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When first thinking about planning your career and finding yourself a new job, you should be realistic. Look at what experiences you have, the skills you have gained and what your strengths and weaknesses are.
Is the career path you are looking at achievable with your current skills or will you need to partake in further training to achieve this. Looking forward may not necessarily mean leaving your current employer as you could apply for a different role in the company that better suits your career path. There are many factors to consider as staying with your current company may have advantages as there is less risk in applying for a new role.
Once you have fully considered the situation you are currently in then you need to look at short and long term options such as, the sector, company activities, , size of organization, career prospects and opportunities. Bearing these things in mind can lead you to find you dream job working for a great company.
Once you have decided in what direction you would like you career to take, you have to think about how to market yourself. The competition will be extremely high in large companies in popular sectors, so you need to market yourself effectively.
This will require a combination of presenting yourself well in person and on paper. In both these situations, you need to highlight the areas in which you have succeeded in the past, your skills and experience you can provide in the desired role.
The CV you provide will be the first time the employer learns about you, so should therefore be seen as a marketing tool. The aim of the CV is to get you to the next stage, the interview.
Your CV should be concise, provide personal details, provide previous success, qualifications, experience and should be honest. You should make drafts of your CV and get friends or colleagues to read it and give you feedback.
A tip for writing a great CV is promoting yourself by describing unique skills or interests that make you stand out from the rest of the applicants.
If you are sending the CV by post, you should print it on high quality plain white paper or if you are sending it by e-mail, you should use standard fonts and use a universal format like a Microsoft Word file.
When sending your CV to a potential employer, you should include a covering letter. The covering letter should compliment your CV and be tailored towards the job you are applying for.
If your CV and covering letter win you an interview, the next stage is to research the company and the people you will be meeting. The key to a successful interview is planning. Preparation and research should make you less nervous when it comes down to the real thing.
On the day of the interview, you should be punctual, confident, present yourself well, be friendly and use eye contact. If you are asked a difficult question that you can’t answer, be truthful and admit you are unsure, interviewers can tell if you are bluffing.
Hopefully you interviewer will like what they see and ether offer you a second interview or offer you a job.
This article was written on behalf of Martin Ward Anderson who provide finance recruitment for banking jobs and accountant jobs.

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