The media industry, particularly digital media, is an extremely small network and something we have certainly learnt and seen. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody talks (I sound like Gossip Girl now!)
Something we often see happening in the industry is people earning negative reputations for their behaviour, whether it’s from frequent job hopping, by bad mouthing their current employer, and also sending their CV for the same role through several different recruiters, things such as these can cause you problems later on when job hunting.
Here are some of our tips on how to maintain relationships whilst going through the interview process.
1. Respond
Now this is really key, one of the problems we very often face is that if someone decides they no longer are interested in a role, or don’t know if they want to take an offer, they ignore us. Sometimes they never respond and we never know what happened, and for our clients this can leave a really bad taste in their mouth. If you aren’t interested, let people know, you’re not expected to say yes to everything.
2. Know where your CV is
This is something that’s really important for you when interviewing, if your CV has been sent everywhere then it can mean that people will see yours as spam or someone desperate for a role. If you have sent your CV directly to a company, then don’t ask a recruiter to send it, it can look unprofessional for both yourself and the recruitment consultant. Their client will think the recruiter didn’t check, or, that you sent your CV to so many companies, you didn’t even realise you’d already sent it to them. Make sure you know exactly where your CV goes.
3. Don’t speak to every recruiter in the market
If you speak to everyone you will most likely have the problem above, your CV may end up everywhere. What we recommend is to choose a couple of companies to work with, keep a good track of where your resume is being sent and know where you are in the process. This market is quite small and a lot of recruitment consultants will have the same clients, it won’t give you lots more options, probably just more conflicts. Decide whom you trust and want to deal with and that recruiter will be able to put more effort and energy into helping you.
4. Be respectful
If you have an interview and you realise it’s not the role for you, try to be respectful to the person who has given time to interview with you. If you don’t get through to the next round and you are upset, it would not be advisable to bad mouth the company you interviewed with, they have every right not to employ you, just as you have every right not to accept an offer from them.
5. Don’t speak unprofessionally about your previous employer
This is a huge red flag for anyone, if you speak negatively about someone whom you worked for, what’s to say you won’t speak negatively about a potential new employer? No job is perfect, and if your reason to leave is a conflict with management that is understandable, but ensure you share this in a professional and respectful way, and raise points to show where you were able or tried to find solutions.
Keep smart and professional throughout the job seeking and interview process and you will become a very desirable candidate!
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