Fewer redundancies are expected – Is it too early to say that ‘green shoots’ are sprouting?

The number of redundancies in the UK jobs market is expected to decrease, according to a recent survey. Following the dismal start to the year, which has seen the unemployment rate rise to 2.4 million, a new survey conducted by KPMG and The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development is now suggesting that the private sector is stabilising.

The Labour Market Outlook Survey has shown that a significantly lower amount of employers are expecting to make staff redundant. The results collected from over 900 employers, covering all sectors of the economy also revealed that the scale of planned redundancies has reduced.

Although signs of a full recovery still appear a while away, it seems that the results of the survey are by no means unfounded.

Rob Scott from Aaron Wallis, a specialist sales recruitment agency, has noted a gentle but positive upturn from employers in recent months. He said: "Back in February we received through our website 1900 speculative CVs which was three times more than we'd typically receive. The majority of these candidates had unfortunately been made redundant as companies restructured and cut costs for the New Year.

“This huge spike of speculative CVs has now settled but our July candidate registrations still remains double that the same month last year. Aaron Wallis have had calls from tens of employers that didn't replace positions vacated in September, October and November last year but are now realising that the position needs to be filled in order for them to maintain and improve their market share"

How to stand out in a job interview – calm and collected, or quirky and memorable?

It is fair to say that competition for jobs is fierce. Yesterday’s announcement that unemployment has reached its highest point since 1995 is enough to instil fear into even the most confident of job searchers.

Yet despite these horrifying and well publicised statistics, many professionals within the recruitment industry, including ourselves, are reporting a quiet but significant increase in the number of jobs that are becoming available. So, never a better time for those looking for work to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and refine their interview technique.

Employment success is often down to the applicant standing out in the interview. In recent months we are hearing of more jobs applicants who are going into interviews with a quirky strategy to get themselves remembered.

I have heard of one applicant that was so determined to stand out that he began the interview by ceremoniously presenting the interviewer with a pineapple. Sure, he was remembered - but not necessarily for the right reasons.

A sense of humour and a creative idea may only serve to evoke a quick chuckle from the interviewer before he stumps you with question on company policy. Having said this, a well thought out gimmick which is quirky, but RELEVANT could potentially work in your favour.

When applying for a marketing job with a major pizza restaurant chain we have heard the tale of an applicant who went into the interview with a pizza box which contained his CV, ‘brag file’ and a detailed presentation and business plan for the role. Needless to say, the interviewer was impressed and he got the job.

The candidate demonstrated initiative and enthusiasm as well as a strong knowledge of company branding. BUT, it was for a marketing and branding job and creative ideas such as this are not the only way earn success in an interview.

Merit alone can be far more appealing to a potential employer than a random gimmick which could scream of the candidates’ desperation.

Above all, interviewers are looking for applicants who are well versed, professional and enthusiastic. Therefore, make sure you are prepared, appropriately dressed and engaging and you will stand out far more than if you go to an interview with a well rehearsed comedy routine.

Stand out for the RIGHT reasons, and take advantage of increasing employment opportunities.

For further interview tips visit our Career Tools section with tens of ideas to increase your interview skills and sales success.

Are Facebook and Twitter preventing you from getting a job?

With more companies signing up to sites such as Twitter and Facebook, it is becoming general practice to search applicants through these social networking sites.

Potential employers can have unlimited access to moments of your personal life by simply searching your name on Google.

Drunken photos or an inappropriate ‘status’ can quickly undermine a good CV or a successful interview.

Recently an applicant sent a CV to Aaron Wallis and detailed ‘social networking’ as one of her hobbies.

Upon sending the CV to the client they refused to meet with the candidate even though she was ideal for the role.

When we told her that unfortunately things are not going to move forward she said ‘I bet they’ve been looking at my facebook account’.

The employer of course did not use this as a reason for declining to meet with her but upon looking at her uncensored facebook account it was riddled with drunken photos and profanities!

Suffice to say we recommended that she took appropriate steps to clean up her facebook presence!

With the ability on Facebook and Twitter to limit your profile so that only ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ can have access to your private thoughts, its seems odd that applicants can be found publicising opinions such as: “What a f***ing s*** interview with a s*** company, I don’t know why I bother.”

Although it is not expected that candidates remain pious while sending out jobs applications, it is probably advisable to consider that photos of you sprawled over a bar with a traffic cone on your head may not be quite as funny to a potential employer!

Aaron Wallis conducts largest survey of UK sales Professionals.

The UK’s largest survey of sales professionals promises to reveal a fascinating insight into the condition of the British sales industry and the impact of the recession.

Previous sales surveys conducted by Milton Keynes based recruiter Aaron Wallis have been the largest of their kind and were extremely well received by the sales industry, media and academics.

This year, in light of the current economic situation Aaron Wallis are expecting the results to be even more interesting.

So far 550 professionals have completed the survey and with two weeks remaining over 1,000 responses are expected in total.

The responses cover a wide demographic of ages, industries, and areas of the country.

For this reason they will be extremely credible and will give a real understanding how the sales industry is fairing since the last survey was conducted in 2007.

Reponses so far are extremely interesting and include a few surprises. It seems that the sales industry and its workers are surprisingly upbeat despite the current economic climate.

The 2007 Survey revealed fascinating statistics including the finding that only 23% of female respondents were in senior management roles compared to 46% of male respondents making for an interesting comparison two years on.

Results are eagerly awaited by several industry publications including ISMM’s Winning Edge which has dedicated several pages in its Autumn/Winter edition to the surveys’ findings.

The survey is also being promoted across most of the major sales related web sites, sales job boards, sales magazines, social networks and the employer and candidate databases at Aaron Wallis.

To participate in this survey and for the chance to put forward your opinion about working in the industry, candidates should be directed to http://www.survey2009.info/

The survey consists of just over 60 questions and will take around ten to twelve minutes to complete. The questions are designed to be a mixture of work related and life related questions.

As an incentive Aaron Wallis are offering to everyone that takes part the chance to win an ‘ultimate experience’. This is a choice of over 100 experiences ranging from a 30 minute ‘Tiger Moth’ flight to an overnight golf break for two to a racing experience in a Lamborghini.

Official results will be released on 24th August.

To view “The State of Sales in 2007” survey, please visit http://www.aaronwallis.co.uk/The%20State%20of%20Sales%20in%20the%20UK.pdf