Need some advice on how to find work etc?

I have been thinking about starting a thread today just because of my frustrations really about the unemployment crisis going on, so iv decided to offer up any advice needed to anyone struggling to find work out there or even if you need some advice on how to spruce up your cv, maybe you are a contract worker and need to scope out all your options in this regard, also if you are seeking some career advice.

Whatever it may be please post all your requests here and i will get back to you with help :happy.

 

This whole recession, and job cuts has us all down in the dumps really.

What I'd like to know, is what do you do.

Do you sit tight in your job, and wait it out, or start looking, and maybe face the last in first out theory.

Also, how do you know that the job you get will still be there in a months time or even 6 months. Generally, my cv is home made.

I dont use online cv writers etc. But i have had a look at many and some of them seem to be really good.

Do you think its better to use one of them? or just pratt along on your own, and see if your results are better.

What do you think of contracting. Is it a good or a bad idea? Ive also thought that to be a good way to go. Isnt it like freelancing?

 

You know Phoenyx in my own opinion, if I were you id definitely stick to what I have right now, there are literally thousands of people out of work and job hunting now is a nightmarish task, and iv heard a few people tell me this, there are so many candidates applying for each job its like searching for a needle in a haystack.

If you are unsure that your job is still secure id certainly get the ol' cv out and start applying, on this point id like to add as iv seen you have asked about using cv writers to improve your cv, this i think now and as things stand is a good idea, especially if you feel that you may no longer have a job soon.

Doing ones cv professionally has many advantages, they know what top brass are looking for in a cv, they know how to optimize your cv to the fullest and convey all your skills and experience so that when a recruiter doing interviews takes a look at it they are instantly impressed by it, yes one can do your own cv from home and i think in most cases everyone does this, but take it from me iv seen some home made cvs and the majority of people have not got a clue as to what they are doing, so id advise yes use a cv writing service if you have to, its only going to be beneficial to you later.

As for the contracting question you posed... yes contracting is almost like freelancing, contract workers generally look out for themselves and handle their own affairs e.g. a contract worker will set his rates of pay according to the work he/she is offering a company based on the content, hours and so forth, also a contractor is not committed to a single employee on a long term basis but work will be done over a few months or weeks depending on what work is being done for a company.

Freelancing is the word you used and this kind of work goes hand in hand with jobs such as journalism, writing, computer programming, graphic design, proofreading just to mention a few, for freelancers some have written contracts, others only verbal contracts that will require a deposit beforehand for work done. Freelancers can charge by day, or per page, per hour or even per project done etc.

So to answer your question of do I think contracting is a good idea, well yes if you are unable to get a permanent position which as you should know already is getting more difficult everyday, then yes, if you are confident in your skills and have a great service to offer a company by all means id try contracting.

Listen Phoenyx if you need some advise on where to find more info on anthing such as where to do your cv professionally or how to go about finding an new job just shout and ill do a little research for you for the best sites you can have a look at and have a read through on jobs, contracting and the rest, have a great day

 

To be honest, id enjoy any info you have on the matter. The research ive done still scares me a little. Ive read abt a few comapnies that deal with contractors, but they dont seem to last and leave you unpaid, with a lot of excess admin work youd need to do for yourself. It all looks complicated to be honest.

I do need to redo my cv, but i dont have the time to. I have little time during the day to update it and neaten it etc. and at night I try to catch up on my artwork, and things i need to do around the house.

lol I need a 25 hour day.

 

Ok no need to stress about time right now, i know how that goes with house and family and work to get done in a day, i have that all the time.

Im going to try get as much as i can on what you need and get back to you, there are a good few umbrella companies around you could use if you decide to do contracting, and cvs are actually not that hard to deal with and normally its quick and easy to upload them to a site and they will do the rest for you.

Im going to see what i can ruffle up for ya now...

 

One has to be very careful when going about these things, firstly use a reputable company if you know of one, there are some good services out there, so this is what i want to make sure of, so iv had a look at atlantic-umbrella.com offer some really good services like IR35 payroll solutions, this for temps, and they get all the paper work that one does not want to have to deal with yourself done for you, as everyone knows paper work can be a real mission, ok that's just one then there is also orangegenie.com some things on offer here are quicker payments, an account manager and also access to your account online at any time.

Then the last one im going to add here for you parasolgroup.co.uk, these are all well known and reliable sources, the ones im mentioning here are sites iv had a look at myself, have a read through them and let me know what you think.

Im going to get back to you with some good cv writing sites you can also check out if thats the rout you want to go with your cv, and also some useful job sites for finding work....

If there is anything im missing here let me know :bye

 

Id take all i can get at this time. Im wishing i had a 25 hour day to be honest. i dont have enough time to sort thru details, and sit and perfect the cv. Also think online searching is better. more convenient.

Ill take a look at these sites, maybe contracting will be the new thing for me. lol a change is as good as a holiday

Thank you very much for your help and info.

 

Well then, iv hunted down a few helpful sites to get you on your way, as far as i can see you have experience in a variety of sectors, and IT is your current occupation, if you are looking for greener pastures I have suggest a few careersandjobsuk.com you could have a look at, the nice thing about the careers and jobs site, for which i will give you the link below is you can search for jobs by sector or location and this i found very helpful especially when a site has tons of jobs and you have to scroll through thousands on the IT list to get the right one in the right location, so the links are as follows:

careersandjobsuk.com
reed.co.uk
monster.com
planetrecruit.com

Ok these are really good sites and iv also read some good testimonials on some of them, huge amount of jobs to choose from on most and tons of IT jobs too . There are others also but im just mentioning the top dogs here.

Im not going to overload you with stuff to go through as you have already said time is of the essence, so ill leave you to have a look at those and then when you have decided if these are what you are looking for we can continue on over to the cv writing.

Also if you are unsure of what the contracting services offer you just click on the umbrealla company links i added in for you and go through the drop down boxes they tell you all you need to know and what they require.

I have now have to get on with work for a while a bit hectic today again, so ill chat later have a good day Phoenyx :banana

Oh and its a pleasure helping out that was the whole point of starting this thread, to help you or anyone out there with all this will be back shortly with the cv stuff also, almost forgot about that ...

 

Im back Phoenyx, thats a good forum name btw , hope your day has been less hectic than mine has been, iv been on the go and busy busy busy right through, even worked in my lunch hour . Good thing is im able to finish earlier and iv got more for you as promised this i think will be the final faze for you, iv done some surfing on the web and have some pretty decent cv writing sites you can try out.

So in order to get your cv spic and span and up-to-date you will need the following and there is once again a nice choice of three:

cvwritingcentre.co.uk they offer:

Successful CV writing guide, CV critique, CV guide and critique pack, and Professional CV writing service, this is some of the packages you can get from them.

thefullercv.com this site's services can:

Determine and market your achievements
Create your core competencies
Highlight your transferable skills
Inject confidence following redundancy
Strengthen areas of weakness

And last but not least, iv chosen bradleycvs.co.uk they also offer cv writing tips which i thought was cool.

One thing i noticed on all of these is that the people who have used a professional cv writing service all agree that they have had much success when applying for jobs after doing this.

Please let me know if you use any of these and how the service was if you do id love the feedback

 

lol thank you melli jelli, its one of my nicknames, so it seemed fitting to use it

My days always hecticm going from one thing to the next. i love it tho. keeps me busy

I took a look at the sites today. They are quite cool. they even give youy career advice. Do all cv writers do that, or just these.

 

Some sites are quite dodgie let me just say and have minimal services, but there are some really good ones that do offer all sorts like career advice, interviewing tips, training courses and so on.

Maybe like me you would be interested in some of the training courses, the IT and computing courses they have to offer are appealing, or even the internet and web design courses they offer, i myself would love to do the adobe, dreamweaver and flash course i get all glassy eyed when i see that, design is my first love, iv used adobe before to design with, photoshop and image ready, but i would to like delve much further into flash and dreamweaver also.

So yes its beneficial to do proper research when it comes to which sites you will be using when job hunting, make sure your cv is all it should be, optimize your skills and then you will be prepared when you do get interviews, these days it helps to have some good skills behind you thats what companies are looking for right now.

 

A lot of my desgining, and coding etc, ive taught myself. I am a qualified PC tech tho, but you can only go so far with that. Maybe its time i did have a look at another course or two cant hurt much

 

Coding is really quite simple once you get the hang of it i think and iv been seriously thinking last night of doing that dreamweaver / flash / adobe course as iv decided im going to at some stage start up a web design site as a back up plan, and its an extra income which i desperately need at this stage of my life.

My daughter will be finishing school in around 2 years from now she is in Grade 10, and she has asked if she could go to college as from next year, she wants to study business and tourism, currently she is starting up in a private school and they do not offer these subjects, so im going to let her go then, at least i know she is working toward her future, luckily i only have the one to worry about :laugh2

Iv also self-taught myself on photoshop and image ready, the tutorials on the net more than helped me become ace at it, and the learning process for design is limitless which i love, keeps things interesting.

 

Thats a good way to do things. Its just with a few online places ive tried, they tend to be bogus, so id have to rather look into an institution here to see wot i can get started on. I love learning on the net tho. I work on it, so im used to it and around it all the time.

do you know any good institutions that you could study online from?

 

Hi Mellijellie, maybe you can give me some advice as well. I was wondering how to spruce up my CV that has millions of different projects on them. I'm a freelance copywriter and have tons of little jobs and want them to look neat. Also do you think as a freelancer you really need a CV or is a portfolio more appropriate.
Lastly, what is the best way/program to tackle a writer's online portfolio as most of it is articles without any colour or glam.

Thanks for kindly offering your services...I know I need them! :bye

 

aaaaaaaaaaah I see the comptia is there as well. I can write that exam if need be. from what i was told when i started my A+, was that id get the A+ istelf, and then write exams to get the Comptia. This was a good link. thank you very much for showing it to me.

 

Hi there Shorty welcome to the forum,

You have asked me some interesting questions and i love a challenge, i dont know that much about copy writing but the little i do im sure will be able to help you with what you are struggling with.

What i would like to know is do you currently have your own online portfolio set up, if so did you create it yourself or did someone do this for you?

If you do, this is what i can advise you to start with, firstly as far as having a cv goes i would say yes, its very important for any employer you might be offering a service to, to know your work history and a little about yourself, a cv conveys this, one way you can do it is to get the cv done professionally through a site like the ones i have mentioned in my previous posts here, all those little jobs you dont know how to sort out? they will definitely be able to advise you on what to do and how to lay it out neatly, it may also help if you only display your most recent and successful work done say dated back around 2-3 years anything further than that is not really necessary and this will also shorten you cv a bit.

If you are not happy paying for a professional cv service then you can have a look at this cvwritingcentre.co.uk, if you click on our services link on the top it takes you to a section where they offer a "successful cv writing guide", which consists of a 30 page e-book with high impact strategies to improve your cv yourself, and it only costs 10 pounds! a bargain i think.

After that is done you can then include a resume or cv section onto your online profile and just upload it there.

Lastly there are so many really good programmes one can use to optimize the look of ones website or in your case portfolio, here is a list of just a few programmes you could try for now.

Firstly one could do a really powerful and appealing one on photoshop CS or any other photoshop software, other programmes one can try are Coral and Painter, so basically all imaging software can be used, whether you are doing your online portfolio yourself or someone has done it for you, you could try these or suggest they re-do it using one of them.

If you want the portfolio to be web based, you can use dreamweaver or netobjects as well, if you have lots of images or letters and such.

Another suggestion i can make is, you could google some examples of online portfolios, iv seen some really beautiful ones and this will help you to get some ideas as to what you want done with your own.

Shorty i do hope i have been able to help you out a little if there is anything else you are unsure of feel free to ask and ill try find out some more for you.

Have a great day :banana

 

You are most welcome Phoenyx glad to be of service

 

Some great advice was shared in this forum! After reading many articles on how to find work as a freelancer, it has become evident that Social Networking plays a huge part in marketing yourself as a freelancer.

Connecting with other freelancers should not be seen as a threat, yes they are your competition, but they can pass on work to you and vice versa. Establish a good relationship with freelancers and clients. At the end of the day they will buy into the person as well as the skills that the freelancer has.

 

Hello FreelanceZa good to see a new face and from Cape Town no less!! I myself hail from East London, Eastern Cape, but recently re-located to Welkom in the Free State, a big change for me but prospering nevertheless :laugh2

Thanks for your comments, i have to agree with you that social networking is a great way to advertise yourself as a freelancer, and getting in contact with people who do the same work as yourself can only be an advantage as you get to know more when speaking to people from all over and getting their opinions and advice on how to go about doing stuff you may be unsure of doing yourself.

Getting word our or getting yourself a good reputation as a freelancer can be tough and social networks are a wonderful way to achieve this.