Career advice

With monthly employment figures continuing to show a drop in public sector employment and a rise in private sector jobs, it’s clear that many former public sector employees will need to look for work in the private sector…not always the easiest move.

We asked experienced career consultant Simon North to look at the best way to make this transition…

“If you’ve never worked in the private sector before, it can be difficult to find a way in, but it’s not impossible. If you can gain a profound understanding of the corporate world by seeking to understand the key issues affecting it, you’ll give yourself more of an edge when coming into contact with employers from that world. It also helps to take a good look at yourself, who you are, what you want and how you’re going about finding a job. Below, I cover a few of the issues you need to be aware of and some of the things you can do to give yourself a better chance of a successful transition.

1. Why do these barriers between the two sectors exist? Look at why the private sector has a different image and culture to the public sector, which is quite often not perceived so well. It usually comes down to a misunderstanding of the difference in values between the two sectors. The private sector is typically driven by the need to create products that make a profit and are produced with the lowest possible cost, whereas it’s efficiency and effectiveness of service that the public sector is concerned with. These two different motivations are a not million miles away from one another, but they do need to be understood as separate by people looking to successfully switch sectors.
2. What is the private sector and what do we mean by this difference between profit and service? There’s something that needs to be understood in order to answer to those questions. The private sector is enormous. The public sector is too, but in a different way. You can cluster different branches of the public sector into several categories, but in the private sector this is harder to do because there are so many different segments within it.
3. Perform a deep analysis of your own experience to guide you towards suitable roles to apply for. What sort of work have you done in the past? What were you good at and what interested you? To determine what you were good at, think about the types of task that your boss or your colleagues always asked you to do. The reason you were in such high demand for these particular duties is because you were good at them. If you can’t immediately recall what work you enjoyed doing, think about the times when you’ve been the most energetic and alert at work. What were you doing during those times? It’s when we’re doing something that we’re passionate about that we feel the most energized.
4. You need to be very specific about what it is you want to do and which segment of the private sector you want to move to. Your intentions and how you express them will have a strong influence on how potential employers perceive you. Develop a targeting plan so you can be clear about which industry, employers and role you’re targeting. To decide what it is you want to target, think about what criteria is important to you. For example, do you want to work for a small or large company? Do you want to join a globally famous brand or one that’s still building its reputation? How far are you willing to commute?
5. The more interest you show in the private sector, the more interest the private sector will show in you. Read up on the industry you’re interested in joining, both online and by going to the library. Start following your target companies on social media and communicate with them regularly. Look at their website and Google press stories on them before job interviews. Follow up with a thank you note or email after the interview.
6. Gain an understanding of the recruitment process and current market. Who are the private sector recruiting at the moment and who are recruiters working for? What kind of track record does each recruitment agency have in terms of taking people like you from the public sector to the corporate world?
7. Build up your network. Although, as a public sector worker, you’re currently surrounded by other public sector people, you may already have met key individuals in the private sector in your past. For example, look up people from university with whom you’ve stayed in touch. Do any of them hold positions in the business arena that would allow them to introduce you the right people or invite you to the right events? These are the kind of people it’s worth drawing closer into your network.
8. Presenting yourself well is critical. Pay attention to how you look and feel. People in the public sector sometimes dress slightly differently to those in the private sector. Understanding how a corporate employee dresses is important if you want to become one. What you wear helps create in others an impression of your intellect.
9. Where you can, identify private sector sponsors who will champion and mentor you towards the job you want. These people will be quite influential within your field of choice. For example they may have some connection to someone high up within your target organization.” Continue reading “How to Make the Transition from Public to Private Sector” »

We recently brought you the story of two different internships – one that had gone well whilst the other had, unfortunately, provided a poor first experience of the workplace.

In that blog we summarised the key lessons to be learned, and you can now watch a video of our 5 tips for getting the best from internships…

You can read more about the ups and downs of internships on Intern Heaven or Intern Hell?

As anyone who’s recently entered the job market will tell you, internships are becoming an increasingly common part of the modern employment landscape. While for many internships offer invaluable opportunities to experience work, learn skills and get on the path to a full time position, others see them as an exploitative waste of time. Spend time with recent graduates, and you’re likely to hear some internship horror stories.

To gather some first person insight, we caught up with two interns, whose opposing experiences show just how different internships can be. We’ll begin by introducing their stories, and finish with a few general lessons we can draw from their experiences.

Internship Heaven

Rachel Fuller is a 24 year old History graduate. She currently works part time in a bookshop and for the last two months has been interning at a travel website.

“I have always had a passion both for travel and for writing, so when I heard about this opportunity I was immediately interested and sent off my CV. I was asked to send a sample piece describing a recent holiday and, when this was well received, to come in for an informal interview at their office. The people at the office were very personable and open. My boss and I just spent a half hour talking about places we’d been, and destinations we’d like to visit.

When I started the position I was happy to find I was allowed to start writing on my first day. The office atmosphere was fantastic, and I immediately felt like I was part of the team. Feeling that I was valued and expected to contribute just like everyone else made me work harder, while enjoying the work even more.

Although I was initially taken on as a writer, I increasingly took a role in the admin side of the business too, for example organising freelance writers’ payments. Though I’d always thought I hated admin (and being organised in general!), I actually found I was good at it. I really feel I’ll take these new found skills in other areas of my life.

While this internship is unlikely to turn into a job, I still feel I’ve learnt some invaluable skills. I’ve also had the chance to make various contacts who will be really useful when I pursue this sort of writing/editorial work full time, which I plan to start in a few months time.”

Internship Hell

‘Lucy’, 23, spent three months as an intern at a major fashion and lifestyle magazine. She was keen to tell her story in order that others could learn from her experience, but she still works in the industry, and would prefer not to be identified.

“I was so excited when I landed the internship as I knew there would have been many applicants for a position at a national magazine. But from my first day I knew that something was wrong. I was not involved in anything actually related to the magazine, as the initial advertisement had suggested. I was expecting to make a good few cups of tea, but the people there seemed to view me as a private waiting service. My boss would send me to do her laundry, and to fetch her coffee, lunch and snacks throughout the day.

The office atmosphere was poisonous. People either ignored me outright or talked about me only as ‘the intern’. After awhile I got quite sick of hearing others ask my boss: ‘Can you get the intern to do this?’ What I found most frustrating was that I was keen to work hard and contribute, but the tasks I was set just seemed designed to keep me occupied, or even just to amuse the other people there.

When I eventually asked if I was going to be allowed to do any writing or editorial work, my boss said there was a line of girls desperate to do her laundry and that if I didn’t like it I could **** off. After this encounter it became even more difficult to work there, and my boss and colleagues became increasingly hostile. In the end, I left a few weeks before the scheduled end of the internship. Many days I would leave work in tears, and I didn’t feel anything productive would come from my staying.

I’d done internships at fashion houses before so I knew that interns are expected to work very hard and may take flak when others get stressed, but this was ridiculous. By the end of it I felt that in terms of exploiting interns, fashion is not a patch on journalism! But I’ve since found a job at another magazine, and the atmosphere could not be more different.

I suppose my bad internship experience probably toughened me up, but I still feel angry about the way I was treated.”

The Lessons

The key outtake here seems to be centred around information. Knowing what you can contribute, what is expected of you, and the sort of environment you’ll be working in is vital for ensuring that an internship is a positive experience.

1. Be flexible and try to take what you can from the experience

Although many of these lessons will focus on the importance of planning things carefully, it’s important to say that internships will often turn out differently to how you may have initially thought. One of the great things about an internship, like a job, is it is often impossible to predict what you will learn from it. In responding to the needs of the office, Rachel found herself using skills she never thought she had. She’ll now be able to use these skills in future.

2. Meet your boss and scope out the office atmosphere

Rachel had met her boss and a couple of her potential co-workers. By contrast, Lucy was entering into a completely unfamiliar situation. If possible, schedule a preliminary meeting with your potential boss. If this is impossible, a phonecall is generally better than an email for determining your compatibility for the role. Prepare for this initial meeting as you would do for an interview, including what skills you can offer and anything you need to know about the role.

For tips on interview technique, whether for an internship or a full time position, it’s worth checking out our recent video How to Prepare for an Interview.

3. Find out the sort of tasks you’ll be doing

Don’t assume that because you’re at a newspaper you will be involved in editorial, or at a fashion house that you will be involved in design. With many internships you can expect that various forms of admin will be the focus of your time. Of course, in Lucy’s case the description did suggest she would be given the opportunity to write for the magazine. Still, making a serious effort to map out what the expectations are on both sides can help prevent trouble down the line. Continue reading “Intern Heaven or Intern Hell?” »

We have posted almost 100 career blogs to this site during 2012 and we’ve been looking back over the ones that you have read the most.

When we did last year’s summary we found that whilst advice on CVs and Interviews came out on top there was also interest in finding out more about other areas of online job-hunting. For this year, though, it’s guidance on Interview technique and CV writing that proved most popular.

Here are the 5 Worklife blogs that you read the most…why not read them again if you plan to be job searching in 2013…and let us know if they have helped you prepare this year…

5 Questions to Ask your Interviewer

The most read blog on our site this year; this offers advice on how to give a good impression when you hear ‘Do you have any questions for us?’

4 Things That Should NOT be on Your CV!

Amongst the advice on what you should be including, this look at some of the things that you shouldn’t be including proved very popular.

Top 10 Tips on How to Succeed at Telephone Interviews

In this post our guest blogger looked at the preparation that you need to do before a telephone interview. They are becoming more popular with recruiters as a first stage screening phase so need to be treated with the same importance as a face to face interview.

Four Questions to Think About When You Write Your CV

Your CV should be a sales document, opening a door and setting the tone for a potential interview. In this blogged we talked about some of ways to get in the right mind-set when you write it.

Beware! 4 Ways you Can Lose an Interviewer’s Interest

This showcased some of the easiest traps to fall in to during an interview. If you’ve ever sat there wondering why you’re not clicking with the interviewer, the chances are you’re doing one of the things we wrote about.