlement.

Maybe add a selfie.

If that seems too simple, search for this sentence on LinkedIn:

“An employee asked me if he can WORK from HOME permanently.”

You’ll need to use the double speech mark to search on the phrase, and rank by Posts.

‘Does it really work?’ asked Charles. I told him to try it as an experiment. He rarely got more than a few hundred impressions per post.

170,000 impressions, 2,000 reactions. Pretty viral for a first timer.

It is the wrong path.

What do these posts actually say? Who are they aimed at? And if they don’t appeal to people who can help you reach your objective, what’s the point?

Nothing but the truth. Innovation from Iteration, pt 4

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:22:31 GMT

I was tempted to use another Tom Cruise AI image for this article, but his hands ended up looking like feet, which wasn't a true representation of him.

Probably not fair to use AI in this way either, stealing copyrighted material without permission.

And so I use this AI 'stock image' instead, which is probably also highly unethical, but feels more suitable and sufficient .

Anyway here's an article about why the same principles are crucial for good recruitment:

‘True and Fair’ is an accountancy concept that lies at the heart of reporting, and can be applied effectively in recruitment.

Its meaning is that any financial statement made about a company should accurately and completely represent its financial position and performance.

The role of auditing is to confirm that documentation meets this definition.

Do so and everyone knows what they are dealing with.

HMRC, shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees – useful, and in many cases necessary, to have access to a true and fair view of a company’s accounts.

Can something be true and not fair?

In 2001, Enron went bust, a huge scandal with real-life repercussions that led to new legislation in the US.

Their accounts were true, in that they conformed with the required laws and standards.

However they had an incredibly complex reporting structure which made it impossible to see the overwhelming debt they had.

Poof!

Bye-bye a $100bn company when this all came out in the wash.

How about fair but not true?

This can happen if a situation is described which gives a fair picture but lacks accuracy.

An example here could be the UK politician who HMRC deemed behaved fairly but made errors in his tax reporting. Only a few million quid plus penalty.

What types of recruitment documentation does this apply to?

Three key ones that spring to mind (although there’s no reason it can’t be applied everywhere):

The job description.

The job advertisement.

The CV.

If these three documents were always a true and fair representation of either a job or a candidate, you’d interview and hire better candidates who stick around longer.

With the caveat that these documents should also be ‘suitable and sufficient’, if you remember last week's edition.

Documents are the first step in a recruitment process, relating to a decision to apply and the decision to interview.

Is it not the case, that the second most common complaint in recruitment is “not what we expected”?

Therefore, if we nipped this complaint in the bud, with true and fair documentation, wouldn’t life be better for everyone in the recruitment process?

What does true and fair mean in recruitment documentation?

I think it has to cover three points.

1/ factually correct

2/ shows context suitably

3/ describes sufficiently

An immediate objection might be that job descriptions are always true and fair, but I’d argue this is actually rarely the case.

If you recruit for a new role, do you audit your job description against the current context?

If you have a generic job family description does it show the specific day-to-day duties of a role?

Have things changed in the current role that makes it different to the last time you recruited?

A common scenario in recruitment is that Greg resigns, and the hiring manager says “we’d love someone just like Greg”.

Yet if Greg resigned, wouldn’t someone just like Greg be at risk of resigning for the same reasons in future? Would now-Greg have applied for the same role that then-Greg applied for?

Which definition of Greg is the true and fair one you’d hire?

It feels strange writing my name like this.

There are lots of different situations in which a job description that was true and fair a few years ago is no longer so.

The only way to ensure it is true and fair, is to audit documentation prior to going live.

You may think a fully representative and accurate contextual analysis is too time-consuming for most vacancies, especially where it doesn’t

actually matter if there is some inaccuracy.

“Oh yeah, that’s not relevant anymore”.

But if you have a key hire that can make a difference in your business, ‘true and fair’ should be the starting point, each and every time.

If you have a systematic process that finds truth and fairness, you’ll see the benefit of applying the same across any vacancy – for the reason that the time invested at the outset is offset by interviewing fewer unsuitable candidates and wasting less time and resources overall.

And what should be the more important reason of better recruitment outcomes.

For any project I take on, this is the first step – getting the documentation in order.

Get it right and everything flows from there.

It’s a key reason behind my nearly 100% fill rate. It’s also one of the reasons my average tenure is over 4 years for key hires.

These achievements don’t come down to chance. They come from my process.

If you've forgotten why suitability and sufficiency is the other pillar, here's an example that isn't suitable:

Nineteen experiential bullet points might be true and fair but will also encourage ideal candidates to run away screaming.

See you next time.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services:

- commercial, operational and technical leadership recruitment (available for no more than two vacancies)

- manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client. This can be a large as end-to-end delivery of a programme of vacancies, or as small as writing one job advert for a key hire- recruitment strategy setting

- outplacement support

How recruiters work

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 16:06:29 GMT

What follows it Chapter 8 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) .

Like a lot of the chapters it's both too long and not long enough.

Too long because who wants to read 9 pages of navel gazing on the recruitment industry.

Not long enough because one of the most helpful things you can do at the start of a job search is to understand what you are dealing with, and the rules of the game. So this might have provided even more detail to cover the specific categories of recruiters you might build relationships with.

I've tried to find a balance that makes you think differently.

When you see the word 'recruiter' you might have an expectation of how they'll help you, but that word and it's brothers and sisters can be so wide ranging as to mean nothing.

It's regrettable that I often get replies from job seekers that show annoyance that I can't help them directly. "Did you look at my profile - it's what you do?" sort of thing.

So this may be a valuable read in showing what candidates are for recruiters, the different ways in which we work, how we are often held back by the system we work in, and how this might inform your strategy.

And if you still have questions, you can join me and Simon Ward on Tuesday 24th at 1pm GMT for our LinkedIn Live on this subject. I'll include the link here on this article when it's ready.

8 - How recruiters work

This chapter illustrates standard recruiter working practices and why they lead to some of the experiences commonly talked about among job seekers. This is about managing your expectations, by lifting the curtain on recruitment.

I’ll use broad terms where applicable and a steer on how others may use more obscure terminology.

What a candidate is

If you jump on any recruiter website, I’m pretty sure the vast majority will say something along these lines:

‘We’re disrupting the market with better candidate experience.’ As well as a lot of promises of being different in a way that looks much the same as everyone else.

And yet your experiences will differ wildly.

Part of this may be generic marketing.

Based on many discussions with fellow recruiters, my belief is that the industry definition is different to a job seeker’s definition.

Many hiring processes see candidates as an employable person being considered for a job.

I use this terminology myself. For example, a job advert may have 99 applications, while only 5 are potential candidates - because they meet the criteria of the role and the remaining applicants don’t.

The nuance of this definition is that the more cynical the process, the worse the memory retention of which candidates were assessed.

Some companies may have seen you as a candidate at 2nd stage interview, then completely forget about you if they’ve discounted you from the process - you are no longer a candidate.

Using this definition, many recruiters think they give a first class of candidate experience because they only relate it to the people they think of as candidates.

This is equally true of someone who treats everyone decently and those who only treat people they place into jobs decently.

On the other hand, pretty much anyone who looks at new employment sees themselves as a candidate for that employment.

Assuming you are accountable, you wouldn’t apply for any job you didn’t see yourself as suitable for.

Even if you chose not to apply, it’s not necessarily because you didn’t see yourself as a candidate. It may be that even though you are a suitable candidate for that vacancy, your experience of the process made you choose to step away - which might be as simple as not liking the advert or email you read.

This last point relates to the phenomenon of candidate resentment (p89).

There’s another industry nuance to the candidate definition.

In the same way you may have heard about the hidden jobs market, recruiters talk about the passive candidate market:

‘80% of candidates aren’t looking for a job, and these are the best candidates.’

Not my words, btw. A passive opportunity (p160) explores why this happens and how you can use the same principles to improve your odds.

If you think it odd that I’ve started ‘How recruiters work’ with a discussion on candidates, it’s because our relationship with our candidates is a sign of how we work with employers.

Without placing candidates in one form or another, most recruiters wouldn’t make any money. It is deeply integrated into how we work.

Different agency recruitment models

Typically, agency fees come from the successful placement of staff irrespective of the nature of work.

The fee is often a percentage of salary and in most situations is budgeted separately from the new employee's pay.

The overall steps recruiters often work to are these:

Receive job description from employer
Advertise job (on a job board or through outreach like DMs and calls)
Find and submit qualified candidates
Arrange interviews
Coordinate offer process

The differentiators are the quality of information at each step and how rigorously they are executed.

For example, my requirement for recruiting a vacancy is a full consultation on the company, vacancy, context and culture, which I summarise in writing in a detailed candidate pack. Where there are issues, I advise the employer on how we can overcome them.

There are variations around this type of process.

Some agencies may rely more on a video presentation, others may ‘sell in’ candidates.

Some agencies will use psychometrics or other types of assessments.

Some will meet all candidates, some won't even talk to them.

The general steps have a lot of crossovers.

Contingency

The most popular recruitment model is akin to 'no win, no fee'.

In the UK, it’s estimated that the average fill rate is between 20% and 33%. This is a range from several sources, although it’s next to impossible to pinpoint accurately.

At the lower end, for every vacancy filled, that recruiter won’t fill four vacancies. Therefore, their fee implicitly accounts for unfulfilled work.

The reason it’s low is that most vacancies provided to recruiters are given on a ‘multi-agency’ basis and even in competition with the employer themselves.

A lot of contingency recruitment is first past the post, in that a submitted CV is seen to be owned by the agency which submitted it first.

Let’s say Joe Recruiter has to fill 3 vacancies a month to hit target.

At a 20% fill rate, he works on 15 vacancies a month. You can see how this might impact quality of service if there are multiple different candidates for each role. And if the race is on to get CVs over as quickly as possible.

This can result bad behaviours like refusing to divulge company information (for fear of divulging competitor secrets) to trying to find out who you are interviewing with (which may be to use them as leads). And classics like ghosting and poor responsiveness.

It isn’t necessarily the case. There are some great contingency recruiters out there who work closely with employers, often with exclusivity.

When I was a pure contingency recruiter, my fill rate varied between 50% and 70% annually. It’s higher consistently now, though I don’t work contingently anymore.

Other models

The traditional counterpoint to contingency is retained where we receive a portion of a fee up front to service a vacancy. This requires exclusivity and better access to hiring information.

Retained isn’t intrinsically better than contingency - both have their issues, challenges and opportunities.

It can lead to mutual obligation from the employer while allowing a more quality focused approach to candidate work, resulting in a better experience for everyone.

A different approach is RPO (recruitment process outsourcing ) whereby a third party manages recruitment for the employer.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen other models come through, from subscription types (bizarrely called Recruitment as a Service ), to embedded / insourced / fractional (acting as an in-house recruitment function as a third party) to Uber-style apps.

Different types of agency recruiter

There are as many types of agency recruiter as there are recruitment models.

What complicates matters is that as an industry we sometimes try to hide what we do by clever names.

Am I a boutique headhunter or am I a recruiter? Or a Talent Ecosystem Intelligence Officer?

I’m proud to be a recruiter who wears my process on my sleeve.

Whatever we term ourselves the nature of an agency will inform whether they might help you:

Temps / interim

Where you sign up for temporary work on an hourly or daily rate employed through a contract for service.

While Interim recruitment also relates to temporary projects it is quite different. Interims have a skills set a traditional employee doesn’t have. They provide a service through their limited company, held outside of IR35 (off-payroll working regulations).

The agency will make money on a margin / markup based on your pay.

Permanent

An agency that works mainly on permanent vacancies typically paid on filling a job, by the employer.

Many agencies offer both.

Specialist

These are typically recruitment agencies that specialise in a domain. This could be a broad industry like manufacturing or professional services, or a market vertical like marketing or HR.

It doesn’t necessarily mean they have specialist knowledge of the roles they recruit, although this can be the case. It means more that they regularly recruit a specific type of role.

Generalist

These won’t have one specialty and may work closer with certain employers across a variety of vacancies. They might be pure scattergun.

You may find them excellent for the one vacancy you are in discussion for, yet that’s the only time they’ll have something for you.

Headhunter

This can mean many things.

The idea is that headhunters access passive candidates who don’t apply for jobs. Although many use the same tools other recruiters do.

Some won’t advertise at all. Others might advertise alongside other activities.

The crux of the message for employers is that they have a capability beyond what employers can achieve themselves, which can be true.

Executive Search

Typically, this works on a retained basis for board level appointments. It’s rare to see these roles advertised.

They use many of the same proactive channels others do and may cultivate a specific network of contacts who are go-to candidates. Some are so niche they may not go outside of their network.

And many more

It doesn’t matter so much how a recruiter works, more that they can be a conduit to your next job.

Two points come from the sections above:

1/ that candidate experience is hard to deliver consistently when dealing with the volume of vacancies you see in a contingency model, and takes intent in other models,

2/ that agencies are paid to fill jobs, not explicitly to help find people jobs.

That second point can cause much frustration if you assume it’s the job of a recruiter to help you find a role, especially when our marketing talks about how we help candidates.

Recruitment is often a short-term business. It’s rare that you’ll see recruiters cultivate long-term relationships with job seekers if they can’t help you directly.

This is ironic, considering many job seekers will reciprocate the help they’ve received with people they’ve built trust with. Doubly ironic, when it’s someone with hiring authority that gets radio silence from previous suppliers.

It’s common to hear of job seekers blacklisting agencies for poor service - frustrating, demoralising and occasionally crushing to be on the end of bad experience.

Don’t let a bad process get in the way of what might be good employment.

This is as true at the employer end as with agencies.

With agencies, the onus is often on winning the next vacancy, rather than giving service to people who may or may not be candidates. Their client may not even know how those agencies work with candidates.

These same agencies may have further vacancies you could be seen as a good candidate for with different employers.

At the same time, many hiring managers have never been trained on recruitment or interviewing, while being busy at work. This can lead to a poor experience as a candidate compared with what they would be like to work with.

The internal recruiter

These are recruiters employed directly by the employer to fulfil their recruitment. Often these are called Talent Acquisition Managers, Internal Recruiter, or Recruitment Manager.

More than filling vacancies, they manage the system of recruitment. There are many specialist domains within talent acquisition including workforce planning, retention, enablement, marketing and branding.

It’s a field that is overwhelmed by a large number of redundancies and where internal recruiters are often overburdened.

When working on vacancies, the priority is to fill them. This can lead to frustration if you ask corporate recruiters, ‘Do you have any jobs I might be suitable for?’

Whether or not there is an argument that they could help you, it’s more effective to do the work yourself. Research the business areas they recruit for and ask directly ‘could you tell me who is the best contact for <your field>‘ or ‘when are you likely to recruit for these roles?’

Help them help you.

Takeaways

There’s much to talk about on this subject and I’ve no doubt I’ve missed glaringly obvious topics. Equally, it’s easy to oversimplify what is a huge and complex industry.

It’s worth learning the rules of the recruitment game when you can. Be curious and ask questions.

While we should be criticised for poor behaviour, if you don’t understand why a recruiter works in a certain way, please don’t assume it’s for bad reason.

Recruitment is a stressful job at the best of times. This can lead to thick skin and callous behaviour. It’s not an excuse, more a symptom of the system we all work in.

Ricky Business. Innovation from Iteration, pt 3

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:19:23 GMT

How do you argue at people?

For any assertion I make, I try to achieve two thresholds.

Is it true and fair?

Is it suitable and sufficient?

You may have picked up on these, if you've followed my content, but they aren't just hyperbole. They're a fundamental way in which I think, because I hate ambiguity.

I'll explain why and how in the next two editions of Anti Recruitment:

February 2023

‘Suitable and sufficient’ is a health and safety definition that can and should be adapted into recruitment.

In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) owns and enforces the majority of legislation around ensuring people go home in the same condition they arrived. And their health too.

Employers must, as a minimum, take care in understanding the risks their people face at work and put in place measures to prevent any issue covered by legislation.

Relevant risks should be assessed and appropriately documented.

This risk assessment is at the heart of health and safety and is a formal document that needs to meet the definitions of ‘suitable and sufficient’.

The HSE declares:

“The law states that a risk assessment must be 'suitable and sufficient', ie it should show that:

a proper check was made
you asked who might be affected
you dealt with all the obvious significant risks, taking into account the number of people who could be involved
the precautions are reasonable, and the remaining risk is low
you involved your workers or their representatives in the process

The level of detail in a risk assessment should be proportionate to the risk and appropriate to the nature of the work. Insignificant risks can usually be ignored, as can risks arising from routine activities associated with life in general, unless the work activity compounds or significantly alters those risks.

Your risk assessment should only include what you could reasonably be expected to know - you are not expected to anticipate unforeseeable risks.”

Safety glasses might be a suitable measure when working with chemicals – no one wants corrosive chemicals splashing in their eyes. But it isn’t sufficient if, instead, you splashed the same chemicals on your hand.

While a full body suit with a face mask might be sufficient, they may not be suitable for long periods of time, such as our utterly exhausted Doctors working with Covid patients.

Checking both directions is a suitable and sufficient dynamic risk assessment for crossing the road.

Isn’t it interesting how balanced and practical this definition is, rather than fear-mongering?

The greater the risk the more importance you place on getting it right, first time.

You can apply this definition word for word in replacing ‘risk assessment’ with ‘job description’, and the spirit of it to every other step in a recruitment process.

The crux of it is to understand the shape and impact of any step in your process and ensure it is both suitable and sufficient.

In recruitment, the ‘greater the risk’ typically relates to level of seniority, opportunity for transformation, or consequence of things going wrong.

Or it might be legally non-compliant processes that put you at risk.

Conversely, ‘low risk’ recruitment is proportionate.

If roles are easy to fill and it doesn’t really matter who gets them, as is the case in transactional vacancies, your level of care can be more generic and commoditised.

You probably don’t need to wear safety glasses at interview – it’s a negligible risk that they are a spitter.

Is a fifth technical interview really suitable for a mid-level role?

Are references sufficient testimony to employability?

Is your interview confirmation suitable and sufficient?

Some of these are role-specific, and some are systemic recruitment good practice.

What a great way to differentiate how you can look at different types of roles, different steps in your process, and how many resources you should invest to get them fit for purpose.

Spending 120 hours on a retained multichannel campaign for an Administrator is not suitable. It’s certainly way more than sufficient too – maximum overkill!

I’d find you a damned good administrator, to be fair. And it wouldn’t take me 120 hours. Or be that expensive. Okay, bad example.

Sticking a copypasta job advert up for a Chief Operating Officer is neither suitable nor sufficient, with transformational risk if you get it wrong.

Working with a recruiter when you could be promoting internally can be sufficient and unsuitable.

Getting both suitability and sufficiency right is the best way to make your recruitment ship shape.

Suitable and sufficient ensures your processes and documentation are fit for purpose in managing your internal risk with new and existing employees.

Next week, I'll explain how and why True and fair ensures documentation is fit for purpose for third parties – your candidates, agencies, or hiring managers.

A true and fair approach that is suitable and sufficient will give you the best likelihood of a good outcome.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Free CV Audit Tool

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:01:21 GMT

Last week I signed up to the Claude Pro plan to look at a couple of opportunities to improve how I work.

If you haven't tried it, I'd recommend investing in at least a month. This version of Claude has really moved on, even in the past 6 months.

If you happen to subscribe to my recruitment newsletter, you'll already have seen my Job Advert review tool. Feedback on it so far is excellent, and it already achieves what I set out to do - show the employer where their adverts are missing the mark, red flags, missed opportunities, and how they can flip their content to be focused on the reader, rather than their own needs.

You're welcome to try it, if you're curious. You probably aren't recruiting, but if there's an advert you like the look of, send it over and you'll be able to see under the hood of what employers should consider.

If you're wondering why I've kicked off a "Free CV Audit Tool" newsletter on a seemingly different tool, it's because they come from the same place. Adverts struggle in the same way CVs do, and the solutions are the same.

I recommend that employers spend more time understanding the challenges job seekers have too.

The second tool has the same purpose for CVs. I've used A Career Breakdown Kit and my free CV template/guide as the rules of play, and the tool is designed to make you think about how you best position yourself for your ideal job.

Mainly it focuses on putting the reader first, showing context, applicable skills and achievements. You might think you have that nailed already, but so do the 95% of the population that are relying on CVs that don't hit the mark. Something I can highlight based on the high volumes of CVs I see, and feedback from peers.

There are two ironies with this tool.

One is that three people have commented how human the feedback is. Yet, other than being trained on my voice from my content, it's entirely automated.

The other is that the reports implicitly 'optimise for the ATS' that sucker punch line that pervades everyone's dreams.

It's implicit because the report focuses on human readers and what they need to see you as a viable candidate. Given at some point your CV will get reviewed by people, this must be a priority.

And because a CV that is effective for humans, and which parses correctly is correctly administered by any applicant tracking system. To parse correctly: simple formatting, no images, no columns, no tables, but only for older systems,

The other feedback I've had is that it's quite different to other such tools my experimentees have tried.

Pretty much every AI tool optimises a CV against a document, something I recommend not to do (this post also has the CV template included).

Instead you must look inwards, to best show how you, individually, can help solve the problems of the vacancy you are most suited to.

What I like most about both these tools is that it circumvents the "well, you would say that" argument, which assumes I'm trying to sell something, even if it's just virtue.

Because all you need do is DM me here, or email greg.wyatt@bwrecruitment.co.uk , with your CV or advert, and I'll reply with a report that hasn't been written or edited by me directly.

As for the opportunity they give me. I will launch the advert tool as a commercial product, including consulting, if I can get it to a suitable, consistent output.

The CV tool will always be free. The quality of feedback it gives, means I can help more people in less time, which is wonderful.

Drop me a line if you want to try either out.

Greg

p.s. no LinkedIn Live this week. Simon and I are back on Tuesday 24th at 1pm GMT

About candidate resentment

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:59:25 GMT

What follows is Chapter 16 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026).

In many ways it's a snapshot of the whole book, because it's about cutting through assumption and making informed decisions.

While also showing why understanding how recruitment works can improve the steps you take.

Recruitment mirrors, or more accurately inverts, a job search for the same role, so the lessons from one are most always applicable to the other.

'Candidate resentment' is a key opportunity for mindful employers to improve how they engage the market.

It's effective because we know people will make a stand, even if it hurts their prospects, and assume bad behaviour, even when it doesn't exist in that instance.

It's something you should be mindful of when deciding on any step in your job search, in case your decision holds you back:

16 - About candidate resentment

Over the past few years, a phenomenon has come to the fore in recruitment - candidate resentment.

It’s the notion that the experiences candidates have of a recruitment process, and of their wider job search, informs their actions.

Some examples:

You’ve been lowballed a few times having applied for a job that advertised £competitive salary. Therefore, you won’t waste your time by doing so again
‘Hitting the ground running’, ‘a resilient approach’, ‘able to cope with ambiguity’ are red flags in a job advert
An interviewer who asks silly questions shows a dodgy employer
A protracted interview process shows a company that can’t make decisions
‘I will never apply to a company that uses Workday!!!!!!?!!!! 1!’
A high number of visible applications makes it pointless to apply for an advert.

On an individual basis, employers won’t see this as a big deal, especially if they’ve filled the vacancy.

However, we live in a connected society where experiences are shared widely, which can create a wave of resentment.

Employers would do well to recognise this phenomenon and deliver a process that does the opposite. This would stand out for candidates and reduce the possibility of candidates stepping away from a recruitment process.

The sale of hope

Candidate resentment is driven by strong emotion and common experience - something that’s easy to take advantage of by the cynical.

How often have you read a promotional message, which said something along the lines of:

How annoying is it when you’ve spent two hours applying for a job and the ATS rejects you instantly? ATS won’t even look at you if your CV / resume isn’t compliant! Buy my ATS compliance writing service

Apply for 100 jobs with no replies? Try the hidden jobs market! Buy my services and I’ll show you the way

Worse, these messages feel true and are widely spread, irrespective of any basis in fact.

And this resentment informs your actions.

Actions which may cut your nose off to spite your face.

What employers do

Recruitment is a rare function that has no continuing professional development and little in the way of best practice to guide employers.

Because there isn’t a north star for the profession, employers often make it up as they go. We don’t have the equivalent of CIMA, ACCA, CIPD, CIPS or any other chartered body in the UK.

We’re an industry that looks at what others do because starting from first principles is hard. If others have a suboptimal process, it’s likely we do too.

It’s one reason why ChatGPT type tools have become so popular - they allow adverts to do exactly the same as everyone else quicker, and perhaps more engagingly. Even if it does nothing to help those adverts sell or stand out.

Where there is a formalised approach, it’s typically because recruitment is contained in another function - such as within HR or Administration, or in the role of a founder.

These are functions which have other priorities, leading to recruitment being seen as an administrative burden rather than a commercial opportunity.

When times are busy, it’s easy to either do recruitment habitually (rather than intentionally) or fit it in where you can (rather than strategically).

Of course, some employers are rubbish at recruitment in the same way they are rubbish at employment.

It’s easy to assume that anyone who gives a poor experience in recruitment will be that kind of employer.

This isn’t true.

Herein lies the problem with candidate resentment, for you, as a job seeker, in a job search that has no doubt created much resentment.

I speak to many employers who do exactly the things people resent yet are great employers for the right people.

Sometimes £competitive salary is stated due to a compensation philosophy that is generous but not fixed. Perhaps not ideal, but not necessarily a lowball.

Some use Workday because of its Accounting and HR functions with the ATS being a bolt on.

And so on.

Real life has nuance that socials don’t show - because nuance reduces engagement. You are less likely to read them, and dopamine hungry writers are less likely to write them.

And you?

Assume nothing.

Where possible, gain insight.

A bad hiring step might hide a great employer.

If you find yourself reacting emotionally to something on socials - stop, breathe and look at it logically. Look for evidence and always ask ‘where is the money?’

The answer to that question may show why a post was written.

Do people want to be popular as hero employers / recruiters / career coaches? Or do they have something to say that’s helpful?

Treat low effort processes reciprocally and invest your energy in the ones that matter.

But you also want to put yourself in a position where you have the best chance of saying no, rather than the employer doing that for you.

You may not like £competitive salary - you can always apply and state your salary expectation. Take note of the application (in case they contact you) and move on.

In some ways resentment is helpful, even healthy - it can protect, it can help you cope, it can help you heal, it can flag danger to others.

Take care not to let it define how you act or who you are.

Talk the Walk. Innovation from Iteration, pt 2

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:16:14 GMT

A new challenge in any sort of recruitment is that you must now assume your candidates will think:

is this fake

is this a scam

are there any humans at the other end?

Whether you promote your recruitment publicly on a job board or contact someone by phone, email, voice note, DM, you need to consider this.

Okay, semaphore and carrier pigeons remain safe.

While this challenge is new, the answers are not, and often cater to candidate resentment through candour, respect and appropriate transparency - better messaging that's unrelated to automation.

You can find out exactly what works best for your audience, by going to Gemba.

Talk the walk

February 2023

Gemba is Japanese for ‘the actual place’.

Coined by Toyota and closely linked to ‘Genchi Genbutsu’, a phrase I regularly throw at my children – ‘see for yourself!’

Clearly, Toyota doesn’t like arguing with people whose strong views are based on assumptions, although my issues relate mainly to a lack of chocolate in the snack cupboard.

Gemba is a powerful concept because it gives managers access to the actual work and challenges that are inherent to their projects, and therefore where they can find efficiency and improve productivity. While linking the coal face to leadership in a way that influences strategy.

Although Toyota’s Gemba is a car factory floor, it’s been commonly adopted across industries and relates to anywhere where the work is done and value created.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre applied Gemba to reduce Hospital Acquired Infections, applying root cause analysis to patient rooms to identify the cause of these infections. It turned out to be poorly cleaned medical equipment.

Better cleaning meant fewer infections to treat.

Would the alternative have been to accept the infections and invest in better treatment?

Retail stores, construction sites, and even prisons – Gemba is applicable in any working environment.

I’ve applied Genchi Genbutsu and Gemba throughout my recruitment career, learning through the experiences of candidates and hiring processes.

In recruitment, there are many types of Gemba.

The one that springs to mind is your hiring team – whether you are an agency, TA, HR or hiring lead.

This type of Gemba is individualistic, and you can go have a chat with your team right now, listen to them, and find pragmatic areas for improvement.

However, I’m more interested in systemic improvement, for the purpose of this email, and there are a few types of Gemba that we can all benefit from, two of which I’ve already mentioned.

Any aspect of a hiring system that creates an experience has a Gemba.

By working with candidates and employers (hiring managers and in partnership with HR / TA), I’ve learnt many strategic, tactical and execution improvements from finding solutions to common problems.

The most helpful Gemba in recent memory is my work with executive job seekers since the pandemic. Around 800 conversations with people I will rarely be able to help directly, but who have given me much insight into the common issues job seekers face outside of my hiring process.

It’s startling how much you can learn by talking to people in the ‘ecosystem’ who aren’t customers. It’s something I’d recommend any recruiter do and has the added benefit of helping others.

You may think out-of-sight, out-of-mind, job seekers aren’t at your coal face; however, they regularly interact with the coal face of the recruitment industry in unsuccessfully looking for work.

Their pain points are valuable areas of insight we can take advantage of, to create better experiences all around.

Go to your Gemba and you will find areas you can improve.

(Note, March 2026: if you've followed this newsletter through the AiDE framework, you'll already have seen some of these improvements in practice. Such as Warts and All , Walk a Mile , and Trust Me . All of the series is in some way are built on lessons from the Gemba)

What can you learn about the experiences your customers have of your hiring process?

For an employer, this will be every touchpoint in your recruitment process – from your adverts and ATS, to your interviews and interview confirmations, to your offer and rejection process, and everything else.

You may think you have an excellent process, but what do your customers think?

Have you tried applying through your own ATS as a dummy candidate? What did that feel like?

How about your own experiences with your recruitment process?

If you’re having a poor experience with your agency suppliers, what root cause analysis have you done to find out the real reasons?

Or are you stuck in a Region Beta paradox, where things aren’t quite bad enough to make a change, even though your experience is shoddy enough to complain about?

There’s a simple way to find out about which experiences can lead to improvement – talk to the people that have them.

And not just new starters delighted to be in a new role. What about those you rejected?

Or those that never applied… what if you could find out why, and apply that learning to make your process more attractive? (Answers to which I found in my exec job seeker calls)

I’d argue if you build your recruitment process from your Gemba it will allow you a uniquely fit-for-purpose approach for your hiring process.

Invest in systems, technology, tools and processes based on the Gemba, rather than what others may tell you that you need.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk to good consultants who can help you overcome the problems you don’t know you don’t know.

Just that you should expect their consultation to be built on your Gemba, rather than the sale of a solution for the solution’s sake.

Not so easy if you aren’t an employer that has the agency to make change.

The next edition is on how Stockholm Syndrome and Region Beta paradox intersect to explain candidate behaviour.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

How to experience a job advert. Jobseeker Basics XIX

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 12:43:35 GMT

This might seem a weird chapter.

Surely you look at a job advert, maybe even read it, then decide to apply or not?

Yet a job advert is more than just what's presented on a job board.

It's a microcosm of everything in recruitment, including everything wrong, and you can learn a lot about what to expect in your job search by the least intentional of words.

And when you do read a job advert, in its entirety, there are only two questions you should ask of it:

Am I qualified?
Should I be interested?

It's somewhat odd that 99% of job adverts don't actually try and help you answer that.

But maybe that's why employers say job adverts don't work.

And why you don't think they do either.

While you're here, why not check out A Career Breakdown Kit in its entirety?

This series of always free chapters is an advert, after all.

But it was never supposed to be an easy book to read, just accessible and comprehensive.

I expect most readers are over 50, ND, or other marginalised demographics, considering these will likely be the longest out of work in our 'diverse and inclusive' world.

If you're 'in demand' though, you'll probably click apply and wonder what the fuss was about.

44 - How to experience a job advert

This chapter is about job adverts, what they are and aren’t, how you might experience them, how they might inform your decisions and your responses.

I say experience rather than read because not all adverts are written or read.

What’s a job advert?

A job advert is the first step in a multichannel commercial approach to filling a vacancy. It’s the inverse of your job search taking a multichannel, through-the-line approach - we go where the candidates are.

It’s the first step because it’s the first thing you experience of that vacancy irrespective of whether it’s a:

Listing on a job board
A post on social media
A DM from a recruiter
A phone call from a hiring process
A referral
Or any other means by which you become aware of a vacancy

Each of these is a marketing or sales channel that may result in a candidate's application.

It’s regrettable employers don’t necessarily see it this way because of the transactional nature of much recruitment process.

They think it’s sticking a job posting up on LinkedIn.

Employers forget that when you experience such an advert you first make the choice to entertain that advert rather than a yes or no to ‘Should I apply?’

Indeed much advertising neglects the psychology of a job move, which principally relates to problem awareness.

How you experience an advert, what may encourage you to progress an enquiry and what you are prepared to put up with in the process relate to your situation and the problems you currently face.

Are you out of work, needing any job to pay the bills?

Are you in work, desperate to escape a toxic culture?

Are you gainfully employed yet wouldn’t mind a bit more flexibility to pick the children up from school?

Are you apparently smashing it, with that missing something you don’t even know about, and the right vacancy might improve your lot?

And everything in between.

The answer to these questions informs your experience of any advert.

Because many employers don’t consider what informs an experience and think people would be lucky to work there, it’s rare that more than the minimum acceptable skill will be applied to an advert.

As discussed in Better use of job boards, the emphasis is on more rather than better. It’s often thought that ‘if we can reach more candidates, we might fill the job.’

Rather than appeal to the right people for the right reasons.

And so we are in a market where an advert attracts hundreds if not thousands of applications, most of whom are wholly unsuitable.

What isn’t a job advert?

A job advert isn’t a fake job, although many of these are listed.

They aren’t Job Descriptions either - the next chapter explains why this distinction is important.

While you may spend much time perusing job boards and talking with fellow job seekers, reading their posts on LinkedIn - I’d expect most employers have little awareness outside of their own sphere of what happens in the job seeker community.

They’ll advertise how they advertise, instruct agencies how they instruct agencies and run their process how they run their process.

I wonder how many great employers use Workday as an ATS, fill their jobs suitably, and have no knowledge of how Workday is viewed by job seekers who have dozens of Workday accounts, one per application?

It’s true terrible employers might do the same.

In one of my job advert consultations I had a detailed conversation with a Talent Acquisition Manager of a local technology consultancy. I can say that they are a jewel in the crown of technology development in the UK, have top 1% compensation, offer career development, and are a fantastic place to work.

I know this because I have spoken to many people who have worked there. All speak highly of them.

Yet the advert we reviewed had a number of red flags:

£Competitive salary
Generic company first text
Confusion around job titles

If you were an ideal candidate who decided not to apply because of these red flags you’d have missed out.

There are two considerations in how an advert might be put together.

The first is whether it is a product of a transactional process or whether the hiring team recognises potential candidates are driven by selfish reasons and seek to understand ‘what’s in it for them.’

(I’ve mentioned WIIFM (What’s in it for me) a few times now - answering that is key to good marketing)

The second is the direction of travel - are you reading a job board advert or have you been contacted proactively about the vacancy?

A transactional process is defined by information transactions with a focus on speed and volume.

It places less emphasis on qualitative measures such as accuracy, specificity, relationships, and empathy.

Instead you can define the process by a series of information transactions and exchanges:

Job description
Advert
Suitable number of relevant applications
Suitable number of interviews
Offer
Starter

The goal is to fill a vacancy.

A non-transactional process recognises the importance of relationships and that to build trust the right information needs to be put forward.

Though the steps are much the same, at each stage the question is asked: ‘Does this give the candidate the right information to make an informed decision?’

Here a candidate is everyone who interacts with the vacancy outside of the hiring end - even a reader who chooses not to apply.

The goal is to create a process that draws the right person forward while leaving everyone with a good experience.

It’s not just about decency - it’s about long-term commercial outcomes.

If you want the right person to thrive over the long term the process has to reflect this goal.

While all the ‘nos’ might be commercial opportunity in future - future candidates, future customers - who knows?

These are the archetypes. In reality, recruitment falls somewhere along this spectrum, often changing at different stages in the process.

Intent matters even if the execution is flawed.

Why does it matter ?

Because a healthy rule of thumb is to reciprocate the level of care you experience.

If you come across a transactional process - treat it transactionally. This isn’t inherently bad - it’s just the way of the process.

The employers may still be good to work for.

When and whether to apply

Irrespective of how a role is recruited, there will be non-negotiable essential criteria that inform whether or not you are suitable.

If you can establish these criteria you can confirm whether to apply.

The problem is these criteria aren’t always stated.

Sometimes they are implicit to the context - if the role is employed by a rapidly growing scale-up, it’s likely they’ll need someone with that experience.

Hopefully this context is alluded to in the advert. It will need critical thinking to parse.

Sometimes these aren’t defined at the outset and become mandatory when there are too many candidates in view.

Sometimes these are hidden by Goldilocks or illegal discrimination - not too experienced, not too inexperienced, not too old.

Sometimes the employer can’t divulge essential criteria.

The other problem is that some essential criteria aren’t essential, such as when a company writes unrealistic shopping lists.

Yes, it’s a FUBAR situation given it’s pretty hard to tell whether you’re a suitable candidate or whether you should even apply.

Nonetheless - if you choose to apply your application must show how you can meet any essential criteria you can identify.

If that’s the only thing your application does - it must do this.

In my experience, transactional processes are the hardest to unpick, with adverts going something like:

Here at genericorp we are proud to be recruiting for a <job title> in our market leading innovative environment.

You’ll be doing

You’ll need

In return you can expect a £competitive salary.

Apply with a full cover letter and updated CV.

Only successful candidates will be contacted.

Familiar?

Whereas the rare non-transactional adverts give more of a narrative about why the right person might think to apply or give you avenues for finding more information.

A note on inbound enquiries.

With automation allowing volume outreach the effort to produce transactional DMs, emails and messages is pretty low.

You might think when you receive such a message that you are already in the running - in many situations you are a transactional prospect.

I’ve even heard some recruiters InMail #OpenToWork profiles only to improve their response rates.

While not all messages are this way these are potential reasons you might not hear back when you reply to a recruiter.

It’s not quite the case with phone calls which have yet to be executed through automation (some platforms promise AI call automation already).

Again, you can separate transactional from non-transactional straightforwardly.

Transactional leads with selling the job.

Non-transactional seeks to explore if you are the right candidate. If the vacancy isn’t right it’s best to find that out as early as possible and save everyone time.

Inbound enquiries are still adverts, in a different medium.

Try not to treat your job search transactionally by default.

Your goal isn’t to apply for hundreds of jobs. Your goal is to start conversations that count.

By prioritising adverts in the right way you’ll improve your odds with high stakes applications. You’ll gain time and energy for other activities, including taking time away from your job search to recharge.

Why five? Innovation from Iteration, pt 1

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 11:49:12 GMT

So here were are, the start of a new series.

This series may be around 10 editions, looking at the things other industries do that we can implement into recruitment.

These were written 3 years ago, right at the start of the AI zazzle, and in some ways have dated quite a bit.

In others, the way in which they haven't dated at all, because the principles of how we live our business lives can be universal.

So, I'm not sure yet, how much editing I'll do, whether there will be any inclusions, or whether I'll leave articles intact, as a moment in time.

I've learnt all of these notions from candidates and clients, as I came to understand the function of their vacancies. Hearing about the daily practice from people doing jobs, I couldn't help but notice the same relevance in recruitment.

So while these articles are hardly comprehensive, perhaps they'll make you look at your candidates differently, in what we can learn from them, and how that might improve our recruitment.

Why five?

December 2022

Ask anyone involved in active recruitment what their key problems are, and they’ll likely talk about skills shortages and candidate behaviour.

On the face of it, problems which are out of our control, worthy of complaint with little opportunity to find improvement.

But what if these were issues that weren’t entirely out of our control?

What if we could apply a replicable process to understand what’s really going on, and how we can make a difference?

Fortunately, we needn’t invent the wheel, as other industries have already done this for us.

One such is 5Y, or Five Whys, a problem-solving technique that was developed by Toyota in the 1930s. It's part of the Toyota Management System that has inspired much of my work.

Five is the general number of “Why?”s needed to get to the root of a problem. Often you can get to the heart of the issue sooner, sometimes later. Often there are multiple root causes.

More than just solving problems, it’s about establishing practical countermeasures to prevent these problems from coming up in future.

5Y is an example of Toyota’s philosophy of “go and see”: working on the shop floor to find out how things work in practice to find ways for iterative improvement.

This isn’t a theoretical idea to try out on a whim – it’s based on grounded reality and almost always works.

There are two costs – time and accountability.

Here’s a practical example, then a recruitment one.

(Names have been removed to protect my identity)

Problem 1 : The children were late for school.

Why? Traffic held us up.

Why? We left the house late.

Why? The children weren’t ready on time.

Why? Their school uniforms weren’t prepared.

Why? We hadn’t set them out the night before.

Here the countermeasure is to get everything ready the night before, rather than blame traffic for being late.

Perhaps we might have gotten to school on time without heavy traffic, but that is an element out of our control.

Of course, here there is another root cause – very naughty children – but better to focus on the simple changes.

And sometimes traffic is the root cause after all, once you’ve ruled out other elements in your control.

(2026 note: my eldest now often drives my youngest to school. A time laden solution I hadn't considered three years ago. Now I don't care if they're late ��)

Problem 2: Candidates keep ghosting us.

Why? They weren’t committed to responding.

Why? They didn’t accept my requirement for a response.

Why? They saw no value in my requirement.

Why? I didn’t create an environment where this requirement has value ( root cause 1 ). Or because they are very naughty candidates, with a bad attitude.

Why have we allowed someone with a bad attitude in our recruitment process? Because we didn’t prequalify them well enough ( root cause 2 )

The first root cause is something we can work on by giving candidates what they need, building trust, and working to mutual obligations.

There are many ways to do this – I’ve already talked about examples in previous newsletters.

It comes down to good candidate experience and reciprocity.

The second root cause requires us to work harder at understanding candidate needs, aspirations, behaviours and attitudes at the outset of a recruitment process.

There’s a reason for their behaviour. We can be accountable for finding it.

That’s no mean skill to develop, yet an essential one for anyone whose core responsibility is recruitment.

And it’s hard to do in a transactional volume process, so the question then becomes, does your process help more than it hinders?

You can apply 5Y to any issue you come across, as long as you are prepared to be accountable.

At worst you may find that the things that were out of your control are at fault. In this case, you are at least armed with good information to report to your stakeholders, by ruling out other possibilities.

What’s the point of doing all this?

For me it’s continually improving how I recruit, with the consequence, in the example above, that I am rarely ghosted at all.

And you can 5Y any issue you come across.

Are poor agency CV submissions their fault, or in part down to your briefing and process?

Are skills genuinely scarce, or is your requirement unrealistic?

Is it true that your agency hasn’t listened to you, or do you engage the right partners in the right way?

5Y has the answers.

Regards,

Greg

Map the Market. Jobseeker Basics XVIII

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:08:45 GMT

What follows is Chapter 21 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) .

It's a good example of how a job search is an inverted recruitment exercise, but also how the same principles from recruitment can be applied in a job search.

Market mapping is one of the first steps of a search process in what is often called headhunting. Here though, instead of an exercise that helps find a person for a job, you help find a job for you.

This can be in one chunk, at the outset, and iteratively, as you learn more information.

It's a great example of how LinkedIn can be used as a data repository, given the vast majority of professionals are present here. And if they are present here, the insight that is their careers is too, allowing you to identify potential viable employers, who works there, and therefore where else they may have worked, with further potential hiring managers. The snake that eats its own tail.

Try doing the iterative work above, every time you come across someone new, whether in an application or in networking .

You can use this to build out your network, identify companies to contact proactively.

Simon Ward and I will talk more on this in our LinkedIn Live on Tuesday February 24th at 1pm GMT. You can join us, and view the full recording afterwards, here:

Is The Nature Of Networking Changing for Job Hunters?

If you happen to read this as a hiring authority, market mapping is one of the invisible processes in a structured search. It can often take me 80 to 100 hours to fully map a role for potential viable candidates, given I try to find non-traditional candidates as well as those that are easier to find through sourcing.

21 - Map the market

Market mapping is a common activity in executive search. Why wouldn’t you adopt the same approach in your inverse of a recruitment exercise?

The idea is to fully understand your market, so that you are better able to navigate it.

This is a summary chapter because market mapping is both a strategic and a tactical exercise.

I’ll cover some of the How of mapping in Part Three.

There are three ways in which to map the market.

The vacancies you are qualified for

This is about determining which vacancies you should focus your attention on.

In which domains does your capability directly apply?

This could be context related, if your expertise is in start-ups, growth, downsizing or other contexts.

It could be industry related - your process manufacturing expertise might directly apply in food, plastics or pharmaceuticals.

It could be job related, with the right applicable skills.

Establish where there is a market for you, and if what you offer is needed by that market.

Advice on the transferable skills trap (p55) and whether you are qualified (p178) to apply will help.

The geography of your job search

Where are all the employers and vacancies that you can sustainably commute to?

A geographical map can help you target opportunities by region.

What resources are available to help you with this map?

Searching online for local business parks, even driving around them, can give a list of viable companies to contact. Directories and membership hubs. Local newspapers, social media stories.

If you see a company you like the look of, say from an advert, search on their local post code. Who else might be there?

The chapter on doorknocking (p241) has more ideas.

The people of your network

Every time you come across someone you might build a relationship with, connect with them on LinkedIn.

Then check out their career history. Who else have they worked with? Where else have they worked?

This works for peers, hiring managers, and recruiters - a headhunter in one company may well have worked in a similar domain in a previous one.

Is there anyone at these previous companies you should introduce yourself to? What about their listed vacancies?

Building out a map of relevant recruiters to develop relationships with (if they answer the phone) can lead to vacancies.

Treat it as an iterative exercise.

Check out the chapter on networking (p236).

This map isn’t just about potential opportunity. It’s also about information that might be helpful now and in future. This might be for job leads. It might be industry insight you can share through content. It may even be topics for conversation in interviews or with peers.

Make sure you track it in the right way, whether through Notion, Excel or other resources you have available.

With any information, check it is accurate, then prune appropriately.

Prioritise on degrees of separation (closest first) and context fit (where what you need is most closely aligned with what you offer).

Negative Space. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 16

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:18:53 GMT

I find myself questioning whether I effectively use AiDE, and whether it's effective enough every time I recruit.

As an external partner I work low volume, which allows time to do things 'right'.

However, when I take on fractional in-house work, I still deploy the same framework, even at mid volume (my highest volume was 55 vacancies in six months). Because it's scalable and can be applied across a whole recruitment system.

I wouldn't recommend it to a high volume, high churn environment, though I expect they aren't reading these newsletters.

It isn't just about advertising.

A current vacancy is at final interview today. I ran an 'appropriate multichannel' campaign, including public advertising, networking & referrals, 'headhunting' (sourcing across LinkedIn and CV databases).

My advert was a consequence of my consultations, as was the six page candidate pack provided to viable applicants.

My narrow then wide sourcing strategy was a consequence of the same consultation.

My written and spoken outreach was also a consequence of this. That I shared the advert and candidate pack proactively, was in part why I had a 100% response rate to my six inmails (it's a niche role in a low population area).

What was also interesting was that a number of the applicants described themselves as passive, and there was a significant overlap between the 56 and the sourced longlist. I noted that one of the final interview sourced candidates had viewed the public advert after our initial conversations.

I find advertising can be effective with passive candidates, because they can browse without commitment. You'll never know they were there if they don't get in touch, and they aren't going to be interested in a cookie cutter peacock advert.

But that gap is a hard one to breach if all you know is "we're a market leading employer of choice". Because we rely on the evidence of what's in front of us.

This is the final AiDE piece. I plan to publish this as a short paperback, given I think it stands alone as an approach that can improve your recruitment.

Next week I start "Innovation from Iteration" which includes an article on why the Gemba (value from the shop floor) is valuable for recruitment. Where it relates here is that my work with job seekers, and what turns them off from enquiring to adverts, has been so helpful in finding the blind spots our habits miss.

While the next series is separate, and was mainly written before AiDE, both show the modularity of recruitment and how you can experiment iteratively, layering on good foundations in a way that best works for you.

As I've said before, you can see pretty much all of me through these pieces, which may help you decide whether we should ever do business together.

This final piece is about how negative descriptors can attract great people. In the example above, one of the lines I lead with is "this won't be for you if you thrive in a structured, corporate environment." Both because it's true, and because it speaks to frustrations viable candidates may have.

Of course I also talk about how they can make a bigger splash in a smaller pond, if they can adapt to a smaller company setting.

Pushing and pulling are key tools in the AiDE framework.

Negative Space

June 2023

“This isn’t just any typical food manufacturing company, with an as-is workforce that only requires handholding and firefighting.”

A bit of context: HR in the East of England is fragmented, with many senior HR practitioners being more of the old-school personnel approach than commercially focused. And others adopt the People title with no rhyme or reason.

A common reason for commercial HR vacancies rejecting candidates who have identical CVs to successful candidates is that line above.

It resonates with many commercial HR practitioners that have interviewed either as an employer or candidate.

Firefighting here means the high volume of employee relations common to food manufacturing. No time to do the proactive stuff.

I should point out this was a confidentially advertised vacancy.

Were it branded or directly advertised, you’d need to think about how this kind of description is perceived, in case you’re seen to criticise your ‘competitors’.

When I ran it on LinkedIn, there were 32 applicants, 14 of whom were auto-rejected by the killer question ‘do you have full right to work in the UK’.

10 were suitable enough to call.

2 of these were submitted to the employer, alongside 3 found through other means. 1 of them got the job.

In total, I spoke to around 40 candidates before presenting this shortlist.

“That line really struck a chord with me, and it’s so true of some of the companies I interviewed with last time”, said the candidate that went on to get the job. She'd also seen their original advert and not applied, because it seemed exactly the same as her current one.

She wasn’t the only person to comment so.

Disappointingly, not one person spotted the M&S allusion.

By highlighting what it isn’t, this line draws attention to what it is:

The negative space of a vacancy.

It’s actually pretty simple to find this kind of example for any common skill vacancy - I include a niche HR role in this category.

“What reasons have you had for declining candidates, in terms of skill sets, context or attitudes?”

“Why wouldn’t someone work out in this role?”

“Why did it go wrong last time?”

The answer’s with the hiring manager.

If it’s a role for which there are archetypes for success and failure, you can set the scene while speaking to the ikigai and experiences of your readers.

We should be mindful of bias of course:

“This isn’t a company with a diverse workforce or where people stay longer than a year” might be an accurate counterpoint to concerns about culture fit and institutionalisation, but perhaps not something you want to advertise.

“You’ll hate it here if you’re a West Ham fan.”

“If you enjoy the machinations of structured corporate life, this won’t be for you.”

It’s an approach that works for many reasons:

It sets the scene with texture and candour
It appeals to the experiences of candidates and builds trust
It tells them they aren’t going to waste their time by going for the wrong job
It shows you know the truth of the vacancy, from unexpected angles
For readers that enjoy “a steady reactive workload where they can support line managers through disciplinaries and grievances,” they’ll get a sense they aren’t an ideal candidate, confirmed by the rest of the advert. Nothing wrong with what they do, of course, it’s just a different type of HR.
It’s an ‘essential requirement’ in disguise that helps readers make the right decision while giving an implicit and constructive reason for saying no
It’s unusual enough to be a pattern interrupt that encourages credibility and to focus on the rest of the advert

If relevant, I’ll include ‘negative space’ in my adverts, whether above-the-line or below-the-line.

If you were wondering about the picture, which is a style you are likely familiar with – it’s Rubin’s Vase, an optical illusion whereby two faces are created from the negative space of the vase.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Should I Customise My CV? Jobseeker Basics XVII

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 10:59:59 GMT

In tomorrow's LinkedIn Live, Simon Ward and I will debate the merits of customising applications.

Simon is mainly on the side of customisation, whereas I feel it's often relied on as a crutch that detracts from more effective action.

I'm not against it by any means, yet it falls much lower on my priority list than you might think.

You can join us tomorrow at 1pm GMT, by clicking on this link:

https://www.linkedin.com/events/shouldajobhuntertailortheircvfo7427656161476415488/theater/

You can generally see my views on customisation in three chapters of A Career Breakdown Kit .

I've shared two of them in this newsletter already:

Hierarchy of Pain , which explains why the real essential requirements of a vacancy aren't always articulated or even defined, in which case customisation can actually work against you.

De Facto Automated Rejection and You , in which I explain why the ATS isn't the real problem, and what you should consider instead. Given customisation and 'ATS Compliance' go hand in hand, this is a must read.

The third chapter is shared below and answers the question more directly.

But if it's all far too TL;DR, then you should only customise your application if you answer yes to these questions:

1/ Is my core CV good enough? Good enough is your minimum acceptable level - not the goal - and I'm sorry to say the vast majority of CVs do not meet this threshold.

2/ Do I know the hierarchy of decision making in the hiring process, and what each stakeholder needs from the application?

3/ Does the advert speak to me personally? If it's a generic document, you can bet your customisation will look precisely the same as every other person taking the good advice to customise their application.

4/ Could the employer or agency have further vacancies, now or in future, that I am better suited to?

5/ Does my customised CV resemble my LinkedIn closely enough that it doesn't appear to lie?

6/ Am I articulating applicable skills, direct qualifications and relevant experience in the language of the vacancy?

7/ Does the time taken to customise outweigh the speed needed to apply?

8/ Am I 100% focused on the jobs that best meet my strengths?

9/ Is this a better use of my time than the harder activity I've been putting off?

10/ When applying through a job board, is this CV optimised to be findable for my ideal role through their CV database?

I'm sure there are more, but these are a good start. The three chapters explain why you should ask these questions first, so you can make sure your strategy works for you.

And these are the basis for my side of the discussion tomorrow.

34 - Should I customise my CV?

It depends.

Am I qualified?

Strip away bad behaviour, laziness and discrimination, and ask any hiring manager what they want from an application.

I’d wager the most common answer will be -

‘Qualified candidates’

Qualified goes beyond capability.

Can we identify any insurmountable nos?

This might be experience, qualifications, assumption of salary level or commutability, availability, or a lack of work permit.

Often it comes down to assumption. Fair or not, it’s their assumption to make.

All we can do is show how we qualify.

Ask these same hiring managers what proportion of applications aren’t qualified enough, and the answer will be anywhere between 75% and 100%.

Many of these will be wing and a prayer or automated applications. White noise that detracts from qualified candidates.

If you truly are a best-fit candidate for a vacancy, how would you feel if unqualified applications took attention away from you?

In a world where job seekers are often told to ‘shoot your shot’, is it possible that you’ve been an unqualified candidate on occasion?

When looking at any advert, ask yourself -

Am I qualified to do this job?

If yes, ‘How will my application demonstrate that I am qualified?’

This informs whether and how you should customise a CV.

Most jobs are learnable, using transferable skills.

If everyone can learn and has similar transferable skills, neither of these is a remarkable quality. They don’t stand out and they don’t inherently qualify you for a vacancy.

I expect that a significant proportion of what are considered to be unqualified candidates could ‘do that job’ with sufficient support.

It’s just that the expectation is other applicants can do the job better or achieve sufficiency sooner.

This may be perceptual and unfair. It is how many people make decisions when recruiting.

Instead, the onus has to be on the applicability of what we offer.

What’s in it for them?

Can you show how each facet of your candidacy applies in the context of the vacancy?

If you can’t, the decision is likely to be against you in a competitive market.

If you strongly believe you are qualified for points you are always rejected for, you have to articulate why.

This may be for as simple a reason as living 70 miles from their office.

They assume it’s too far and say no.

You’ve been commuting 75 miles for 10 years, and you know you are qualified. Say so.

Same with salary. They judge you were probably on £70k and their budget is £60k max - it’s not going to work.

You’ve done the maths. It’s a great job, the salary is fair, and it’s affordable. Say so.

Or those career gaps.

‘This person’s unemployable - no work for three years!’

‘When I was made redundant, I had the opportunity to support my ailing mother. She passed away in March, and I’m ready to work.’ Say so (and I’m sorry for your loss).

When we talk about being qualified, it’s often more about the skills and capability required to do a job.

If you know you can do the job, show how in your application. This should be the core part of your proposition in words a reader will accept to help us make the right decision.

If you can’t achieve this in your application, you may not be seen to be qualified.

‘Core part’ is important, because you may be someone who has an excellent track record, and a small part of your expertise relates to the core of a vacancy.

You may be able to show this in your application.

However, if you are competing against candidates whose main expertise is the core of the vacancy, you may be perceived generally as a weaker candidate.

An exception might be if you can demonstrate specifically how your wider experience solves problems the vacancy will have.

How can you glean that from a generic advert?

If you aren’t getting any return from customising CVs, it’s because you aren’t seen to be a qualified candidate (if your CV is even seen at all).

And if you can’t provide suitable and sufficient evidence that you are a qualified candidate, you should save your time by not applying.

Whenever I talk to job seekers frustrated by spending hours on customising CVs only to be knocked back instantly, I’m equally frustrated to say they probably never had a chance with those applications.

Strip those applications away and focus on the ones you can show qualified candidacy for quickly.

You’ll save a lot of time and frustration and you’ll IMPROVE your odds, by giving you more time to focus on what matters - more suitable vacancies and different job search activities.

You’ll also improve the odds for more qualified candidates.

Customise to beat the ATS!

Okay, if you’re worried about beating the bots - reread the ATS chapters (p29).

Worry more about being human optimised with a ‘good enough’ CV - it will be implicitly ATS compliant because of what an ATS is.

Yes, solutions are changing all the time, yet as ‘AI’ evolves on recruitment platforms, it will emulate how humans parse documentation.

Appropriate human optimisation is still key, our warts and all.

Not keyword bombing and ‘93% ATS compliant’ piffle.

Good enough

The argument that you should customise your CV against every application to maximise your odds seems to make sense.

Yet, it neglects one key principle. That your starting CV is good enough.

In many applications I see, they are not.

I don’t mean that they haven’t been customised, I mean that they aren’t fit for purpose.

And if that’s the case with your CV, customising only covers over the cracks in a weak document.

CVs in general are weak in specificity, context, applicable skills and readability.

Because people in good times often get by on weak documentation. Jobs are aplenty, suitable candidates competed for - you can succeed with less.

In bad times, good enough has to be a minimum, and most fall short.

I had a debate with a career coach recently who challenged me that ‘good enough’ will never get you a job - why would you always want to be sixth place?

Yet if CVs aren’t good enough to start with, there’s little point in chasing perfect - the most subjective of principles.

If you don’t get past the first sift, you won’t even get to sixth place.

Get the objective principles right and build from there.

Besides, everyone has an opinion on what good looks like in CVs. Perfect for one may be rubbish for another. Quite the stinger when you’ve paid for perfection.

Good enough is about reaching an objectively good CV-state for your context, which depends on all those factors unique to you - your skills and candidacy, the state of your market, the volume of competition and vacancies.

Good enough shows you in your best light, highlighting your candidacy for the role you are most suited for.

You can’t be all things to all people - good marketing is about leaning into what makes you, you.

Get your CV right, and it’s the basis for non-application activities:

Your LinkedIn profile (given it should be consistent with your applications)
A document you share in networking (there’s no point customising here)
A CV that may be found on CV databases (read Better Use of Job Boards - p211)
A CV you’ve used for an application you were rejected for, then logged onto an ATS which is visible to the hiring team for more suited vacancies they may not even advertise
The basis of how you describe yourself in personal branding, elevator pitches, doorknocking and any other commercial-type activity that can put you closer to a job

A CV isn’t just an application tool, it’s the anchor of your professional identity.

It isn’t just an outbound document, it can attract inbound interest.

And if you get it good enough, any customisation should be minimal, allowing you to apply for suited vacancies more quickly.

Quality of information

Let’s face it, most job adverts and job descriptions aren’t fit for purpose either.

Your experience of generic, misrepresentative job adverts mirrors how recruiters experience generic, misrepresentative CVs.

Those carefully written adverts that appear to speak to you directly… well those are good enough adverts to spend time on.

For the rest, would it make much difference if you relied solely on the job title, working arrangements and salary? Perhaps industry and product type, too.

‘Here at Bircham Wyatt Recruitment, we are a market-leading progressive innovator of fast-paced all-level communication.’

A lot of words which say nothing at all.

And because everyone uses them, they lose meaning - as with transferable skills.

Strip all the twaddle away, and if those top-level points are adequate, I expect you’ll go straight to Essential Requirements to see if you are qualified.

The problem with generic adverts is that these Essential Requirements may also lack Essential Specificity. What’s misrepresentative?

What’s missing? What are they really looking for?

This is often hidden pain that is key to unlocking a vacancy – something I write about in more depth, in the next chapter.

If you aren’t certain on these points, what are you customising against?

Could it be you accidentally edit out what makes you most suited to a vacancy, if what they leave unsaid is the most important piece?

Sometimes this is down to carelessness by the employer - sometimes it’s deliberate:

I once placed an HR Manager at a ‘rapidly growing’ company. They didn’t tell me or her that the thing they needed most was her mass-redundancy experience, which was what she was tasked to do on day one.

The truth was the opposite of their job description.

And sometimes different stages of the hiring process have different priorities, which may never have been articulated in the advert:

Administrator, Recruiter, Line Manager, Head of Department, Director...

A messed-up perfect storm

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably been looking for work for a while, in a competitive marketplace with too many qualified candidates, far too many applications, and too few viable vacancies.

Plus, technology that encourages speed and volume.

And under-resourced, over-worked hiring teams, many of whom don’t do hiring as a day job.

Have you ever spent an hour customising a CV only to learn you were application number 232? Without knowing they’d closed applications at 200. And you received an instant rejection?

Sometimes, it may be a question of speed over quality.

How do you find the right balance?

Reciprocity in action

For advertising, the balance is simple.

Invest as much time in your application as their effort in the advert.

For a transactional generic advert - apply transactionally, diarise a follow-up, move on.

Keep these in a transactional fire-and-forget pile.

For the adverts that speak to you personally or take time and care to accurately articulate what the role is and what it offers you, reciprocate this effort in your application.

Keep these in a non-transactional pile.

Measure your return separately.

You’ll find a higher hit rate in the second, with the virtuous circle of your added investment.

While the lower hit rate of the first is mirrored by not needing to have put so much of yourself into it.

What about AI?

There are many wonderful AI tools available, and if you want to take the time out of customising CVs, automating seems a great opportunity.

What exactly are they customising against?

Because the quality of information you can convey is based on situational insight, it seems to me that AI can only tweak terminology or regurgitate what others have already written.

If everyone uses AI in this way, the output is generic resulting in same-same messages and CVs at scale.

This is what I’m hearing from people who are recruiting - reams of identical looking applications that lack punch.

It doesn’t help; it works against you.

For ideation, research, analysis, it’s an effective tool. Ask it which areas of a job description you might focus on selling your experience against.

For applying at scale, for now, it’s part of the noise.

Should I customise my CV and how?

It depends.

If your CV is already ‘good enough’, it shouldn’t take too much time to show how you meet the essential requirements of an advert.

If an advert sings to you and you feel inspired to put your best foot forward, you should (maybe check it’s still live first).

Use relevant impact based achievements. ‘I did x by y resulting in z’
Show relevant context - if your last employer was a context fit, show how. E.g. Rapidly growing scale-up, 50 to 250 in one year, t/o £24m. Or 500 staff, manufacturing of precision components for aerospace, significant downsizing programme
Align your language to theirs - they say PDCA, you said CI. They say S&OP, you said integrated business planning. Don’t fabricate
Remember - what’s in it for them? How will you solve their problems or help them reach their desired outcomes?

For other situations, I’d question whether the marginal gain of customisation should be set aside for what may be the maximal gain of what you don’t want to do:

Networking, doorknocking, personal branding, and all those other inbound and outbound activities that might get you closer to a job.

Trust Me. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 15

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:14:40 GMT

I was just about to click "Post", when I read a comment by a peer, suggesting that even the most transactional recruiters fill their vacancies.

In which case, why bother trying anything differently?

One reason is because you care about long-term outcomes. It isn't just about filling the job, but finding the right person, and hopefully someone who will exceed expectation while thriving in their roles.

If that's your goal, a smart idea is to break down how you achieve that, look at the common steps, processes, tactics and strategy, then find a way to replicate it consistently.

While this series has appeared to be about recruitment messaging, that message isn't the goal, it's the consequence of the AiDE framework.

A central principle in the framework is trust.

May 30, 2023

Write words in the right way and you can make anyone believe anything.

You can even get readers to behave in utterly predictable ways, in certain situations.

I know you don’t believe me, so -

Don’t think about your breathing.

Now you are, and you’re admittedly annoyed but slightly amused.

Okay that just works for 84% of readers, a stat I’ve just made up.

Did that line undermine your trust in me?

It’s why whodunnits are often better read than watched: the passage of words doesn’t just bring us forward – they trap us in the narrative.

I don’t know how The Murder of Roger Ackroyd could be quite so clever as a film, a novel which breaks all the conventional rules of murder mysteries.

Read it, then tell me if you disagree.

Narratives that suck you in and suspend disbelief.

It’s no different in advertising and content in general.

If words speak to your emotional truth, then cognitive bias is hard to shift.

Examples

Have you heard about the situationally dangerous DiHydrogen Monoxide?

- also known as Hydroxyl Acid, found in acid rain - used in industrial solvents - found in most junk food - too much exposure will kill you - found in all dead bodies

This led to a 14-year-old convincing 43 of his 50 classmates to vote on banning water.

Yet not a single word is untrue, just misleading in only speaking to fear and lols.

What about all those front-page headlines of Cancer being cured?

On further reading, it was from promising clinical trials, rather than market ready.

Months later research shows the drugs were not as effective as hope sold, muttered in a byline on pg 17.

Laetrile was promoted as a cancer cure in the 70s before being shown to be as effective as a placebo.

One of many.

All true words.

Politicians play both sides.

How about LinkedIn dimfluencers and their sales of hope?

Or the posts about wolf packs as a metaphor for servant leadership?

You can see the engagement – how do they stand up against critical thinking or a quick browse on Snopes ?

Fool me once, and that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down.

And so it is in recruitment.

Adverts, content and messages that speak an emotional truth can be quite compelling.

Should we even strive to compel, and what risk does that bring?

For me that comes down to what outcome you want from recruitment.

Do you want a candidate to engage?

A candidate for submission?

One for interview?

To be offered?

To become your next employee?

To last long enough to give you a return on investment?

Someone that enjoys working there while doing so?

Now, I know many of my fellow recruiters feel that from the point of interview it’s down to the employer and the candidate to fairly assess whether it’s the right move.

We may chaperone candidates through the offer stage, but we are not accountable for a failed hire.

If we treat recruitment as a solely transactional process this may be a fair view.

But, if we accept that every communication touch point is an opportunity to bring candidates forward, to better fill our vacancy, what should we consider as our duty of care?

And if we have an opportunity to influence from the top of the process - such as ideation for job descriptions - aren’t we accountable for the outcome?

These questions hold whether you’re an agency, internal, HR or hiring manager.

If you can convince with your narrative, speak to emotional truth, and influence behaviour, all through your ongoing words – that isn’t a transaction, it’s a relationship being nurtured.

What happens if someone leaves within three months of starting a new role, for an unequivocal and non-negotiable reason that could have been identified before the first interview?

Or accepts a counteroffer for a reason, in retrospect, we could have seen?

Or withdraws on the day of the interview?

For a recruiter who cares about long-term outcomes and relationships, that’s where our duty of care is – to bring the right candidates forward for reasons that are right for them.

It’s not just about candidate attraction. If you are genuinely committed to finding the right people, it has to be done with integrity throughout rather than just compelling content.

Otherwise, we risk candidates rightly losing their suspension of disbelief when they encounter situations that either belie the message or their needs.

Something to consider next time a candidate withdraws unexpectedly or disappears inexplicably - could we be responsible because of how they experienced our words?

How we write the right words is in our control.

One way to establish the right words is the non-negotiable no’s of candidates.

Once all the candidates with non-negotiable no’s are qualified out, what happens?

That’s what the next & final edition is about.

Regards,

Greg

Numbers Game - Jobseeker Basics XVI

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 10:53:55 GMT

What follows is Chapter 7 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026).

While the title suggests a lottery, how they break down includes misreporting, people following poor advice, wing and a prayer applications and suitable applications from unsuitable applicants.

That last one being the fault of poorly specified adverts, not the reader.

How do the numbers break down?

When you see 400 people have already applied for a vacancy, you might think not to even bother applying.

But these numbers aren't always accurate and are never the full story.

Until recently there was a common reporting error on LinkedIn, when a click that led to an incomplete application on an ATS still counted as an application. The true number here is often lower. As a fix, LinkedIn now shows ‘people who clicked apply.’

In this tough market, it's understandable that many people will apply at volume, often without reading the adverts. Tools like EasyApply allow a straightforward application, while automations like LazyApply enable you to apply for 2,000 vacancies while you are sleeping.

This leads to a high number of 'wholly unsuitable' applications. Common reasons can be no work permit or experience that has no relation to the vacancy.

As well as a high number of applications that appear suitable yet are non-viable. This might be down to a too high salary requirement; one reason to list salary and help people make informed decisions. Even then many will still apply. Or they may have missed simple points like a location too far to commute to. These applications are fairly straightforward to rule out, yet at scale are time consuming.

Anything between 80% and 99% of applications aren't suitable.

When you read 400, there may be only 4 suitable candidates. If you are a suitable candidate, it's well worth considering. You might follow up directly with the hiring manager.

It doesn't help that many adverts don't list salary, misrepresent working conditions, or are so vague you can't assess if you even are suitable. These should be low stakes applications.

It also doesn't help that employers make arbitrary decisions. Such as a LinkedIn post I read recently describing a hiring manager who took down an advert after 24 hours, having received an overwhelming response - then expressed surprise none were suitable.

These high numbers of non-viable applications take oxygen away from people who apply with care.

There aren't any easy answers to this situation, which is driven by poor market conditions, application processes that work against the applicant, and cynical behaviour from many hiring organisations.

Added thoughts:

We are where we are with the jobs market. A high volume of job seekers, a difficult market to navigate, few vacancies, and many poor experiences.

Much of this is defined by the state of the market and wider economy. In the UK this does look to be getting better and may lead to a shift for job seekers. More vacancies, less competition from qualified candidates, more urgency from employers.

For candidates who take care in their applications, the market has been the main factor holding them back.

When you see an advert similar to the one described, consider applying, if you can show you are a suitable candidate.

If you can’t and it’s a common skills role, I’d make the choice to step away. Concentrate on roles you are a 70%+ fit for.

If you do decide to apply, don’t only rely on the transactional process:

Find out who the hiring manager is and contact them directly. Check if they are still reviewing applications and make a case for yourself
If you can't find out who the hiring manager is, who can you find to gain more information? Use the LinkedIn search bar to find peers in the same department or people who manage their recruitment, such as Talent Acquisition Managers
Find constructive reasons to keep in touch, especially if you are declined later in the process

If you see an interesting role that has closed, get in touch directly. It might be that hiring manager scenario where they have many applicants, but no one suitable.

It’s a careful balance. You want to find ways to cut through without being a pain or being seen to cheat.

Listen to anything you get back from a process and use that to improve your approach. This might be anything from instructions to follow in an application to individual feedback on your performance. Think about what you can do to stand out.

Get ahead of the game. If a company advertises widely on LinkedIn, create a job alert on their company page. Click on their company name, go to jobs and you’ll see the option.

The flip side of this advert scenario is that numbers can work against a careful application, such as if an advert is removed before you can tailor your CV.

Or worse, if an advert remains live, but no applications are reviewed after the first 100.

It’s an argument for having a single ‘good enough’ CV so you can move quickly, rather than spending hours on a single application – I’ll discuss this in more depth in Part 3.

Walk A Mile. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 14

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 15:16:05 GMT

Walk a mile

May 2023

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

That’s how 1984 starts, the classic dystopian novel by George Orwell.

What does it make you think of?

I don’t know about you, but thirteen to me is both an unlucky number and an improbable one for a clock to strike, evoking curiosity and trepidation.

It makes me want to read on.

George could have instead written an opening like “it was a dark and stormy night”, to evoke a sense of darkness at night, during a storm.

I gather that cracker is often derided as the worst opening line of all time, not just for the words, but for how it’s a representative experience of the entire book.

Some people love it.

For me, it’s up there with

“My favourite client is an innovative market leader”

“To apply, send an up-to-date CV, and cover letter, stating your current salary to greg.wyatt@darkandstormyknight.com ”

“If you haven’t heard from us within the thirteenth strike of the hour, please assume you were unsuccessful”

Or even “We don’t discriminate on the grounds of….”

What do you think a dream candidate experiences when they come across them?

Especially one that is selfish and feels like they’ve no reason to consider a new role yet happens across yours by happenstance.

The irony is that if you dig into the websites of agencies and employers that write these words, they’ll often extoll disruptively good candidate experience, values alignment and culture fit.

But what do their words and behaviour show, and how is that experienced?

Flipping it around, the questions might be “What can we do to create the best experience for the high-performing person we want to employ at this step in our recruitment process? What can they benefit from? How can we make their journey more palatable? What are we missing?”

As smoothly as these questions roll off the tongue, it’s not just the steps taken, but the ones before, in-between and after.

While it doesn’t just benefit your next employee, it benefits everyone - your other candidates, you and your stakeholders.

Of course, there’s no need to gaze so navelly if you hire people well enough.

But, if your adverts aren’t working or if your process doesn’t fill vacancies, you can either work on things in your control or accept those that aren’t.

What you shouldn’t do is blame candidates, agencies or the market if your own affairs aren’t in order.

Having a recruitment process whose consequence is both good candidate experience and serves to better fill your vacancies – that’s something in your control.

It starts with putting yourself in the shoes of your candidates and giving them what they can benefit from.

Do this through your words, show it through your actions.

You could consider Attention , Ikigai , and Definition for your messaging.

What else?

How about considering the situation of the “successful candidate”?

What if they are likely to be happily employed, sceptical of a move and have no interest (yet) in updating their CV or writing a cover letter?

If you require an updated CV, and they don’t have the time, what are the chances of this candidate (who you’d love to employ) not applying, and how would you ever know?

What if you offered an informal call or to answer any questions before an application?

(Research shows that offering multiple means of getting in touch improves response rates)

What experience might they benefit from in the opening salvo of what might be an advert, message or website?

What reasons can you give them to build trust, commit to your process and see it through?

Do they want to be told something is a brilliant opportunity, or shown why it may interest them?

What if they’ve wasted many lifetimes going through never-ending interview processes, and might just benefit from knowing what your process is?

Why couldn’t you highlight your interview process in your advert?

What if they needed an accommodation?

Perhaps they’re ND, have a disability, struggle to find childcare at short notice. Who knows what’s going on in their lives where minor amendments can find suitable gains?

Rather than say “we don’t discriminate on the grounds of” (discrimination is illegal for protected characteristics in the UK - what are the reasons it needs to be said in an advert?), why not instead show how you are inclusive and accessible… which IMO, is what the points above contribute towards.

That’s just for advertising.

What if your job descriptions were clear & concise , suitable & sufficient and true & fair ?

What if you provided interview questions in advance of interviews?

This is currently advised as good practice in the UK for autistic candidates. Does it give an unfair advantage to people that don’t need this accommodation? If not, why not allow everyone the same access?

My answer is it doesn’t give an unfair advantage. It allows everyone to fairly evidence their capability on a more even playing field.

How might that affect the experiences of you and your candidates?

What if you clearly managed expectations?

What if you highlighted bottlenecks and delays, rather than not saying anything?

“There won’t be any news this week as Gary is unexpectedly away from the office. Can I come back to you on Monday? How are things with you by the way?”

What if you answered questions before they were asked ?

The list is endless, and it starts with establishing what your successful candidates could experience.

For an example of how it might come together, here is the basic structure of my job board adverts:

Attention – the hook that will appeal to a carefully established ‘right candidate’

Ikigai – why they might be interested in further investigation, what they can expect from an employer they might benefit from working for

Definition – a line or two on what makes the company the company; two to three lines on what the role is and its context; no more than three minimum viable requirements the successful candidate should have.

An invitation to talk to or email me, with any questions or accommodations that may help. No need for a CV if it isn’t to hand.

“All applications will receive a reply within three days.”

The boring bits: what you can expect from me; what the interview process is, with any notable points; time frames.

This is a loose structure and will vary in length, detail and style depending on who it’s for.

While some people confuse me as a dedicated Headhunter (I’m an appropriate-multichannel recruiter that does headhunting), I make half of my placements from advertising. Yet many of these adverts produce hires that weren’t actively looking.

<edit: given we are nearly 3 years on, it's interesting how my advert outcomes remain the same, especially given the wide report of mass irrelevant AI customised applications. Indeed, I find that I get fewer applications overall compared to more generic adverts. So: a better candidate base, with less distraction and more capacity to assess them fairly>

Two more editions to come: Trust Me, and Negative Space. Then we move on to a new series: Innovation from Iteration.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. the last line in 1984 is “he loved Big Brother”.

And that’s the end of the story.

And then there were none.

And that was that.

And so it goes.

All was well.

Bonus points if you can name any of these books from their final lines.

P.p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, and you're a UK employer, why not drop me a line and explore whether we can improve everyone's experience together

Fake Jobs - Jobseeker Basics XV

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 15:07:50 GMT

What follows is Chapter 14 of A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) .

I've updated it yesterday, having done a little digital hygiene and the revelation I have fallen foul of two fake jobs.

Or rather they are real jobs I'm recruiting for, which have been scraped without my permission, then hidden behind a signup screen.

Why not google "Engineering Manager Bircham Wyatt Recruitment" and see how it looks to job seekers?

What makes this particularly egregious is that in both cases AI appears to have been used to alter specific details of the role. Such as including a salary that is well, well above the budget for the role.

As well as being a waste of time for someone wanting to apply, there's the cost of their private details, and were the employer to see the advert, potential internal reputational risk of employees seeing a fantasy salary.

Looking at Trustpilot reviews, to gain access to one there is a paid subscription. The second appears to sell CV writing services to applicants. Both appear terrible from what customers say.

A real job that is worse than fake, if you happen to come across it.

I expect people are getting wise to these odd listings; however when one vacancy appears umpteen times in a google search, with only two leading to a real listing, it's easy to assume they are all fake.

"Be aware of fake jobs" is one of my top 10 pieces of advice shared in today's LinkedIn Live with Simon Ward. If you are around at 1pm GMT, please join us by clicking here .

14 - Fake jobs

Picture the scene.

You’ve gone through the emotional turmoil of losing your job. Or maybe something’s happened at work to galvanise your decision to make a change.

You take a bit of time to figure out what the right next move is.

You go through the obvious channels to see what jobs are out there - job boards and other websites which promote jobs.

Your first reaction is one of hope and optimism - there seems quite a bit out there - maybe you’ll secure something quickly.

If you happen to be reading this, new to a job search, indeed you might.

Many people in this market quickly realise that a significant number of adverts do not represent jobs that exist.

A double whammy in your emotional rollercoaster of recent weeks.

There are a few categories to go through, but the outcome is the same: an advert that, at best, wastes your time.

The recruiter perspective

When we advertise a job, we allow time for applications to come in before assessing them and starting the interview process.

Let’s say the volume is manageable and the outcome is not guaranteed - for example, when a candidate you want to offer decides to take a different job instead.

There are no villains in this scenario. It’s common enough that risk is a factor when advertising.

If a recruitment process takes six weeks from advert to offer, it can make sense to leave the advert up in case you need more candidates in your pipeline.

What about if your process takes three months? Illness, holiday, lack of availability, unexpected deadlines - all can delay a process.

There are many tools and suppliers which support a hiring process, one of which is the job board. Often features are developed to support ‘what happens if things go wrong.’

These same tools can lead to issues you may experience:

Scraping

Scraping is when one website takes content from another and relists it. This can happen as an affiliate / aggregation / commercial arrangement, or to drive traffic to the scraping website.

The idea is that this increases eyeballs on the content.

In the context of job adverts, you can see this everywhere. Indeed and LinkedIn have both relisted adverts from elsewhere at various times.

It's changing because some job boards have now secured high volumes of traffic and want to monetise that traffic while keeping control of the adverts.

An indication that this happens is when you click ‘apply now’ and it takes you to another website other than the employer’s.

This can happen multiple times. Every time a job is scraped, there can be parsing errors where data from fields are incorrectly transferred.

If the original advert is updated, the scraped adverts won’t necessarily be updated.

Scraped adverts can give inaccurate or outdated salary, location, or even job information. They can also stay listed when the original has closed without the employer ever knowing about it.

This is a form of 'legitimate' scraping intended to benefit the employer through additional applications.

There is a second type of scraping.

As of 2nd February 2026, one of my vacancies has been scraped, without my permission, by apparently two different organisations.

In the first you can only apply by signing up. It lists a salary that I haven't disclosed elsewhere is not commensurate with role responsibilities.

If you click on my Company Name, it will tell you I am a large multinational recruiter, employing 51-100 staff.

Which is 51-100 more people than I employ, if you don't include me.

Let's ignore the AI word soup company profile they've lumped on me for now.

Some of my other adverts this website shares are slop summary overviews. Including the same job at 40% to 60% of the salary in the first advert.

It's the same for the second, except here the salary invented is well above the hypothetical top budget.

Looking deeper at both companies, on Trustpilot, both offer subscription services to access jobs that are hard to cancel. While one offers what appears to be bait and switch CV writing services.

Several reviews are from employers who have experienced similar to me, with instances of outdated vacancies that no longer exist.

What a sham.

Relisting

As a feature for advertisers, many job boards allow an automatic relisting of adverts to ‘bring it to the top of the pile.’

These relists can occur throughout the lifespan of an advert. Six weeks in, an advert may appear new, even though a candidate might be about to be given a job offer.

The vacancy is live, but your application may not be considered because the process is too far along.

This can also happen manually for many reasons.

I’ve taken down a job after a couple of weeks to rewrite it based on fine tuning from an interview process. Or when a candidate has declined an offer put forward to them. Or when a vacancy has been put on hiatus.

The reason for a manual relisting might be unknowable if it isn’t stated in the advert. It isn’t necessarily for a bad reason.

If I were to relist an advert, it would only be because I need more candidates, in which case your application would be read.

In many situations relisting can encourage an application that won’t be assessed.

Laziness

Adverts can remain listed because someone forgot to take them down.

This is more likely to happen if there isn’t a cost per advert, such as on an employer website, or if there is an unlimited contract.

Evergreen vacancies

Some vacancies are perpetually advertised to enable a candidate pipeline for a specialism.

There might be no vacancy now, with anticipation of vacancies in future. This is more common within larger employers or a specialist recruitment agency.

I spoke with a Talent Acquisition Manager recently about the positive side of an evergreen vacancy. She told me for that vacancy they are always recruiting, having mad eight hires in six months - it's a business as usual vacancy.

I would hope this is made clear in the advert.

Fishing

Sometimes adverts harvest applications on the off chance that a related vacancy comes up.

I remember a Cambridge agency that used to scrape employer adverts, list them as their own, then submit those CVs speculatively to the same employers - without a commercial arrangement in place.

Make of that what you will.

Is there any way to check for fishing? Probe the advertiser for relevant information and what their relationship is with the hiring process.

That’s not proof of bad behaviour because of how the contingency model works. When multiple agencies work on one vacancy, it’s common not to provide company information until later in the process.

If an agency is fishing only to build a bank of CVs, it’s unlikely they’ll admit to it.

Scam jobs

It sickens me that advertising and job scams are on the rise.

If it doesn’t feel right, if they are asking for payment, if they do a bait and switch (this job isn’t right but here’s our CV writing service or access to a system beating framework), if they ask for ID that can be used for other purposes: beware.

These may be in public advert form.

They may also be from direct messages - LinkedIn DMs, WhatsApp messages, or phone calls. Often from ‘recruiters’ that appear to work for big corporates, yet have no connections and use a gmail account.

One scam last year cloned a legitimate company website and job seekers lost many thousands of pounds.

My scraped example above is, in my book, a likely scam too.

It’s worth reading through www.jobsaware.co.uk , which is a great resource on scams and employment exploitation.

The disappearing act

This last category may or may not be a fake job.

Here’s the scenario - it looks like a vacancy, it sounds like one in discussion. Perhaps you even interview there on site. You may even go so far as to do a 5 hour presentation at final interview on your 90 day strategy.

Then it disappears - either permanently, or it reappears with no further communication from the employer or agency.

I hear this happening a lot, particularly at a senior level, in the UK market.

There are a few reasons it can happen:

Company had budget to recruit; changes in the business, or external factors, mean the vacancy isn’t viable at least immediately
Company didn’t have budget to recruit and only realises there is no budget later in the process
Company runs an interview process to get free consultancy in the form of a final interview presentation (scumbags)
Company dipping a toe in the market to see what’s out there, with no intent to hire
Company benchmarking an internal hire for future planning purposes
Agency finds out there may be a need for an employer to hire and runs a speculative process that doesn’t get approval

I’m sure there are many more reasons this can happen and there isn’t a huge amount you can do, given the appearance is of a real vacancy.

You can ask if budget has been approved, research the business on Glassdoor, or speak to alumni.

It’s unclear what proportion of job adverts are fake. It is a notable problem, and one which takes attention away from legitimate adverts that can put you closer to employment.

For the adverts that are real, Part Three of the book will help you assess which you are best suited for and how to effectively use job boards.

Jump the shark. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 13

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:13:08 GMT

May 2023

You’ve heard the phrase, I take it – “jump the shark”?

It’s the moment when one surprising or absurd experience can indicate a rapid descent into rubbishness and obscurity.

When it’s time to get off the bus.

Typically in media.

Jumping the Shark comes from an episode of Happy Days in which the Fonz does a water ski jump over a shark.

�� Aaaaay. ��

A sign creators have run out of ideas, or can’t be bothered to come up with fresh ones.

In movies, sequelitis is a good example of this – an unnecessary sequel done to make some cash, in the hope the audience doesn’t care about its quality.

Sometimes they become dead horses to flog, such as the missteps that are any Terminator film after 2.

It’s an issue that can lead to consumers abandoning what they were doing, with such a precipitous drop in engagement that the thing itself is then cancelled.

Partly because of breaking trust in what was expected to happen next.

And because it’s a sign that the disbelief that was temporarily suspended has come crashing down.

If you don’t believe that your current poor experience will lead to further, better experiences, why would you bother?

Once you’ve had your fingers burnt, how hard is it to find that trust in similar experiences?

It doesn’t have to be a single vein of experience for all to be affected.

Watch one dodgy superhero movie and how does it whet your appetite for the next?

You didn’t see The Eternals? Lucky you.

Or how about that time we had really bad service at Café Rouge, a sign of new management that didn’t care, and we never went again?

Just me?

Did they sauter par-dessus le requin?

Here’s the rub – it matters less that these experiences have jumped the shark. It matters more what the experience means for expectation.

So it is in candidate experience.

It’s not just the experience you provide that tempers expectations – it’s the cumulated experience of other processes that creates an assumption of what might be expected of yours.

If you’re starting from a low trust point, what will it take for your process to ‘jump the shark’ and lose, not just an engaged audience, but those brilliant candidates that might only have considered talking to you if their experience hadn’t been off-putting?

Not fair, is it, that the experience provided by other poor recruitment processes might affect what people expect of yours?

Their experiences aren’t in your control, the experience you provide is.

Of my 700 or so calls with exec job seekers, since The Pandemic: Lockdown Pt 1, many described the candidate experience touchpoints that led to them deciding not to proceed with an application.

These were calls that were purely about job search strategy, and not people I could place. However, one benefit for me is that they are the Gemba , and I get to hear their direct experiences outside of my recruitment processes.

Experiences such as -

‘£Competitive salary’ in an advert or DM, which they know full well means a lowball offer every time, because it happened to them once or twice, or perhaps it was just a LinkedIn post they read.

Maybe it isn’t your problem at all, maybe your £competitive is upper 1% - how does their experience inform their assumptions?

Or when adverts lend ambiguity to generic words, what meaning do they find, no matter how far from the truth?

How the arrogance of a one-sided interview process affects their interest.

The apparent narcissism in many outreaches in recruitment (unamazing, isn’t it, that bad outreach can close doors, rather than open them).

Those ATS ‘duplicate your CV’ data entry beasts? Fool me once…

Instances that are the catalysts for them withdrawing.

I’d find myself telling them to look past these experiences, because a poor process can hide a good job.

It’s a common theme in my jobseeker posts, such as a recent one offering a counterpoint to the virality that is “COVER LETTERS DON’T M4TT£R agree?”

Experiences that may not be meant by the employer, or even thought of as necessarily bad, yet are drivers for decisions and behaviour.

I can only appeal to these job seekers through my posts and calls.

What about those other jobseekers who I’m not aware of, who’ve only experienced nonsense advice?

What about those people who aren’t jobseekers?

What about those people who think they love their roles?

What about all those great candidates who won’t put up with bad experiences?

The more sceptical they are, and the further they are from the need for a new role, the less bullshit they’ll put up with.

What happens when an otherwise acceptable process presents something unpalatable?

Might this jumping the shark mean they go no further?

Every time the experience you provide doesn’t put their needs front and centre or if it’s correlated to their bad experiences….

these can prevent otherwise willing candidates from progressing with your process, whether that’s an advert they don’t apply to, a job they don’t start, or everything in between.

Decisions that may stem from false assumptions of what a bad experience will mean.

Instead, look to these ‘bad experience’ touchpoints as opportunities to do better:

instead of £competitive, either state a salary or a legitimate reason why you can’t disclose salary (e.g. “see below” if limited by a job board field and “we negotiate a fair salary based on the contribution of the successful candidate, and don’t want to limit compensation by a band”)
instead of a 1-way interrogation… an interview
instead of radio silence when there’s no news - an update to say there’s no update, and ‘How are things with you by the way?’
instead of Apply Now via our Applicant Torture Sadistificator, ‘drop me a line if you have any questions’ or ‘don’t worry if you don’t have an updated CV - we’ll sort that later’.

Opportunity from adversity. And why you can look at bad experiences other processes provide as a chance to do better.

With the benefit that, if you eliminate poor experience, you'll lose fewer candidates unnecessarily, including those ideal ones you never knew about.

Bad experiences are the yin to good experience’s yang and both are key parts of the E that is Experience in the AIDE framework.

The good is for next time.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

How To Network For A Job - Jobseeker Basics XIV

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 21:22:48 GMT

The following is Chapter 42 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) .

In a sense it's a microcosm of how any commercial activity can see a better return - which is to put the needs of the person you are appealing to above your own.

It feels counterintuitive, especially when you have a burning need, but you can see the problem of NOT doing this simply by looking at 99% of job adverts:

We are. We need. We want. What you'll do for us. What you might get in return. Capped off by the classic "don't call us, we'll call you."

If you didn't need a job, how would you respond to that kind of advert?

In the same vein, if you want networking to pay off, how will your contact's life improve by your contact?

What's in it for them?

42 - How to network for a job

Who are the two types of people you remember at networking events?

For me two types stand out.

One will be the instant pitch networker.

This might work if you happen to be in need right now of what they have to offer or if mutual selling is your goal.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this but it’s a selling activity pretending to be networking.

If you want to sell, go and overtly sell rather than disguise it with subterfuge.

Lest we mark your face and avoid you where possible in future.

The second is the one who gets to know you, shows interest and tries to add to your experience. You share ideas, and there’s no push to buy something.

They believe that through building the relationship when you have a problem they can solve, you’ll think to go to them.

It’s a relationship built on reciprocity. One where if you always build something together there is reason to keep in touch.

And where the outcome is what you need if the right elements come together: right person, right time, right message, right place, right offering, right price.

Job search networking is no different.

The purpose of networking in a job search is to build a network where you are seen as a go-to solution should a suitable problem come up.

In this case the problem you solve is a vacancy.

Either because your active network is recruiting, or because they advocate for you when someone they know is recruiting.

It is always a two-way conversation you both benefit from. Knowledge sharing, sounding board, see how you’re doing - because of what the relationship brings to you both.

It is not contacting someone only to ask for a job or a recommendation. A one-way conversation that relies on lucky timing.

That second approach can be effective as a type of direct sales rather than networking.

If you get it wrong it may even work against you. How would you feel if someone asked to network with you, when it became clear they want you to do something for them?

You might get lucky and network with someone who is recruiting now - more likely is that you nurture that relationship over time.

If your goal is only to ask for help each networking opportunity will have a low chance of success.

While if your goal is to nurture a relationship that may produce a lead, you’ll only have constructive outcomes.

This makes it sensible to start by building a network with people that already know you:

Former direct colleagues and company colleagues
Industry leaders and peers
Recruiters you have employed or applied through

Don’t forget the friends you aren’t in regular touch with - there is no shame in being out of work and it would be a shame if they didn’t think of you when aware of a suitable opening.

These people are a priority because they know you, your capability and your approach and trust has already been built.

Whereas networking with people you don't know requires helping them come to know and trust you.

Networking with people you know is the most overlooked tactic by the exec job seekers I talk to (followed by personal branding). These are the same people who see the hidden jobs market as where their next role is, yet overlook what’s in front of them.

If you are looking for a new role on the quiet - networking is a go-to approach that invites proactive contact to you.

Networking with people who know people you know, then people in a similar domain, then people outside of this domain - these are in decreasing order of priority.

Let's not forget the other type of networking. Talking to fellow job seekers is a great way to share your pain, take a load off your shoulders, bounce ideas off each other, and hold each other accountable.

LinkedIn is the perfect platform to find the right people if you haven't kept in touch directly.

Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a conduit to conversation.

It isn’t the conversation itself.

Speaking in real life is where networking shines because while you might build a facsimile of a relationship in text, it's no replacement for a fluid conversation.

Whether by phone and video calls, real life meetups, business events, seminars, conferences, expos, or in my case - on dog walks and waiting outside of the school gates. Both these last two have led to friends and business for me though the latter hasn’t been available since 2021.

Networking isn’t 'What can I get out of it?'

Instead, ‘What’s in it for them?’

The difference is the same as those ransom list job adverts compared to the rare one that speaks to you personally.

How can you build on this relationship by keeping in touch?

Networking is systematic, periodic and iterative:

Map out your real life career network. Revisit anyone you’ve ever worked with and where
Find them on LinkedIn
Get in touch ‘I was thinking about our time at xxx. Perhaps we could reconnect - would be great to catch up’
If they don’t reply, because life can be busy, diarise a follow up
What could be of interest to them? A LinkedIn post might be a reason to catch up
When you look up your contact’s profile look at the companies they’ve worked at. They worked there for a reason, which may be because of a common capability to you
Research these companies. Are there people in relevant roles worth introducing yourself to? Maybe the company looks a fit with your aspirations - worth getting in touch with someone who may be a hiring manager or relevant recruiter?
Maybe they aren’t recruiting now. Someone to keep in touch with because of mutual interests. Click on Job on their company page, then "I'm interested" - this helps for many reasons, including flagging your interest as a potential employee
Keep iterating your network and find new companies as you look at new contacts. This is one way we map the market in recruitment to headhunt candidates - you can mirror this with your networking

The more proactive networking you build into your job search, the luckier you might get.

While you might need to nurture a sizeable network and there are no guarantees, think about the other virtues of networking - how does that compare to endless unreplied applications?

I often hear from job seekers who found their next role through networking.

This includes those who got the job because of their network even though hundreds of applicants were vying for it. While this may be unfair on the applicants sometimes you can make unfair work for you.

It can be effective at any level.

Standard definition; A Recruitment AiDE, pt 12

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 17:09:13 GMT

It might seem like the AiDE framework is about better advertising, but really that depends on what you think an advert is.

While it's clearly intended to attract ideal employees, particularly for context heavy key hires - it's consequential, not standalone.

Because you can't attract ideal hires if you don't know specifically who 'they' are or what good looks like. The definition of which is also a consequence of what the role actually is.

Get these points wrong and you might have a compelling advert that attracts a great person, who buggers off in 4 weeks because they were never the right person to start with.

Yet another reason why those dynamic, market-leading adjectives are entirely the wrong way to go about it.

So, this edition introduces the D in AiDE - definition.

May, 2023

I first came across ‘Minimum Viable Product’ when I recruited a product management role a few years ago (I love product management roles – they are super contextual and allow my process to shine).

MVP is the simplest version of a product that allows it to be tested for commercial viability and market demand. It’s the most basic version of the intended product that is fit for purpose.

In recruitment, the principle of ‘minimum viable’ might be the sporting MVP for any part of your process that requires definition, with meaning to the right people – if you apply suitability and sufficiency .

It’s the foundation on which ‘Definition’ is built on in my AiDE framework.

Let me share a LinkedIn post which shows a jobseeker’s reaction to a recent interview:

"Today I had a fantastic #interview."

Can you see the ikigai of their experience?

More than that, this excellent experience is a consequence of a skilful process, as any good candidate experience should be.

What might be the benefit of doing this for the employer?

Part of her experience is how the process has been defined in advance.

Before they apply, most candidates want clarity both on what a role is, and why they might be a good candidate for that role.

They likely already know the general duties of any given job title – we neither want them to learn to suck eggs, nor to wade through volumes of irrelevant content.

We know that many demographics may pre-select themselves out if they don’t sufficiently meet the ‘required criteria’ set out in a job advert, even if those criteria aren’t actually required.

Some of these demographics suffer from isms – do we really want to be precluding potentially great candidates just because of poor use of language?

Better accessibility in language used benefits everyone.

It goes to follow that we might aim to describe both the role and person requirements in a way that has meaning to the widest relevant reader base: minimum viable.

For the role – the immutable truth of a vacancy that defines what it is, without ambiguity.

For the person requirement – the immutable set of skills, qualifications, attitudes and/or experiences that any successful employee in this role has to have.

Everything else can be stripped away.

You can use So What? and Why does it Matter? to help edit these down to size.

What’s left should be no more than 3-4 bullet points – fewer, if you can do so without introducing ambiguity.

If you disagree, tell me why you can’t trim your requirement down and I’ll be happy to explore this with you.

These definitions give clarity to readers, open up access to the widest pool of possible candidates and help you in establishing what you actually need.

Simplifying to minimum viable takes work and requires you to challenge habit and accepted process. If you’ve always ‘done it this way’, it can be hard to see past your blind spots.

Much like the rest of an advert, the content should be the consequence of the work that’s led to it.

In this case, the job description and person requirements.

These have a different part to play than the advert, including both assessment and performance elements.

Yet if you apply minimum viable to these, you shouldn’t lose any of the necessary elements, while giving better clarity to both candidates and your own hiring process.

Any advert will flow from this clarity, or lack of.

I wonder what would happen to those job adverts that require “4 years experience in tech invented 1.5 years ago” were smacked over the head with this approach.

Remember Sebastien Ramirez ?

‘Definition’ isn’t just about advertising, it can be used everywhere.

“What is the minimum viable definition that is both suitable and sufficient?”

A question you might ask of every step in your process, including expectation management -

If your offer process takes 6 days from point of verbal acceptance to generating offer paperwork, and there is no way to shorten it, this should be clearly explained to the candidate at the point of verbal offer.

“We’ll generate the paperwork asap” is not a minimum viable definition for the candidate.

Might they get cold feed during your 6-day-asap?

Or how about a minimum viable interview process ?

What if you defined your interview process at the earliest opportunity?

How might this benefit both you and your candidates?

Minimum viable doesn’t mean as little as possible.

It means establishing concrete candidate needs from each step in your process, and giving them the definition and experience that helps bring them forward to the next step.

From there you can layer on additional information, if needed, to get an optimal result.

Give better definitions in your writing, and you’ll help everyone involved.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates and are curious how I can help, these are my services:

- UK key hire recruitment

- manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis

- outplacement support

DM me if you want to discuss.

Changing minds. A recruitment AiDE, pt 11

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:06:31 GMT

I'm writing an advert for a "Engineering Manager - Product, Design & Leadership" vacancy in Suffolk today.

Part of my process is considering how AiDE might apply, while also looking at previous adverts for the same employer, which have led to successful placements.

I quite like the two from last year. I'm using them as a building block for this advert, while trying to improve missed opportunities.

Though this job is very different, the context, including their culture, is a key dimension that many adverts miss. Here's my first stab at the opening, the A, and a bit of the i, in AiDE:

Simplified design; machines trusted for tough work.

A leadership role where you can make your mark, bring your people forward, and leave the politics behind.

It will probably look quite different when I'm finished.

Perhaps just by not using "My retained client is a market leading industrial machinery manufacturer now looking for an Engineering Manager", it might stand out from the majority that do.

Experience influences thoughts.

Thoughts inform decisions.

Which might be, here, making an enquiry, rather than deciding not to update a CV or send a cover letter. Or simply to continue reading the advert, rather than make an uninformed decision.

How often do experiences in recruitment evoke a feeling that makes you want to experience more? Too often it's the opposite - jobseekers persist despite the misery in the hope of a better outcome.

Would the passive candidate do the same?

What happens if your recruitment process intentionally creates the small delights that are ikigai at each and every step?

A surprisingly appealing advert that gives all the information they might want
How can your LinkedIn content build trust with potential candidates?
How can your website and other materials give readers what they need?
Communications that don't just manage expectations, but answer their questions before they ask them
Interviews that allow them an objective decision
Timely constructive feedback for successful and unsuccessful candidates
Documentation that comes through as expected, written in easily digestible English, from job descriptions to offer letters
Appropriate contact before their start date, getting them ready for a new role in the right way

How might you feel if you experienced these things? How much more likely are you to stay in process compared to others that don’t?

Ikigai isn’t about a big singular purpose – it focuses on the experiences that define us. The small moments, the seemingly trivial, those that fulfil.

It’s about experiences as much as drive and purpose.

Candidate experience.

See, ikigai can be found everywhere, sometimes unexpectedly, but always about filling a need, and if applied well in recruitment will serve to draw the right people forward for the right reasons.

I mentioned “Someone unexpectedly replying to your 99th job application, the first of none.” as an example of ikigai a little while back.

I get back to every candidate, reciprocating their level of care and effort.

An interviewed candidate gets suitable and sufficient feedback.

An applicant with wholly unsuitable experience gets a template reply saying thanks, but no thanks, at that initial stage.

Of those rejections, I often receive replies showing how unusual it is to get any reply from an application, sometimes that it validates their tough job search.

Partly it’s about decency, but it’s also because I know people are likely to reciprocate how they are treated – ‘treat others as you would have them treat you’.

Who might they know, how might we work together in future?

I do it because it answers “How can we fulfil this person’s needs?” without being detrimental to mine. In that example right at the top, I try to speak directly to an ideal readers interest, and something that may be holding them back.

Think about that question of any step you take in recruitment, and you might change how you approach that step while serving to improve your odds of meeting your own needs.

Steps that aren’t just administrative burdens – they’re commercial opportunities.

What might candidates hope to gain from any recruitment touchpoint?

How can you meet their scepticism?

What bad experiences have they had, and how might you help them change their minds about your intent?

How can your content encourage the right action?

When you see the benefit from ikigai-focused words, how might that influence your actions and how you work with your candidates?

The benefit should be to meet your own needs, in hiring and recruitment.

Anyway, that’s enough about Ikigai, the i in AiDE. The next edition is about the D, Definition.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Counterintuitive - Jobseeker Basics XIII

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:18:37 GMT

What follows is Chapter 20 from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026 edition).

If you've joined me and Simon Ward on our weekly LinkedIn Lives, you may have seen me wildly gesticulating with my hands interlaced, madly shouting Inversion! Inversion! while spouting conspiracy theories about the Hidden Jobs Market and ATS Compliance not being what you think they are.

For good reason, given your job search inverts the recruitment strategy for best filling the same role.

(I've received the proof copy of the Hardback today - first impressions are great, I'm really pleased. I'll check for errors, then will hopefully click publish by the end of the week. If you're interested, click Visit My Store on my profile at the end of the week.)

20 - An inverted job search

So, your broad approach to looking for a job is based on a product marketing strategy.

How does this link to your job search and how companies hire?

The next step is to recognise a job search is an inverted recruitment process.

Whatever you can learn about the actual workings of recruitment, the better armed you are to navigate them.

The first way in which this is true is around the routes to market employers take to fill a job.

Employers want to fill vacancies in the most economical and efficient means possible.

Sometimes they’ll rely on external advice, sometimes they’ll figure out their own way, and sometimes they’ll employ people to do it for them (such as a Talent Acquisition Manager or internal recruiter).

When they rely on external advice, it may not surprise you it’s as varied and contradictory as job seeker advice.

Take this nugget of wisdom:

80% of suitable candidates are not actively looking for work. By advertising, you’ll only have access to the 20% that applies to adverts.

Hang on a minute! Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like the hidden jobs market?

Of course, candidates aren’t hidden - much like hidden jobs, the priority is to understand the channels through which candidates are found.

These channels directly mirror the channels through which you look for that job:

Job boards; LinkedIn; Recruitment agencies; Confidential headhunting; Internal promotions; Secondments; Temp-to-perm hires; Consulting-to-perm hires; Referrals; Networking; Speculative approaches; Careers pages; Talent pools; Candidate databases

Every job is different, dictated by principles like supply and demand, confidentiality, reputational risk, wherewithal, budget and capacity.

The hiring process of a Software Developer is different from that of a Sales Director.

If an employer only hires through an advert - this means if you don’t apply for adverts, there’s no way in which you can be considered for that vacancy.

A second way it’s accurate is the notion that what’s true for one may not be true for others. This relates to candidate resentment .

You may read online that some recruitment behaviours are signs of a bad employer.

Yet, you should always follow the instructions given when applying for an advert or through an agency.

They may instruct you to:

1/ Write a CV, cover letter and duplicate it on their ATS

2/ Tell them your salary when they don’t list theirs

3/ Do 17 interviews before reaching a decision

4/ Deliver a 6-month strategy plan by presentation

5/ Or any other request deemed unreasonable by Career Coaches, Job seekers, or people otherwise uninvolved in that process

What some consider red flags, others will deem acceptable practice.

It becomes your choice to play the game or not. Either follow their instructions or step away. You don’t have to apply if you don’t want to.

In a similar vein, if you hear a hiring process has a preference, or if there are gaps in their employment armoury - these might be biases you can lean into.

The hiring manager loves Arsenal Football Club and is biased towards people who love the same? Now might be the time to switch allegiance, if you can fake it or make it.

They love a one page CV? Apply with a one page CV.

You know the hiring manager of an advert with 400 applications? Give them a call - they might give you an unfair advantage.

Poor practice from the employer, yet these are problems you can turn into opportunity.

A third way in which this is true is by comparing inbound and outbound activity

Outbound activity is where you go to your prospect (phone calls, messaging).

Inbound activity is where the prospect comes to you (job adverts, content).

Yet an outbound activity for a recruiter is an inbound activity for you (you receive phone calls and messages).

While an inbound activity has you getting in touch because of their advert or content.

When we talk about optimising your work, whether your CV, profile or interviews, it has to give the process what it needs.

How can you be more discoverable, so you receive more relevant calls and messages?

How can you improve your return on applications and your outbound messages?

What about inverse non-recruitment?

A brilliant, if strange question, with the same answer.

When networking, going direct, seeking to become a referral, doorknocking, or other, what is the inverse of that activity?

How does that person find or recommend people, if they become aware of a vacancy? How might they see you as a person to solve their problems, even if it isn’t a vacancy?

You do these activities because of how they might help you and because of the benefit the other party experiences. What’s in it for them?

If there isn’t anything in it for them, why should they help you?

For each and every stage in recruitment, there is an opposed force, as candidates and the hiring process meet each other. It’s rarely an equal force, because every vacancy has supply and demand, resource, skill level, biases and intent at play.

This is why each type of role has a different method of looking for work.

Executive vacancies typically prioritise headhunted candidates, with fewer public adverts. Here the priority shifts towards building relationships with, and being discoverable by, Executive Search recruiters.

If executives rely mainly on job boards, they may never think to focus on more suited channels.

If you can learn what the other needs for that process to be successful, you can deliver the same.

Speak to peers, speak to hiring managers you know, speak to recruiters, speak to former job seekers. How have they found work, and how would they recruit for your roles?

Research your market to find viable employers, to identify recruiters and to build your network.

Then execute an appropriate strategy to access these channels.

Y/our. A recruitment AiDE, pt 10

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 17:03:42 GMT

Happy New Year!

What follows is about putting ikigai in practice, and how what fulfils your people can also attract capable new hires.

Does your team say this to their friends in the pub when asked how their job is going?

"I'm passionate and excited about working for a progressive market-leading employer of choice."

Not unless the brainwashing has gone well, I'd wager.

May, 2023

Why do your people enjoy working for you?

Why might others leave great jobs to work for you?

Why would they stick around?

Share the answers to these questions, with meaning, in your messaging, and you’ll attract better-suited candidates if they aren’t ready to apply.

Offer them an appealing reason to take their first step – which might simply be a conversation.

While ‘apply now’ can be your first experience of an applicant, it may not be their first experience of your process, especially if their CV is outdated or they hadn’t been considering a move.

What will encourage further consideration, perhaps an application, a 2nd interview, accepting a job offer, declining a counteroffer, or starting a job successfully?

That final step doesn’t happen without the first, and all those in-between.

A first step that may not happen, if you haven’t given good enough reason to do so.

It’s all very well grabbing attention, but why should anyone seriously consider engaging with you?

Fail to do the latter, and you’re left with clickbait.

That’s what ikigai is for.

It can be found in every touchpoint in your process and it’s closely tied to the experience of your candidate.

For now, let’s focus on attraction.

Many employers have a kernel of truth about why they are a great place to work.

But it slips away when they start describing that truth because they focus on what it means for them.

Our company . Our culture . Our values . Our vacancy . Our needs.

That’s no advert. It’s a boast.

Most adverts lead with company info first, presumably for promotion purposes, yet why should a candidate care?

If it matters, show why.

If it doesn’t, strip it out.

“We’re a high-growth market leader”

You’re growing through acquisition?

Growing because the world demands a sustainable product only you can provide, creating opportunities for career development?

Growing because you work your team really hard, and pay them through the nose to compensate?

Get to the root of your statement to give meaning.

“We’re innovative and disruptive.”

So is every other company. What does it mean and why does it matter?

If there’s no benefit for the candidate, will they care to read about your company? And if they don’t, why are you writing about it?

Values are a great example of truth being lost in words.

“We value honesty, fairness and respect”

Ah, so you don’t hire narcissistic criminals?

I’m pretty sure most people believe they fulfil these, even if they don’t, because they read it from their perspective.

Words that are both universal and ambiguous, letting readers find their own meaning: it might mean “we make fact-based decisions, based on impartial research, and no BS” or it might mean “we work openly and toward a common goal, we have each other’s backs, without politics.

What is the story of your personal values?

Learning from success and failure, giving the world more than I take, and helping others improve their lot - a few of the things I aspire to, even when I get them hideously wrong ��.

If your perfect candidate is fed up with the corporate rat race and wants to contribute their experience in a more meaningful way, with honesty, fairness and respect… isn’t that something to appeal to?

Culture is often described from intent, not from the experience of performing a role in a team.

“We have a brilliant culture of learning, teamwork, and bringing people forward”

But what does Alan in Accounts experience or Mandy in Marketing? Harry in HR?

Alan at one company might love the quiet time he spends with Excel.

Another Alan might help his manufacturing leadership team make better decisions by establishing cost variances.

How are they brought forward?

Mandy may be thrilled by automation, or maybe she’s totally into creativity.

What does teamwork look like for them?

Harry might find delight in telling agencies to PSL off, or perhaps he wants to make a difference and not be trapped by firefighting ER issues.

What part does HR have to play in a culture of learning?

All might fit into a single definition of culture while being very different candidates, experiencing their roles very differently.

Some who would make great hires, and some who are great people yet not the right employees.

What does the culture of your vacancy mean to the right candidates?

Maybe candidates don’t care if your culture is toxic, they just want money for their habits.

Flexi-time to care for the horses.

Working from home because they’re better team players when they don’t have to hang around humans.

Working from the office because that’s how ideas are inspired.

Joining a friendly team who all like crochet.

Knowing that their professional development will be invested in.

Earning money to pay the bills, because work is just a transaction.

Everyone’s different.

So talking about you, as an employer, makes much less sense than appealing to their needs, inclusively, in the way your vacancy inherently offers.

Culture, values, pay, working arrangements, career development, commute – what matters to them, and why.

What you can offer that meets their ikigai.

Why not spend time with your teams and find out what their roles are really like, what makes them tick, and what frustrates them?

If they genuinely want a career with you, might it be that their ikigai is the same as those you want to attract?

Look at why people leave your business. Is it because their new roles are actually better, or is it because you no longer meet their needs?

Is that something you can change, have everyone benefit from, and show a new attraction point to candidates?

What makes your ideal candidates tick? If you’ve established what good is, in your candidates, you should also have established what motivates them.

How can you make their life better?

What problem does working for you solve?

Why not give them a good reason to start a conversation with you, by distilling the ikigai you can offer into a simple concept or two that makes them want to learn more?

Just be mindful if you notice homogeneity in your team - a lack of diversity can hold you back, in which case the right question to ask is

"How can I access a wider talent pool?"

The next post is about how you can provide ikigai to candidates at every step in your process, and how it can benefit you.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services:

- UK key hire recruitment (available for no more than two vacancies)

- manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client

- outplacement support

Just hit reply to check if my approach is right for you.

Deck the Hall. A festive interlude

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 17:00:56 GMT

Seeing as it's Christmas, I thought I'd break the flow of AiDE and break our minds, instead.

This is one of my favourite Substack articles from December 22nd, 2023.

It relates to a line I've been using in my job search advice - "the step isn't as important as how the step is achieved" - and also relates to the assumptions we make when we consume social media.

Challenge everything!

The logic of it is addling my brain.

But it’s a concept worth considering when you think about probable outcomes in recruitment.

Imagine you are a contestant on “Let’s make a deal,” presented by Monty Hall.

In front of you are three closed doors, behind which are two goats and a precious prize, let’s say a shiny Chevrolet.

Monty tells you to pick one door, but instead of opening it he gives you a boost.

He opens one of the other two doors with the requirement it has to reveal a goat.

Then he asks if you want to switch your choice.

What do you do?

Hold or switch?

It’s simple probability, right?

A 50% chance between one door or the other that you’ll win your Christmas Car.

Wrong.

If you choose to switch doors, your odds of winning increase to 66.67%.

Such an outrageous proposition that when Marilyn vos Savant described it in Parade magazine in 1990 there were a few complaints.

10,000 of them. From readers, including world-renowned PhD Statisticians, who were happy to correct her Gambler’s Fallacy.

The mistake they all made was that she wasn’t wrong.

The crux of their error, and why this is so confusing, is that it’s not quite the simple probability problem it appears.

It’s a question of quality of information.

Monty Hall makes the decision, once a door has been chosen, to open a door hiding a goat.

He cannot open a door with a car.

And that affects the odds of switching being in your favour.

If you run it as an experiment you’ll see a switch works in favour of you two-thirds of the time. There also multiple in-depth explorations of why it is true online.

This is an example of a veridical paradox , which proposes absurd results that prove to be true. The link includes a video explaining the Monty Hall Problem in more detail.

When dealing with information in a volume-based process, it’s easy to neglect the importance quality of information has.

Not just the information itself, but how it has been derived and its context.

If you feel you are 50-50 on a candidate, the temptation might be to see what else is out there.

“Keep them warm.”

A logical decision that suits you yet neglects key elements of the overall puzzle:

how realistic your requirement is
how thoroughly the candidate marketplace has been searched
how your decision impacts the candidate’s interest in your vacancy
how time kills deals

Rather than fishing elsewhere, why not establish the full picture first?

Another example might be the comparison of CVs.

Let’s say you advertise directly, do outreach to your network and ask multiple agencies to send you CVs.

Surely this is the best way to fill your vacancy?

It might be, if

candidates aren’t turned off by a fragmented approach that seems to indicate anyone will do
you correctly prioritise the quality of information based on how those candidates have been qualified, assessed and vetted; that they are all interested for the right reasons
your suppliers have your best interests at heart rather than their own

An intuitive approach may work against you.

Look at the journey a candidate has taken in becoming a CV on your desk, and you’ll get a better insight into their likelihood of being the right hire.

Or how about advertising?

If 95% (generous) of adverts follow the same form (Company info, what the job is, what we need, apply now with an up-to-date CV and cover letter), then it makes sense that’s how you advertise.

Except that isn’t what appeals to readers.

Why follow the crowd who profess of too many irrelevant applicants, when you could do something different that better fills vacancies with people who stick around longer?

Write for the reader. Give them what they need. Show what’s in it for them. Invite them to get in touch. Adverts become more effective.

Odds and statistics feel scientific and trustworthy, especially when common sense supports their conclusions.

But when you need a different outcome, challenge that common sense and look deeper - that’s often where the wins are.

Two-thirds of the time.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. Merry Christmas.

p.p.s “Lies, damned lies and statistics”

De Facto Automation and You - Jobseeker Basics XII

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 21:15:06 GMT

This is a new chapter in the 2026 edition of A Career Breakdown Kit .

I find I've had some cognitive dissonance this year in considering the advice I share that often contradicts the experiences job seekers have. It's not because either of us is wrong - it's because we're discussing different layers in the conversation.

So while the amendments to the book are primarily around technological updates, the additions are around adding substance and reframing experiences, to help readers understand what happens, why they happen, and what can be done differently.

But also why the narrative of 'the ATS is rejecting you' is smoke and mirrors, and why it can set you back from actions that matter, by focusing on the wrong things.

The article remains a work in progress, as I do the final edits before book publication.

Chapter 4 - De facto automated rejection and you

When there’s any discussion over Beat the Bots, job seekers often assume they are unfairly treated, while people from the recruitment profession deny it happens at all - “that’s not how the ATS works”, “we don’t use AI that way”, and so on.

The best objection I see to the common recruiter stance is, “What does it matter how we are rejected, if we were never fairly considered? ”

That question is the heart of this chapter, and to answer it, I need to propose a new term:

De facto automated rejection.

Definition: where an element of a recruitment process leads to an application being either rejected or not considered, irrespective of capability, contribution, or potential alignment.

That may sound an awful lot like Automated Rejection, yet it isn’t the same thing.

Examples:

No application after number 100 considered
Illegal discrimination
Legal discrimination - location, salary, industry, qualification, etc - legally permissible decisions driven by assumption
Relying on configured ranking within an ATS to prioritise applications
Not considering candidates who aren't picked up by a Boolean search (sourcing)
Filter questions at advert stage (e.g. do you have a work permit?)
Applying after the vacancy is at interview stage
And many more

All de facto automated rejections have one thing in common, and it isn’t automation - it’s human decision-making, including shortcuts and assumptions.

Some of those examples above are cited when talking about 'genuine' auto-rejects. However, these are all consequences of human intervention and the choice not to intervene.

There is an increasing number of AI products that automate these steps (see The truth about the ATS / Try for yourself ), with the requirement of human oversight - I've yet to speak to a recruiter that wholly relies on them, and few who don't view every application.

This is one reason why ATS Compliance and Beat the Bots are a red herring.

The advice fails not because it’s wrong, but because it optimises the wrong layer.

The system is only a component in the process, governed by humans.

If you misdiagnose de facto automated rejection as a technical problem, you’ll keep trying to outsmart systems instead of changing how you’re seen, found, and prioritised by people.

Understanding how recruiters handle their process and giving them what they need in an application has to take priority.

While the same steps that “optimise human compliance” are implicitly system-compliant.

The challenge is that human compliance relies on what makes us individual: our skill level, our insight, our psychology, our biases, our resources and the time available to us. As well as how you navigate these.

Without forgetting that we are people like you, often trying to do too much with too little. It’s no wonder our frustrations mirror yours, with the difference that we earn a salary for our experiences.

Whereas ATS Compliance feels more comfortable, because it gives a clear direction, even if it’s the wrong one.

It is true we use filters and keywords to prioritise how our applications are presented to us. We do the same when we look for candidates, whether on LinkedIn, job boards, our ATS or other means.

All this does is present results in a way that allows us to spend more attention on those that meet the criteria we have set.

When we review those results, the way that information is presented informs whether we progress them or not.

To be human compliant, your application has to be discoverable, then it has to convert interest.

Fail on either front and you’ll either be rejected or you won’t hear at all.

If humans are the reasons you are rejected for reasons unrelated to capability or contribution... well, I think that’s rather more problematic than technology.

Beat the Bots and ATS Compliance aren’t just a red herring - they can actively hold you back.

Because they place the wrong priority by presenting a strategy, rather than simple hygiene. Your wider strategy should encompass far more than applications - getting found, starting conversations, doorknocking, networking and all these other opportunities that can get you closer to a job:

These are fundamentally covered in a human compliance strategy.

I just happened to call it A Career Breakdown Kit instead, and how to do these is covered in Parts 2 and 3 of the book.

I realise this can create a feeling of overwhelm, when you realise there is much more to a better application than the transactional steps of ATS compliance.

Yet these same steps will improve every aspect of your job search and some are straightforward to take - DM me on LinkedIn and ask for the free CV template that is an easy starting point - and others which will improve every aspect of what you do.

The god of small things. A recruitment AiDE, pt 9

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 16:56:38 GMT

This edition is the heart and soul of the AiDE (Attention ikigai Definition Recruitment) framework for better recruitment.

Rather than grandstanding promises, it's about the small moments that matter, and why people do what they do in their careers.

In a world of market-leading innovators and employers of choice with progressive cultures, it's these small descriptions of realness that can stand out and appeal for the right reasons

Unless you prefer hitting the ground running while communicating at all levels, that is, all for a £competitive salary.

May 4th 2023

It’s 9.08am and I’ve just logged on to write this.

I’ll clock off again around 11am to make my daughter’s birthday cake, although we didn’t actually call her Leia, unlike the original text to my colleagues 13 years ago.

This is my ikigai.

Part of the sovereignty running a small business allows, and why I’ll likely decline an approach about working for someone else, no matter how brilliant that opportunity might be.

Of course, if you knew that, you might appeal to it in how you contacted me.

With sovereignty comes accountability too.

But ikigai doesn’t always have to be about the positive -

one of my most evocative recent memories is standing in a field with the Border Terrier, during the first part of the pandemic.

Half a mile away, my wife was in week 4 of a severe case of Covid, back when the Daily Mail was vomiting headlines about 41 year old healthy mums dying from it.

My business had vanished over night, leaving me to fill my days with helping job seekers find jobs that didn’t exist, while trying to pretend everything was fine with children who were going stir crazy.

But those allowable dog walks were an oasis, in a storm of worry and uncertainty.

They too were my ikigai, finding fulfilment in the smallest of moments, despite what was going on elsewhere.

If you’re familiar with ikigai, you are likely familiar with the Westernised version of it - one that has little to do with the Japanese concept it derives from.

You may know it better as the Purpose Venn Diagram - the intersection of what you are good at, what you can earn money for, what you love and what the world needs.

It seems a worthy and lofty goal, to have all these elements come together.

Yet while it feels important, it can be knobbish and condescending, leading away from a concept that can change how you look at candidate attraction.

What about people who hate their jobs, and do it only to pay the bills and feed their children?

Are they not achieving something worthy?

I think about that when I get a bad experience with the market checkout attendant. What’s going on in their lives?

Indeed they likely have an ikigai in the real sense of the word, fulfilment in knowing they have looked after their loved ones.

That’s a goal to write home about.

In Japan, ikigai isn’t a big deal. It’s hardly a deal at all, it just means ‘what makes life worthwhile’ and what you get out of bed for.

It’s a conversational notion found in both the small and big things, which can change over time as our priorities change.

A cup of coffee on a Spring morning.

Watching your daughter perform at the Christmas play.

Your end-of-year bonus.

Someone unexpectedly replying to your 99th job application, the first of none.

The joy of brow-beating an underperforming team with the threat of mass dismissal (the people we hate have things they thrive on too).

Commuting 90 minutes each way, listening to an audiobook, so you don’t have to think about work or home.

Ikigai.

Because it’s these moments that appear trivial, indifferent or even damaging to others, which define who we are and what we want from our lives and careers.

Moments that can delay, prevent, facilitate or drive decisions.

And if we know the ikigai of our ideal candidates, we can appeal to them.

Typically they will relate to why people leave jobs for others and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

But they will also relate to the ikigai your vacancy fulfils, whether the role, the culture, the compensation or the seemingly trivial.

Define the ikigai of your role with meaning for your candidates, and you’ll appeal to people whose own ikigai is a match.

And write it like you were talking to a friend, not with the veneer of advert speak.

That’s the principle of it anyway, the ‘i’ in AiDE: Attention ikigai Definition Experience.

I’ll write about the practice, and how to apply to every touch point, from a job advert to an offer letter, in the next edition.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. If you’re curious about the title of this article, it’s from the exceptional novel by Arundhati Roy. The title has a few meanings. One is that seemingly small things shape our lives, while another is that our society shapes how we enjoy the small things. It’s the perfect title for this post.

p.p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services:

- commercial, operational, finance, HR and key hire recruitment

- manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client

- outplacement support

DM to check if my approach is right for you.

Hierarchy of Pain - Jobseeker Basics XI

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:10:39 GMT

What follows is a new chapter in the 2026 edition of A Career Breakdown Kit. Aiming for a January launch. It's one of the arguments I put forward about why customising applications is less effective than presenting a strong core application.

This chapter reflects on how buyers make decisions, how this is reflected in hiring and why it matters in how you put forward your CV, application, interviews and other messages.

If you’ve ever encountered sales in your career or life you are likely familiar with the concepts of Features and Benefits.

The product is what is proposed.

Features are what it does.

Benefits are how it helps.

However there are actually three other components in this hierarchy that make up commercial messaging.

Value is what the benefits mean to you.

“Sell the sizzle, not the sausage” - the sizzle isn’t a benefit, if you don’t like sausages.

Outcomes are the tangible long-term results from using that product or service.

“Sell the picture frame, not the screwdriver” - or rather what’s in the frame. Why does it matter?

The idea being these peel back the layers of the onion to help a potential customer understand exactly What’s In It For Them.

Yet, it may not matter whatsoever if your brilliantly put together message doesn’t achieve one element - show how you heal their hidden pain.

In that frame example above, this might be a photo of a loved one, no longer with us. The photo is for our memories and feelings. The frame has to be right, to commemorate them properly. While it needs to be mounted well, using tools that make the job easier.

Could you market that loss to sell a screwdriver?

Hopefully not, though the message might be, “For memories that matter,” instead of "High Quality Screwdriver".

It's a common pain many share, yet not one you might discuss down the DIY shop.

Early in my career I had a lesson on hidden pain and its importance.

I recruited an HR Manager for a high growth business whose requirement was for someone with broad experience in a similar environment.

I presented an excellent candidate who was only available due to the shutdown of her employer - she had to stay to the final day to manage the process well, which limited her availability to start work.

That was the only reason I explained her current situation to this new employer, because redundancy management wasn’t on the job description.

She got the job!

On day one of her new employment, her role was made redundant and she was offered a retention bonus to shut down the local site - everyone was to lose their jobs.

The hidden pain here was redundancy, something not even mentioned to me during the vacancy briefing, and something I never broached with Julie.

IIRC, there was no mention of it during the interview process either.

Perhaps that’s an extreme example, but it does show what can happen behind the scenes.

And if you happened to be out of work, a fixed term contract with a retention bonus might be quite appealing.

Were you to apply to that vacancy, it would be important to highlight your redundancy experience - customising your CV might even have worked against you!

So how does this hierarchy fit within your job search?

You are the product, with your next employer on a buyer’s journey.

Your features are what you offer. In a CV this is a combination of job titles, qualifications, skills and areas of experience. It’s also your salary requirement, where you are based and other elements like Visa status and working arrangements.

Get these right and a little luck might mean they are all you need, considering that these same elements are what we source and filter on.

I expect in this market you’re in competition with many people that offer the same Features, so the differentiator is what you bring to the table uniquely.

The contexts of your career combined with how you helped, your impact, your achievements, and what the outcomes were.

Related chapters:

Principles of a Good CV

Should I customise my CV?

LinkedIn profiles that get found

LinkedIn profiles that convert

These are all resources that will help you communicate the benefits of your experience, the value you bring, the problems you solve, and the outcomes of these solutions.

As for the hidden pain question, which in many vacancies isn’t articulated, how can you unpick hidden?

Go back to why vacancies are recruited.

How did they come about in the first place?

They only fit into two piles - new and replacement. However these two piles have many subcategories relating to the problems they solve and the pain they heal.

Researching the company can help. Inside knowledge definitely helps - it’s one reason good agency recruiters will be a valuable ally.

But this knowledge isn’t always available, and sometimes the employer may not even know!

I always come back to the principle, “You can’t be all things to all people.”

And when you try to do this, you appeal to no one.

It’s one reason why using LLM style AI to customise CVs is so problematic. The output is necessarily same-same because it’s a probabilistic determination of what you want based on an aggregate of data.

It’s why, when recruiters receive a volume of AI augmented CVs, they all look the same.

Your ‘good enough’ core CV ( Should I customise my CV ) leans into your strengths. While you might tweak it to meet the essential requirements, in the language of the employer, this should naturally support your greatest strength - the unique fingerprint that is your career.

The downside of relying on customisation against vague, and often misrepresentative, adverts is that you can deemphasise and even remove your biggest achievements. The same achievements that would have helped you stand out.

If your application doesn’t heal the hidden pain of a vacancy, it’s either because you have not defined your strengths correctly or you aren’t that close of a fit with the actual needs of the vacancy.

An example to show this pitfall in practice.

I caught up with a friend yesterday who has resigned from a post that was missold to him.

His career is based on commercial acumen and enablement in a field that is heavily focused on risk management and compliance. So he’s already unusual in a good way (though his CV didn’t show this).

On day one of his new job, he encountered a literal unexpected disaster. While these things happen, and he managed the situation effectively, this proved a consequence of the business culture and strategy. These problems kept coming up and his functional area in the business needed a complete overhaul at executive level.

Rather than the commercial enablement picture they painted, they needed someone who relished chaos - a master of disaster.

Completely the opposite of the career Simon wants.

This isn’t something they could publicise in their recruitment process, for reputational reasons, yet it was a fundamental baked-in aspect of the role.

I’ve no doubt Simon’s CV is a match for their job description.

Yet he is not a match for their job.

What if they’d seen CVs of people who’d leant into strengths of healing dysfunction?

What if he’d leant into his strength of enablement?

He may not have left his previous job for something he went on to regret.

If you’re sceptical about how crucial hidden pain is in recruitment, think about your own hidden pain when applying for jobs.

What’s going on in your life that impacts which roles are ideal for you. The same points you might not divulge when you’re just trying to get back into employment.

Perhaps you've even experienced the pain I did when considering a hardware purchase. How did that pain inform your buying decisions?

It’s no different for employers when they consider the pain and problems inherent in their vacancy.

C is for Candomer. A recruitment AiDE, pt 8

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:52:20 GMT

It was around this point in writing on Substack I realise how much philosophy is a key part in recruitment. Why do we do the things we do?

I saw a post from a notable recruitment leader this week about how no one talks about the importance of outcomes in recruitment.

Driving good outcomes have been the core of my philosophy throughout my career - it's why I've had my "Outcome-led" headline for the past couple of years.

When much recruitment messaging is same-same, the why of it can be what makes us stand out.

So why do we do what we do in our recruitment messaging? Surely candidates have to be front and centre, but is that even the right word?

April 2023

The last email was about grabbing your attention .

But honestly, what’s the point?

The point is to write messages that encourage action from the people we want to engage.

In recruitment messaging that person is a candidate.

From time to time, I see a debate about whether candidate is even the right word for the people we want to employ. I’ve started a few of these conversations me.… sorry, myself.

Aspirant

Human

Customer

All have valid arguments behind them, and typically 'Customer’ is the most valid alternative.

It makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot in common between candidate and customer journeys, the decisions they make, and the processes that underpin them.

But customer is not the right word.

The right word is candidate.

In the same way recruitment is not marketing, not HR, not copywriting, not psychology, not sales.

Recruitment is recruitment, with all the skills above in combination, and more.

And candidates are candidates, with the individual challenges, situations and baggage they have.

While a candidate does go on a journey that is similar to customers, for them it isn’t commoditised or transactional in the same way.

It is fair to say that many people do look for work transactionally, given how the world is developing, but their pains are different to that of a customer.

Especially when, after the point of sale, they have to deliver in the role they ‘bought’.

Their skin in the game, investment and reaction to recruitment processes are different to that of a customer. Their stresses, challenges, hidden context. The opinions their family have on how a role affects everything.

Mind, heart, soul and bank balance. As the Greeks might have put it: Egos, Logos, Pathos, Kairos - the rhetoric of compelling messaging.

Their buying journey is the same as their selling journey, in a way that is different even to estate agency.

Which customer has to sell themselves to buy what they want?

(Okay, people who date do.)

It’s a unique word for a unique set of endeavours.

And it’s a word that has different meaning depending on the context.

A candidate for employment.

A candidate for interview.

A candidate for consideration.

A candidate for applying to your vacancy - they may only ever be a reader, if they don’t apply.

On the other hand, people can be a candidate for entering into discussion with, while not being a candidate for being an employee. How will we know until that discussion is had?

Or how about long-term job seekers who have struggled finding work in a difficult market. They may not be candidates for your vacancy, but they are surely candidates for a job and career.

It’s a flawed word, a multifaced word, a wonderfully contradictory word, and the right word for recruitment.

It goes to follow that, if you accept a candidate is the right word, their journey has to relate to the nature of the word.

Recruitment fails candidates, not because we treat them like candidates, but because recruitment is recruitment.

Rather than change the word (much like recruiters try to be Talent Inboarding Technicians or whatever), look at how the process can give more respect to the word.

(I’m proud to be a Recruiter, btw.)

While this has an impact throughout recruitment, this series is about writing, and more specifically about attracting people with words.

AIDA (attention interest desire action) is a great framework for writing adverts that attract customers, and it works well enough for candidates too, but I’ve come to believe that it’s hitting a square peg into a nearly square hole.

And that a framework for writing vacancy adverts should be squarely for candidates.

If not AIDA, then what?

How about a messaging framework that gives meaning to and attracts candidates, stemming from a process that gives clarity to job descriptions, what good looks like in a candidate, and how they’ll experience your recruitment?

Insight that can be used throughout a recruitment process, more than just in an advert.

Insight that comes from a good consultation or brief, much like any copywriting.

I call it AiDE – Attention ikigai Definition Experience.

We’ve touched on Attention, and that works well enough whyever you’re a reader.

Adapting the IDA in AIDA to ‘ikigai Definition Experience’ focuses on the needs of candidates over customers.

In an advert it can look identical to an AIDA, but the idea is that we can give better information to the people we want to attract, depending on the context.

A context which might be an advert, written message, phone call, interview confirmation, job offer or rejection. Different stages of a recruitment funnel.

The next article is about ikigai, what it is, how it can be found in good and bad situations, and why it replaces both Interest and Desire. And not to be confused with Ikigai, the western Purpose Venn Diagram.

This is a work in progress and outraged disagreement is welcome. We can still be friends.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services:

- commercial, operational, HR and finance recruitment (available for no more than three vacancies)

- manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client

- outplacement support

Get in touch to check if my approach is right for you.

A Job Search 'Product' Marketing Framework - Jobseeker Basics X

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 21:06:25 GMT

This is Chapter 17 in A Career Breakdown Kit , which turns you into the product of your job search.

It's a helpful approach in many ways, such as giving you an anchor for your overall approach and in how it detaches you from what you offer - so important in putting forward a compelling proposition for your next employer.

I use the same principles when recruiting - the following chapter, "An inverted job search" shows exactly how and why your job search should establish and reciprocate how your ideal job is typically filled. Ironically, in this way, the book shows my skill level as a recruiter (your mileage may vary).

I've updated this slightly from the print version, particularly around the emotional burden of a job search. The update adds an extra page to the book, now at 278, though the additional chapters will push it above 300, depending on how brutally I edit.

Chapter 17

That's enough about me. Let's talk about you.

Starting a job search is much like launching your own product to market.

You are one of many ‘products’ in a competitive candidate marketplace and employers are on a buyer’s journey in finding and selecting which product is most suitable for them.

Here are the principles that underpin a product marketing strategy and how these relate to your job search - the 7Ps:

Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Positioning, Psychology, Process.

(You can apply the same principles to recruiting a vacancy, which is effectively a product for potential candidates to buy.)

Product

Know yourself and your unique offering.

What are your values, needs and aspirations - how does this career identity align with what’s out there?

Is your CV a true reflection of your strengths and experiences?

What makes you stand out from other candidates with similar backgrounds?

Think of your skills and experience as features and benefits - why should an employer want to hire you?

Price

What are your salary expectations and how do they compare to market rates?

Think beyond the numbers - what other benefits matter to you?

Would flexibility, training, or annual leave allowances make up for a lower base salary?

Take a broad view of what is valuable to you.

Place

Where can you find your ideal role?

Consider all the main job-hunting channels, including LinkedIn, job boards, professional associations, referrals, and recruiters.

A multi-channel approach can help you reach more opportunities, whether they’re openly advertised or within professional networks.

Promotion

How do you present yourself across all these channels?

Aim for a consistent, professional approach across your CV, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, and any networking messages.

Each element should reflect your personal brand - don’t let an outdated LinkedIn profile, generic CV, or offhand email weaken your presentation.

Part 3 is primarily about promotion and finding the Place.

Positioning

Segment the job market to identify where your ideal roles are.

Which sectors, companies, regions, and cultures align best with your skills and career goals?

This will help you focus your efforts on opportunities where you’re most likely to succeed and be valued.

The Chapter 19 on Market Mapping provides more detail.

Psychology

Understand both your own needs and the market’s.

Speak to the employer’s priorities in your applications and interviews - how can you address their goals?

Think about the psychology of the hiring process. Which aspects of your job search approach might need refining?

Try to eliminate anything that doesn’t serve your goals or distracts from your message.

Don't forget your own psychology - a long-term job search can be tough and emotionally draining. A resilient job search (p121) might help.

Process

Develop a structured approach to your job search.

Familiarise yourself with how different application channels work, from Applicant Tracking Systems to LinkedIn messaging.

Set up a method for each step, from applications and follow-ups to networking. This will keep you organised and efficient without unnecessary effort.

The 7Ps are something you can always go back to and underpin both your overall strategy and the steps you take.

...see more. A recruitment AiDE, pt 7

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 16:49:04 GMT

After much to-do, this series now gets into the AiDE framework proper.

Attention ikigai (with a little i) Definition Experience.

I thought about this article last week, when looking at The Cambridge Network's Recruitment Portal.

https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/jobs/search-results?text_search=

Have a look at the list and tell me that these vacancies really understand how adverts land with readers - don't be baited into clicking into each advert, the preview tells you all you need to know.

There are some proper progressive market-leaders on there too for whom money is no issue. Why not put a bit more thought into how your adverts come across?

Harsh? Mebbe. But so too are advert readers.

Did you know the term clickbait was coined in 2006 by Jay Geiger?

Feels like it’s been around a lot longer, particularly as the idea is nothing new.

In journalism, a notable early example was the “Great Moon Hoax”, a series of apparently satirical articles in the New York Sun, which led to many paper sales back in 1835.

These exciting discoveries of life on the Moon were sadly only as real as the retro encabulator and are an example of ‘yellow journalism’.

Headlines sell papers.

We’ve all been suckered in by clickbait and there’s a common element of dishonesty behind a headline that compels you to click through and find out what’s going on.

“You’ll never believe what we found when we opened up the basement!” leading to a 27-page web series that gets clogged down in adverts only to have no end.

Yet, what happens when you click through on an interesting headline and it leads you to exactly what you were hoping for?

That’s the right kind of Attention-grabbing, wouldn’t you say?

Perhaps the only difference between an excellent headline and clickbait is integrity.

But who is it exactly you are grabbing the attention of when writing with integrity in recruitment?

The one common type of audience across all recruitment is people who may be interested in a vacancy.

Knowing your audience and what will interest them is key to writing an attention-grabbing headline.

On LinkedIn, in your feed, you’ll typically see the first 1 to 3 lines of a post before the dreaded “… more”.

So when you start off by saying

“ *** New Role ***

Here at Seymour Limited, we are proud and delighted to be recruiting … more. ”

… can you see more of the problem?

Social media isn’t the only place you’ll advertise a role.

Other above-the-line mediums might be a job board or an industry rag.

Or below-the-line in emails, DMs and video messaging.

Understanding the limitation of what can be read is a good start.

Understanding why that limitation is in place is a good second step.

Social media wants to keep you committed to the platform and will give you what it thinks you want.

Summarising the feed to give as much content as possible, and then forcing action to engage you, makes a lot of sense.

They know that attention will be won and lost in the first couple of lines.

It’s the same for video. How many boring talking head videos do you watch for six seconds before ditching them?

Just me?

That’s why trailers are a thing in the movies.

The most exciting moments are distilled into 20 seconds to 2 minutes, to excite you to the point of maximum see more.

That’s why the Superbowl can charge so much per second of advertising.

Because Attention is everything and, if you can capture that, you’ve started the journey of securing a customer.

The brain works much the same way.

Think about how you consume posts, pitches and profiles.

If you’re not engaged in the first few moments, why would you want to …see more, …read more, …hear more, or …watch more?

I hear few people now leave voicemails because no one ever replies.

I do and they do.

Hardly the most creative message either, just conversational, in my voice, centred on their needs.

Understand how platforms and people ‘preview’ your content and how that content is experienced, and you’ll realise the first line has to be the grabber.

Think about how vacancies are listed on a job board, in a candidate search of “job titles” by location, where the first line of each preview is often the same genericism.

How could yours stand out?

Lead with your most attractive line and you’ll encourage better candidates to read more, much like the opening salvo of a CV determines your interest in learning more.

This could be a clever hook. Or it could just be the most relevant thing they need to know to encourage further reading:

"Make a difference, earn good money with a clear path for progression and work with a team that aren't berks."

Next week I'll write about the Why of the AiDE framework and how candidates are not customers - they're more complex than that.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services:

- commercial, operational and technical key hire recruitment

- fractional recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client

- outplacement support

DM me if there's anything you'd like to chat about.

Counterintuitive - Jobseeker Basics pt IX

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:01:01 GMT

The following is a new chapter in the 2026 update of A Career Breakdown Kit.

If you’ve already bought the Kindle version, it will be updated for free and will always be current for the year.

Maybe you’ve been mulling over the paperback? Send me proof of purchase when the new version is complete and I’ll either send you a Kindle version, or any changed chapters by email

You can read about the current version here .

This is the 2nd draft of Counterintuitive - for the publication version, I'll edit it hard, as well as improve any blind spots and typos.

Counterintuitive

Here's a common journey many people take when a job search that proves tougher than expected: steps that might actually move you further away from your goal and make you part of the problem.

Career grief
Pick yourself up and decide this could actually be an opportunity for a new start
Update CV with most recent job
Hit the job boards and contact agencies
Pleasant surprise that there’s more out there than you thought
Apply, apply, apply
Many of these jobs prove: closed, fake, ghosts, scams
Not getting much traction, agencies aren’t replying
Maybe you’re being too picky
Widen the net: more senior, less senior, different industries, roles that use transferable skills
Realise you need to customise, but that’s becoming really hard with the volume you’re applying to. ChatGPT? How else can you automate?
With all these applications, there must be a reason I’m not getting through. What’s this about the ATS? Is AI really blocking me?

The worst-case scenario here are those upsetting posts we read about people applying to 2,000 jobs and not even getting an interview.

I expect many people will read these posts and worry they are on the same path.

Some may even defer to that possibly Einstein quote, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of madness.” And as a result they stop applying to jobs and try other measures instead.

A TV analogy to illustrate your job search

If you were selling a £300 TV who would you sell it to?

Possibly too ambiguous a question. First-hand, second-hand? What features does it have? Who should be the buyers for this type of £300 product? Is there any point targeting people who want £1,000 TVs? What about £10,000? What about people who want £300 monitors, not TVs?

It’s impossible to know without starting out on the right strategy:

Define the product
Research the market of ideal customers
Set the right price point
Sell where the customers will buy from

But if things aren’t going well, you shouldn’t simply broaden your horizons and increase your sales approach across demographics that will never buy from you.

Instead you re-evaluate these first principles to make sure you have the right product, for the right people, at the right price point, sold in the right places, with the right message.

So, yes there is iteration to do, but it’s your input that needs changing first to generate the output. You shouldn’t only change the steps you take.

You might know your TV works perfectly well as a monitor, indeed better, because of its specs. However, if you're marketing a monitor to TV buyers, how well will that go?

The problem here is one of definition. Who is your product actually for, and do they understand why yours is a contender?

You shouldn't assume they can see your monitor qualities - show them.

You might argue that the £1,000 budget holder could benefit from your transferable skills - same size TV, same resolution, pumps out sound, in colour.

But if they want OLED when you offer LCD, or if they want a 100w speaker, while yours offers 30w, it’s likely to be a non-starter.

Can you show how your 'features' apply for their demands? Do your features actually apply?

What if instead you sold at a discount, with your additional features at the same cost as the competition?

The difference between people and products is that products won’t change their mind.

So if an employer doesn’t need the features you offer that are enhanced, these can be seen as a risk, not a benefit.

Does this mean you should stay in your lane?

Yes and no.

It means first you need to understand how your lane reflects the race you are in - your specific jobs marketplace.

You should clearly understand what you need and what you offer, while balancing what the market offers and the other good people interested in those offers.

But if you apply for vacancies in a domain where you can’t show the applicability of your offering (see The Transferable Skills Trap ).

Or if you apply for vacancies that are too junior or senior, without a clear argument for the specific benefit that employer will have in hiring you.

Then you will compete against candidates who have direct skills and experience. These are typically more aligned to the needs of that vacancy.

Worse, you become part of the problem, taking oxygen away from more suited candidates who deserve fair consideration - without improving your own odds.

It’s unfortunately a simple truth that if everyone didn’t apply for vacancies they weren’t suitably qualified for - everyone’s experience would be better.

This may seem to blame you, but consider the opportunity cost, with time and energy better spent on other activities - which might even just be taking a break.

I say this from a place of compassion, not criticism.

Think about that TV analogy above - when you search for TVs on Amazon, how quickly do you filter out products you will never buy? Do those products make it harder to identify what you do need? I'd wager the answer is always Yes.

Why not try that as an exercise now? Write down what you need from a TV, then try and find it without any bias towards brands.

Rather than compromise to spread your bets, keep going back to first principles and make sure these are both fit for purpose and clearly communicated (Plan Do Check Act - chapter 22 in A Career Breakdown Kit ).

Rather than hope others will see your transferable skills will apply, or your higher level of experience will help - show them how and why it matters. If you can’t, spend your energy on better activity.

As for that Einsteinish quote further up. This is only true when the matters outside of your control don’t change.

Those steps at the top are a common sense approach to a job search that involves systemic dysfunction, terrible job adverts, overburdened hiring processes, discrimination of all sorts and the simple disaster of too many qualified candidates for too few jobs.

Matters which we have no control over.

In the changing and mercurial nature of your jobs market, its potential to improve suddenly may be the only change you need to get the job you want.

Such as the job seeker I spoke to, who went from 0 interviews from few applications, to having to turn down interviews and choose between multiple offers.

Debbie said that she refocused on her expertise, and why it mattered, using that to inform what she applied for and how she communicated. Points in her control, with a changing market that helped.

Now, basically. A recruitment AiDE, pt 6

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 16:43:33 GMT

After a glut of hyper-boring* articles, this one was enjoyable to write, on a subject any good recruiter will symposcopate with:

how employers rely on generic, technical, job descriptions that hide meaning; why giving better meaning to our ideal audience helps us recruit.

Oh and this article from 2.5 years ago shows my prescience, in the tomfoolery of AI written CVs vs AI written job description adverts.

April 2023

The greatest acting performances of all time are indubitably:

#2 Dick Van Dyke, Mary Poppins

#1 Mike Kraft, Rockwell’s Retro Encabulator

Mike presents what appears to be the quintessential tech product sales video of the nineties.

You can believe hydrocoptic marzlevanes have a part to play in malleable logarithmic casings, so sincere is his performance. Click the link above - it’s hilarious/boring (ymmv).

It seems to make sense and you might come away thinking its customers will lap up the rich descriptions of its thingamabobs and wadgemacallits.

Yet it’s bullshit, based on a satirical advert in the 50s for the turbo encabulator, a non-existing product filled full of techno features and babble benefits.

It’s an example of “obfuscation by excessive jargon” typically found in tech marketing, where a lack of meaning is hidden by words you can’t understand. In this case, because they don’t exist.

I wonder how many tech buyers would prefer if these technobabble adverts were written plainly, in their language, rather than the language of the writer?

This brings me to the subject of how many job descriptions are written in the language of the employer.

Job descriptions whose context is known by existing staff, able to anchor jargon to their knowledge of the business.

Yet whose same content may not actually describe the job to people that may be candidates for employment.

A friend of mine transitioned a few years ago to a parallel career in a large organisation.

He was keen to break away from his dead end job, and knew the new company was a great incubator for careers, having talked to former colleagues that had already made the leap.

“That’s great”, I said. “So, what is it you’re going to be doing?”

He didn’t know!

And he still didn’t know going into day one.

He knew the job title and the broad overview of that role, but not the team structure, operational context or day to day responsibilities.

Crazy, eh?

In a time where many employers experience boomerang hires, counteroffers, attrition and ghosting, wouldn’t giving clarity to prospective employees be a minimum?

And if a potential employee doesn’t know what a role will entail, how will a 3rd party recruiter know, especially if they aren’t given access to the hiring process?

“Ah, that’s why we use specialists!”

Specialists in what?

Key words and jargon?

So they can send you CVs with the same key words and jargon?

I can’t wait for ChatGPT generated CVs to be send to ChatGPT generated job-descriptions-as-adverts.

What a great match they’ll be on paper… what about in real life?

Why not, instead, have a job description which describes the job in the simplest terms, giving meaning to both existing staff and prospective employees?

It’s true that a job description has performance and compliance-related components, but doesn’t simplicity allow easier clarity?

Part of my role as a recruitment partner is to make sure documentation is fit for purpose – I describe it as true and fair , and suitable and sufficient .

Where job descriptions can’t be amended, such as within fixed corporate structures/job families, I supplement this with an Executive Summary that fills in the blanks for candidates.

This is an interpretation document, that translates the employer’s lingo into digestible, clear language to enable better decisions from candidates.

No candidate of mine will ever go into a job not knowing what it entails.

That interpretation isn’t limited to the responsibilities – it covers the job title, skills/experience / capability required and person specification.

My role is to simplify the employer’s requirement into a minimum viable definition – which is to say the core set of candidate profiles that can fulfil the role with minimum satisfactory performance.

And from that minimum viable definition, build up full candidate profiles with the different iterations of what good might look like.

I mentioned in the last edition the ‘Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning Manager’ vacancy.

The candidate who went on to take that job, a few years back, told me on review of the job description – “I don’t have any of that experience! Are you sure I’m right for this?”

That was a contingency role, and I hadn’t even been able to speak to the hiring manager.

Such was their rush to get to market, had I tried to do my best work I may not have filled it, competing as I was against the behemoth of Michael Page’s Supply Chain division, and one other.

Fortunately, they were a company I knew well, having filled many exclusive vacancies, so I could talk about what I knew they wanted to achieve – cost reductions across complex multinational logistics and supply chains were an initial priority.

I coached him on questions to ask at interview so that he could gain clarity on this obfuscated opportunity.

And so it was that a ‘Supply Chain Manager with Logistics experience’ candidate was their preferred candidate, and they paid him 10% above budget.

Even though the #1 essential skill was something he hadn’t heard of.

A skill that appeared readily on a CV submitted from another supplier, who I had chosen not to submit because he wasn’t right for the business.

That’s the lesson for me – simplify every component to meaningful essentials.

Where simple meaning doesn’t make sense – such as SIOP, generic AI when you mean NLP, or 5 years+ in a skill that has existed for 3 – go back to the root and build a minimum viable spec.

Clarity for me, for candidates, for the process – with the outcome of filling vacancies more straightforwardly.

The next newsletter is about understanding how your words are experienced and using that for better effect. It’s called ‘…see more’

Regards,

Greg

p.s. While you are here, if you like the idea of improving how you recruit, lack capacity or need better candidates, and are curious how I can help, these are my services:

- commercial, operational and technical leadership recruitment (available for no more than three vacancies)

- manage part or all of your recruitment on an individually designed basis for one client

- outplacement support

*with insight!

From Headhunted To Overlooked - Jobseeker Basics VIII

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 20:55:12 GMT

This is Chapter 9 from A Career Breakdown Kit , from the Q&A section.

A lot of the book is about expectation management and trying to remove a little load from your shoulders, so while "Q&A" might sound light, it's actually fundamental.

You might even expect it to be the last section, though I've put it front and centre for good reason.

Because without clarity on why things happen, as well as the missteps others take, it's hard to set out on the right path.

Like last week's Chapter, this one is woven into the rest of the book, with strategy and tactics that will improve your odds. You can read all of the book for free on my Substack or you can support my work by buying the book - links to both in the comment section.

Next week's edition is called "Counterintuitive". It's an early draft and the first of the new chapters from the 2026 edition. If you've already bought the book, you'll either get a free update (Kindle), or message me with your receipt and I'll send you the eReader version when it's ready.

That's also the point of this newsletter - so I can keep the Kit always updated. One of the big updates will be "The Truth about the ATS and AI" - current plan is to split this into two chapters. It's a rapidly changing landscape, so keeping this as a static chapter in a single book would be worse than useless.

9 - From headhunted to overlooked

‘I was headhunted for all my previous jobs. Now I can't even get an interview. Why is that?’

The market

Whatever your situation, the state of the market must inform your strategy.

Since 2020, we've had pandemic cycles and their consequences, followed by a market whack-a-moled by war, inflation, strikes, tariffs, political uncertainty and everything else.

When I hear that line at the top, it's often a high performing exec who has experienced redundancy for the first time in their career, in a down market.

If there are few vacancies and many strong candidates in competition, it's unlikely a job search will be straightforward.

Action points:

Speak to other job seekers in your domain and those who have been looking for work. Hiring managers who have filled similar roles.

Responsive recruiters willing to share insight.

Get a holistic view of what's going on in your area of the market, so you can deal with it and set an appropriate strategy.

The system

It may feel that the steps to a job are always the same, but the approach is different between applying for jobs and being headhunted.

When you are headhunted, you are likely one of only a few candidates. Perhaps even the only one. You'll be a Name and likely be sold in as they confirm how your candidacy might apply.

This is because the process typically focuses on their network and finding candidates, rather than reviewing advert applications.

Recruitment by selection.

When you apply for a job, you may well be the anonymous 67th CV out of 400. Readers may look for reasons to qualify you out, unless you show how your skills apply.

You can’t control how hiring processes assess applications, only your part in the application.

Recruitment by elimination.

Action points:

Optimise your CV (p157) and LinkedIn profile (p178) to improve the odds of being found for roles.

Use CV databases (p194) effectively.

Network (p219) proactively to improve odds of being referred and advocated for.

Detachment

It's sales psychology.

If you are headhunted, you don't need a job and are free to walk away, with detachment from the outcome.

If you apply for a job, you do so from a need, and to an extent are hung up on the outcome.

That can lead to the assumption that headhuntees are typically more compelling or 'better' candidates than applicants.

This combined with more control from proactive searches supports the argument that passive candidates are better than active candidates.

Find a way to focus on the process and detach yourself from the outcome.

Action point:

Emulate the attributes of a passive candidate (p149).

Where you are in your career

In general, the more senior you are, the more expensive you become, the fewer the vacancies available.

Roles that can effect transformation are commonly the last to catch up in a recovering market.

Action point:

Work on standing out for the fewer roles available by leaning into your strengths and following the steps above.

Age

Age discrimination is rife and simple to hide. It's the one area of discrimination we will all eventually face, if we are fortunate.

Action points:

Don’t make age an objection by worrying about it.

Do make it an advantage by showing how your experience, skills and achievements, together with your continuous improvement mindset, are a win for the employer.

Simplify this. A Recruitment AiDE, pt 5

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 16:41:00 GMT

Making something simple without losing meaning is quite challenging.

It means you have to really know what you're talking about, so you can put forward an argument that has meaning for your intended audience.

These are rarely 8 year olds.

It's a key area in which most recruitment fails - adverts, job descriptions, careers sites, phone calls.

Especially when an omission can mean you may hire the wrong person entirely.

Ironically, it's overlong and could be simpler, without losing meaning. I didn't have much time to edit it.

Who here remembers Maths at school?

When we were given a challenging formula to simplify.

A taxing task for many, but the point, which is valid in any walk of life, was that a simplified formula is easier to read while having the same meaning.

If you got the simplification wrong, your answer would be different to the correct one, with a different meaning.

Even if the simplified answer has little meaning to you, it is inherently easier to copy. Because it has fewer numbers and letters.

It’s the same in language. No surprise, given maths is language.

Fun fact – my Doctor friend Rich reliably informs me that many medical terms are in Latin simply to make them sound more plausible.

The reason, he says, is to make patients think Doctors know what they are doing and make the guesswork of Doctory seem more scientific.

I’m sure there are also reasons of consistency and actual Science, but let’s believe Rich for once.

Often the English translation sounds silly or trivial.

The terrifying malady Borborygmus is a rumbling tummy. If you suffer from Singultus, well that’s just hiccups.

How would you rather them be described?

Sounding clever is a valid tactic in US politics, and the filibuster is used to prevent decisions from being made, or from allowing others to have their say. Talk, talk, talk - so that no one else can.

Can you imagine how a date would go down if the other half filibustered their way through dinner?

As well as being aggravating, you wouldn’t come away knowing anything about them except that they love the sound of their own voice.

The danger of sounding too clever is that it pushes your audience away from finding real meaning.

This makes it a troubling truth that the majority of recruitment messages are nothing but hot air, dressed up with words that are hoped to seem grander.

The psychology is much the same as in Medicine, using Verborrhea to make us seem smarter and more trustworthy. I’m sure you can guess what Verborrhea is - it’s on my word-of-the-day toilet paper.

But the opposite is often true. If you hide behind clever words, it can show you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.

What would happen if you write in the language of your audience, simplifying words and concepts without losing meaning?

For a start, your message would be shorter and likely more precise.

Here’s a list of classic clever words, and their normal counterparts:

1/ Utilise/leverage – use

2/ Facilitate – help

3/ Ascertain – find out

4/ Expedite – speed up

5/ Mitigate – reduce

6/ Acquire – gain

7/ Implement – carry out

8/ Paradigm – example

9/ Out-of-the-box / blue sky – creative

10/ Thought leader – expert

11/ Core competencies – skills

12/ Interpersonal skills – people skills

13/ Deliverables – results

14/ Quantifiable – measurable

15/ Synergy – collaboration

16/ Value proposition – benefits

17/ ROI – return on investment

18/ TLA – three letter abbreviation (tla) – always better to write them out first

19/ Disruptive – innovative

20/ Innovative – how so?

What confuses matters is that, much like in Maths, you can only simplify to a point. Words have meaning, when used well. Simplify too far, and they lose meaning and gain ambiguity.

Utilise has seven letters. Leverage uses eight, ineffectively. Use utilises three. Use wins, right?

Utilise is defined as “to use effectively”, so can be utilised instead of “use effectively”, because it’s fewer words and letters.

Leverage means, in this context, “to use for maximum advantage”. It sounds great if you leverage the power of LinkedIn but, let’s be honest, most of us just use it and many don’t use it well at all.

If this seems pedantic, consider this:

I feel used vs I feel utilised.

Using the simplest words possible, without creating ambiguity, makes your content more accessible, trustworthy, approachable and widens your audience.

Replacing simple words with longer ones to sound cleverer can both have the opposite effect and be used incorrectly.

Myself has six letters. Me?

Which sounds better: pass me the butter, or pass myself the butter?

If it doesn’t sound good, it likely isn’t.

Simplicity doesn’t mean ease, and it can take a lot of effort to write a message that has maximum meaning in the fewest words and simplest way.

While simplicity is a skill to develop, there are steps we’ve already talked about that help: so what , why does it matter ?

If it doesn’t need to be there, take it out. If there’s a simpler word, use that. If a term raises a question, change it so that the question needn’t be asked.

Why say leverage instead of use? If you can’t answer, ‘use’ is the word.

‘Clever words’ can be confused with words that have meaning.

For example, a “Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning Manager” (SIOP Manager) is an integrated specialism in Supply Chain Management.

However, a Supply Chain Manager may have the skills set required, without necessarily considering themselves a SIOP Manager.

Wouldn’t you rather have that discussion, than let them assume?

AI – Large language models (LLM). This is an example of a catch-all marketing term that doesn’t have an implicit meaning.

The LLM that is ChatGPT is the hot AI discussion point today, but it isn’t genuine AI. Here the seemingly more complicated Large Language Model is the better term, if say you were recruiting for a Natural Language specialist.

An AI specialist might invite applications from Data Scientists or Computer Vision engineers.

So while AI might seem simpler and cooler, it can also be the dead wrong term to use.

I’m sure it’s an easy fallback if you don’t know what you’re talking about, but can you see how that will work against you?

The point of simpler communication is to give better meaning to the readers that matter – the candidates you want to talk to.

The next newsletter continues this theme, by looking at specific parts of recruitment where words can help and hinder: job titles, job descriptions, key skills, and so on.

I’ll show myself out.

Regards,

Greg

Through The Line - Jobseeker Basics VII

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 20:47:18 GMT

The following is Chapter 20 from A Career Breakdown Kit, my guide on navigating a BANI jobs market.

BANI stands for brittle, anxious, non-ambiguous and incomprehensible - if you're stuck in a long-term job search this may strike a chord.

However, if you're just starting out, you can avoid it becoming BANI by setting out on the right path - this won't guarantee an outcome, but will make your search simpler to navigate.

This chapter is Through-the-line, and it's the top level strategy for accessing your individual market. It's based on much of what comes before, such as framing your job search as a product marketing launch, mapping your market, inverting recruitment channels, appropriate multichannel (go where your jobs will be) and in a more down to earth way "How I'd do it" from a couple of weeks ago.

On that 'inverting recruitment' point, this means how you look for work broadly mirrors how your ideal job is recruited for. And in the same way, I take a Through-the-line approach to filling my vacancies, not all of which are publicly advertised.

Unlikely other chapters, this doesn't entirely stand on it's own merits - it's deeply interconnected with the rest of the book, and assumes you have already done the work to establish which channels will be most effective.

You can access of the book for free on Substack, or if you want to support my work, you can buy a copy on Amazon (I'll share links to both in the comments section).

Through-the-line

How do we put together these principles to form an appropriate multichannel strategy?

You may have gleaned I don’t like the term hidden jobs market.

Yet, there’s no getting away from three facts:

Not all vacancies are advertised publicly
Not all advertised vacancies are filled by advert applicants
Jobs might be created or filled outside of traditional hiring activities

How can we best create an accurate, representative, consistent, and replicable strategy for your whole job market?

If you accept the ideas from the last three chapters, then there is a simple term that can underpin your strategy:

Through-the-Line

In marketing, this is an integrated strategy that combines above-the-line with below-the-line, as well as approaches that involve both at the same time.

You integrate these into one strategy to tackle your whole market suitably.

What is above-the-line?

This is an approach to marketing that captures interest in the broadest way possible, through volume-based media.

Typically, this creates inbound interest, where the consumer makes an enquiry, takes action, or goes out and buys the product.

Examples:

John Lewis Christmas Advert, or any advert on TV, online, in the press
A trailer for a film
You might say playing a single on the radio is marketing for the album

Examples in a recruitment campaign:

A job advert
Social media content

What is below-the-line?

This is a targeted approach that reaches a specific person or group of people.

Typically, this is interest created through outbound activity, where the seller or marketer takes action to reach you.

Examples:

A telesales call
Direct mail
Personalised email marketing

Examples in a recruitment search:

Contacting candidates through LinkedIn or CV databases
Gaining referrals and recommendations

What about when both happen?

Example:

Coca Cola’s Share a Coke campaign. Think about everywhere you came across it online, on social media, the press, TV, in shops, the bottle you drank from

Many recruitment activities can be above- and below-the-line at the same time.

Advertising a vacancy, while sourcing
Headhunting, while asking for referrals, and promoting the vacancy on social media

What complicates matters in a job search is that while the employer is a buyer, you are too. It’s your decision to buy, if you accept a job offer.

As well as inverting the channels, you invert these steps with an above-the-line and below-the-line approach that mirrors how recruiters and employers can find you.

Effective applications where the reader can see your candidacy from your CV, resume or cover letter
Appropriate response to social media presence
Discoverable LinkedIn profiles that prompt action
Discoverable CVs on CV databases
Networking for referrals and recommendation

These directly mirror the recruitment-centric approaches above.

You can build on the inbound activities above with proactive outbound activities:

Personal Branding (or rather, purposeful content)
Guided or speculative outreach

These are all activities that are formed from your strategy, which have different chances of success.

Your activities can combine inbound and outbound, above-the-line and below-the-line:

Networking involves multiple one-to-one conversations, with potential of tapping into further networks and knowledge
Building a relationship with the right recruitment agency might lead to multiple vacancies
An advert application on a job board often secures your CV for their CV databases. The application to one may make you discoverable to multiple agencies and employers. How can you leverage this?

There is a difference from business marketing.

You’re reading this because you’re in a tough market. Your odds of any of these activities paying off are low because of the state of the market.

If you do these measures effectively, you optimise your odds of securing a role.

Unlike companies who need multiple ongoing customers - you only need one job.

Some vacancies are skills short - you may secure a role straightforwardly from applying for an advert. Others will be too few in number for the skilled candidates available.

Try to learn the state of your market, to inform what your strategy looks like.

I hope you’ll agree this is a clear and consistent way to look at your job search.

Done effectively, it will access advertised and unadvertised vacancies.

This means you don’t need to worry about the hidden jobs market, because your approach implicitly accesses all jobs available to you.

Your Through-the-Line jobs market.

Next week's Chapter will be "From headhunted to overlooked"

Q&A. A recruitment AiDE, pt 4

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 16:35:00 GMT

‘They ask, you answer’ is a well-regarded book on content marketing written by pool entrepreneur Marcus Sheridan.

I was disappointed to learn that he wasn’t a hustler, who taught marketing while sinking the 9-balls, travelling from seedy bar to low-rent tournaments.

Instead, a swimming pool guru who saved his struggling business by becoming a thought leader.

Even more boringly he wasn’t even a thought leader guru.

Life before LinkedIn, eh?

He aspired to be, and became, the Wikipedia of swimming pools, writing content online that answered the questions he knew consumers would ask when thinking of buying or maintaining a swimming pool.

Now he mainly sells his marketing strategy, whether in book form or seminar.

A simple approach that is highly effective in any medium.

Whether writing SEO content or showing know-how in LinkedIn posts.

What if you answered your recruitment readers’ questions, without them needing to ask you?

Especially if those questions always come up – doesn’t it make sense to turn those answers into content, whatever your purpose?

By laying those answers out in writing, I can replicate them at appropriate scale.

Writing in recruitment has many forms and purposes:

Website copy
LinkedIn profiles, posts, comments and messaging
Vacancy advertising, whether above or below the line
CVs, cover letters, candidate summaries
Job descriptions and person specifications
The brief
Executive summary
Employment and vacancy value propositions
Application acknowledgement
Interview confirmations
In-between updates
Offers and rejections
Formal offer letter and employment pack
Pre-boarding, on-boarding and inductions

With this being pt 4, we’ve already covered two questions you should already have answers for, no matter the form of writing.

So what?

Why does it matter?

Two questions that help the clarity of your writing, while helping readers make better decisions from content they gain trust in.

That was Marcus Sheridan’s intent in his marketing strategy – to win more business by giving better information.

Here are a few examples of questions potential candidates either ask of a vacancy and employer, or complain about not getting an answer to:

What’s the salary and package?
Who is the company?
What is the location?
What is the role like in reality?
What are the working arrangements?
Will they consider part-time / a job share?
Do I really need to meet all the ‘essential’ criteria to apply?
When will I find time to update my CV, and can I be bothered?
Why should I apply or enquire further?
What is the organisational structure?
What is the culture?
What are the challenges?
What is progression like?
What is the budget?
What is their strategy around…?
Who are their competitors?
Who am I meeting at interview?
What is the interview process and structure?
How long will the whole process take?
How many candidates will they want to interview?
Will I get feedback?
How many agencies are they working with?
How will you represent my application?
What are they like to work for?
What do their people say about them?
What are the glassdoor and indeed reviews like?
Why have so many people left that job on LinkedIn?
Can I tell you about the accommodations I need without being discriminated against?
Will I ever get a reply from you?
Why should I leave my good job for yours?

Over time you’ll build up a library of more and more answers, which is one reason it gets easier to help our stakeholders.

Of course, you may not know the answer to the questions that will come up. An answer you should find, for this time and after.

It’s possible you might not like the answer to some of the questions. A question of integrity, in whether you should even be serving that vacancy or employer.

Some of the answers will only be relevant to certain parts of the process, and it’s a question of judgement and balance in where and how you articulate them.

I wouldn’t put an organisational structure in an advert. I would put in an executive summary / candidate information pack.

Some of the answers belong in surprising places:

What would happen if you highlight the recruitment & interview process in your advert, told them when you’d get back to them by, and made them feel safe to ask for help in their application?

What kind of experience does this leave readers with and what are the potential benefits for you?

Each answer has its place, in a virtuous recruitment process, and all work together to improve your trustworthiness and authority.

A better experience can improve quality applications, gain better commitment from candidates, and even help with retention by giving the right people the right start in their new roles.

I mentioned in the first list above CVs and candidate information.

Think about the questions your stakeholders will have about your candidates, and present them in writing beforehand.

That’s the crux of my candidate summaries, and my ratio of “CV to interview” is currently 100% this year (April 2023)

Because how I consult with the employer means I know which questions to ask of whom. And I can show these answers when presenting the right candidates.

I’m a low-volume recruiter, though, so I have time to focus on quality.

If you need one reason to consider this approach, it’s this. What happens if your reader doesn’t have the time to ask a question of the content they’ve read?

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

The Snake That Ate Its Own Tail - Jobseeker Basics VI

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 20:42:17 GMT

What follows is Chapter 10 in A Career Breakdown Kit .

There’s a certain irony in its title. You see, while the word is ancient, mythological and philosophical, its meaning is grounded in the everyday.

Though a job search in this market may feel ambiguous and new, you undoubtably have everyday skills you can apply straight away.

A cycle that continues when those non-linear and new skills you gain in a job search might just become everyday in your next job:

10 – Ouroborous pt 1

The ancient symbol of a snake that perpetually eats its own tail.

It’s the notion things never disappear. They change and are reborn.

In the same way, some of the constructive activities you do at work can support being out of work, while the skills you’ve learnt in a job search can be used to enhance work.

Everything feeds into itself in a way that can improve your odds at work and when unemployed.

Use your business skills in your job search

‘I do that at work, but I never thought to do that for myself,’ said a talent acquisition copywriter when he was between projects.

I’d told him to promote himself on LinkedIn using his copywriting skills and make himself a product with features and benefits.

While starting a job search for the first time seems alien, you already have skills you can effectively use to improve your odds straight away.

If you're in marketing, form a marketing strategy where you are the product. Go integrated appropriate multichannel.
If you are in sales, sell yourself. Talk to people, network, build relationships, doorknock, and pitch.
If you are a project manager, set a clear strategy with correct documentation and plan-do-check-act. Use your methodology.

We all have skills that can apply to a job search. While it may feel an alien skill to have to learn, you aren't starting from scratch.

What skills benefit your work most? How might you adapt them into looking for work?

An annual career MOT to check what you are doing reflects your values and aspirations.

Which if you haven’t done at least at the start of your job search, you should do now.

Redundancy can often be an opportunity to try something brand new, without baggage.

It breaks the inertia of your career, one where you are pulled forward by the needs of your employer and job, as much as by what you think you want.

Loyalty and hard work are mostly a good thing, yet can work against you if you make all those small compromises required to fit in.

At some point down the line, who you want to be diverges so much from who you are at work that it becomes a crisis that needs resolving.

This disconnect between your ideals and your career trajectory should be identified much earlier.

In the same way your boss will do an annual review, you should too.

Look at all the points that make up your needs and your aspirations in your career, as life invariably changes in the background:

Working arrangements and commute
Salary and overall compensation
How the culture at work reflects your values as a person
How the future looks there compared to where you want to be
What your nearest and dearest thinks about your happiness at work

That last point is something I hear from time to time - our emotions are often better reflected by those around us than we can judge for ourselves.

The danger of not doing this is that, when you do find yourself out of work, you don’t take advantage of this break in career inertia.

If you go for the same jobs that were holding you back, will you be fulfilled?

Identity work is important, whether you are unemployed or employed.

Sometimes you just need money to pay the bills - that’s fine, as long as you do it intentionally.

Keep your career breakdown kit ready at all times

The first thing many people do when they find themselves out of work is update their CV.

Quite hard to do it meaningfully, when you have six years of experience to unpick. Often it’s easier to only add your job description in.

Why not update your CV with every notable achievement (supported by numbers), every change in context and job title?

And your LinkedIn profile.

Don’t worry about length. This is a personal master CV you can refer back to at any point and is the bible of your career. These achievements also serve as reminders for interviews.

It’s no coincidence this book is called what it is. Readiness is better than reaction.

‘But I don’t want to be seen to be looking for work when I’m not!’

Which leads me to:

Apply skills from a job search to enhance your work

I’d wager many long-term job seekers who are keen to learn will have developed networking, interviewing and even content writing skills when out of work.

Why not apply the same skills in and for work?

Instead of writing posts, messages and comments to support looking for work, write the same to support your job. What subjects can you write about that support the work you do?
Network with peers and thought leaders. Gain and share ideas - how wouldn’t this help you in your work?
Interviews are business meetings, where you put your best foot forward while trying to gain objective information about whether you should take action. A useful skill in any context.

These are all qualities that can enhance what you do at work. Better yet, should the worst happen again, you’re already ahead of the game in the next job search.

Next week’s article is called Through-the-Line, it’s the culmination of all the strategic elements unique to your individual job search, and will help you access all jobs available to you.

Why does it matter? A recruitment AiDE, pt 3

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:31:16 GMT

The following is very boring and long but probably quite useful. I wrote it two and a bit years ago.

It’s a classic example of tell, not show.

Maybe I’m a better writer now, maybe I was having a bad week then, maybe I'll think the same of today's content when I look back in two year's time.

Plus my thinking has evolved away from passive vs candidate to problem awareness. You can see my step change to come with the reference to Region Beta Paradox.

Anywhat, it is a key part of this series as it leads up to the actual AiDE framework, and alludes to why Attention is so important in our swipe-right world where AI is training us on what ‘good’ content is.

I’m probably as boring in real life unless you really, really want to improve how you attract and engage the right people.

(Oh and btw, I generated the article image on ideogram. Initially it had two men, one 'confident' one 'speculative' - I asked it to change the confident one to a woman. It's interesting to see what AI spits out)

Why does it matter?

What is a benefit?

In sales, it’s something that solves a problem, enhances someone’s life or satisfies a desire. Benefits in recruitment relate to why someone might consider a new role.

Not to be confused with Employment Benefits.

When changing jobs, there are few reasons that someone will do so voluntarily.

More money is #1, in any UK research on candidate trends you may read.

The subsequent ones are a mixed order of leaving a bad job (with all the reasons that may entail), a better work-life balance, career development, lack of recognition / unfulfilling role, commute, job security, a change in circumstance, wanting to change career, a different culture, boredom, safety concerns, better benefits.

Then there are the forced reasons, such as redundancy, company closure, end of contract, and dismissal (fair or otherwise).

Active job seekers will typically be galvanised by their position in Region Beta Paradox. Things are bad enough that they’ll seek change, whatever that may look like.

Their default is often ‘yes’.

Passive candidates may be open to being contacted, may not be aware that they suffer from a problem that can be solved by a new role, and may incorrectly think they will be happiest in their current job.

Their default is often ‘no’.

It’s a bit more nuanced than that, but let’s keep it simple.

Show the right benefits for Passive candidates, and these will also appeal to Active job seekers.

By showing them the warts and all of your vacancy, you provide information that allows a good decision. The features.

By showing them the benefits of these features, you encourage them to enquire further. Perhaps not an application, but an initial message or conversation is a great start.

How do you find benefits? By asking ‘Why does it matter?’

There are actually two components to this question.

The first is ‘does it matter?’

There’s no point stating features if it doesn’t matter to your audience, even if something you’re proud of.

If you’ve established the personae of your ideal candidates, you should have a feel for whether or not your statements matter.

' So What? ' helps with this.

The second is ‘Why’ and 5 Why can help here.

To answer why, we should look at that list at the top again.

Who are these people, and what is their situation?

The more urgent the activity, the more basic the criteria that need be met to encourage an application.

Such as Job Title, Compensation & Benefits, Location, Working Arrangements.

On a job board, these are separate fields from the job advert. In an advert elsewhere, these will likely be the first points looked for.

You could avoid generic adverts and ChatGPT and only list these points, and I wouldn’t be surprised if your results were similar to hastily cobbled-together copypasta.

For people who are more sceptical of adverts and discerning of any potential move, expect them to find copypasta wholly unappealing.

This is a simple reason why there exists a perception that only active job seekers apply to badverts.

Try showing benefits instead, and you may well appeal to someone that had never considered a move.

My favourite bit of feedback on an advert was “my wife showed me this and told me I should contact you”.

It’s the only job he applied for in four years and was an ‘exclusive’ candidate.

He didn’t get the job… sorry to ruin what might have been a great story.

So. Why does it matter?

It’s a highly contextual question and one you can only find a relevant answer for if you’ve shown the truth of your vacancy and know who it will appeal to.

If someone wants more flexibility after being forced back into the office - can your employment help?

If someone wants more money, they’ll want salary listed on the job descr… advert.

If someone wants to enrol on the CIPD and this is something you fund for your HR practitioners, that’s a good benefit.

If someone wants a better culture, one which is a good fit for yours, describing it relevantly is an implicit benefit.

Career development… you could say this role is open due to promotion, and you’re looking for someone who wants a step up in their career. If it’s true.

Conversely, if you have a role that is required to set the strategy, drive change and improve culture, the benefits might be increased autonomy, professional growth, positive impact and recognition.

Why does your statement matter to your reader?

You should also expect readers to be selfish time hoarders.

If your advert doesn’t grab their attention with why it matters to them, why should they read past paragraph two… or line one?

Grab your readers’ attention with the most important benefit at the top and encourage them to read on.

What’s the best thing about working for you in this vacancy?

Particularly salient when job boards show preview text, where the disinterested may not even click through.

Fed up with being forced back into the office, and want more control over your time in how you get the job done?

Looking for a company that will fund your CIPD and your membership?

Is your next leadership role one with increased autonomy, growth, recognition and a positive impact?

That sort of thing, but less dry, innit.

Get your benefits right and you’ll attract more, better candidates. Sound good?

The next newsletter is on answering the questions your reader will have, before they ask them.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

How I'd Do It - Jobseeker Basics V

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 20:37:52 GMT

What follows is Chapter 16 of A Career Breakdown Kit , my book on navigating the modern VUCA (volatile uncertain complex ambiguous) UK jobs market.

I'm conscious that one objection for careers advice is, "How can you know, you haven't felt the pain? You aren't in this market."

I do feel the pain daily.

Both in talking to candidates putting up best pretences, and often when I have to share feedback they were pipped to the post for some seemingly arbitrary reason (there's only one vacancy after all and too many good people even on the shortlist).

But also because of my personal situation as a mini business owner in an industry on the cusp of great change. My process for finding clients is broadly equivalent to what yours may be in your job search - though I need an ongoing client throughput while you need (probably) one job to be found in the jobs market unique to you and your context.

I find that I revert to my own advice when things go wrong, such as ensuring my strategy is fit for current purpose, nailing the basics, and doing those hard things I've been putting off in favour of pratting about on LinkedIn (strategically building my personal brand that is).

Advice that looks a lot like this:

16 - How I'd do it

Before we talk about you, let’s talk about me.

What would I do if I needed to look for work?

This book would be central to forming and executing my strategy.

I’ve run my own business since 2011. By my measure I’ve been pretty successful.

Although my measure is a little different to many. My goals are to support my family as well as I can, to be the person I aspire to be and to provide first class service to people I want to help. A consequence of that has also been a reasonable income.

I’m mindful that nothing is forever, nor am I completely closed to talking to an employer that does something amazing where I could contribute in a transformational way.

What would happen if the recruitment landscape changed irrevocably?

Would I follow my own advice?

It’s not as unlikely as I would like to think. As AI continues to improve, it has the prospect of radically changing the transactional aspects of recruitment medium term. There is a way to go - the tech isn’t ready and would need to be implemented, adopted then entrenched.

Though if that is the case, who knows what else would change?

I’m an advocate of negative visualisation. This establishes realistic worst case scenarios, so that I have a plan I can act on immediately should the need arise.

This is a promise to myself, should the worst happen and I need to look for a job.

Principles

If not recruitment, what else?

If not self-employed, what does employment look like?

How much would I need to earn to keep our family’s head above water? I’m fortunate that my wife’s career is going from strength to strength, though the only money we have access to is the money we’ve earned for ourselves.

I’ve jokingly said I’d be happy to be a gardener - this is true enough if needed. Would it cover our outgoings?

What would I enjoy doing? What could make a difference? What could I do sustainably?

What does this look like from an employment perspective?

I won’t speculate what that will look like now. These are questions to answer at the right time.

Philosophy

It wouldn’t be me who has failed. It would only be my business, which means there’s no reason I can’t find the right success in future.

Always be honest - with myself, my family, and the people around us.

Be proactive and persevere. Go get what you need and keep going.

Listen, reflect, learn, adjust, execute. Take a break when needed. Look after mind and body.

Pay it back, pay it forward, ask for help, tell people I’m looking.

Strategy

Build a sustainable plan:

Learn the current rules, play the game well, and break the rules with integrity when possible
Access all appropriate inbound and outbound channels to market: job boards, networking, doorknocking, recruitment agencies, consulting, freelancing, referrals and recommendations.
Use a high conversion CV, LinkedIn profile, advertising / personal branding, CV databases, #OpenToWork
Build a pipeline of short-term, medium-term and long-term activity so that they all come together long-term, yet may pay off asap
Use any good news to galvanise more action: if I’m expecting a job offer, push harder elsewhere and ‘keep up with the joneses’
Find my market value range and negotiate against that
Get a job, then wait for the job

Execution

I’d go back through my own advice:

A resilient job search (p121)

LinkedIn profiles that convert (p187)

Principles of a good CV (p157)

Focus on applicable, not transferable, skills (p39)

Optimise my applications and use of job boards (p194)

Network (p219)

Keep working on online reputation / personal brand (p201)

Doorknock (p224)

Make sure I take advantage of interview opportunities, through preparation, delivery and follow up (p246).

I’m fortunate to know some brilliant career coaches - I’d ask for their help through these points and maybe call in some favours.

I’d work on the principles of continuous improvement, always challenging myself to improve - plan, do, check, act.

That would be my general plan, with the understanding any opportunities are likely at the behest of the state of the market and the competition I’m up against.

I’d try not to blame myself for the things I can’t control.

Where you see page numbers above, it's because this chapter is taken verbatim from the book. You can read unedited versions of all those chapters for free - I'll put a link in the comments.

Or you can support my work by buying a copy of the book.

Next week's Chapter to share is called 'Ouroboros pt 1'. It's a word I always fail to spell correctly, despite having written it hundreds of times.

Ourbsours is the notion that nothing is ever destroyed, it is instead recycled and reborn. Why it's pertinent to this book also relates to the process of your job search - strategy, experimentation, iteration, learning, innovation. But it also relates to the point that while a job search feels alien, you have skills from your career that can help you.

And those new skills you may pick up in a job search can also help when in work, with the further benefit of giving you inertia in the next unexpected job search.

Warts and all. A recruitment AiDE, pt 2

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 16:27:48 GMT

Welcome to the 2nd edition of AntI Recruitment.

When I concocted the title, one of its whiffiest elements was using the word 'human'. Human first, human-centric - there were a few iterations.

But there's no denying that at some point in recruitment, you're going to come face to face with the people you might want to employ, however you use technology.

Unless you're going to replace meatbag jobs with droids, you should probably consider our needs. Especially when that serves the outcomes you want from your recruitment.

So while it's whiffy, it's a suitable and sufficient part of the newsletter name. A term I use throughout my recruitment consulting, and explain in the Innovation from Iteration series.

If you agree that creating the right Experience for your ideal potential employees is a reasonable idea, then you'll probably want them to stick around long enough in post to make a difference.

One of the ways you do this is to set the right tone from the outset, which is I why I always recommend to my UK clients to go:

Warts and All

If ye olde LinkedIn were around in the 17th century, it wouldn’t have been selfies that drove the algorithm.

Instead, it would have been the form of portraiture that makes people taller, wealthier, younger and more attractive.

Not so for Oliver Cromwell. Virtue signalling was not something he valued, preferring the truth, unvarnished.

Thus, he verily didst say unto Peter Lely:

“I desire you would use all your skill to paint your picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me; otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.”

I imagine if you look at all of the portraits of his peers, it would be his that most resembled the truth.

From this came one of my favourite expressions.

I show a warts and all picture of the vacancies, employers and candidates I represent.

Honesty is a good reason to do this, with a candour that can be disarming.

It’s also about good marketing.

Recruitment is unique in how employers, vacancies and candidates are all types of products, each of whom can change in nature.

To have a truly good outcome in recruitment, it’s not just a question of filling a vacancy but also finding the right person who can thrive in that role long enough to see a return.

Whether that return on investment is in terms of things done, goals reached, salary achieved, career developed, or something else. It’s an ROI for the candidate as much as the employer.

Having clarity on the unvarnished truth of capability, attitude, trajectory and add is the best way to find the right hire.

‘Warts and all’ isn’t just moral, it’s an effective way to recruit.

Here’s a shoe-horned analogy to show why.

If you’ve had the good fortune to find love, it may be because of all their qualities including their flaws, not despite them.

Okay, you probably have a form of personal development plan in there to upgrade your partner and be upgraded by them, but the nuts and bolts are pretty much fixed.

How about those aborted long-term relationships that fell apart because of a disagreement on babies, marriage or Brexit?

Might have been handy to find out before it got serious.

While perhaps you have a friend whose love-at-first-sight partner is highly irritating to you.

Horses for courses.

It’s funny how many parallels there are between dating and recruitment. Haven’t you noticed?

Assuming you aren’t a toxic or discriminatory employer, that what you propose is relevant, and that you don’t have confidential plans that can’t be divulged, showing the full truth of a vacancy does two things:

Gives honest insight into what you are like to work for, what the role entails and what a candidate should expect. The features.
Allows you to establish the genuine reasons your ideal candidates will want to romance you. The benefits.

This will attract more suitable candidates and dissuade less suitable candidates.

A bit like how Marmite owns its delightful grossness, and the experience of its consumers, to create a memorable brand.

For example, the ambiguous and organised chaos common to a growing SME won’t suit people who need structured workloads. Why wouldn’t you highlight that?

However, to show this insight, you need to have found that insight in the first place:

Establish and interpret context with meaning
Audit your job description, and other documentation, to ensure accuracy. You may recall my previous post on “True and Fair” which has a similar meaning to Warts and All. The difference is that true and fair relates to factual descriptions in documentation, whereas warts and all is about showing this with meaning in your marketing.
Correctly defining what good looks like in your ideal candidates.

This requires vulnerability and recognising you aren’t the perfect employer for everyone. If you have difficulty overcoming your blind spots, good recruiters can help.

Once you have these points nailed down, your ‘warts and all’ will be clear.

You won’t rely on bog standard bullet points that say nothing more than your job title might have said on its own.

After all, most people know what their own jobs entail, and your <job title>’s duties will come as little surprise on their own.

Alternatively, you can ignore your ‘warts and all’ and lead with generic wordage (innovative market leader / ninja rockstar) or bullshit (we’re a family / level up your career).

You can also choose to sweep them under the carpet and hope no one notices or complains.

The problem here is that inevitably they’ll come out in the wash, through unconscious statements that raise alarm, or worse still when someone leaves three months into their new job.

As a comparison, my typical advert gets around 40 applications with 30%+ being suitable enough to warrant a call. In a normal market, I hear other recruiters getting 100-400 applications with less than 5% suitability.

(This article from March 2023 is showing its age - you can multiply these by 5, though my 30%+ is the same)

I’ve filled around half of my vacancies from advertising in the past couple of years, including those considered hard to fill, as part of a multichannel approach. The rest through other means.

For permanent management and leadership hires, my average retention is 4 years.

Warts and all is one good reason for this.

Get the ‘warts and all’ right and you’ll have cast iron features to underpin your product description.

From there you can show why it matters, which is what next week is about.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

LinkedIn Profiles That Get Found - Jobseeker Basics IV

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 20:32:25 GMT

What follows is Chapter 32 of A Career Breakdown Kit , the guide to navigating the modern VUCA jobs market.

The 2026 version will be published in January to make sure it remains up-to-date. As I see it the context is evolving, but the advice will remain the same, in helping you find and execute a strategy individual to your unique jobs market.

Fwiw, this chapter was last updated in early July, 2025.

Like all the other chapters this refers to, and is deeply connected with, the rest of the book.

Having a well configured LinkedIn profile is key to getting found, and the principles reflect a good CV.

It's also why if you aim for the 'Beat the Bots' of ATS Compliance, this goal can set you back overall in your job search.

Because how humans search for LinkedIn profiles, mainly with boolean algebra, filters, and the prospect of light AI assistance - that mirrors how we try and find good candidates in a high volume of applications.

As usual this advice is 'human compliant' and implicitly tech compliant too.

32 - LinkedIn profiles that get found

Whatever you think of LinkedIn, you shouldn’t overlook its nature as a data repository for recruiters. Many of us rely on this data to fill our vacancies. That data is you and your competition.

This chapter shows how recruiters use the LinkedIn Recruiter Licence to enable us to search for potential candidates, how this reflects other CV databases, and how this might help you improve the odds that your profile can be found.

If you didn’t know, Recruiter Licence is an expensive resource for recruiters and one which many rely on as a core part of their hiring approach.

We do this sometimes at the same time as advertising, sometimes instead of.

I’m a member of a private recruiter group on LinkedIn. We’re all small independents, and it was set up for recruiters who both care about candidate experience and are skilled in their craft.

In preparation for one of my LinkedIn Lives, I asked them in our WhatsApp group what their common frustration with LinkedIn profiles is.

These were their replies:

‘Headlines are always shit’

‘CVs not matching LinkedIn profiles are a big no, especially in targeted roles like sales’

‘Job titles that don't make sense’

‘No personal profile’

‘Don't have your current job title as 'looking for work', put the job title you are aiming for and change your headline to e.g. 'Software Developer looking for their next role in X where I can add X value'‘

‘Profiles in my domain all look exactly the same. It’s all job titles, qualifications and nothing to differentiate them.’

Common issues I see too.

It’s worth pointing out that this exercise was solely on LinkedIn Recruiter.

Recruiters have different ways of finding candidates:

Their own CV database of previously registered candidates
Subscription CV databases off the back of job boards (in the UK), e.g. Indeed, Reed, Totaljobs, CV Library or more specialist ones in your area of expertise
ATS-style software that scrapes candidate data from LinkedIn and other sources
Real-life networking, referrals
Headhunting through market mapping, prospect companies and people in viable roles

When it comes to searching data, these are based on Boolean search and filters.

It’s the same way we might search through a high volume of applicants, such as on an ATS.

I recently did an experiment with my co-host, Simon Ward, on our weekly LinkedIn Live.

Simon is an exceptional Job Search Coach in the UK. He chose this title to define his services because, from his perspective, it was the most relevant description of what he does.

If I were to ask you what does someone do who can coach you through finding a job, what would you answer?

My guess would be Career Coach or maybe CV Writer.

And if you searched on those terms for Simon, you wouldn’t have found him. If you took the ‘lazy recruiter’ approach to sourcing you wouldn’t find him under ‘Job Search Coach’ either.

LinkedIn Recruiter works much in the same way as Amazon. You run a general search for your item of choice, then filter by various elements - in this case by industry and location.

One of the features of LinkedIn Recruiter is that we can filter by ‘Open to Work’, if you have that turned on in your profile, it should be to your advantage.

I don’t use it, because I have better means of contacting out-of-work job seekers.

When I look at my dashboard, these are the basic search fields that come up:

Job Title
Locations
Skills and Assessments
Companies
Schools Attended
Industries
Keywords

I use Job Title, Location, Industry and Keywords for general searches, as well as Companies if I know they might be incubators for candidates.

There are also advanced filters. For the purpose of this chapter, it’s about getting the basics right.

These search fields map point for point with how you fill out your profile. Play around with editing your profile and you’ll see the same options.

The problem with Simon is that he defined himself as a Job Search Coach in his headline.

If I search for this specific term as a Job Title, he won’t come up, whereas 37 other credible results do.

It’s only if I search on this term in keywords that he comes up.

Headlines don’t have a specific filter to search on them - they only get found in a keyword search. They are a secondary priority in recruiter searches.

As an exercise, why not look for Simon on the standard LinkedIn search bar? It’s far more limited than Recruiter but has some similar qualities.

What if you were an HR Manager who was a 100% fit for a Head of People vacancy, yet the recruiter didn’t find you because you didn’t use that explicit job title?

As a recruiter I would build up a Boolean string of comparable job titles, then expand or reduce depending on the volume of results.

Which might be:

(‘HR Manager’ OR ‘Human Resource Manager’ OR ‘Human Resources Manager’ OR ‘Head of HR’ OR ‘HR Director’) etc

I’d use every iteration of HR above and (‘People Manager’ OR ‘Head of People’), maybe I’d even go old school with Personnel.

I do this because of the arbitrariness of job titles, and because an HR Director in one business might be a Head of People in another.

As well as other curiosities like People Business Partner, which might be any and all of those titles.

Once I have a comprehensive list, I can save this for future reference and build it iteratively if I come across any weird job titles in the wild.

If I need to further fine-tune, I’d bring in relevant qualifications, memberships and skills for that role.

MCIPD AND ‘Employee Relations’ AND FMCG… might be an example, although these are separated on LinkedIn by individual fields.

If you’re wondering about the capitalisation - AND OR NOT and others are Boolean operators that allow us to specify or separate data.

Sometimes I’ll even search on typos, because I know these aren’t searched for by many, but only if it’s a hard role to fill: ‘HR Manger’ (I realise HR isn’t obscure)

I do what it takes to find the right people.

It won’t help if you are a suitable candidate for the above and your job title is ‘Assistant to the Senior Manager, HR, Business Partnering.’ A real job title I once came across.

I explain in the The truth about the ATS (p20) that one area AI is enhancing work is through automating Boolean searches - this makes it easier for a less skilled recruiter to find candidates. If you have the basics above nailed, things will only improve.

For now, a skilled search will uncover candidates better than automation.

Here’s the first takeaway:

Ensure the keywords, job titles, skills and qualifications that reflect the job you want are explicitly stated on your profile and in the right fields.

If you aren’t sure, print off all the jobs you’ve recently applied for where you are a 90%+ fit. What are the common terms? These should be on your profile - if and only if they are true and you have evidence.

If your current job title is ‘Looking for a new opportunity,’ it might be true and it might get you overlooked.

You’d probably want your current job title to be ‘HR Manager - looking for a new opportunity.’

In that fuzzy weird title above, I’d go for ‘Assistant to the Senior Manager, HR, Business Partnering - (HR Manager)’

Search fields do have additional filters, allowing a search on current or past jobs - can we guarantee recruiters won’t do anything more than the most simplistic of searches?

Now, you’d hope that recruiters aren’t lazy, corner cutters or incompetent. If you cater for the weakest link, you also cater for more skilled recruiters.

I asked a current job seeker what roles he is applying for.

His reply:

Compliance Assistant / Administrator,

Client Onboarding Assistant / Administrator,

Operations Assistant / Administrator,

Reconciliations Administrator.

On LinkedIn Recruiter, I couldn’t find him on a lazy search for the first line. This was my reply:

When I did a search using your ideal job titles, you didn't come up for ‘Compliance Assistant’ or ‘Compliance Administrator.’

You do come up for ‘Client Onboarding Assistant’ and Administrator because these are explicit in your profile.

You may benefit from making sure the exact terms you look for in adverts are represented in your profile.

The crux of being found is understanding what we search for. Give us what we need to find you. Inversion.

The principles are the same for a CV which you can use on job board CV databases.

Another exercise to improve visibility

What were the last 10 job adverts you read that represented a strong fit with where you are in your career?

Ones which reflect what you've been doing and would be a natural step forward.

What do these descriptions have in common, out of job titles, key skills, qualifications and technology?

Now look at your LinkedIn profile. In order of priority, do these use the same words you see in adverts?

Your job titles - most recent and previous
Your Headline
Your About section
The sections under each job title
Your skills

Often, when recruiters do searches against similar roles, they'll use the terminology from the job description, which is commonly used as the basis for adverts.

They'll search under the same terms that you might read on those adverts - job titles, qualifications, skills, software, industry.

If your profile doesn't explicitly state these, you won't be as easily found.

For example, if you are a ‘Head of Affiliate, Digital and Offline Marketing’ and you are performing the duties of a Marketing Manager - that's what you need to show in your profile.

While your headline is important - it doesn't help you if your profile doesn't turn up in search results, given its lower priority in Recruiter Licence.

Update your profile truthfully and see what happens.

How else can you help readers see you as a viable candidate?

Do the same for your CV - because these same principles will support your applications, speculative contacts, networking and use of CV databases.

However

Getting found is only the first piece of the puzzle and when your profile is read, you need to convert interest.

This is why you need to get the balance right in how you present your information.

So What? A Recruitment AiDE, pt 1

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 16:24:26 GMT

An introduction

Welcome to the first edition of A-nt—I Recruitment.

If you stuck around with me on substack over the past three years, some of this will be familiar. I’ll be curating my most popular series of

writing, for a new audience on LinkedIn.

I've stopped writing on that substack for now, but feedback is that it's engaging and helpful, which I hope you find the case too.

What can you expect? These are series that I've already published - around a year's worth of content.

The AiDE framework for attracting ideal hires
Innovation from iteration – how other industries can improve recruitment
No problem – recruitment problems that drive opportunity
Recruitment reflected – how candidate experience and resentment can improve our work
Negotiate this – how 'Never Split the Difference' by Chris Voss applies to hiring
The art of recruitment – Sun Tzu because of Ross, and because humans don't change
Selected others

These were tremendous fun to write and, through sharpening my ideas, have made me a better recruiter. I’ve also seen recruiters I respect adopt my ideas, such as “reciprocate the care your candidates take” as a fair balance in a volume marketplace.

Why the tremendously stylised name?

You’ll see the capitalised AI, straddling nt, spelling out anti. But this isn’t about hating AI and recruitment – I love the opportunity both have. We all love an em-dash too.

It’s because the opposites in recruitment aren’t what we do, it’s why we do it.

Are you driven by systemised, scalable, profitable recruitment?

Or do you always want to put people first, with a candidate-centric approaches that delivers long-term outcomes?

I’d wager you can do the first without the second, and the second without the first.

The real win is when you nail the philosophy of human first recruitment, and enable it through technology.

It needs to prioritise on the needs of ideal candidates, so that everyone benefits. Instead of the typical employer first approach.

And so here we are with the first article, and part of the series on my AiDE (Attention ikigai Definition Experience) framework.

It’s called:

So What?

A couple of years ago, I ran an experiment on LinkedIn to see what meaning readers would take from this post:

“Today I ran 5km in 33 minutes. I am 42, 6 ft 2, 200lb and have a resting heart rate of 50bpm.

What does this say about me?”

The plan was to analyse the commentary, look for themes, and use these for further content on advertising, CVs and what people take from social media.

Across the 100 or so commentators, only one person rightly said “nothing at all”.

While the other commentators said anything from “don’t beat yourself up” to “well done” to “that resting heart rate indicates a high level of fitness” and questioned the running time.

One kind gentleman took it upon himself to describe his fitness journey and how I should be proud that I’d started running in my 40s.

He also took offence when I explained the rationale for the post, in a subsequent one.

The reason for the wildly different responses is that this post lacks context.

What kind of background can you imagine that would have given relevant substance to this post?

If all the post had said was that first line, a rational response would be:

"So what?”

It’s a post rife with ambiguity, where the only meaning is that which is taken from it.

And 99 people found their own meaning.

I did inadvertently lie though.

My 6 ft 2 height was confirmed by a doctor in 2008.

I went to the hospital a couple of weeks ago, and now I’m a smidge under 6 ft 1!

The gravity of the situation hasn’t passed me by, nor has the nature of subjective truth.

Does it matter more what we write, or more how others read those words?

Recruitment is an industry where ambiguity, clichés and clever-speak hide meaning from its consumers.

Take this classic first line in an advert:

“My favourite client is a market-leading employer of choice going through rapid growth.”

I think it’s only natural for an recruiter who knows no different to write this and both believe it and believe that readers will believe it.

What follows will typically be something like -

“Their friendly, innovative and progressive team is looking for a Retro encabulator designer with these responsibilities: <insert anonymised job description>”

Before the grand finale of “We act as an employment agency, don’t do isms and if you haven’t heard from us in one week, you are dead to us”.

It’s a natural thought process, and symptomatic of a transactional recruitment system.

Without a full brief, without insight, without training or an inclination to learn copywriting, and with a need to advertise, how can you do any different?

If it were the only advert to say exactly this, it wouldn’t necessarily be a problem.

Except that adverts commonly do read like this, making it pointless to actually read their content. You might as well just go off the job title, salary and location.

And if you do bore yourself dense reading them, can you come away with any response but “so what?”.

So – so what?

As well as a natural reaction to piffle, it’s a handy editorial tool, used by anyone that wants to strip away ambiguity and show both context and meaning.

It’s much like 5Y , an iterative question that lets you peel back onion layers to find meaning.

So what, “market-leading” – what does that look like in practice?

Why are they growing rapidly – is it because they’re full of hot air?

What does innovative and progressive look like in their team? What is friendly?

Ask ‘So what?’ of your content and you’ll give better meaning.

Better yet, ask others what they make of your content.

Does your advert actually have any meaning?

Can people tell what your job is from your job description?

Do your interview confirmations regularly get questions asked of them?

Back to that post at the top. I did follow up with some good posts (IMO) showing the problem of ambiguous meaning. Here’s one of them from last week:

“What your CV says: ▪ 2021-2022, Sales Manager - achieved £500k in sales

What a reader might assume: ▪ sacked after 12 months falling 50% short of a £1m account management target

What you meant: ▪ achieved 125% against a £400k new business sales target, completing a 12-month maternity contract

Ask 'So What?' of the responsibilities on your CV. Give better meaning to your words, so that we don't have to find our own.

Unless you were indeed sacked, in which case ambiguity may work in your favour.

Agree, thoughts?”

I don’t think it’s much of a leap to find wildly different meanings from the ambiguous words you may find you use.

Ask So What, and do yourself a favour.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

The Transferable Skills Trap - Jobseeker Basics III

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 20:24:29 GMT

The following is Chapter 4 in A Career Breakdown Kit , my guide for improving your odds in a VUCA jobs market.

Fundamentally it's a chapter about selling yourself, and moving from features to benefits to how it matters.

Similar to the advice I give to employers in how and why they should move from generic copy+paste job adverts to specific, representative content that shows context and has meaning.

The same generic adverts you tailor your CV towards (a chapter for another time).

Put it this way -

Do you buy Pizza because it contains flour, yeast, dough, salt and water?

Do you buy it for the toppings?

Or do you buy it because of the way it makes you feel as a regular buyer or someone attracted to its packaging?

My favourite pizza has a bite, a sizzle, the richness juiciness of its sauce and how it combines with the stretchy delight of mozzarella. Oh, and that spicy kick from the Jalapenos!

Transferable skills are your dough - the basic ingredients - important in the right place, but must be defined in the right way to have meaning for your ideal readers.

Chapter 4 - The transferable skills trap

Maybe your top ten looks like this:

Strategic Thinking
Leadership
Communication
Problem-Solving
Decision-Making
Organisation
Analytical Skills
Project Management
Change Management
Relationship Building

If you’re a COO, that is.

If you’re in a different field, your list may look a little different - why not ask a large language model? Gemini came up with the one above.

I expect the results would be similar for an HR Director, with a little people strategy, employee relations and EVP development thrown in for good measure.

Here’s the rub - if these skills are in your top 10 list of transferable skills, they are likely in the top 10 list of your competition’s transferable skills.

And if everyone has the same skills, none of these skills stand out.

If transferable skills are your unique selling point… how are they unique?

The problem doubles down.

If, in our days of generic advertising, a company is looking for a COO or an HR Director, their essential required skills can often include these transferable skills.

Can you communicate at all levels with strategic thinking, fostering an innovative culture?

Me too!

We all ‘know’ that a customised CV is the way to go. (Is it though? Check out Part Three for my answers.)

What exactly are you customising against, if your custom skills are the same as every other applicant who applies to this advert?

This is the transferable skills trap.

Skills that in real life serve you well and are valuable in any context. Yet skills that are common enough they work against you, when you declare them your strength.

What can we do?

Move from transferable to applicable.

Applicable skills are precisely the same skills as transferable skills, with two differences:

Direction
Definition

The direction of any applicable skills is that of the employer.

How does your skill apply in their domain?

The definition of any applicable skill is the context in which you have applied them successfully. This can be synonymous skills, tools, processes, software, etc.

If the direction and definition don’t reflect each other, you may not be an ideal candidate.

Should you even apply?

And if they do reflect each other, the onus is on you to show explicitly how your skills work in the employer’s context.

In an ideal world employer hiring processes are skilled and knowledgeable.

In practice, you should assume the weakest link in their hiring process is the gatekeeper - an administrator, a recruiter, an HR assistant.

Maybe they’re lazy, maybe incompetent, maybe swamped, maybe inexperienced.

It doesn’t matter - a weak part of a hiring process doesn’t necessarily mean employment is unsuitable but can prevent you from being considered.

Help us do our jobs by showing how your skills apply, and we may see you as a suitable candidate.

With the benefit that this helps skilled recruiters too.

What is context?

This is the relevant background that adds sufficient substance to an assertion.

So, you’re a COO?

Are you a COO within a £2m bootstrapped start-up that’s achieving profitability?

Do you work in a multinational charity streamlining your operations to save money?

Or are you a safe pair of hands to keep the ship steady in your £30m family-owned manufacturing company with 120 employees?

These three COOs may well have the same transferable skills, and might each be brilliant, but their contexts are more important than their job title in assessing suitability.

Going further.

The ugly brother of transferable skills is responsibilities and experience.

In the same way adverts copy-paste job descriptions, how many CVs do the same under each job title in a CV?

There may be hundreds of applications each sharing the same explanations.

Fortunately, you can apply direction and definition here too, by showing impact, by showing your achievements (with numbers and context), and by showing how you can help.

These principles help you move from being a <job title> with a dry set of responsibilities and experiences.

To someone who shows how they can help, how you can solve problems, and how you can heal the pain of the people who might employ you.

It’s the same as moving from features to benefits in sales.

Features are what you do. Benefits are how the customer’s life is improved.

Transferable skills are highly valuable to your next employer. You should be proud of them.

Unless they are specific and relevant to the roles you apply for, they can get in your way.

If you can gain insight into what your potential employer needs, and show how you may solve their problems, your odds will improve.

The frustrating caveat to this is that sometimes you are only given a generic advert to try and glean this from.

If you can’t gain insight, is there any point in showing applicability by tailoring?

Apart from using their terminology (such as if they say Continuous Improvement, and you’re a Six Sigma Black Belt), my answer is no.

Instead, default to a good enough CV. One which plays to your strengths by showing how your skills apply through tools, process, context and achievements.

Apply with what you have, follow their instructions and diarise a follow-up. Then move on.

Treat transactional generic adverts transactionally and worry more about the ones that speak to you personally.

Don’t rely on transferable skills in the hope that others will see how they apply.

Help us do our jobs and see you as a great candidate by showing how your skills apply.

This won’t guarantee interviews. It will improve your odds.

Showing applicability is a strong gain for every aspect of your job search.

The Hidden Jobs Market. Jobseeker Basics II

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 17:25:37 GMT

What follows is Chapter One from my book, A Career Breakdown Kit.

It's a metaphor to show how we all buy on an individual multichannel basis, how this relates to a job search, and how it relates to recruitment of the roles you want or need.

While it's playful, it's also controversial in showing why the hidden jobs market is a misleading notion, which can be implicitly accessed through a strategy that accesses all the jobs available to you specifically.

I call this strategy 'Through-the-line', which may be familiar to you if you work in marketing. The book covers a Through-the-line strategy in detail and how you can put one together to work around your market access, skills and capability.

I'll be publishing the full book here over time or you can access it fully for free on my Substack. If you want to support my work, you can buy the 5* rated full book on Amazon. I'll put links to both in the comments section.

I hope you find it helpful.

In most of the calls I have with job seekers they will ask me about The Hidden Jobs Market.

What is it?

Is it real?

How can I access it?

Before we get into that, we should talk about tomatoes.

As you read this next section, imagine a tomato is a job.

So, you want to procure some tomatoes. How would you?

Your local farm shop. The supermarket. Wednesday’s stalls.

Maybe you subscribe to a weekly box of veg.

Maybe you grow your own.

Maybe you trade for the tomatoes from Tim’s allotment.

Maybe you look at people funny when they ask for an intro to Tim because his tomatoes are wonderful.

You likely wouldn’t buy some from Amazon - they don’t sell fresh food. Not to me anyway.

Though you might buy tomato seeds from Amazon if you grow your own.

Maybe even cans of crushed tomato, sauce, puree, or whatever meets your needs.

As the channel you use to source tomatoes isn’t the only consideration, so too is the configuration of what you need.

While you and others all access tomatoes in different ways, some of which overlap, and some of which are mutually exclusive - none of these channels are hidden.

It’s just that you may not know how to access some channels, while others won’t be available to you.

Now I want you to read that section again. Instead of being your desired job, you are an employer whose desired tomato is a candidate of choice.

While recruitment is the inverse of a job search (more on this later), the analogy is better from the employer perspective because they are on a buyer’s journey where you are the product.

Employers want to fill their vacancies through the best means.

Some vacancies are easy to fill, others not so, and they will access the channels necessary to find the right people.

In many situations, they won’t advertise a vacancy, which might be for reasons of confidentiality or convenience.

Some say this is as much as 80%, a flawed figure which comes from a flawed survey, or perhaps it comes from a newspaper article in 1974 before computers were a thing.

In my recent small-scale research, it was indicated more than 62% of vacancies are advertised. 53% responded they advertise more than 75% of vacancies.

Many of the respondents were headhunters, whose business may be based on not running public adverts. I expect this will have skewed the results lower than the true figure.

What employers don’t do is hide vacancies systematically.

To access these vacancies, you need to understand the channels through which employers hire and invert these channels to form your strategy.

Much like how tomatoes are sold through channels which consumers buy from.

Is the hidden jobs market real?

Yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that not all jobs are advertised. Some are confidential, some for reasons as mundane as not wanting to deal with hundreds of advert applicants.

No, because it isn’t a term that has inherent meaning.

Speak to people who advocate for it, often a career coach, and they’ll tell you it’s anything from personal branding and networking to going direct and being referred in.

When vacancies aren’t advertised by employers, they often fill them through sourcing - this is a specialist skill related to finding people where they may be found: LinkedIn, CV databases, corporate databases, GitHub, Facebook, YouTube.

These are all channels you can access as part of an appropriate multichannel strategy.

Which means if you have the right multichannel strategy (I call this Through-the-Line, which we’ll cover in parts 2 and 3), you access all jobs, including those which are hidden and those which are in witness protection on another continent.

Who are the headhunters that specialise in your domain?

Who are the people who can refer you to jobs?

How can you be more discoverable on LinkedIn and CV databases?

How can you gain an understanding of the ways in which your ideal job is recruited, so you can take advantage of those channels?

Those are better questions to answer to allow an effective through-the-line, multichannel strategy involving outbound and inbound leads.

Despite me being vocal about why Hidden is a flawed notion, two people have thanked me for advice that led to their new roles claiming they’d accessed the hidden jobs market.

As I gritted my teeth in hidden rage and congratulated them on their success, they unveiled the truth.

What they actually did was map out their real life network of people they’d worked with and got in touch.

If the people you know don’t know that you are looking for a role, what reason would they have to tell you about a vacancy?

It’s simple marketing - right place (LinkedIn), right person (ex-colleague), right message (looking for work), right time (we’ve a vacancy).

Of course, that takes a bit of luck to achieve the right congruence.

Odds you increase through volume and follow up.

And when you do find those opportunities, they are easier to win because you are a known name, not another unknown CV.

There it is, the hidden tomato market.

Principles of a Good CV. Jobseeker Basics I

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 17:22:39 GMT

Good morning!

I'm transferring over my Jobseeker Basics substack to LinkedIn, so this is the first weekly edition of my LinkedIn 'newsletter'.

Every week you'll received either a chapter from my book, "A Career Breakdown Kit." or an edition of my weekly round-up. (You have a breakdown kit for your car - why wouldn't you in case of an unexpected job search?)

All are guidance on navigating a VUCA jobs marketplace in the UK, mainly at mid to senior level. Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous.

Today's edition is Chapter 30, from Part 3 - Get It Done.

Yes, it's Wall of Text - because it's word for word from the publication version. Something I offer for free to every candidate I represent for a vacancy. Or you can support my work by buying it - click Visit My Store on my profile.

This chapter relates directly to my free CV template. DM me on LinkedIn if you'd like a copy - Greg Wyatt, Bircham Wyatt Recruitment.

‘Ask 9 people for advice on your CV and you’ll end up with 10 CVs.’

A pithy truth that shows how subjective a CV’s quality is.

While also highlighting how frustrating it can be to spend time or even money on perfecting a document that the next person rips to shreds.

The person whose opinion matters most, in a hiring process, is the reader whose finger is on the Reject button.

What are the principles of a good CV?

Not a perfect CV, because perfection is wholly subjective and the path of madness in a difficult job search.

These principles are based on advice I give to job seekers when they ask for feedback.

Principles that come from my own insight, backed up by effective processes from a seemingly different industry.

First, we start with what a CV is and what a CV means.

Did you know the first recognised CV was written by Leonardo da Vinci in a letter highlighting his candidacy for employment? Yes, a CV and cover letter in one!

I’m pleased to say he got the job off his first application.

The notion of a document that presents candidacy dates back millennia with gladiators highlighting their achievements through the Lanista system. This was done to increase their reputation so that owners could earn more money.

A form of marketing document based on provable facts that synthesised their gladiatorial career in written format - a stone slab.

In a sense nothing has changed - your CV is a marketing document, which you use to highlight your candidacy so that your potential buyers invest their time to offer you an interview.

Where it has changed is the medium, given there are many means of presenting candidacy, including LinkedIn, other social media or platforms such as YouTube. You can even parade your portfolio on GitHub (for software), a website or other platforms.

For now, let’s stick to the CV proper.

I read a lot of debate on what a CV actually is and whether it is more of a technical document than a marketing one.

That’s a disservice to true marketing, which always has a basis in fact.

Your CV is there to highlight your candidacy and to give your experience meaning to the reader, helping them make a positive decision on you.

It’s there to get you an interview and for its readers to take you to the next stage.

A hiring process often has several moving parts, each a decision-maker in their own right.

From an administrator who sifts CVs, to recruiters / talent acquisition processes that make a longlist, to hiring managers and their bosses - each has their say on whether or not you might make the cut.

I’m sorry to say sometimes it is arbitrary:

‘If they’re this unlucky, why would we hire them?’ said the hiring manager to the administrator after binning one of the two piles of CVs at random.

While their decisions aren’t in your control, your words and how they are presented are.

It makes sense to create a document that helps the weakest link in the chain see you as a candidate of choice. One which supports other decision-makers, presuming they run the game fairly.

It isn’t only about applications - it enables your networking, doorknocking and speculative enquiries.

The principles of a good CV are the principles of a good marketing document.

A good marketing document at its core creates action - the decision to move forward.

A CV is an advert that should provoke attention, create interest and convert action.

I’m sure you have read much hoo-ha on what makes a good CV in the Talent Acquisition, recruitment, career coaching, and job seeker spaces. Much advice is contradictory, while some of it is cynical.

Instead of joining in that conversation, let’s look to another industry that uses words to convert action, as a basis for the principles of a good CV.

Whose principles are based on user psychology, behaviour and experience, and influence their actions to improve the odds of a purchase.

E-commerce.

A multi-trillion industry built on the words you read, marketing and advertising.

While it may not directly relate to recruitment or looking for work, its principles do:

Readability
Accessibility
AIDA (attention interest desire action; a century-old advertising formula that applies response-stimuli psychology)
Features (what it does; skills, tools, experience in a CV) and benefits (how it helps; achievements)
Search engine optimisation (SEO; keywords to be found) on the Google principles of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (EEAT)
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO; words that convert)

Job boards and LinkedIn employ many principles of E-commerce in their functionality. These principles are not only equivalent but directly applicable to job searching.

What about assumptions and myths?

ATS compliance
7-second CV scan
CVs must be 1, 2, 3, 367 pages long
Anything people often talk about

These seem like big deals. They’re not, for a simple reason.

If you write your CV for a reader in a way that grabs their attention while following basic rules, you’ll navigate these seeming traps.

Let’s touch on the top three briefly.

To be ATS compliant, at worst, you need to avoid tables, columns and images. I say at worst because modern ATSs are less likely to struggle with these (read The truth about the ATS and AI – p18)
It’s true that in a volume process, the initial scan may be quick to check for obvious reasons to rule out applicants. If you pass the scan your CV will be read in more depth because you move from elimination to selection
Your CV should be… okay this gets its own section:

Everyone has their own opinion on what the length of a CV should be.

The only person who matters in a hiring process is the reader, if they have a strong opinion you can find out.

If you know their requirement for what makes a good CV and you are prepared to play to their whim - give them that.

If not, your CV should tell its story in a way that grabs attention and holds it. Accessibility, readability… those bullet points above.

White space is good
Unnecessary repetition is not
Conciseness is good
Ambiguity is not
Achievements that show context are good
Adjectives are not (strip an adjective out and does your CV lose meaning? If not, why are you relying on them?)
‘So What?’ is a brilliant editing question. If readers have to ask that of your statements, you need to find improvement or excise
Show specific and relevant information and don’t bore your audience with things they don’t care about

(If you’re a recruiter, why not apply the same to your job adverts? The reader psychology is the same.)

Grab your reader’s attention in the first half page, so they read the rest. If they don’t read past that first half page, it doesn’t really matter how well written the rest of your document is.

Get these points right, and a good enough CV will often be 800 to 1200 words long across 2 to 3 (even 4) pages.

Okay now on to actionable steps.

Accessibility and readability

Can someone who doesn’t know your domain see what you do from your CV?

If they can’t, there’s a problem, especially if they are the weakest link in the chain.

A good litmus test is to ask a friend you trust to see what they can tell you about you from your CV. What do they think your biggest achievements are?

White space: would you more easily read a condensed document or one that is clearly laid out? Don’t worry about spreading your CV onto a third, or even fourth page, if your experience demands it.

AIDA

The classic advertising framework, and how animals make decisions (look, check, I am hungry, eat). Look to your puppy for confirmation.

In a 7-second CV scan, you grab Attention on the first page with the most relevant information: your job title, key skills and tools that show how you meet essential requirements, and what the vacancy is looking for.

Get past this first test and gain their Interest through a clearly laid out document that shows the passage of your career (reverse chronological order, show company and role context).

Build Desire by showing the achievements that support your candidacy for the role you want. These are the problems you solve and show how you can help your next employer best.

Enable Action by providing clear and accurate means of contacting you - this may seem obvious, yet some forget.

A note on conte xt.

Context is the information in your CV that answers the questions your readers should have.

What does your employer do? How many employees? What size revenue? What was the structure of the team in which you delivered your achievement?

If your reader has to ask a question about your CV, your CV should provide the answer.

Context is what most CVs miss and it lets them down.

One way to show context is to use the interview framework STAR (Situation Task Action Result) - this frames information in a way that has

meaning to your audience.

Features and Benefits

These are the basics of selling.

You don’t buy the technical specifications of a TV. You buy what the TV does for you.

You don’t buy the ingredients of a pizza. You buy the taste, sensation and experience it provides.

Both are important.

Most of your readers know broadly what a <job title> does - there’s no need to say it if the meaning is implicit.

What we want to know is how it helps.

An administrator may do administration. How does it help?

Do they arrange travel cost efficiently, take away the admin burden from the directors, save time?

Those are the benefits, even better in the form of achievements.

SEO

SEO primarily relates to keywords. Think about how you search on Google. We do much the same when scanning and searching on CVs.

Are the keywords from the job description or advert clearly stated on your CV?

These are typically the essential requirements, and this is a rare piece of ALWAYS advice. Always show how you meet the essential requirements.

Rely on EEAT in that list above. Show these keywords without looking cynical or careless.

Some career coaches advise a ‘white text keyword bomb’ as a hack - if a reader thinks you’ve employed a hack, you may be seen to be cheating, and that rarely goes well.

If your CV has the right keywords, it will be easier to find on CV databases.

You can use the same keywords to make it easier to be found on LinkedIn.

Which are two ways to be considered for unadvertised jobs.

CRO

The main point of a CV is to prompt positive action - the second A in AIDA.

The crux of a CV is to show the reader how you can solve their problems.

The problems that are at the heart of their vacancy.

Do this in a compelling way, and you’ll improve your odds.

CRO is built on psychology and understanding how your readers make decisions.

Think about the flow and readability of your CV - this is how websites work.

Everything in a well-designed website is intentional. Is your CV?

I find CRO fascinating - worth a read if you want to go down a rabbit hole.

While CVs are important, many people place too much importance on their place in the process.

A good enough CV is your best step forward. If you are a no anyway, perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.

Or maybe the decision was already made if you are in a demographic the reader chooses to discriminate against.

That may not even be for illegal reasons, if they decide you live too far away, are too expensive, or that you love Agile when they love Waterfall.

Go for good enough - it is a challenge to get there, but once you do, you can build on it for life, and it will help you get a job.

A free CV template

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 12:18:25 GMT

A free CV template

As part of my newly launched book, A Career Breakdown Kit, I've put together this free CV template.

I hope you find it helpful.

How to sell yourself

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 21:38:00 GMT

Today’s edition looks at a common concern I hear from job seekers, with simple principles you can adopt now, to get better at selling.

"I'm just not confident at selling myself at interview."

But then it isn't about selling yourself, necessarily.

Employers want to understand what you'll be like to work with, how you'll solve their problems, and how you'll deliver against their expectations.

So then there's only two things to worry about:

1- Showing what you are like at work.
2- How you'll solve their problems.

You don’t need to worry about that point around expectations, because that’s a consequence of these two above.

And once you get into this mode of thinking, you can employ the same principles in everything you do.

Whether it’s how you write your CV, the dreaded cover letter, your LinkedIn profile or any type of written content.

Two additional things to remember - hiring processes aren’t mind readers; and when you nail these points you’re helping us see you as a candidate of choice.

Let’s dig deeper.

1- Showing what you are like at work.

The great illusion of social media is authenticity.

BE yourself at all times.

Yet what does that actually mean?

Especially when authenticity is contextual.

Here’s a crass, but true example to prove the point -

I’m as authentic in business as I am on the toilet. But never the two should mix.

Now of course you want to be yourself at interview.

You can call that authenticity if you like, but try to separate how you are at home, or how you are in a tough job search, from how you are when you do a great job for an employer.

That last one is how you’d be in employment, and it’s what you need to project at interview.

So that we can see how you’ll perform in the job.

Yes, looking for work is a shit show in this market. And yes you should own how you feel. But these feelings are temporary when compared to the continuum of your career.

While it may feel like faking it, to be your best professional self at interview, it isn’t - it’s a promise to your future.

2- How you'll solve their problems.

The good news is if you've solved problems before, whether that's managing a flight itinerary or delivering a turnaround project, you simply need to articulate this in a way that has meaning for them.

STAR is a helpful storytelling device here (situation task action result, maybe with a dash of learning).

If you’re familiar with STAR, don’t forget it has to relate to the question asked, specifically. If you’re asked how You contributed, STAR has to involve what you did.

I say storytelling, because stories are as much about how they are told as the content.

Show the you from 1. in your answers, be concise, and you’ll rarely go wrong.

As for understanding what their problems are, you can find out through research, interview preparation, their job description and the questions they ask. Make sure to ask clarifying questions if you don't know what they're getting at.

This should also be an advantage of partnering a recruiter in your application - we can help you prep so you can establish what might interest the employer.

Then, after the fact, think about the examples you gave, and use these as preparation for future interviews. It’s unlikely you’ll give the perfect answer the first time, so this is a lesson you can take forward - how could you give a better answer?

If you’ve been to multiple interviews, and they commonly ask the same question, consider why this is.

Is it missing from your CV? Add it in.

Is it a commonly demanded situation you have overcome? Talk about in content - others will have the same issues.

Is it around skills that are needed? Make sure your CV and LinkedIn profile contains these skills.

A job search is iterative, and a set of skills to learn.

Keep working on these areas, and you’ll continually improve - this alone will improve your odds, the more you do in a job search.

Most of all though this article shows one truth of sales.

Selling can be a consequence of what you’ve done, rather than the goal.

Get these points right, and your work will do the selling for you.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

Driving home for Christmas?

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 20:47:00 GMT

I’m hearing a lot of people say they’re winding down their job searches for December.

They anticipate a quiet market in the run up to Christmas.

And yes, fewer employers will recruit - because they don’t want the break to interrupt recruitment over Christmas shutdown.

But let me tell you this - the proactive employers who know how to hire, will plan to close out their recruitment processes before the Christmas break.

Which means any new vacancies you see that aren’t fake, may well be higher quality, on average, than normal.

Because these are employers with the agency to get things done.

While if you take action, with other job seekers assuming nothing will happen, you might just get your nose ahead for that reason alone.

I’ve a great new vacancy, which went live today, and potentially one or two others to come in the next week. And I plan to close them out by what’s been the day with the highest density of offers for me in my recruitment career: Christmas Eve (or the day before Christmas break).

It used to be that recruitment was predictably cyclical.

Holiday periods dead. One week to catch up. Then a surge.

Two things have happened since 2020 which changes part of this status quo:

The first means there have been peaks at unusual times. The second means greater flexibility in diaries allowing interviews in what were less popular times.

It’s not the whole market - many are still driven by habit, over efficiency.

But it does raise one key point:

Assume nothing.

Don’t fall back on the habit of previous years, or assume what happened then informs what happens now.

After all, I’ve no doubt your job search this year is very different too.

Instead be accountable for what you do apply for, and act on any of the fewer, higher stakes jobs you do come across.

Who knows what might happen?

Have a great December!

Greg

Spof!

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 14:54:00 GMT

Have you ever post-mortemed a programme of recruitment only to find one common factor that set you up for failure?

This is your Single Point of Failure.

It’s a term that’s been around for a long time, and was adopted in the IT industry in the 80’s.

I recently had an opportunity to go the Titanic Museum in Belfast. It’s well worth a visit, and the history behind the Titanic is as fascinating as what happened on that fateful day.

While there were a lot of contributing factors that led to its sinking, each had a SPOF, which in combination were calamitous.

Some were technology and some were process driven:

And so on.

While the post-mortem led to counter measures for each, so that it couldn’t happen again.

I’m sure you can guess what’s been written in law as a consequence, against each point.

While recruitment is no Olympic-class liner, it is typically a complex set of processes, with much going on invisibly below the water line.

Whenever things go wrong, I’ll typically do a post-mortem to take forward what I can learn.

This then becomes part of a pre-mortem when I consult on new projects.

What are the issues that might arise, and how can we prevent them?

What drove candidates to behave in such a way, and where was my part in it? Were they never the right candidate in the first place? How might I have worked with them differently?

Those historic SPOFs are often surmountable, if only we knew to look for them.

While if you don’t know to look for them, they may remain unknown unknowns , resulting in finding criticism of problems but not the root cause.

What are examples of SPOFs in recruitment?

Your SPOFs will undoubtedly have elements unique to you, and elements common to many.

Surely then, finding your SPOFs allows judicious improvements where you’ll continually improve your outcomes.

It’s not a case of providing lifeboats when you need binoculars, but understanding how the two can complement each other and are part of the bigger picture.

How can you find your SPOFs?

The thing about SPOFs is that although they feel inherently negative, fundamentally they are about the opportunity to do better.

It’s why owning the problem, even if it doesn’t stem from you, is such a powerful tool.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Fake jobs

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:26:00 GMT

Picture the scene.

You’ve just gone through the emotional turmoil of losing your job. Or maybe something’s happened at work to galvanise your decision to make a change.

You take a bit of time to figure out what the right next move is - a great idea.

Then you go through the obvious channels to see what jobs are out there.

The most obvious of which are job boards and other websites which promote jobs.

Your first reaction is one of hope and optimism - there seems quite a bit out there, so maybe you’ll secure something quickly.

And if you happen to be reading this, new to a job search, indeed you may.

However, for many people in this market, comes a pretty quick realisation that a significant number of adverts do not represent jobs that exist.

A double whammy in your emotional rollercoaster of recent weeks.

Today’s article looks at what ‘fake jobs’ are and what to be mindful of. There are a few categories to go through, each with different nuance, but ultimately the outcome is the same: an advert that, at best, wastes your time.

This what we’ll go through:

First a quick overview from the recruiter perspective.

When you put an advert up, you may allow a bit of time for applications to come in before assessing them and starting the interview process.

Let’s say the volume is manageable, and the outcome not guaranteed, particularly when a candidate you want to offer decides to take a different job instead.

There are no villains in this common scenario, and it’s common enough that risk is a consideration when advertising.

If a recruitment process takes six weeks from advert to offer, and the outcome isn’t guaranteed, it can make sense to leave the advert up, in case you need more candidates in your pipeline.

What about if your process takes three months? Illness, holiday, lack of availability, changes - there are many reasons a process can be delayed.

There are many tools and suppliers which support a hiring process, one of which is the job board, and often features are developed to support ‘what happens if things go wrong’. Or to maximise applications with the apparent intent of enabling wider choice, which can lead to many issues in its own right .

Scraping is when one website takes content from another and relists it. This can happen as an affiliate/aggregation/commercial arrangement, or to drive traffic to the scraping website.

The idea is that this increases eyeballs on the content.

In the context of job adverts, you can see this everywhere, although things are changing. For example Indeed and LinkedIn both have relisted adverts from elsewhere.

It’s changing because now some job boards have secured volume of traffic, they want to monetise that traffic and keep control of the adverts.

An indication that this happens is when you click ‘apply now’ it takes you to another website other than the employer’s, such as jobrapido which (I believe) is an aggregator.

This can happen multiple times, and every time a job is scraped there can be parsing errors where data from fields are incorrectly transferred.

While if the original advert is then updated, it’s not necessarily the case for scraped adverts.

So scraped adverts can give inaccurate salary, locational, or even job information. They can also stay listed when the original has closed, without the employer ever knowing about it.

Leading to looking like a fake job.

As a feature for advertisers, many job boards allow an automatic relisting of adverts, once a week/month, to ‘bring it to the top of the pile’.

These relists can occur throughout the lifespan of an advert, such as in the example above - six weeks in an advert appears new, but a candidate is about to be offered.

Here, the vacancy may be live, but your application may not be considered, because it is so far in process.

This can also happen manually for many reasons.

I’ve taken down a job after a couple of weeks to rewrite it, based on fine tuning from an interview process. Or when a candidate has declined an offer put forward to them. Or when a vacancy has been put on hiatus.

The reason for a manual relisting might be unknowable if it isn’t stated in the advert, but it isn’t necessarily for bad reason.

If I were to relist an advert, it would only be because I need more candidates, in which case your application would be read.

But in many situations relisting can encourage an application that won’t ever be assessed.

Unfortunately it is the case that adverts may remain listed simply because someone forgot to take them down.

This is more likely to happen if there isn’t a cost per advert, such as on an employer website, or if there is an unlimited contract.

Some vacancies are perpetually advertised to enable a candidate pipeline for a particular specialism.

There may be no vacancy now, but anticipation of vacancies in future, particularly within larger employers, or perhaps an recruitment agency that specialises in that field.

I would hope this is made clear in the advert, but that doesn’t always happen.

Sometimes those adverts aren’t evergreen, they’re simply there to harvest applications on the off chance that vacancy comes up.

I remember a Cambridge agency that used to scrape employer adverts, list them as their own, then submit those CVs speculatively to the same employers - without a commercial arrangement in place.

Make of that what you will - I think it’s despicable behaviour.

Is there any way to check for fishing? I’d probe the advertiser for specific information, and what their relationship is with the hiring process.

However, that’s not proof of bad behaviour, because of how the contingency model works. When multiple agencies work on one vacancy, it’s common not to provide company information until later in the process.

Conversely, if an agency is fishing only to build a bank of CVs, it’s unlikely they’ll admit to it.

It sickens me that advertising and job scams are on the rise.

If it doesn’t feel right, if they are asking for payment, if they do a bait and switch (this job isn’t right but here’s our CV writing service), if they ask for ID that can be used for other purposes:

Beware.

Here’s some information from Indeed on what to look out for .

Here’s an example of a scam I came across early this year .

This last category may or may not be a fake job.

Here’s the scenario - it looks like a vacancy, it sounds like one in discussion, perhaps you even interview there on site, perhaps you even do a 5 hour presentation at final interview on your 90 day strategy.

But then it disappears. Either permanently, or maybe reappearing but with no further comms from the employer/agency.

I hear this happening a lot, particularly at a senior level, in the UK market.

There are a few reasons it can happen, not all indicative of fakeness:

I’m sure there are many more reasons this can happen, and there isn’t a huge amount you do, given the appearance is that of a real vacancy.

You can ask if budget has been approved, do your research on the business on glassdoor or by speaking to alumni. But ultimately this kind of vacancy is a Schrodinger’s Cat - you won’t know if it’s live or not until the process is complete.

The purpose of this article is to highlight how this happens, but it’s also to set your expectations.

If you go into a fresh job search understanding this can and will happen, I hope it takes the sting away if you come across it. And enables you to get to the truth of which jobs are actually out there sooner.

This article may help you get better use of job boards , for the vacancies that count.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

I sonder lonely as a cloud

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 09:36:00 GMT

Sonder has wandered in and out of my awareness over the past few years.

It’s a curious word which means “the feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles.”

Coined by John Koenig in 2012’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Everyone is the hero of their own stories.

Who are we to them?

Faceless strangers, future colleagues or friends, people they enjoy encountering, or could we even be the baddies ?

I often talk about the importance of establishing context at the start of any hiring process.

This is as much with a candidate as it is with a vacancy.

If we don’t understand the context behind a candidate’s potential desire to move, or how it may relate to an interest in our recruitment, we set ourselves up for a surprise.

If someone ghosts us, lets us down, accepts a counter or alternative offer - and they are the hero of their own story - then they may have good reason for doing so.

This reason often comes from their context, which may relate to candidate resentment, that they always put themselves first, or something else.

Establish the context, and two things can happen:

What can we do differently to have those same heroes see the advantage in not surprising us?

And for the candidates who don’t behave in a way that disadvantages us, how can that same view benefit them too?

Talking of heroes, one of the classic archetypes in literature is the hero’s journey.

It’s a common type of story that you’ll find in anything from Star Wars to Headhunters.

Common because we all identify with themes such as self-discovery, growth and transformation. Common themes in a career too.

And any candidate is quite figuratively on a journey with us through our hiring process.

Is it any surprise that if things go wrong, ex-candidates might see us as villains, irrespective of the part we played?

It goes to follow that understanding how they experience the journey they share with us allows us to find ways to improve the journey for them.

And if the journey improves for this person who may be an ideal employee, how does it improve for us?

I’d be happy to take any appropriate measure to improve the odds of hiring the most suited candidate.

When was the last time you applied to one of your own jobs as a fresh candidate through your ATS?

What would you experience if you read your own advert for the first time? Whether a publicly listed job posting, a direct message or even a phone call.

How does your interview process benefit your candidates? What would you want from these interviews if you were the candidate?

How does a candidate experience a lower-than-expected offer, even if you can pay more with the expectation they’ll negotiate?

How do they experience unexpected delays in a process?

How do they experience an update to say no update?

How do they experience a lack of reply, and how might this inform their approach if you contact them about vacancies in future?

Of course, a common objection is how volume makes individual service impractical, yet isn’t that the point of automation?

Both in replacing manual work at scale (rejections) and in enabling us to focus on work that matters - such as those individual relationships that suffer when we are too busy.

While if you don’t use automation effectively, what will happen to recruiters when forthcoming AI does it for us?

There are so many adjustments we can make straightforwardly that improve the candidate-hero journey. Ones which are in our control.

By putting ourselves in their shoes, and establishing how we can either draw them forwards or push them away, we can improve experiences for everyone.

Not just all candidates, but the employer and hiring teams too. Given less friction for them reduces their odds of not taking part, and increases the odds of the right people being interested.

Who’s to say that one candidate isn’t the real hero and that we aren’t just side characters in their story?

What would you do differently to improve their story, so that you benefit too?

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. I have one tough vacancy that requires further attention. Other than that, my other three projects are in hand, and I’ve finished writing my employer adverts. So if you need a hand in your hero’s journey of filling a key vacancy, managing some recruitment fractionally, or improving processes, drop me a line.

An advice advisory

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 13:46:00 GMT

There’s so much advice out there, isn’t there?

Spend half an hour trawling LinkedIn, and you’ll no doubt find many different hacks that will transform your job search.

With much of it contradictory, and some that are plain awful.

#OpenToWork is a great example, varying from a helpful tool to a desperate gambit.

This article is meta advice on what to look for when reading or taking advice.

Today I read a post from Liz Ryan, a LinkedIn Top Voice on something who said something along the lines of

“Tell them today is your last day,” when you resign.

The idea being that you don’t owe your employer anything, and you need to manage your own risk, in case they let you go without paying severance.

Terrible advice if you are in the UK, where our notice periods are broadly different to the US, where I believe Liz is based.

I can’t tell you if it’s good advice in the US, although it seems to lack integrity to me.

Yet here is the first point.

If you are a UK reader and come across such a post, how are you supposed to know it’s for a US audience? How are you supposed to know it is most certainly is not for you?

Hers is a post that highlights an issue with how social media works.

By breaking down geographical and cultural barriers, it can become hard to know who advice is for.

Legislation will differ from place to place. Nuance will differ across demographics.

Then you have transadaptation, where lingo that makes sense locally, may have a very different meaning elsewhere. Even though the language is the same.

When taking advice, the first thing to check is whether that advice is suitable for your context.

What expertise does the advisor have that relates to your job, your market, the channels you have access to, your seniority, where you are based, or these many other variables that make up your context?

What about the hiring process an employer takes? SMEs, corporates, public sector, government, civil service and more may all have very different rules of play.

A 22 year old data scientist in Birmingham, UK, will have a fundamentally different effective job search to a 52 year old CFO in Birmingham, Alabama.

I split advice into four functions:

Opinion-led advice is typically given when someone strongly believes that what worked for them once is viable advice generally.

There’s one question you might ask.

Is it replicable for me?

Often it’s tethered to words like Always or Never. Just make sure passion is backed up by logic and evidence.

Examples might be

“Always have a 2 page CV”

“Never use #opentowork”

“Don’t use job boards, they don’t work”

Consider - how does the hiring manager for your next role view these statements?

The thing about opinions is that they are seldom wrong for the advisor, they just might not be right for you.

My favourite line about opinion-led advice is this:

“Ask 10 people for advice on your CV, you’ll end up with 11 CVs.”

Tactical advice works in a specific context.

For example, if a cover letter is given priority in an application process for UK Civil Service, it’s a good idea to read up on how to write cover letters for the UK Civil Service.

However, the chap I spoke to yesterday rightly pointed out that the article on this topic he read had no bearing on his applying to private sector companies, many of whom will never even read a cover letter.

Tactical advice can be great, if it’s suitable, because it’s advice you can do straight away.

What experience does the advisor have in your domain?

Strategic advice works in any context.

For example, advice that makes you ask the right questions… about advice.

Or which helps you put together an informed job search strategy based on your market conditions.

While strategic advice is potent, it takes agency and commitment to apply.

It’s rarely a short fix.

Selling advice is when someone gives advice to support their agenda.

Such as a CV writer who tells you they can make your CV optimised for the ATS.

Or how to access the part of the job market hidden from you.

Or that classic, “my client wanted £100k, I got him $250k. She’s so happy!”

It’s worth asking, “Where is the money?”

Then if you are prepared to spend money, “What evidence is there this seller can help me.” Ask for testimonials, ask to speak to current clients.

Then, “Is this person going to do the work or outsource it?”

Understand what you are signing up to if money or commitment is involved.

In summary, remember that any advice you encounter—whether opinion-led, tactical, strategic, or selling—should be filtered through the lens of your unique context and needs.

Always ask: Does this apply to me? What’s the motivation behind it?

Evaluating advice in this way can keep you focused and help you make informed decisions.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Gnashing teeth

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 10:28:00 GMT

You may have noticed I write from time to time about candidate resentment, and how it may be an opportunity for our recruitment industry to do better.

Here are a couple of examples, if you’ve missed them:

Spitting nails

Boiling over

You may also have noted I harp on about recruitment being a business built from reciprocity - the experiences of employers and agencies beget the experiences of candidates and vice versa.

It goes to follow that if these statements above are true there is a related concept we can explore: employer resentment.

If candidate resentment is the notion that the negative experiences of a candidate inform their behaviour and views.

Then employer resentment is the notion that negative experiences of candidates, inform the behaviour and views of the employer.

Both are forms of bias we can take action over.

How often do you engage with a candidate, knowing nothing about them, thinking:

Yet these assumptions don’t necessarily relate to the candidate at hand, these are informed by your experiences of other candidates.

That job hoppy person you took a chance on, who hopped jobs again in short measure.

That person who lives 31 miles from the office, who took a job closer to home.

That person who took a paycut, only to cut ties for a higher pay.

When you’ve had your fingers burnt, the perception of risk will only increase.

How often do you have a step in recruitment, informed by previous experiences?

Or general perceptions of what’s going on in our recruitment sphere:

Whenever we have a negative assumption that’s informed by previous experiences it’s a sign of employer resentment.

And that’s something we can challenge in ourselves.

Get to the root of why these things happen individually or systemically.

Sometimes it’s as simple as asking a question, rather than making an assumption.

Or it might establish a trend we can take action over, rather than thinking it’s just how things are.

You may find my article on 5 Whys a helpful way to tackle employer resentment - I use ghosting as an example.

Of course not all things are fixable, and much is out of our control.

But if something we feel leads to an opportunity to make effective change - that’s worth tackling head-on.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

A job search framework

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 17:32:00 GMT

A common line I hear from job seekers is:

“I’ve never had trouble looking for work before but this market is uncharted waters.”

It’s as common immediately after a redundancy as it is 6 months in.

This makes it important to go back to basics, and get your controllables in order, especially as two things will invariably change over time - you and the market.

Starting a job search is much like launching your own product to market, and in many ways, it’s a parallel approach.

While much of the market can feel unknowable, there are a few product marketing principles you can apply, that can either get you off on the right footing or help course correct.

Today’s article is about the 7Ps of product marketing:

Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Positioning, Psychology, Process.

(You can apply the same principles to recruiting a vacancy too, which is effectively a product for potential candidates to buy - check out this article from a couple of years ago, here )

Product –

Know yourself and your unique value.

What are your values, needs and aspirations - how does this career identity align with what’s out there?

Is your CV a true reflection of your strengths and experiences?

What makes you stand out from other candidates with similar backgrounds?

Think of your skills and experience as features and benefits—why should an employer want to hire you ?

Read these articles for more:

A Resilient Job Search

Principles of a Good CV

Price

What are your salary expectations, and how do they compare to market rates?

Think beyond the numbers—what other benefits matter to you?

Would flexibility, training, or annual leave allowances make up for a slightly lower base salary?

Take a broad view of what’s valuable to you.

Read this article for more:

On Job Offers

Place

Where can you find your ideal role?

Consider all the main job-hunting channels, including LinkedIn, job boards, professional associations, referrals, and recruiters.

A multi-channel approach can help you reach more opportunities, whether they’re openly advertised or within professional networks.

Read these articles for more:

The Hidden Jobs Market (it’s not what you think)

How Recruiters Work

Better Use of Job Boards

Promotion

How do you present yourself across all these channels?

Aim for a consistent, professional approach across your CV, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, and any networking messages.

Each element should reflect your personal brand—don’t let an outdated LinkedIn profile, generic CV, or offhand email weaken your presentation.

Read these for more:

LinkedIn profiles that convert

How to Promote Your Availability on LinkedIn

Personal Branding Pt 1 (See archive below for other parts)

How to Network For A Job

How to Doorknock

Positioning

Segment the job market to identify where your ideal roles are.

Which sectors, companies, regions, and cultures align best with your skills and career goals?

This will help you focus your efforts on opportunities where you’re most likely to succeed and be valued.

Something for me to write about in more detail, in future.

Psychology

Understand both your own needs and the market’s.

Speak to the employer’s priorities in your applications and interviews—how can you address their specific goals?

Consider the psychology of the hiring process, too. Which aspects of your job search approach might need refining?

Try to eliminate anything that doesn’t serve your goals or distracts from your message.

I plan to write about analysing job requirements / descriptions in future.

Read the three part series on Interviewing, which touches on these themes. Part one is here: Interview Preparation . The other two are in the archive below.

Process – Develop a structured approach to your job search.

Familiarise yourself with how different application channels work, from Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to LinkedIn messaging.

Set up a method for each step, from applications and follow-ups to networking, that keeps you organised and efficient without unnecessary effort.

Read these for more:

How I’d Do It

The Truth About the ATS

The 7Ps are something you can always go back to and are the basis of all the articles in Jobseeker Basics. (Don’t forget my domain and expertise is in the UK - there will be cultural, transadaptational and legislative differences wherever you may be.)

While this article is the “back cover of the book”, each article is a detailed chapter on the same.

I’d recommend booking the archive as an index, where you can browse all the articles (always for free): Archive .

Feel free to reply if there are any topics you’d like me to cover in future.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. This substack remains considered as harmful content by LinkedIn, and they aren’t in a rush to change that. I remain grateful if you can share this with fellow job seekers - the sole intent is to demystify recruitment, provide practical advice, and debunk myths.

Ironically certain cynical career coaches (i.e. those that sell ATS-compliant CVs) have no issue promoting their content on LinkedIn.

On job offers

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 21:05:00 GMT

This article covers the following, in service of considering whether a job offer you’ve received is the right move:

Let’s get into it.

Identity

At the start of any job search, I recommend establishing what your career identity is.

This may be at the point of an unexpected redundancy, when you’ve decided your current job is no longer right, or even if a recruiter contacts you out of the blue with a compelling proposition.

I also recommend you do this once a year, even when gainfully employed, because it’s easy for the path of employment to diverge from where you want your career to go.

It’s simple really, and goes back to basics with key questions.

These answers aren’t fixed and can change quickly with a change in circumstance, as you change over time, or for reasons out of your control.

It’s a good idea to establish what you want and what you need, and therefore what this looks like in your next job.

If you find yourself out of work, and with bills to pay, one answer might be to take a job stacking the shelves at night, so you can look for work during the day.

Or you may have cash in the bank and can afford to wait for the right role, rather than any role.

There’s no one right answer, but there are answers that you can find for yourself.

This identity informs your job search strategy, part of which is the roles you go for, part of which is the approach you take, and part of which is what an acceptable job offer looks like for you.

Total compensation & opportunity cost

It's common to see salary as the most important factor in a job offer negotiation.

However, it's better to look at negotiating total compensation and opportunity cost.

Total compensation is the overall financial value of a role. It includes things like:

Salary
Pension contribution
Bonus
Commission
Car allowance
RSUs

Some benefits are salary sacrificed or tax efficient - their value goes beyond what they appear on paper.

For example a great pension scheme will save you 20% or 40% on tax payments in the UK across the salary invested. It might even, at a higher salary level, improve access to child benefits.

Conversely opportunity cost is the consequence of taking an offer, compared to what you might have if you stayed.

For example:

Moving to a three-day hybrid, compared to full remote. What's the cost of mileage, and time travelling? What's the cost of heating your home when fully remote?

Or - a role that offers more money now, but no progression in future. Vs a role that pays less now, but will leapfrog in future, while giving you skills that support career growth. Are these contractual, things that are likely to happen, or empty promises - look for evidence such as a track record with other employees.

It's entirely possible to accept an offer with a higher salary, yet find yourself worse off with take home pay.

Consider all the financial implications of an offer.

Impact

Impact goes both ways. The impact you can have in your new role, and the impact your new role will have on you.

Important to understand both against your career identity.

A high paying job that takes you away from a young family might be a solution or a problem.

A brilliant job that’s an unsustainable commute won’t work long term. Does that matter to you?

A well paid job that gives you a good balance at home, yet will only be a cog in a machine - a dream for some, unfulfilling for others.

Impact also includes trajectory. Are you someone who wants to do the same job over time, in a structured way? Someone who wants regular advancement and career development?

Both, and others are fine. Make sure you know what you are getting yourself into.

Culture & People

It’s at least partly true that people leave bosses, not jobs.

While decent people can become bad bosses for various reasons, some of which relate to the environment they manage within.

The problem is that people are on their best behaviour in interview processes, while culture as it’s pitched doesn’t always reflect the culture experienced.

The interview process should be there for you to establish this as much as possible.

But it’s also a good idea to do your own research, to get a sense of a company’s values, principles, how it treats its people, and all those other elements that will affect a career with them.

This is research to be done at interview stage, even before. These points may help .

ikigai (not Ikigai)

Click on the link right above for why I differentiate.

Ikigai (with a little i) is a great Japanese concept. In its original form it means ‘what you get out of bed for’ or ‘those small moments we take pleasure in’.

Rather than the westernised Venn Purpose Diagram many are familiar with as Ikigai (with a big I). Indeed, if you ask people in Japan what they think of Ikigai they may well say something along the lines of “huuunnhh?”

This ikigai is an important principle in job offer.

It’s those qualities unique to you (often defined by your career identity) that you take pleasure in, while others around you may not get it.

Sometimes this is gut instinct. Important to listen to, important to challenge.

It’s at least part of your decision in a job offer.

Everything else might be just alright, but there’s an ikigai in your job offer that might be good reason to take it.

For example, I’d stack shelves at night, while looking for work, if it meant it paid the bills and supported my family. That’s not something to be ashamed of - that’s my ikigai.

Or it might be the company’s purpose and what they are doing to improve the world.

ikigai is unique to you, and it makes everything better if you can find it.

Those are the key points I’d consider if given a job offer.

There’s no right or wrong, only right for you and the people you support.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. please share this article with your fellow job seekers. LinkedIn has decided this substack is, at least for now, harmful content and removes links to it. Frustrating when I try to share it in posts, with contacts, or in declining applications.

AI or no?

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 11:04:00 GMT

I often see discussions on the uses and perils of AI in a job search.

Now, before I get into my thoughts, let me comment on what AI is.

For a start the current term AI isn’t the AI I grew up waiting for- it’s not intelligent, it has no judgement or empathy.

It is sophisticated automation based on processing and reiterating information that’s already out there.

It’s called AI for simplicity, but truthfully this is mainly marketing-led.

While marketing is used primarily to sell stuff.

When you see AI enabled tools that enhance a job search, be mindful of companies selling the magic of unknowable technology, rather than directly leading to the outcome you may be looking for.

That said there are many wonderful applications for AI inside and outside of a job search.

Some of which automate and take away the burden of the more painful aspects of looking for a job.

From writing CVs/resumes, to applying at scale for you. And potentially doing the interview for you, with burgeoning deepfake technology.

Should you use AI in your job search and how?

The answer is this question:

“Will it be seen as cheating, if the employer finds out I’ve used AI?”

Given recruitment processes are in part designed to extrapolate how you might behave and perform in a role, the sense of cheating can lead to an instant ‘no’.

And with the advent of an AI arms race, you should be careful in what you choose to use.

Yes, I know the odds are stacked against job seekers, through a combination of the market, systems and philosophy.

But it’s a question of what you have control over. Do you want others to make arbitrary decisions over your application, only because you’ve used AI?

My fellow recruiter, and an excellent one at that, Simon Monaghan recently shared his experience of a candidate using AI to answer standard interview questions.

Check out his post here.

These are issues we will increasingly face in recruitment.

What do I mean by arms race?

Let’s look at using AI to write a CV.

In one sense it’s no different to paying someone to write your CV for you, such as a CV Writer. And it’s free.

So, no problem, right?

Yet, many applicants who are wholly unsuitable can use the same AI to write a customised CV that paints them as someone worth assessing at interview. A waste of time for the employer, or worse which could lead to a misshire, and also taking attention away from suitable candidates such as you.

This creates suspicion over the veracity of AI written CVs.

Therefore it makes sense to use AI to check if CVs are written by AI.

You can see many of these tools already available for free - just google “AI checker.”

For each development in job seeker AI, you’ll see an opposing one come up at the hiring end. And because these are all based on the same principles, they are relatively simple to develop.

Besides, at the moment, AI written content stands out for the wrong reasons - you can generally tell when it’s used, with practise.

If you’ve used AI, with good intent, it can still backfire, should a hiring process consider it cheating.

There’s a wider discussion to be had, outside of the purview of this article, which is that of reasonable adjustments for disability and neurodiversity. What about for non-English speakers, when fluent written English isn’t necessary?

How about someone with limited time that happens to be the perfect candidate?

Shouldn’t we enable candidates to put forwards the best version of themselves straightforwardly?

At the moment, though, what matters is how hiring processes *might* view the use of AI. Which is what should inform your use of it.

Does that mean you shouldn’t use it at all?

No, it’s situation dependent, you just need to consider the consequences.

If I were looking for an early career job that paid the bills, and was aware of the huge competition for a wide number of vacancies - I’d look at something like LazyApply to automate.

While, if I were simply receptive to a very unusual opportunity, it wouldn’t be relevant.

A more straightforward discussion is the uses where AI augments your own intelligence, rather than automates manual process.

Here, I wholeheartedly recommend looking into options and being creative:

None of these will be perceived as ‘cheating’, given it’s behind the scenes work that support your candidacy.

In this way, AI can effectively support your job search.

Of course, there’s an argument that you might do whatever it takes to get a job. And that it’s only a problem if you are caught cheating.

That’s not something I’d advise, but it’s your choice if you want to automate as much as you can.

Just be wary then of the quality of its output.

If you are someone with hiring authority reading this, out of curiousity, let me add this.

AI in itself isn’t a cheat, especially if what is represented is factual or inherently true.

If you catch someone out in process for using AI, I’d recommend investigating why they’ve used it, rather than assuming.

The process of securing a new role is a skill that everyone has a different level of, much of which can be learnt over a long-term job search.

In some situations, people can afford CV Writers, LinkedIn profile upgrades, career & interview coaching. However all these do is allow them to provide a better version of themselves.

AI is no different, albeit less effective on an individual basis. If you see use of AI as problematic, this biases people with less means to pay for support, the same people who likely need the most help.

By all means, question why someone has used a tool to support their application. Just don’t be too quick to judge, especially if you use tools in your role, to enable your work.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Check in time

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 13:58:00 GMT

It’s easy to poke fun at companies and people who signal loudly about awareness days, then put their awareness back in a box for another year, as they slip back into punitive bias.

When truthfully it shouldn’t be a day, it should be a continuum.

On this day, and any day, why not check in on people you’ve lost touch with, people you catch up with transactionally, and people you know so well you overlook?

Why not speak to one of your applicants / candidates? Someone who’s been out of work for a while and could do with an ear?

And see how they are really doing.

How can you help? How can you listen?

Maybe I’ve got it all wrong, and shouting loudly is better than simple steps.

But it’s what I’ve done today, taking extra time to try and help candidates outside of their applications, and it seems to help.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

On Job Titles and Key Words

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 12:58:00 GMT

Let’s say you’re an HR Manager on the hunt for your next job.

You pop onto a job board and search for “HR Manager” in a commutable distance from home.

Yet, while this will undoubtedly pick up results, the results are reliant on two things:

On this second point, unless a job board uses somewhat of a thesaurus, your search may not bring up every suitable opportunity.

What else might an HR Manager be called?

When I’m recruiting for such a role, I regularly see suitable candidates whose job titles are:

Conversely, were one of those people to get a job, and their company recruited a replacement, those are what might be advertised.

Such is the variety of job titles, sometimes it’s better to focus on skills and qualifications associated with those roles. Suchas CIPD, MCIPD, FCIPD.

If not HR, how about this doozy of a Marketing Manager, “Growth Strategy Leader”.

You wouldn’t necessarily think to search on that title, while that employer will probably be disappointed in the quality of their applications.

I’m not sure how I’d respond if a Growth Strategy Leader applied to a Marketing Manager mandate of mine - I’d hope to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Or how about Accountancy? CIMA, ACA, ACCA, GAAP, QBE might all relate to suitable vacancies, together with all their variations.

COO, Chief Operating Officer, Operations Director

How about continuous improvement?

Seemingly different terms like PDCA, Six Sigma, 6 Sigma, CI might produce viable results.

You may have picked up that I talk about recruiting different job titles in the same breath of as looking for the same job title.

This is because a job search is an inverse recruitment exercise, and vice versa.

It goes to follow, a good step in your job search is to form a list of every job title, qualification and skill that relates to vacancies you can demonstrably fulfil.

So how do you build out this list of job titles to search against, and how else might the same benefit you?

Commonly you can filter by industry or job function on a job board, but you’d be surprised how often things are miscategorised, and you can make these errors work for you.

This is broadly how I headhunt using LinkedIn recruiters, in looking for candidates rather than jobs.

So if you know this is how a recruiter might look for a candidate, take advantage of this by using terminology for the roles you want to be found for in your CV and LinkedIn profile (and other arenas in which recruiters look).

The same principle that works for outbound job searching works for inbound leads, with one key difference: credibility.

When it comes to your CV and Profile, what you don’t want to do is pop the credibility bubble by being overly clever with how you present your experience.

Write for the human reader. Help them find you, then use your content credibly to encourage contact.

Don’t use ‘hacks’ like bombing every permutation of a related skill, title or qualification in white text, font size .1 at the foot of your CV.

There’s a lot to look at in your own individual job search, but these principles are both relatively simple and broadly effective in every job search.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Unintentional

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 20:53:00 GMT

At the start of the pandemic, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands, given my business had effectively vanished overnight.

I decided to use that time to speak to job seekers and share what was common knowledge to me, yet proved uncommon knowledge to them.

(If you have any form of expertise I recommend taking time out to mentor peers, it’s very validating, especially when you question your capability in a long job search).

One thing my job seeker calls taught me is how common many issues are, and I decided to share this by writing regularly on social media.

But I was also ambivalent to its nature as professional social media for a number of reasons.

One being that people on social media behaved differently to real life.

Another being the gamification of social media interactions creating a dopamine loop that both can trap you in the system, and inform how you behave.

I strongly recommend watching the Social Dilemma on Netflix which, aside from the dubious story that runs through the documentary, shows how social media platforms work.

I wasn’t alone in launching myself vigorously into sharing my ideas online.

Indeed, while much of the employment market seemed broken, the silver bullet of ‘better use of LinkedIn’ and personal branding saw a lot of people immerse themselves on the platform.

Yet something strange happened.

I saw people talk about getting jobs from their personal branding. Then I saw many of those same people leave those jobs soon after, because the role wasn’t what they expected.

It’s almost like the excitement of those inbound leads led them not to qualify them fully, in the same way you would when applying for a role.

I’m sure the fact they had a job offer, one which pays the bills, was important too, even if the outcome wasn’t what they may have hoped for.

For the most part I use it intentionally, and it’s a key part of my day-to-day role as a recruiter. It’s on in the background all the time, although some of the systems I use, such as Recruiter and Job advertising are accessed in a different way.

However every once in a while I find myself behaving like an addict.

If I get a couple of posts that fly, that feeling of those notifications can become a potent fix.

And the ensuing posts that sink make me feel like I’m doing something wrong.

It’s a quick path to adjusting my content to try and get consistently high engagement.

Even if those posts don’t actually start constructive conversations, or attract the right people.

I’m a middling content writer, in terms of coverage. This year so far I’ve 8 million views of my posts, with more than half of that from three viral posts.

Two of these viral posts started 0 meaningful new conversations with someone I can help, although their visibility no doubt helped with awareness.

The third proved very divisive, and became an opportunity to share additional insight, albeit with very angry job seekers. You can read it here if you’re interested .

It certainly triggered a lot of people, few of whom read the post fully.

Yet the post that had 800 views, supported me getting a retained project that was quite lucrative.

These figures aren’t what they purport to be - vanity metrics that can work against you.

Never forget that while LinkedIn is many things, most of all it’s a business that optimises its user base to deliver shareholder value.

These gamifications are intended to keep you in the system, not necessarily to achieve your goal.

This brings me to the point of this message:

Keep your goals clear in mind, and work towards them intentionally.

Need a job? Most of your activity should support either your job search or your goal.

Need to socialise? Definitely do that, as long as it doesn't disenable your goals.

Want to air a grievance? By all means. You can always delete it later.

Consider LinkedIn like an open plan office - do what you want, say what you want, just remember decision makers might hear you, from behind their partition wall, and make their decisions without you knowing.

Be mindful of make-work - if you see LinkedIn as a platform to get a job, and all your activity doesn’t support your goal - you might feel busy yet be wholly unproductive.

Turn your notifications off, so you aren’t being prompted to check in every other minute, and so that you are in control.

Slip into unintentional behaviour and you might get in your own way of finding work.

Use it intentionally, and it’s an excellent tool and platform, one which will support your job search and professional life.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

Nothing but the truth

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:35:00 GMT

I came across a post about lying in recruitment today, and most of the respondents indicated it’s a dealbreaker and a sign of human awfulness.

Which reminded me of this article, written last year, as a counterpoint to my sister’s then recently published book.

She really liked my suggestion of ‘Nothing but the truth’ as its name, but told me her agent vetoed it on the grounds that negative titles don’t sell. Sounds true, yet maybe she was just protecting my feelings.

Truth is an interesting concept. Can you tell a lie, by only telling truths?

Does having an ideal require that you lie to uphold it?

Is lying morally permissible if it only benefits others, and not yourself?

Anyway, reading it back, it’s quite good, and you might enjoy it too:

At the end of her speech, my sister made a simple request:

“Put your hand in the air if you’ve lied today.”

Only one person didn’t put their hand up – me.

Lying’s not in my nature, except in a couple of specific situations where no harm is caused.

You can believe that or not, up to you.

The earlier part of the speech touched on all those little moments in our lives where we tell a little lie, either to ourselves or someone else.

Sometimes it’s to protect feelings. Sometimes to protect ourselves.

Sometimes it’s to keep up the narrative of how we are perceived because we don’t want to share our secret selves.

It was a great launch for a book on how society doesn’t just put up with lies to function, it may even rely on them.

She interviewed a wide range of experts on lying including spies and toddler scientists, showed how the face can lie, and talked about her amnesia and what it was like to be in the closet.

She didn’t interview me about recruitment, so I’m putting that right today.

Lies are rampant everywhere you look in recruitment.

In a survey last year, 51% of respondents admitted to lying on their CVs.

I expect the true number to be higher, considering some won’t even admit a lie to themselves.

It’s common to extrapolate behaviour from what we experience. One lie may lead to more, and that may be the only reason you need to reject a candidate.

Not all lies are born equal.

Broadly I differentiate them between lies of impact, lies to protect, and lies of inconsequence.

A lie of impact is one which leads to a decision based on that lie.

Here an example would be John Andrewes , who lied about his experience and qualifications to land a top NHS job.

He was jailed for 2 years and required to pay £100k, the remainder of his assets.

Fraud.

Or lying about reasons for departure – they say redundancy, they meant gross misconduct.

Misrepresenting capability and qualifications.

Mispresenting a role to make it more appealing.

£Competitive salary, when you meant lowball to get a deal.

The lies we should find and cull at the earliest opportunity.

A lie to protect can be many things.

I remember an HR candidate early in my career who changed her name twice. It was highly suspicious to me at the time.

“Apunanwu Oluwayo” became “Apunanwu Roberts” became “Judith Roberts”.

This first change suggested a marriage or divorce. The second I couldn’t fathom.

What a liar, 2005 Greg thought.

Of course, now I know better.

It’s likely she changed her name to a British one because she suffered from namism – one report indicates candidates are 60% less likely to receive a callback with a foreign-sounding name.

Despite my ignorance, I gave Judith the benefit of the doubt and invited her to interview.

You can see why blind CVs are a fair measure to prevent this happen, although I wonder if it’s better to treat the illness rather than rely on palliative measures.

How about not disclosing identifiable education for the same reasons?

What about disability and neurodivergence?

If a condition requires an accommodation to fulfil a role, is non-disclosure a lie by omission?

Another could be lying about reasons for departure – they said ‘left to focus on a job search’, they meant they couldn’t put up with a harmful environment any longer.

A lie of protection, which isn’t one of impact, should be clarified but, in my opinion, not penalised without investigation.

The lie above is one of protection – I changed the names to protect the individual, one of the situations in which I will lie deliberately, with good reason.

How about a lie of inconsequence?

By this I mean a lie that doesn’t impact employability, reflect capability or have any bearing on what that person is like to work with.

Examples here might be fudging employment dates to prevent the question “Why were you unemployed for 2 days in 2012?”

Or perhaps they might say People Business Partner on their CV, which they fulfilled functionally, yet had a misrepresentative job title of Operations Manager.

Sometimes what seem to be lies of impact, might be lies of inconsequence:

I once had a candidate withdraw from an interview.

Aladdin said his father had passed away, and he had decided to suspend his job search.

It was a tough vacancy to fill, so we made a plan. Jaffar would contact him directly a couple of weeks after, to check in and see if he fancied a pint.

We put our suspicion aside, while also considering how he might have perceived his relationship with me.

Long story short Aladdin took the job and was there for eight years. He gave me a lovely recommendation too.

I’m pleased to say his father made a full recovery.

While this appears to be a lie of impact, it’s actually one of inconsequence.

It’s not dissimilar to the hilariously high rate of car breakdowns in recruitment.

Have we considered our part in that lie?

These three types of lies are a gross simplification to paint the picture.

Our perception of lying is highly subjective, and there is no one right answer.

I think it’s understandable to feel a lie is a dealbreaker.

For lies of impact, this should be the case.

For other lies though, perhaps a judgment call is better than an assumption. Why did that person lie? Could it even be something we did?

Does that lie really matter?

And if it does matter – how many times have you lied in the same way today?

The next eminently-an-epistole is on technical debt in recruitment, and why we should consider the long-term impact of a short-term compromise.

Regards,

Greg

P.s. if you’re interested in Kathleen’s book, you can read about it here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Superpower-Truth-About-Little-ebook/dp/B09MDWNL44

Uroboros

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 11:27:00 GMT

One thing I find curious about the advice I give job seekers is that it’s advice I try to follow myself in running a small business.

While being similar to advice I read from business coaches who actually know how to run businesses (not the “I’ll help you 100x your business over night, to 7 figures, including decimal points” types.)

I also know this - the market has changed significantly and constantly in the past few years, it’s changing now, and it will change again.

So, if advice for a job search might be helpful for running a business.

Or if that same advice might be what you really need, should you find yourself unexpectedly out of work in a few weeks’ time.

Then you might find today’s article for Jobseeker Basics an interesting read:

Ouroboros is a mythological snake that perpetually eats its own tail.

It’s the notion things never disappear, they change and are reborn.

In the same way, some of the constructive activities you do at work can support being out of work, while the skills you’ve learnt in a job search can be used to enhance work.

Today I’ll look at

Everything feeds into itself in a way that can improve your odds at work, and when unemployed.

Using your business skills in your job search

“Oh, I do that at work, but I never thought to do that for myself,” said a talent acquisition copywriter when he was between projects.

I’d told him to promote himself on LinkedIn using his copywriting skills, and make himself a product with features and benefits.

This is the thing. While starting a job search for the first time seems alien, you already have skills you can effectively use to improve your odds straight away.

We all have skills that can apply to a job search, so while it may feel an alien skill to have to learn, you aren't starting from scratch.

What skills benefit your work most? How might you adopt them into this new job called looking for work?

An annual career MOT to check what you are doing reflects your values and aspirations

Which if you haven’t done at least at the start of your job search, you should do now.

Redundancy can often be an opportunity to try something brand new, without the baggage of your previous job.

This is because it breaks the inertia of your career, one where you are pulled forward by the needs of your business and job, as much as by what you think you want.

Loyalty and hard work are mostly a good thing, yet can work against you if you make all those small compromises required to fit in.

At some point down the line, the you that you want to be diverges so much from the work you, it becomes a crisis that needs resolving.

Yet, this disconnect between your ideals and what’s actually happening should be identified much earlier.

In the same way your boss will do an annual review, so too should you.

Look at all the points that make up where you want and where you need to be in your career, especially as life invariable changes in the background:

That last point is something I hear from time to time - our emotions are often better reflect by those around us, than we can judge for ourselves.

The danger of not doing this is that, when you do find yourself out of work, you don’t take advantage of this break in career inertia.

If you go for the same jobs that were holding you back, will you be fulfilled?

Identity work is so important, whether you are unemployed or employed.

Of course, sometimes you just need money to pay the bills - that’s fine too, as long as you do it intentionally.

Keeping your job search emergency kit ready at all times

The first thing many people do when they find themselves out of work is update their CV.

Quite hard to do it meaningfully, when you have six years of experience to unpick, so often it’s easier to put your job description in.

Why not update your CV instead with every notable achievement (supported by numbers), every change in context and job title?

And your LinkedIn profile too.

Don’t worry about length, this is a personal master CV you can refer back too at any point, and is the bible of your career. These achievements also serve as reminders for interviews.

You’ll also want to keep up to speed with all the contacts you made in your last job search, so they are easily accessible when needed. Some people call this networking.

That identity work above is helpful too, so you can be laser focused at the right times.

While keeping up to speed with LinkedIn content too, whether writing or responding.

”But I don’t want to be seen to be looking for work when I’m not!”

Which leads me to

Applying skills learnt in a job search to enhance your work

I’d wager many long-term jobseekers that are keen to learn will have developed networking, interviewing and even content writing skills when out of work.

Why not apply the same skills for work?

These are all qualities that can (if you choose) enhance what you do at work. Better yet, should the worst happen again, you’re already ahead of the game in the next job search.

And I think there’s only one thing we can be certain of in this economy - best be ready for the uncertain.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg”

p.s. I might have some availability for new recruitment projects coming up in a couple of weeks time. Drop me a line if you have a UK key hire that needs righting, recruitment writing that needs writing, or process improvement that needs uh improving.

Ouroboros

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 11:20:00 GMT

Ouroboros is a mythological snake that perpetually eats its own tail.

It’s the notion things never disappear, they change and are reborn.

In the same way, some of the constructive activities you do at work can support being out of work, while the skills you’ve learnt in a job search can be used to enhance work.

Today I’ll look at

Everything feeds into itself in a way that can improve your odds at work, and when unemployed.

Using your business skills in your job search

“Oh, I do that at work, but I never thought to do that for myself,” said a talent acquisition copywriter when he was between projects.

I’d told him to promote himself on LinkedIn using his copywriting skills, and make himself a product with features and benefits.

This is the thing. While starting a job search for the first time seems alien, you already have skills you can effectively use to improve your odds straight away.

We all have skills that can apply to a job search, so while it may feel an alien skill to have to learn, you aren't starting from scratch.

What skills benefit your work most? How might you adopt them into this new job called looking for work?

An annual career MOT to check what you are doing reflects your values and aspirations

Which if you haven’t done at least at the start of your job search, you should do now.

Redundancy can often be an opportunity to try something brand new, without the baggage of your previous job.

This is because it breaks the inertia of your career, one where you are pulled forward by the needs of your business and job, as much as by what you think you want.

Loyalty and hard work are mostly a good thing, yet can work against you if you make all those small compromises required to fit in.

At some point down the line, the you that you want to be diverges so much from the work you, it becomes a crisis that needs resolving.

Yet, this disconnect between your ideals and what’s actually happening should be identified much earlier.

In the same way your boss will do an annual review, so too should you.

Look at all the points that make up where you want and where you need to be in your career, especially as life invariable changes in the background:

That last point is something I hear from time to time - our emotions are often better reflect by those around us, than we can judge for ourselves.

The danger of not doing this is that, when you do find yourself out of work, you don’t take advantage of this break in career inertia.

If you go for the same jobs that were holding you back, will you be fulfilled?

Identity work is so important, whether you are unemployed or employed.

Of course, sometimes you just need money to pay the bills - that’s fine too, as long as you do it intentionally.

Keeping your job search emergency kit ready at all times

The first thing many people do when they find themselves out of work is update their CV.

Quite hard to do it meaningfully, when you have six years of experience to unpick, so often it’s easier to put your job description in.

Why not update your CV instead with every notable achievement (supported by numbers), every change in context and job title?

And your LinkedIn profile too.

Don’t worry about length, this is a personal master CV you can refer back too at any point, and is the bible of your career. These achievements also serve as reminders for interviews.

You’ll also want to keep up to speed with all the contacts you made in your last job search, so they are easily accessible when needed. Some people call this networking.

That identity work above is helpful too, so you can be laser focused at the right times.

While keeping up to speed with LinkedIn content too, whether writing or responding.

”But I don’t want to be seen to be looking for work when I’m not!”

Which leads me to

Applying skills learnt in a job search to enhance your work

I’d wager many long-term jobseekers that are keen to learn will have developed networking, interviewing and even content writing skills when out of work.

Why not apply the same skills for work?

These are all qualities that can (if you choose) enhance what you do at work. Better yet, should the worst happen again, you’re already ahead of the game in the next job search.

And I think there’s only one thing we can be certain of in this economy - best be ready for the uncertain.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Blanket Statement (redux)

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 10:28:00 GMT

In between my bouts of delirium caused by manCovid this week, I’ve been thinking a bit about Goodheart’s Law -

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"

It came to mind looking at a large wealth management firm with a wonderful diversity statement, and an about us section full of photos of well-presented white men.

This in turn reminded me of an article shared earlier in the year which caused the most amount of unsubscriptions yet.

Diversity is an important notion of course.

But isn’t it better used as a measure of your approach, rather than the goal?

How then could our work have a consequence of wider diversity, with all its benefits?

Here’s the article again, now I have around 150 new subscribers.

Before you unsubscribe, I’d ask you to sit with yourself for a moment and consider why your emotions have led to such a decision.

Unless you’re just bored silly by my words, which is fine.

I’ll report back on subscriber trimming at a later date.

I propose the removal of generic diversity statements from job adverts and recruitment marketing collateral.

You know the ones I mean -

“Here at YMMV we do not discriminate on the grounds of race, sex, gender, age, religion, political affiliation, disability, contingency recruitment, or favourite TV programmes except for Only Fools and Horses. We seek to foster an inclusive society where everyone can perform loudly on world awareness day”

I’m sure I’ve missed something.

There are simple reasons to move away from this rote paragraph.

One is performativity.

Have you ever spoken to anyone from a marginalised group fed up with performative showings in whatever public domain, that have no substance behind them?

Another is diversity washing.

How many companies that use diversity statements discriminate against people on the same list?

In which case, how might readers of these statements become sceptical?

A third is word blindness.

When was the last time you applied for a job, when you took a moment to read that statement and thought “Wow, this is the one for me?”

What about hypocrisy in action?

When diversity statements are attached to content that excludes without reason while providing barriers to entry.

Such as 12 points of essential requirements that only the boldest will take a punt on.

So if you accept that diversity statements are a flawed notion, and you are passionate about the need for and benefit of diversity, what can you do?

Rather than talk about it, be it at every opportunity.

Through a holistically accessible and inclusive approach.

Given how most candidates first experience our recruitment digitally, a good start is to follow the accessibility guidelines set out by W3C:

https://www.w3.org/WAI/

W3C says there are 4 pillars to build on - perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. POUR.

While much of this relates to the technical aspects of websites, such as job boards and the ATS (applicant tracking system), the onus is on how it’s used and experienced.

In written content, this boils down to using simple, clear, concise non-ambiguous language, transparently and accurately explained, and which is easy to navigate.

What are the needs of your readers?

How might people from different backgrounds struggle with transadapting what you’ve put forward?

How can you include people who may have individual needs they don’t want to express?

How can the same points help everyone?

A lot of my work in recruitment focuses on accessibility and inclusiveness.

My rationale is two-fold.

1/ because good candidates can be anywhere, and so I should gain the widest access and make my work as accessible as possible

2/ because it’s the right thing to do

Consulting on, ironing out the issues with and finding the commercial messaging for vacancies and candidate journeys leads to

When looking at the wider recruitment process, from the employer perspective, this also includes

At every touch point, put the needs of the candidate first. Yet in a way that serves your recruitment too - these steps are one reason I am an effective partner in both filling key vacancies and improving recruitment.

One of the placements that fulfilled me most last year was a guy with cerebral palsy in an early careers IT role. He was an excellent candidate, with great skills and achievements anyone would be pleased with.

He got the job because he was the best candidate and for no other reason.

I asked him what support he’d need at work, and the one thing he can’t do is stand on tables to change lightbulbs, in his words. I’m not sure that would be great lightbulb-changing practice for anyone, but there you go, that was his request for a reasonable adjustment.

That I was able to introduce him to a role he has gone on to excel in, with a hiring manager who saw his capability, when no other employer would touch him, was pretty fantastic.

Not one other employer in 10 years of applying for jobs.

It’s their loss.

I’m sure the employers I partner with can tell you about the diversity of candidates I present for their roles, and those I place. But it’s not the goal, it’s a consequence of my approach.

Accessibility and inclusiveness should benefit everyone.

If, for example, you are willing to provide interview questions in advance to ND candidates (something currently recommended as good practice in the UK), you could do the same for everyone.

Don’t forget that many people who fear discrimination may not be willing to ask for assistance that highlights the same.

Some may not be aware they would benefit from an accommodation. Such as the many people who will go on to gain a formal diagnosis of neurodiversity in future.

Wouldn’t they benefit from your support now, before they have an answer for the issues they find challenging in a world built for the typical?

If you interview fairly and robustly, this simply allows honest candidates to portray their candidacy more accurately.

Which helps you make better decisions.

So wouldn’t you allow the same opportunity for everyone?

If you have flexible working arrangements, a creche, or celebrate Diwali as well as Hanukkah - these are the things that show your diversity more than a statement does.

Moreso than tacking a generic statement at the end of an advert.

Instead, if you still want to make a statement, show why it is so important to your business individually.

How does it align with your vision to be something genuine to aspire to?

I’d be surprised if, when presenting such a true statement, it wouldn’t appeal to your ideal candidates, whoever they might be.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

Principles of a good CV (redux)

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 15:28:00 GMT

I have a bit of a lurgy this week, and have little headspace for writing.

So I hope you’ll forgive this reminder article, especially if you’ve only recently subscribed:

“*If all you need is a CV template - have a look at this one from Lee Harding. Were I to receive one in this format, that would tick the boxes.*

“Ask 9 people for advice on your CV and you’ll end up with 10 CVs.”

A pithy truth that shows how subjective a CV is.

While also highlighting how frustrating it can be to spend time or even money on perfecting a document that the next person rips to shreds.

But in this comes an important truth.

That the only person whose opinion matters in a hiring process is the reader whose finger is on the Reject button.

Stay to the end for my thoughts on customising your CV.

In today’s Jobseeker Basics we’ll look at the principles of an effective CV.

Not a perfect CV, because perfection is wholly subjective and the path of madness in a difficult job search.

These principles are based on advice I give to jobseekers when they ask for feedback.

Principles that come from my own insight, backed up by effective processes from a seemingly different industry.

First we start with what a CV is and what a CV means.

Did you know the first recognised CV was written by Leonardo DaVinci in a letter highlighting his candidacy for employment? Yes a CV and cover letter in one!

I’m pleased to say he got the job off his first application.

However, the notion of a document that presents candidacy dates back millennia with gladiators highlighting their achievements through the Lanista system. This was done to increase their reputation so that owners could earn more money.

A form of marketing document based on provable facts that synthesised their gladiatorial career in written format - a stone slab.

In a sense nothing has changed - your CV is a marketing document, which you use to highlight your candidacy so that your buyers (employers - as they are on a buyer’s journey) invest in their time to offer you an interview.

Now, I do read a lot of debate on what a CV actually is, and whether it is more of a technical document than a marketing one.

However, that’s a disservice to true marketing, which always has a basis in fact.

Your CV is there to highlight your candidacy, and to give your experience meaning to the reader so that they can make a positive decision on you.

It’s there to get you an interview, and for its readers to take you to the next stage.

Typically a hiring process has several moving parts, each a decision-maker in their own right.

From an administrator who sifts CVs, to recruiters/talent acquisition processes that make a longlist, to hiring managers and their bosses - each has their say on whether or not you might make the cut.

I’m sorry to say sometimes it is arbitrary:

“If they’re this unlucky why would we hire them?” said the hiring manager to the administrator after binning one of the two piles of CVs at random.

While their decisions aren’t in your control, your words and how they are presented are.

So it makes sense to create a document that helps the weakest link in the chain see you as a candidate of choice, while also supporting other decision-makers, presuming they run the game fairly.

To summarise the above - your CV is a marketing document whose priority is the reader.

Because it’s a marketing document, it’s one you can use to market yourself outside of applying for a job. Such as through networking or doorknocking .

Its functionality outside of applying for a job is why it should be a document for life. It’s so multi-faceted, that you can use it in many arenas; more so than a LinkedIn profile, video or other, which have more specific purpose.

This means that the principles of a good CV are the principles of a good marketing document.

A good marketing document at its core creates action - the decision to move forward.

It goes to follow, the principles of a good marketing document also apply the principles of a good advert.

The same things we see, listen to and experience encourage us to take action to buy (let’s not forget that the employer is the buyer when it comes to the process that leads to an offer, although you too are a buyer in your decision to proceed).

I’m sure you have read much hoo-ha on what makes a good CV in the Talent Acquisition, recruitment, career coaching, and job seeker spaces, much of it is contradictory (mainly in line with that quote at the top), while some of it is cynical.

Instead of joining in that conversation, let’s look to another industry that uses words to convert action, as a basis for the principles of a good CV.

Whose principles are based on understanding how its users work, and influence their actions to improve the odds of a purchase.

E-commerce.

A multi-trillion industry built on the words you read, marketing and advertising.

While it may not directly relate to recruitment or looking for work, its principles do:

Job boards and LinkedIn employ many principles of E-commerce in their functionality, so it’s not as far removed as you might think.

Those are the principles. What about assumptions and myths?

These seem big deals, but they’re not, for a simple reason.

If you write your CV for a reader, in a way that grabs their attention, while following basic rules, you’ll get past these seeming traps.

Let’s touch on the top three briefly.

Everyone has their own opinion on what the length of a CV should be.

The only person who matters in a hiring process is the reader, if they have a strong opinion you can find out.

If you can find out their specific requirement is for what makes a good CV, and you are prepared to play to their whim - give them that.

If not, your CV should tell its story in a way that grabs attention and holds it. Accessibility, readability… those bullet points above.

Grab your reader’s attention in the first half page, so that they read the rest. If they don’t read past that first half page, it doesn’t really matter how well written the rest of your document is.

Get these points right, and a good enough CV will likely be 800 to 1200 words long across 2 to 3 (even 4) pages.

Okay now on to actionable steps.

Can someone who doesn’t know your domain see what you do from your CV?

If they can’t there’s a problem, especially if they are the weakest link in the chain.

A good litmus test is to ask a friend you trust to see what they can tell you about you from your CV. What do they think your biggest achievements are?

White space is your friend - would you read a condensed document or one that is clearly laid out? Don’t worry about spreading your CV onto a third, or even fourth page, if your experience demands it.

The classic advertising framework, and how animals, in general, make decisions (look, check, am I hungry/scared/aroused, act). Look to your puppy for confirmation.

In a 7-second CV scan, you grab Attention on the first page, with the most relevant information: your job title, key skills and tools that show how you meet essential requirements, and generally what the vacancy is looking for.

Get past this first test and gain their Interest through a clearly laid out document that shows the passage of your career (reverse chronological order, show company and role context).

Build Desire by showing your specific achievements that support your candidacy for the role you want. These are the problems you solve and show how you can help your next employer best.

Enable Action by providing clear and accurate means of contacting you - this may seem obvious yet some forget to do so.

- - -

A note on Context .

Context is the gaps in your CV that answer the questions your readers should have.

What does your employer do? How many employees? What size revenue? What was the structure of the team in which you delivered your achievement?

If your reader has to ask a question about your CV, your CV should provide the answer.

Context is what most CVs miss, and it lets them down.

One way to show context, is to use the interview framework STAR (Situation Task Action Result) - this frames information in a way that has meaning to your audience.

- - -

These are the basics of selling.

You don’t buy the technical specifications of a TV; you buy what the TV does for you.

You don’t buy the ingredients of a Pizza, you buy the taste, sensation and experience it provides.

Both are important of course.

But most of your readers know broadly what a <job title> does - there’s no need to say it if the meaning is implicit.

What we want to know is how it helps.

For example.

An administrator may do administration, but how does it help?

Do they arrange travel cost efficiently, take away the admin burden from the directors, save time?

Those are the benefits, even better in the form of achievements.

SEO primarily relates to keywords. Think about how you search on Google for whatever it is you search on. We do much the same when scanning and searching on CVs.

Are the keywords from the job description or advert you are applying to clearly stated on your CV?

These are typically the essential requirements and this is a rare piece of ALWAYS advice. Always show how you meet the essential requirements.

But also rely on EEAT in that list above. Show these keywords, but not in a way that makes you look cynical or careless.

Some career coaches advise a ‘white text keyword bomb’ as a hack - but if a reader thinks you’ve employed a hack, you may be seen to be cheating, and that rarely goes well.

If your CV has the right keywords, it will be easier to find on CV Databases .

You can use the same keywords to make it easier to be found on LinkedIn .

Which are two ways to access ‘ hidden jobs ’.

Ultimately, the only point of a CV is to prompt action, the second A in AIDA.

The crux of a CV is to show the reader how you can solve their problems.

The problems that are at the heart of their vacancy.

Do this in a compelling way, and you’ll improve your odds.

CRO is built on psychology through and through and understanding how your readers make decisions.

Here’s an example that shows how readability and psychology come together:

«image description: the mysteries of reader psychology… for most people»

Think about the flow and readability of your CV - this is how websites work.

Everything in a well-designed website is intentional. Is your CV?

I find CRO fascinating - worth a read if you want to go down a rabbit hole.

A note on customising your CV.

It’s common advice that you should customise your CV.

But here’s a nuance.

If you accept there is no such thing as an objectively perfect CV, then ‘good enough’ should be your goal.

A CV that presents your candidacy to the principles above is good enough, especially if it represents the best version of you for the role you are most suited for.

This ‘good enough’ CV should be the basis of applications.

When tailoring your CV to show how you meet essential requirements, this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes - it’s a basic task.

If you’re spending hours tailoring CVs for every application, this is time that should be better spent elsewhere.

Of course, there will be occasions when you have to customise to a specific set of demands, in which case it’s your choice whether you invest the time to do so intentionally.

If you present a good enough CV with minor adjustments, instead of a heavily customised document, the difference in outcome is negligible in most situations.

Use the time you save in not overly tailoring to better effect. It’s a good way not to burn out.

CVs are important, but many people place too much importance on their place in the process.

A good enough CV is your best step forward. If you are a no anyway, perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.

Or maybe the decision was already made if you are in a demographic the reader chooses to discriminate against.

That may not even be for illegal reasons, if they decide you live too far away, are too expensive, or that you love Agile when they love Waterfall.

Go for good enough - it’s a challenge to get there, but once you do, you can build on it for life, and it might just help you get a job now too.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg”

Boiling over

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 08:52:00 GMT

A little while back I wrote Spitting Nails , which looks at candidate resentment, and what we, as hiring processes, can do with this notion to make recruitment easier.

Today, I wrote a companion piece for job seekers, with practical advice on why resentment might work against them.

I think there are some valuable points for employers too, so here it is, word for word:

“Over the past few years, a phenomenon has come to the fore in recruitment - candidate resentment.

It’s the notion that the experiences candidates have of a recruitment process, and of their wider job search, informs their actions.

Some examples:

On an individual basis, employers won’t consider this a big deal, especially if they’ve filled a role.

However, we live in a connected society where experiences are shared widely, which can create a wave of resentment, especially when things are tough.

Employers would do well to recognise this phenomenon, and deliver a process that does the opposite, both to stand out for great candidates, and to reduce the possibility of great candidates stepping away from a recruitment process.

But this is an article for job seekers, and while it’s helpful to understand the impact candidate resentment might have systemically, the point of this article is to improve your odds of finding a job.

The nature of candidate resentment is that it’s driven by strong emotion and common experience, something that’s easy to take advantage of by a career coach that is either cynical or unknowledgeable (neither of which are admirable qualities in someone jobseekers might pay money to).

Indeed, the crux of effective advertising is to create emotion and influence action (again something recruitment is woefully lacking in).

How often have you read a promotional message, whether as a post or direct message, which said something along the lines of:

Worse still these messages feel true and are then widely spread, irrespective of any basis in fact.

And this resentment informs your actions.

Actions which cut your nose off to spite your face.

Recruitment is a rare function that has no continuing professional development and little in the way of ‘best practice’ to guide employers.

Because there isn’t a north star for the profession, in the same way CIMA/ACCA/CIPD/CIPS or any other chartered body in the UK, employers often make it up as they go.

Moreover we’re an industry that looks at what others do, because starting from first principles is hard. And if others have a suboptimal process it’s likely we do too.

It’s one reason why ChatGPT type tools are becoming popular - it allows, for example, adverts to do exactly the same as everyone else quicker, and perhaps more engagingly. Even if it does nothing to help those adverts actually sell or stand out.

Where there is a formalised approach, it’s typically because recruitment is contained in another function - such as within HR or Administration, or as part of the role of a founder.

All of which have other priorities that lead to recruitment being seen as an administrative burden, rather than a commercial opportunity.

And when times are busy, it’s easy to either do recruitment habitually (rather than intentionally) or fit it in where you can (rather than strategically).

Of course, some employers are rubbish at recruitment in the same way they are rubbish at employment.

So it’s easy to assume that anyone who gives a poor experience in recruitment, will be that kind of employer.

Which isn’t true.

Herein lies the problem with candidate resentment, for you, as a job seeker, in a job search that has no doubt created much resentment.

I should also point out that my experiences as a recruiter offline are very different to what I read about on LinkedIn or other socials.

Were I to rely on socials, it might reduce my ability to do my job, so worried might I be about the reaction of job seekers and other potential candidates.

It’s a good thing that while socials mirror real life in many ways, it’s mainly in a polarised way, without nuance.

I speak to many employers who do exactly the things people resent, yet are great employers for the right people.

Sometimes £competitive salary is stated due to a compensation philosophy that is generous but not fixed. Perhaps not ideal, but certainly not a lowball.

Sometimes great employers use Workday because of its Accounting and HR functions, with the ATS being a bolt on.

And so on.

Real life has a nuance that socials don’t show - because nuance reduces engagement. So you are less likely to read them, and dopamine hungry writers are less likely to write them.

Here’s the point.

Assume nothing.

Where possible gain insight.

Consider that a bad hiring step might hide a great employer.

If you find yourself reacting emotionally to something on socials - stop, breath and look at it logically. Look for evidence and always ask ‘where is the money?’

The answer to that question may show why a post was written.

Do people want to be popular as hero employers / recruiters / career coaches? Or do they actually have something to say that’s helpful?

It’s generally a good idea to reciprocate the level of care a process takes with you - treat low effort processes with low effort, and invest your energy in the ones that matter.

But you also want to put yourself in a position where you have the best chance of saying ‘no’, rather than the employer doing that for you.

For example, you may not like £competitive salary, but you can always apply and state your salary expectation - then take note of the application (in case they contact) and move on.

In some ways resentment is helpful, even healthy - it can protect, it can help you cope, it can help you heal, it can flag danger to others.

Just don’t let it define how you act, and who you are.

Thanks for reading.

Greg

p.s. where there are links above, it’s to articles with deeper insight on those topics. No clickbait!”

Candidate resentment and you

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 08:48:00 GMT