The Alan Sugar Test on how to write a CV - Are you serious?

We have hit the highest unemployment level for quite some time, but does that give anyone license to prey on the vulnerable jobseeker?

As an avid Alan Sugar fan and the fact that SugarJobs offer professional CV writing services, I have a Google alert to notify me about anything interesting happening online. This morning's alert was fantastic - the alert header is - "Try the Alan Sugar Test - then beef up your CV Video"

Curiosity killed the cat, so of course I had to have a nose around the site the article came from: http://cvresumeexample.com/videos-try-the-alan-sugar-test--%5BJq9fro0tHhE%5D.cfm

My goodness, if Alan Sugar endorsed this load of codswallop, then I am surely to be the next Prime Minister! Not one to be disparaging but these short clip videos must have been thrown together by a bunch of amateurs - one chap in particular, states in the video that he has had to apply for many jobs himself in the past - what does that tell you about him?

Another recommends top ten tips - one of which is not to write your CV on coloured paper, keep it to two pages and the best tip ever, is that you must list your referees contact details - telephone numbers, etc. What a load of rubbish! Everyone knows that by listing references on your CV, you are inviting agencies and such like to contact your past or worse still, current employer and start a dialog by introducing themselves using you as the link!

Never Never list your reference on your CV - there is absolutely no need for a potential employer to have any of this confidential information until you have a formal job offer - subject to references - then and only then do you give out your referee details. If you do - you risk losing your current job without another position to walk into.

Poor Lord Sugar - such an association must be extremely embarrassing!

If you are seeking a genuine CV service, speak to us - we have over 30 years experience in the employment industry - we know the ingredients of a winning CV and not only that - we will hand-hold you for 8 weeks after writing your CV - if you do not secure interviews, we will refund your fee.

Carolynne

SugarJobs are the leading Employer Only "No Agencies Please" Job Board

Recruiting staff has never been easier or more cost-effective - Employers advertise their jobs directly to Jobseekers, so there is no middleman and no introduction fee.

Unlike all other job boards SugarJobs do not charge for advertising on a per advert basis. Employers can advertise as many roles as they need to (in all industry sectors) and access to our CV database is absolutely FREE for all subscribers.

And... your adverts don't just sit on our site - we network with hundreds of aggregators to actively market your jobs to millions of jobseekers as soon as you upload a job.

Over 200 new Jobseekers register on SugarJobs daily and the number of Employers taking up advertising trials and converting to paying customers are increasing steadily month-on-month.
We are continually striving to improve our services and in order to assist Jobseekers struggling to find work in the current climate, SugarJobs have launched a CV Service - Jobseekers can choose from three packages, including a telephone consultantion with an employment specialist. We help to create a killer CV and provide advice on all matters related to applying for Jobs, the interview process and how to secure employment.

For additional information on any of our services (job advertising, CV Services or navigating our system, etc), please do not hesitate to contact me.

May I take this opportunity to say a very big THANK YOU for all your support!

Jobseeker Application Feedback

I recently sent an email to all SugarJobs Jobseekers who had applied for roles through SugarJobs - the objective was to gather feedback on what jobseekers thought of the site and whether they had managed to secure roles through the site.

Fortunately, the feedback on the use of SugarJobs as a Job Board search facility was extremely positive. Almost all jobseekers, however, were extremely disappointed that having applied for jobs directly with employers, they did not receive any feedback on their applications.

This surprised me. No feedback is a common complaint against Agencies but I naturally assumed that an employer hiring manager would respond to direct applicants. Clearly I was wrong and perhaps this is a common problem experienced by all jobseekers, whether one applies to an agency job or to an employer directly.

This creates a dilemma for me - do SugarJobs try to develop an electronic means of forcing job advertisers to respond to job applications by preventing the job from being expiring until each candidate that applied has received a response? We could set up a basic tick box selection against each applicant saying "successful" or "unsuccessful" and then an automated message is received by the jobseekers saying "congratulations" or "sorry, your application was unsuccessful". Personally, I am unsure about this - it seems so impersonal given the individual went to so much trouble to apply, but at least better than the candidate not receiving a response at all!

Another and perhaps simpler way would be to send a courtesy email reminder to all advertisers requesting that they kindly respond to all applicantions, one way or another.

My colleague suggested that SugarJobs include some "auto text" at the end of every job advertised, which states that "if you do not receive feedback on your application within 1 or 2 weeks, please assume that the application was unsuccessful" That could potentially work, but again, very impersonal and really more of an excuse.

So, how can we encourage employers to respond to all job applications? Or do we just accept as jobseekers that if we don't hear back, there was no interest?

If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear from you!


Many Thanks

Carolynne Gilbert
Managing Director
www.sugarjobs.co.uk

I was sent an article this morning from RecruitmentToday titled "Employers feel ripped off by recruitment agencies"

http://www.recruitmenttoday.net/News/Story/?title=Employers%20feel%20ripped%20off%20by%20recruitment%20agencies&storyid=1214&type=news_features

Interesting read and no wonder employers feel ripped off! The spend on agency recruitment is a staggering 2.5 billion pounds a year and even in the current economy, agents are still getting away with charging fees between 20 and 30% .

Employers..............don't get ripped off; go to www.SugarJobs.co.uk

I'm sitting here in anticipation and can’t wait for the New Year to begin! Great things are going to happen in 2010, I just know it!

When we launched www.SugarJobs.co.uk in April 09 it was extremely challenging, but also very exciting. Even though we entered a saturated Job Board market, we knew we had killer USPs that no other Job Board offered; a cost-effective “No Agency” online portal for Employers and Jobseekers to interact directly with one another.

It has taken all of 9 months from standing start with a brand new URL to generate over 13,000 visitors a month and these visits just keep growing month-on-month!

Simultaneous to promoting SugarJobs, we also decided to development our very own Job board software. This undertaking was more than just stressful! The new site was due for launch in October 09 and naively, I never imagined we would be 2.5 months behind schedule or how much anguish one goes through during testing and bug fixing. But hey, we got there in the end and the brand spanking SugarJobs finally went live this month.

So, whilst 2009 was exhausting, we have laid the foundations for 2010. SugarJobs are ready and determined to become your Job Board of choice!

Thank you so much to everyone who have given their support and encouragement – and a very special thank you to our investor without whom we may never have had the opportunity to challenge the future of recruitment!

God Bless and here’s wishing you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!

What Jobseekers really want from a Jobboard

Our technical team promises me that our brand new bespoke jobboard will be ready for launch at the end of October 09 - Please, please let that be so! We begin testing with live data tomorrow, so fingers crossed!

Any volunteers (Customers or Jobseekers) willing to do a test drive and provide feedback for us before final launch will be most welcome!

For ideas, I had sent out an email to thousands of Jobseekers in order to gather feedback on what people want from their online jobs portals - these are the most popular features requested:

• Top of the list is the request for feedback on job applications. We will try to achieve this by sending a prompt to Employers for a response after 24 hours of receipt of a job application.
• The facility to search for opportunities in a variable radius from a defined post code, i.e. 30 miles from B77, etc. instead of just selecting specific areas listed.
• The opportunity to upload a cover note specific to the job applied for instead of pre-defined script most jobboards have as standard.
• Jobseekers are interested in simplicity and not artwork!
• Identify the 'killer criteria' at the start of a job description - for example if the role requires SV Clearance - this should be stated first to save the Jobseeker time in reading the ad only to find they are ruled out because of the key criteria.
• Jobseekers want "point and click" and jump menus and drop down menus - the less typing needed the better. The only areas they wish to type in are their name, address and anything related to a job type search. The advice is to make the site as "clickable as possible".

A Big Thank you to all the Jobseekers who took time to let us know what you want - we will do our utmost to accommodate all the requirements (perhaps not immediately) but we will endeavor to keep improving the site to ensure that it is "Simple but Effective."

Any comments or additional suggestions most welcome! please email me at cg@sugarjobs.co.uk

The Latest News on SugarJobs....

We are delighted to share SugarJobs latest updates with you!

SugarJobs is growing at an astonishing pace – We rank in the top four listings on Google under “employer only recruitment” both in the UK and USA.

Over 10,000 candidates registered in the past 4 months alone and we are absolutely delighted that many companies who have completed the initial free trial have now joined as members. The free trial will remain a unique feature and will continue to be available to all new advertisers!

FlagShip Customer Incentive

In order to build traffic in all Industry Sectors on our website we are currently running a FlagShip incentive.

Flagship customers enjoy free advertising for at least 3 months in their specific sector, which in turn attracts similar organisations to use SugarJobs for their job adverting.

We have already appointed Flagships in IT, Finance, Gaming, Marketing, Charity and Engineering, so if you are an employer in any other sector, call now to claim Flagship status and enjoy free advertising!

New Face of SugarJobs

Probably, the most exciting news is that we will be launching a brand new version of the SugarJobs website in October.

The new site will include a redesign and many new features aimed to vastly improve the Jobseeker and Advertiser experience. We aim to keep the site “simple” but unique.

If you have any great ideas or features you think would benefit you as an advertiser or jobseeker, please email your suggestions to shane@sugarjobs.co.uk

Daily Twitter Job Updates

For those of you that do not know about our Twitter account, we update this every day with the latest roles on http://www.sugarjobs.co.uk/

If you do not have a Twitter account it is very easy to setup and this will enable you to follow SugarJobs and our daily updates. To get started, visit http://twitter.com/ and sign up.

Once you have signed up you can then follow us here: http://twitter.com/SugarJobs , you to receive the latest updates.

New Employer Advertisers
The speed at which SugarJobs is growing exceeds all expectation!

Jobseeker registration is growing at a rate of circa 200 new candidate applicants per day with more than half of those applying for roles on registration.

Our free trial offer for all new Employer Advertisers is extremely successful. Most hiring managers are delighted, not only with the volume and quality of relevant candidates, but also "our too good to be true" pricing structure!

To view a list of our current advertisers, visit: http://www.sugarjobs.co.uk/companies


With each passing day, it is more and more evident that SugarJobs unique approach to cost-effective direct recruitment is working and ... for any hiring managers not utilising our services as yet, why not join on a free trial - you will be pleasantly surprised!

For Jobseekers
We provide all Jobseekers with a transparent and confidential service – there is no agency involvement and registered Jobseekers know exactly which Employer is advertising and who is in receipt of their CV on application.

Without agency involvement, you have total control over your job applications. Simply apply to jobs and interact directly with prospective Employers.

Hot Companies Now Recruiting through SugarJobs:
Amnesty International
Martin McColl
IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising)
ICE (Institute of Civil Engineers)
ZiiLABS
SportingBet
RedHat
PartyGaming
IHS
BlueArc

Thank You
The SugarJobs team would like to thank you for all your support in helping us revolutionise online recruitment - Jobseekers can finally take control of their own job application process and Employers can finally enjoy a truly cost-effective online recruitment service!