The last goodbye

As regular readers of this blog will know I’ve been known to slip in the odd one or two references to music to my postings. It’s a shared passion alongside an irrational love for a certain tangerine-clad Scottish football team. A solvent one. So it seemed fitting to borrow a song title from the untouchable Jeff Buckley to give notice that this will be my last post in this present guise at least. Today I move on to take on a new but similar role at City University, London.

Thank you for taking the time to read my posts. I know grads have found real grad jobs through it because they’ve told me. I’ve really enjoyed making it a forum for both career advice, and employers opinions on what they’re looking for from you. I hope beyond hope that you’ve gained confidence from my concerted efforts to give the REAL recruitment picture out there for you as a graduate. I’ve only been heckled once in all my postings so I think I must have been doing something right.

I leave you in the capable hands of Brunel University’s Placement and Careers Centre. A new correspondent will be found. The url and title of the blog may change but the quality of advice will not.

Two last things. I’m about 60 hits short of the 35,500 mark so see if you can help me break that barrier by the end of today. And the other thing? This isn’t the blogging last you’ve heard of David Gilchrist. Keep an eye out.

Sales opportunities and assessment centre practice – courtesy of Coca Cola

News has reached me of quite a nifty offer from Coca Cola. They are currently recruiting for graduate sales reps and to support that activity they are holding a graduate open day where you can find out more about what it’s like working at Coca Cola Enterprises and take advantage of some assessment centre practice sessions. A great combination.

When is it taking place? On July 25th at their office in Poyle, Slough. To sign up you need to go to www.cokecce.com/careers and apply for the role called June 2011 Graduate Sales Representative – South East Region. Use the Job Search box on the right hand of the page and the keyword search.

The art of understanding a job description

Not only is writing a job description an art (and not always well done) but understanding one is too. Take it too much for granted and there’s every chance your cv and cover letter will bear as much relevance to the job as night is to day. With this in mind I’m now taking bookings for a session to be held twice next week on really understanding job descriptions. Thursday evening. Friday morning/afternoon.

We’ll be looking at real life job descriptions and real life applications to help you understand better how really understanding the job description will start getting you to interviews now, not in months time. Take a seat in the employer’s shoes in this interactive session. Delivered by a former graduate recruiter – me!

Hit the ground running with your post exam career planning

We’re now just a couple of weeks away from a big event in any graduate/graduating job finder’s calendar. On May 23rd we have our Summer Careers Fair here on campus. That’s immediately followed by four days of career sessions aimed at helping you understand more about different career areas, how to successfully hurdle the application barriers like cvs and interviews and how to minimise the lows amidst the inevitable highs and lows of job hunting. The majority of sessions are going to be delivered by representatives from the working world like Amazon and Prudential.

Aimed primarily at final years who will by then have completed their final exams you can find Continue reading

And they think organising a royal wedding is hard…

Try getting a mixture of public and private sector employers into 16 separate slots over 4 working days without time clashes. Well, I’m relieved to say I’ve managed just that and a week after planning started our programme for a five day employability week is in place. You’ll be hearing much more about it in good time but here’s a couple of facts for now.

  • It’s the week beginning May 23rd.
  • It’s going to cover all the bases of finding graduate employment from how to get into specific careers like IT, to managing yourself, being successful with your applications and the more secret routes into graduate employment.
  • It’ll feature the likes of Prudential, Barnardo’s, Enterprise Rent-a-Car and our very own Resident Entrepreneur.

Have I caught your attention?

A plug for a very useful upcoming careers session at Brunel

The third of a series of career sessions related to “Women into Business” takes place next Wednesday (Feb 23rd) between 1 and 2pm. You may be interested in it for 2 particular reasons. Firstly it promises to feature ways to tackle that element of “it’s not what you know but who you know”. It would be great if the world were different around this but it’s still a factor in uncovering hidden job opportunities. Secondly if you’re still investigating ways into the world of PR, it’s being delivered by a very experienced PR professional. Someone who may open some doors for you as well.

Book your place now.

Even more free interview practice – Jan 25th

I’m delighted to be able to announce that the event I advertised back in November is to be repeated on January 25th, this time at the Ramada London Ealing hotel. See the poster for more details.

A few Brunel grads made it to the last one. If you were one of those in attendance and would like to give me some feedback on how it helped you I’d love to hear from you. Email me at david.gilchrist@brunel.ac.uk.

Free interview practice – December 1st

On December 1st at the Wembley Plaza Hotel a free event is taking place designed to improve your success at interviews. Aimed at 18-24 year olds it’s been put together by a number of different groups. Having spoke to its organiser, Melanie Clarke, the goal is to help you improve your communication, presentation and team building skills alongside your interview skills.

Most importantly the interactive element of it will involve putting the participants in the shoes of Continue reading

Want to know more about a career in Publishing?

Nothing reminds you of the passing of the years more than repeat events. Is it really 12 months since I last told you of Penguin’s annual Intro to Publishing career event? I guess it must be. To reserve your place you need to send a 100 word summary of your CV and 100 words on why you would like to attend to gettingintopublishing@penguin.co.uk by 29th October 2009. I’d strongly recommend reading and absorbing the poster first.



p.s. they’re recruiting for Editorial, Contracts, Design, Production, Sales, Marketing & Publicity, Finance and Human Resources.

Right now is a crucial time

Apologies for the delay in blogging. The blog 1st year anniversary celebrations went on a little longer than anticipated.

Maybe you’re just starting to feel a similar post graduation hangover. That’s natural. I’ve been hearing from a number of 2010 grads who seem to be feeling very similar sensations of frustration and despair just weeks after graduation and the drawing to the close of summer. It happens. But it is a dangerous time. You’re ability to Continue reading