Nova – Love your work

Esther Cameron: 2025 Education Grant Recipient

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 15:54:16 GMT

Nova Recruitment Announce Esther Cameron as Recipient of Annual 'Love Your Future' Educational Grant

Successful Caymanian student receives $3,000 to further their studies

Nova Recruitment has completed the selection process for their sixth annual 'Love Your Future' Educational Grant . The $3,000 grant is offered annually to a local student who has impressed the Nova team with their passion and dedication to pursuing their chosen career. The individual who received this year's grant is Esther Cameron, a young Caymanian pursuing her bachelor’s degree in biology, with a pre-dental focus.

Growing up, Esther struggled with self-acceptance as she was self-concious of her teeth as she had a gap in her smile, but after visiting with her dentist she gained her confidence back. She witnessed the profound effect that specialised support can have on a person, and it was this experience that ignited her passion to become an orthodontist herself and help others regain their confidence in the same way she had.

Impressing the Nova Recruitment team, Esther stood out from the 60+ applicants received for the grant this year—the most ever received since the inaugural year.

The team had the difficult task of reviewing numerous impressive applicants for the scholarship, but from the very start, Esther’s passion and determination truly touched their hearts. Her exceptional drive and dedication deeply moved the Nova team, and they are incredibly excited to witness the wonderful accomplishments they know she will achieve.

The 'Love Your Future' Educational Grant selection process focused on the areas Nova Recruitment knows are vital to a successful career – ambition, passion, integrity, work ethic and self-reliance. These attributes shone through in Esther’s application video, essay, and final interview, proving she is proactive and conscientious.

Nova Recruitment offers a CI$3,000 Educational Grant annually to support a Caymanian student through their education or professional qualification. This educational grant is open to any course of study that allows the student to pursue a career they love.

PHRi Certification 101 for Aspiring HR Professionals in the Cayman Islands

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 14:11:12 GMT

PHRi Certification 101 for Aspiring HR Professionals in the Cayman Islands

Are you an ambitious HR professional looking to level up your career in the Cayman Islands? The Professional in Human Resources – International (PHRi) certification offered by HRCI is a powerful way to showcase your HR expertise on a global stage. The best part? You can achieve this milestone in your professional development through self-guided study, at your own pace, right here at home, with exam centres available at UCCI and ICCI.

At Nova Recruitment, we love seeing local professionals grow, and this guide is here to help you take that next bold step in your HR journey.

Step 1: Set Up Your Study Framework (180 Days of Access)

Once you register for the PHRi exam, HRCI provides you with 180 days of access to their online prep materials, including:

• Structured learning modules

• Practice exams

• Flashcards and learning games

This flexible timeline allows you to manage your studies around your schedule, perfect for full-time professionals or those juggling multiple commitments.

(Pro tip: buy the book in case you need more time to study as 180 days go by quickly and the online prep will only be available for this time]

Step 2: Make a Monthly Study Commitment

One of the most effective strategies is to break the study material down into manageable chunks. The PHRi prep consists of 7 core units, covering topics like Talent Acquisition, Employee Relations, and Compensation & Benefits.

Here’s what worked for me:

• Commit to completing 1–2 units per month

• Take notes along the way—this is key for retention and makes revision easier

• Partner with a study buddy to keep each other accountable - A study buddy can make a world of difference, helping you stay motivated and offering a peer-to-peer learning experience that keeps the concepts fresh.

Step 3: Use the Final 2 Weeks for Deep Review

As your exam date approaches, especially in the last two weeks, shift gears from learning to review mode:

• Revisit your notes and highlight key areas

• Complete timed practice tests on the HRCI platform as if they were the real deal to build confidence

• Use flashcards and learning games to sharpen recall

• Identify areas for improvement and give them extra focus

Step 4: Schedule Your Exam Locally

You can take the PHRi exam right here in the Cayman Islands, at either:

• University College of the Cayman Islands (UCCI)

• International College of the Cayman Islands (ICCI)

Tip: Book your exam early to secure the time slot that works best for you.

On exam day:

• Arrive early to avoid stress and allow for last-minute revision

• Know exactly where to go – if needed, visit the location of the testing centre building, the day before

Step 5: Test Day Tips

During the exam, stay calm and pace yourself. Remember the age-old advice:

If a question stumps you for more than 2–3 minutes, mark it and move on. You’ll circle back later with a clearer head.

The test format is designed to assess your breadth of knowledge and application skills, so trust your preparation. Once you complete the exam, the administrative staff will provide your results almost immediately—you'll know if you passed before you even leave the testing centre!

Step 6: You’re Now a Certified HR Pro – What’s Next?

Passing your PHRi is just the beginning of your professional journey. To maintain your certification, you’ll need to stay engaged with ongoing HR education through:

• HRCI-approved webinars

• Attending HR conferences and networking events

• Completing micro-certifications or online courses in areas like diversity & inclusion, performance management, or global HR strategy

Think of this as your passport to lifelong learning in HR.

Ready to Get Started?

Whether you're early in your HR career or looking to strengthen your international credentials, the PHRi is a rewarding certification that opens doors. With thoughtful planning, dedication, and the right resources, success is well within your reach!

Top Tips On Changing Your Career

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 13:46:00 GMT

Are you feeling stuck in your current job? It’s not uncommon, especially for those who have been in the same role or industry for years. The idea of a career change can be both exciting and daunting, but it’s essential to ensure that it’s the right move for you. Let’s explore some key steps you can take to successfully transition to a new career.

Is a Career Change Right for You?

Before taking the plunge, it’s crucial to reflect on your motivations. Are you looking for more fulfilment, a better work-life balance, or perhaps a role that aligns more closely with your values? Remember, changing careers is a big decision and sometimes can require some sacrifices to get there. However, the long-term benefits of being in a role and at a company that you love can far outweigh the initial challenges. After all, when you love your work, you’re more likely to achieve greater success and satisfaction in life.

Change Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Transitioning to a new career is often a gradual process. You might need to pursue additional qualifications or gain experience in a new field. This could involve taking night courses or volunteering for projects within your current job that align with your future goals. This approach not only enhances your skills but also protects your current salary as you progress toward a more senior position in your new career.

Tailoring Your Resume for a Career Change

When you’re ready to apply, it’s essential to tailor your resume to the role you’re targeting. Highlight skills, experiences, and education that are transferable to the new industry. This is especially important when shifting careers, as your previous experience may not directly relate to your new path. Focus on showcasing your adaptability, willingness to learn, and relevant accomplishments.

Don't Underestimate the Importance of Networking

Networking can be a game-changer, especially when you're considering a career change and might not have all the traditional qualifications desired for the role. Here's how it can help:

By leveraging these networking benefits, you can position yourself as a strong candidate, even if you don't tick every box on the job description. It's about showing your willingness to learn, your passion for the industry, and your ability to bring unique perspectives to the table.

Seek Support and Utilise Available Resources

Changing careers is a significant step, but you don't have to navigate it alone. Seeking support from professionals can make the transition smoother and more manageable. Nova Recruitment is proud to have helped found a non-profit organisation, Connect by Nova, dedicated to supporting individuals with their careers.

Reach Out for a Confidential Chat

If you're considering a career change, don't hesitate to reach out to our team for a confidential chat. Our recruitment team alongside the experienced career consultants at Connect are here to listen, provide advice, and support you as you embark on this exciting journey.

Remember, while changing careers can be daunting, there are plenty of resources and people ready to help you succeed. By researching, planning, networking, and utilising available training programs, you'll be well-prepared to move forward in your search for a new career.

How to Evaluate a Job Offer & Compensation Package

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 14:25:00 GMT

Congratulations! You’ve landed your dream job. Before accepting, you should evaluate the job offer and compensation package to ensure that it is what you’re looking for and will add value long-term to your career and personal circumstances.

How do you know if what you’re being offered is fair? How do you know if you should accept or refuse an offer? How do you know if your future employer is willing to negotiate? These are all questions you will likely consider when evaluating your job offer. Keep reading for insights and actionable tips to help you navigate the evaluation and negotiation stage of a job offer.

Be clear on your “must haves” and your “like-to-haves” in a job offer

First things first, to be in a position to evaluate a job offer, you need to have a clear understanding of what you need in terms of income and benefits to meet your personal circumstances. Everything from family situation to lifestyle will shape what this looks like, so we recommend asking yourself the questions below to clarify your individual requirements.

How much do I need to earn?

The amount you earn is an important factor when evaluating a job offer. Determining how much money is enough for your needs can be challenging, but exploring this question before accepting any position is worth the time.

What to consider:

What kind of benefits package am I looking for?

Health insurance and pension benefits are statutory inclusions in the Cayman Islands in your employment offer. However, if these essential factors are critical to your decision, it is worth asking your potential employer if your compensation package exceeds the statutory requirements and meets your personal needs. If not included in their current offerings, consider asking if there is room for improvement or additions later on down the line.

What to consider:

Where are you willing to compromise on the above?

After having outlined answers to the above, you should have in your mind a clear understanding of what your salary and benefits package requirements are; now it’s worthwhile considering where you would entertain compromise on these.

For example:

Do you have all the information to determine the actual value of your job offer?

The base salary is only part of an overall compensation package; other elements may impact your total pay and satisfaction with this new role. An excellent way to approach this process is by asking yourself these questions:

What is my base salary?

The base salary is usually stated first on a job offer letter and represents how much you will earn per year before deductions. It’s important to note that some companies could include benefits like full health insurance, signing-on bonuses, and commission payments as part of their overall salary package. Don’t forget to ask about these in your negotiation process.

What kind of benefits are included in your job offer?

It’s important to compare the benefits on offer and compare them to your list of “must-haves” and “like-to-haves” we spoke of earlier, where you are willing to compromise, or where you draw the hard line. Sometimes the company’s benefits are readily outlined in a job offer/contract; however, for some of the more unique benefits, you may need to speak to your recruiter or the hiring manager for more clarity on the benefits available.

Some common benefits in Cayman are:

Remote working opportunities
Vacation days over the statutory requirements
Work-from-home allowances
Health & wellness days
Extended maternity leave
Paternity leave
Stock/share options

Know your value in the current market

Compare similar jobs

When evaluating a job offer and compensation package, comparing similar jobs across several employers in the same market environment is helpful. Assessing the offer allows you to see how each employer stacks up against the others regarding salary, benefits, and other factors like work environment and culture. You may also want to consider location when comparing jobs.

For example:

Speak to your recruiter about your job offer

When working with a recruiter , they are there not only to help you find a new position but also work with you to ensure you receive the best possible compensation package from your new employer. They have access to benefits and salary data across the different industries they recruit for, which has been collated from several years of experience in the marketplace. Remember using a recruiter as a candidate does not cost you anything; they help you and the prospective employer secure the best possible outcome during the job offer process.

Nova Recruitment publishes a Salary Guide annually, which includes up-to-date salary data and insights into the employment market in the Cayman Islands.

Don’t be afraid to negotiate your job offer

We know the thought of negotiating your offer can be stressful, but we also believe that if done correctly, it will help you find a job where your personal and career goals align with the company’s needs. As mentioned, working with a recruiter is a benefit at this stage. Our team can help you in the negotiation stages, speaking to the hiring team on your behalf to find a happy resolution that appeases both parties.

To learn more about Nova’s recruitment services and how we can help you with your job search and negotiations, contact our team at info@nova.ky . You can also complete our consultation request form and come in for a meeting now that you know what to expect!

Develop Your Career in Insolvency

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 15:18:00 GMT

Discovering the Lucrative Career Path of Corporate Insolvency

There is consistently a high volume of insolvency work in the Cayman Islands and many firms are eager to build their teams up with bright young stars to grow into the profession through traineeship positions, giving budding young finance professionals an incredible opportunity to break into this lucrative career path.

What Exactly is Corporate Insolvency?

Simply put, corporate insolvency work is created when a company cannot pay back those who are owed money. When this happens, the company enters liquidation and is liquidated. Liquidation involves the sale of a company’s assets, and the return of that money to its creditors (those owed money), or shareholders (those who invested in the company). It also involves an investigation into why the company has come to the end of its life.

What Does the Insolvency Market Look Like in Cayman?

In the Cayman Islands, the majority of the corporate liquidations involve liquidating a hedge fund. As the Cayman Islands has approximately 80% of the world’s hedge funds registered here , any liquidation of any of those hedge funds must be completed by an insolvency firm in Cayman.

Some liquidations are very simple and straight forward, however some become very complex, and extensive investigations need to be completed. This often includes fraud investigation, which occurs when someone involved has stolen money, and can be interesting and exciting to work on. Large and complex liquidations in Cayman will also often involve working to identify assets and manage operations located all over the world.

Given the nature of insolvency, a career in this industry is regarded as being lucrative and stable, as this type of work is always required as part of the financial lifecycle. This means you’ll have job security whether the markets are doing well, or not.

Career Progression in Insolvency

Insolvency careers in the Cayman Islands can be very rewarding and lucrative. Whilst everyone's career path is unique, the loose progression path someone might see working in the industry is outlined below.

A Day in the Life of an Insolvency Trainee

One of our successful candidates recently started as an insolvency trainee a few months ago. We spoke with them to find out what the role of an Insolvency Trainee is like day-to-day so you can see if this might be the career for you.

Let’s Talk About A Career in Insolvency

Insolvency is a very dynamic and exciting industry – no liquidation is ever the same, and there is always a new set of facts and issues to investigate. In the world of financial services, this is one of the most exciting niches to work in.

You don’t have to be completely sold that this is the career for you right this second. Speak with our recruitment team to chat in more detail about an opportunity in insolvency and if it could be the start of a promising and lucrative career.

What are the Benefits of Using a Recruiter?

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 18:17:03 GMT

The benefits of using a recruiter are endless for both job seekers and hiring managers, there really is no downside to having a recruiter in your job seeking toolbox.

What Does a Recruiter Do?

First things first, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page here of what exactly a recruiter does. In simple terms, you can think of recruiters like professional matchmakers; they help job seekers find their dream job, and help businesses find the perfect fit for their team.

Recruiters have access to hundreds of active jobs and thousands of actively seeking candidates. From this pool of jobs and candidates, they work to find the ideal fit, matching the client’s job with an ideal candidate. Recruiters aim to match beyond just technical skill/expertise, but also take into consideration cultural fit and big-picture career and personal goals for their candidates.

For a more in-depth understanding of what to expect when working with a recruiter, check out our blog on the subject.

What are the Benefits of Using a Recruiter as a Job Seeker?

Knowledge & Insights

Access to More Job Vacancies

Working with a recruiter gives you access to many more job opportunities than you’d come across on your own. As a job seeker, if you want to stay on top of all the current positions out there, you must keep your eyes peeled across printed media, job boards, career pages and social media. If that sounds like a job on its own, that’s because it is, it’s called being a recruiter.

Recruitment agencies consistently work with countless organizations and know about hundreds of job openings at once. On top of this, recruiters are usually the first to hear about new roles and will reach out when one ticks all the boxes you’ve identified that are of interest to you, meaning that you don’t have to fret that you’re missing out on interesting opportunities that match your career goals.

Negotiation Support

Your recruiter understands your salary expectations, skill level and experience, and what you are expecting from a job offer . They are also aware of the salary range and benefits their clients are willing to provide for the role in question. With this information, your recruiter can aid in negotiation discussions to try and find a happy middle ground that meets the needs of both parties.

Confidentiality & Data Protection

The recruiters here at Nova are GDPR and DPA compliant, meaning we have a duty of care to the job seeker and the employer. To be compliant means we will never share your information without your consent, so you can feel confident that you will only be represented to our clients should you expressly agree to be.

It's Free!

Using a recruiter as a job seeker is entirely free of charge. Our team will never charge you as a candidate for putting you forward to our clients for positions. A recruitment company's revenue comes from a ‘placement fee’, which is paid by the employer when an employment offer is accepted by a candidate - hence why the recruiter wants to find that perfect match!

Receive Useful Feedback

As your recruiter has trusted relationships with their clients, they can often get more candid feedback throughout the recruitment process. Where possible, your recruiter will speak to hiring teams and provide feedback and insights on where improvements could be made should there be another round of interviews. You benefit from their experience and knowledge throughout the entire process.

There really isn’t a downside to working with a recruiter as a job seeker. With a completely free service that gives you access to more positions of interest, useful feedback, and quality network connections, there’s no reason not to give it a go and register with a recruiter.

To learn more about Nova's recruitment services and how we can help you, register your profile with our tram today and we'll be in touch ASAP to discuss opportunities.

Nova Recruitment Celebrates Placing Over 500 Caymanians in the Local Workforce

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 16:51:40 GMT

Nova Recruitment is proud to announce a significant milestone: placing over 500 talented Caymanian candidates into various roles across the local workforce.

Since its inception in 2017, Nova has connected local job seekers with meaningful employment that aligns with their long-term career goals. Our mission is to connect Cayman Islands job seekers with meaningful careers. The company focuses on professional services positions, including administrative and financial services support roles, serving as a bridge between local talent and employment opportunities.

In reviewing the numbers so far for 2024, 92% of Nova’s placements were Caymanians; only one position the team has placed has required a work permit, which was for a niche role where no local talent was identified to fit the needs of the hiring manager at that time.

The predominant areas the Nova team has placed talent in so far in 2024 is within non-qualified accounting and financial support positions, followed closely by compliance. Nova is not just focused on financial services jobs however, we have clients in several sectors hiring in a variety of areas, including human resources, general administration, insurance, marketing, and property management.

The Nova team have always had this in mind and went beyond the services they could offer as just a recruitment agency with the founding of the registered non-profit, Connect By Nova in 2020, which focuses on providing career readiness and advancement support for Caymanians of all ages.

Whether you’re a job seeker or an employer, Nova is here to make the process simple and stress-free, reach out today to see how we can help you love your work.

Discovering my HR Passion: The Nova Apprenticeship Experience

Thu, 09 May 2024 16:19:12 GMT

Embracing Change, Inspiring Growth:

My Leap into Nova’s HR Apprenticeship

I'm thrilled to share my first blog post with you! This is all very new to me, and I appreciate the opportunity to express how I got to where I am today, what I'm up to, and why I'm overjoyed to be a part of Nova’s team in the HR Apprenticeship program. Thanks for joining me on this exciting journey!

Before I found Nova.

Well, in my case, Nova actually found me, and at the time when I became familiar with them, I was a full-time university student who had only ever done summer internships and seasonal gift wrapping. At the time, I was pursuing my BBA at Brock University in Canada but was still trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to pursue as a career.

Although I loved math in high school, two accounting internships later, I realised accounting may not be my true calling. However, after taking some more business-related courses, I discovered an interest in the field of Human Resources. Following my bachelor's degree, I decided to pursue an MBA with a specialisation in Human Resource Management with the end goal of working in HR back in Cayman.

When Nova Found Me.

I still remember it like it was yesterday – I had never even heard of Nova before and was in the process of packing to fly back home from university when our Recruitment Consultant, Jasmine Zerjal, reached out to me on LinkedIn for a junior role she was working on for one of her clients. My travelling posed a slight scheduling barrier for us, but Nova was more than accommodating in arranging a suitable time to meet with me.

Before my initial call with Jasmine, I did not know how the process worked when working with a recruitment agency in the slightest. Surely there had to be some catch because why would these people spend their time to help find a job for me at no cost to me!? I am so thankful for that initial call and conversation with their team as they’ve helped me more than I could have ever imagined.

Support From Connect by Nova.

After meeting with Jasmine, she referred me to Connect by Nova , a career development/advancement non-profit that Nova helped to found, which was instrumental in not only landing me in the position I am in today, but also contributing to my professional development as a whole. In the process, I absolutely fell in love with what Connect stands for and what they do, and I have referred many of my friends to them for career support.

After perfecting my CV with the help of Connect, Nova placed me on a temp assignment the summer before I joined their team, where I got to experience first-hand the attention and care that they extend to their candidates. After my placement, I returned to Canada to complete the final semester of my MBA, where I came across the opportunity for Nova’s Apprenticeship Program and I reached out to the team asking to be put forward for it.

A New Chapter: Becoming the HR Apprentice

As the saying goes: “the rest is history” - so here I am!

This is my first full-time job, and I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to set me on my path to becoming an HR Professional – I’m not only learning about all the various functional areas of HR, such as recruitment, labour law, and immigration, but I’ve been given the opportunity to gain valuable insights into the Cayman Islands job market as a whole. I’ve also learned crucial information about employability and what recruiters look for, so I am now better equipped to help others market themselves for a job. I love my work because I can help those in my community, and it brings a new experience each day.

Being a part of Nova, I don’t just love my work, but I also love those who I work with; the team dynamic is unmatched, and I’ve had an amazing time getting to know everyone. As their HR Apprentice, everyone has been beyond welcoming and has been dedicated to supporting my career growth and progression as they frame everything as a learning opportunity.

I’m beyond happy to have been selected for this wonderful role, and I’m ecstatic to see what the next two years will bring!

Nova's "Tomorrow’s HR Talent" apprenticeship program was built for aspiring HR talent in Cayman. The apprenticeship is a 24-month program, where the apprentice works towards a professional HR designation, whilst gaining exposure across our recruitment, immigration, and HR consulting teams.

Environmental Economics, Swim Team Success and Winter in New York City

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 16:58:42 GMT

Love Your Future 2023 Educational Grant Recipient - Krishna Adapa updates us on his studies in New York

This semester has proven to be quite demanding as I navigated through numerous changes while balancing the demands of a student-athlete lifestyle. This semester saw me take on an additional major, complementing my ongoing pursuit of a degree in Business Management and in Economics. The rapid transformations over the past few years have fueled my growing fascination with economics and its profound relevance in the world.

Adapting to New York Winters

As December unfolds, marking a season of significant changes, the weather has steadily grown colder, and the days shorter. Being an island boy all my life, adapting to the shorter days and diminished daylight, common during New York winters, has presented its own set of challenges. Staying connected with friends and family back home has been instrumental in keeping me grounded and feeling less homesick throughout the semester.

The Nova Educational Grant has provided me with the financial ease to embark on this academic journey, facilitating the inclusion of extra classes. To accommodate the increased workload, I opted for a summer class, freeing up space in my fall semester for additional courses. Eager to delve deeper into my newfound academic pursuits, I enthusiastically enrolled in three economics classes, a decision that, in hindsight, might have been overly ambitious. Nevertheless, I am relishing every moment in each class, with particular enthusiasm for my Environmental Economics course.

Appreciation for Environmental Conservation

Growing up in the Cayman Islands, surrounded by pristine beaches and crystal-clear waters, instilled in me a profound appreciation for environmental conservation. This semester's focus was eye-opening in relation to the interplay between the:

Environment
Population growth
Economic needs

Especially engaging has been my Quantitative Analysis and Forecasting class, initially intimidating but ultimately rewarding. I successfully presented my research proposal on 'Pollution's Effect on Crime Rate' in different New York counties, earning commendation from my professor.

Insights into the Cayman Islands Impact on Pollution

In my final research project, I aspire to investigate the impact of pollution on tourism in the Cayman Islands, aiming to contribute valuable insights to my homeland. Despite the academic rigor, I continued to compete on the university swim team throughout the semester. While our team faced challenges, particularly on the boys' side with injuries and departures, we persevered, exhibiting resilience in close competitions. Personally, this semester marked success in swimming, consistently securing high placements and contributing points, despite facing scheduling conflicts that impacted my training consistency.

Looking ahead to the next semester, I am thrilled about a more manageable class schedule, affording me additional time for training leading up to the championship meet in February. Reflecting on both successes and challenges from the previous year, I feel more prepared than ever to embrace the opportunities and experiences awaiting me in 2024.

You Could be Next!

Could you be the next Nova Love Your Work Educational Grant recipient? Our educational grant is open to any course of study that will allow you to pursue a career you love here in Cayman. The closing date for applications is on the 15th May annually.

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Hiring and Retention

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 21:13:33 GMT

Building a Stronger Workplace Through Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Hiring and Retaining Top Talent

In today’s competitive job market, finding and retaining top talent is a priority for every organisation. While technical skills and qualifications are essential, there is another key factor that plays a significant role in shaping an organisation's success: emotional intelligence—the ability to understand oneself and others well enough to manage relationships effectively.

Emotional intelligence is a critical skill for leaders and managers, but it is also important for employees at all levels. In fact, research shows that people with high levels of emotional intelligence are more likely to be successful in their careers than those who lack this trait.

In this blog, we will explore the importance of emotional intelligence in the hiring and retention process, highlighting how it improves workplace culture, leadership potential, and fosters inclusivity and diversity.

Identifying Emotional Intelligence in the Hiring Process

Incorporating emotional intelligence as a criterion in the hiring process allows organisations to select candidates who not only have the right skills but also possess the ability to thrive in team environments and adapt to ever-changing workplace dynamics.

Not sure how to assess this sought-after intangible skill? Check out our blog to learn more.

Emotional Intelligence and Retention

Employee retention is a critical aspect of organisational success. Employees who are satisfied and fulfilled in their roles are more likely to stay committed to the company. This is where emotional intelligence plays a vital role.

Employees with high emotional intelligence are better equipped to handle workplace challenges, manage stress, and build positive relationships with their colleagues. By fostering a culture that values emotional intelligence, organisations can create an environment where employees feel supported, appreciated, and engaged, increasing job satisfaction and retention rates.

Emotional Intelligence for Leadership Potential

Leadership is not solely defined by technical expertise and authority. An emotionally intelligent leader possesses the ability to connect with their team on a deeper level. They understand and respond to the emotions and needs of their employees, fostering a sense of trust, collaboration, and motivation. By identifying and cultivating emotionally intelligent leaders, organizations can build a strong foundation for effective leadership, leading to improved employee engagement, productivity, and overall success.

Emotional Intelligence and Inclusivity & Diversity

Creating an inclusive and diverse workplace is not just a matter of checking boxes. It requires empathy, understanding, and the ability to navigate cultural nuances. Emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in building an inclusive and diverse environment. Individuals who possess emotional intelligence are more likely to embrace different perspectives, challenge biases, and create spaces where everyone feels valued and respected.

By prioritising emotional intelligence, organisations can take meaningful steps towards fostering inclusivity and diversity within their teams, leading to innovation, better decision-making, and stronger collaborations.

Embracing Emotional Intelligence

In an ever-evolving job landscape, the role of emotional intelligence cannot be underestimated. By placing an emphasis on hiring and fostering emotional intelligence within your employees, organisations can create a workplace culture that promotes collaboration, empathy, and growth. Investing in emotional intelligence not only benefits individual employees but also leads to improved productivity, employee satisfaction, and, ultimately, business success. As job seekers and employers, let us prioritise emotional intelligence in our efforts to build relationships, empower individuals, and achieve our dreams together.

At Nova Recruitment, we understand the significance of emotional intelligence in finding fulfilling careers and attracting top talent. Contact us today to discover how we can support you in your job search or help you find exceptional candidates who embody the power of emotional intelligence. Together, let's forge a path towards personal and organisational success.

Employers: How to assess for emotional intelligence during the hiring process

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 20:58:27 GMT

Unlocking the Power of Emotional Intelligence in Your Hiring Process

In today's competitive job market, finding and retaining top talent is a priority for every organisation. While technical skills and qualifications are essential, there is another key factor that plays a significant role in shaping an organisation's success: emotional intelligence. In this blog, we will explore how you can better assess for this highly sought-after skill.

Emotional Intelligence: What to Look for

Traditionally, hiring decisions have been based on qualifications, experience, and technical expertise. However, emotional intelligence is increasingly becoming a sought-after trait in potential candidates. More than ever, employers recognise the value of individuals who can navigate social dynamics, communicate effectively, and empathise with others. Incorporating emotional intelligence as a criterion in the hiring process allows organisations to select candidates who not only have the right skills but also possess the ability to thrive in team environments and adapt to ever-changing workplace dynamics.

As such an intangible trait, you're probably asking yourself, "How can I assess if candidates have strong levels of emotional intelligence"? You're not the only one! There isn't really a one-size-fits-all answer, but here are some of my thoughts on what to look for:

Self-Awareness

Look for candidates who have a clear understanding of their own emotions, strengths, and areas for growth. They should be able to articulate their feelings and reflect on their actions in different situations. Assess their ability to recognise and manage stress and their willingness to seek feedback for self-improvement.

Empathy

Empathy is an essential trait when building strong relationships and collaborating effectively. Seek candidates who show genuine concern for others' feelings and perspectives. During interviews, observe their ability to listen attentively, understand diverse viewpoints, and respond with empathy and compassion.

social skills

Strong social skills are crucial for fostering healthy work relationships and teamwork. Look for candidates who excel in communication, conflict resolution, and building rapport with others. Assess their ability to navigate social dynamics, cooperate with colleagues, and contribute positively to a team-oriented environment.

emotional regulation

Emotionally intelligent individuals are skilled at managing their emotions in various work scenarios. Identify candidates who can remain calm under pressure, handle conflicts with diplomacy, and make rational decisions even in stressful situations. Consider asking situational questions during interviews to gauge their emotional composure and problem-solving abilities.

Emotional Intelligence: How to Assess for it

When it comes to assessing emotional intelligence during the hiring process, it's important to use a combination of different methods. Here are some specific strategies you can use to evaluate candidates:

Situational/Behavioural Interview Questions

Ask candidates to provide specific examples of how they have demonstrated emotional intelligence in the past.

For example, you can ask them to describe a time when they had to manage a difficult conversation with a coworker or how they handled a stressful situation in the workplace. Look for candidates who are able to provide detailed responses and who can demonstrate their ability to manage their emotions and communicate effectively.

Psychometric Tests

There are many psychometric tests available that can help assess emotional intelligence. These tests can measure a variety of different traits, including empathy, social skills, and emotional regulation. We offer personality/psychometric testing for clients on request, reach out to us for more information.

REFERENCES

When checking references, ask previous employers about the candidate's emotional intelligence. Specifically, ask about their ability to collaborate with others, manage their emotions, and communicate effectively.

By using a combination of these strategies, you can gain a better understanding of a candidate's emotional intelligence and their ability to thrive in a collaborative work environment. Remember that emotional intelligence is a dynamic trait that can be nurtured and developed, so look for candidates who show a willingness to grow in this area.

Emotional Intelligence: Let us help you find it

In an ever-evolving job landscape, emotional intelligence has become a vital factor in hiring and retaining top talent. By assessing candidates' self-awareness, empathy, social skills, and emotional regulation, you can select individuals who will contribute positively to your workplace culture and foster strong relationships within your team.

Embracing an Opportunity Mindset: Unlocking Success in Your Job Search

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 19:57:22 GMT

In today's competitive job market, job seekers often find themselves grappling with doubts, rejections, and overwhelming challenges. However, by embracing an opportunity mindset, job seekers can transform setbacks into stepping stones, develop resilience, and build lasting professional relationships.

Keep reading to understand the importance of shifting perspective and explore the many benefits that come with embracing opportunities rather than dwelling on hiccups in your job search journey.

When You Focus on Problems

Rejections become personal failures: Viewing rejections as personal failures can negatively impact self-confidence and self-worth, leading to a cycle of self-doubt and hesitation.

Doubt in abilities and worth: A problem-focused mindset often leads to job seekers questioning their own abilities and worthiness, hindering their ability to seize opportunities and pursue desired career paths.

Overwhelmed by competition and market challenges: Focusing on problems, such as intense competition and market challenges, can leave job seekers feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed, limiting their ability to take proactive steps towards success.

When You Focus on Opportunities

Every rejection becomes a learning curve, a step closer to the perfect role: Shifting focus to opportunities allows job seekers to view rejections as valuable learning experiences. Each rejection brings them one step closer to finding the ideal role and helps them refine their approach for future opportunities.

Development of resilience, adaptability, and proactive upskilling: Embracing challenges as opportunities fosters resilience and adaptability. Job seekers become better equipped to handle setbacks, adapt to changes, and actively upskill themselves to align with industry demands, positioning themselves as highly desirable candidates.

Networking isn’t just about landing a job but building lasting professional relationships: By approaching networking with an opportunity mindset, job seekers open doors to building lasting professional relationships. Surrounding themselves with positive influences boosts confidence and opens doors to even more opportunities. These relationships provide support, guidance, and potential mentorship that can be a game-changer in their career journey.

Here are a few actionable tips that you can implement in their job search journey to embrace an opportunity mindset:

To learn more about Nova's recruitment services and how we can help you, complete our consultation request form to contact our team today.

Scholarship: Achievements Aplenty for Reon Porter

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 08:35:00 GMT

It’s currently December already. Wow; It feels like the year has gone past so quickly! In the early parts of May, I remember grabbing my instructor and convincing him to film a video of me flying so I could submit for the Nova Scholarship, and I am now the proud recipient of the 2022 NOVA “Love Your Future” Award .

Scholarship & Achievements Aplenty

I know what’s coming: Where am I? What have I been doing? How’s school going? One question at a time, please, and I’ll sign autographs at the end! When writing this blog, I am on a plane from Egypt to Austria – don’t worry, I’ll explain shortly!

I am proud to say that this season of my life has seen much excitement and many achievements, so I’m going to quickly rattle off the list of what’s happened this semester.

Not All That Glitters is Gold

I won’t sugarcoat everything though because not all that glitters is gold. I won’t just tell you that school is going fantastic, and I love it there because even while that is undeniably true, nothing beats eating conch and Mahi Mahi on Seven Mile Beach and watching the sunset.

I will, however, say that it has been quite a smooth sailing semester: 7 Classes, 5 Flights A Week, 3 Jobs, 2 Hurricanes, and a partridge in a pear tree!

How am, I surviving all that? Coffee and hope, but Walmart seems to be out of hope, so I have settled for ambition.

The Journey Continues

All formalities aside, the Nova Scholarship this year has made a difference in my university journey, so much so that you have seen I picked up a minor in sustainability. With that, I was also selected by the Cayman Islands National Trust to attend the UNFCC COP27 in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt. Plane ride making sense now?

It has indeed been such an inspirational and beneficial conference, not to mention a whirlpool of networking. It’s only December, so stay tuned for more as my journey continues!

Reon Porter is the recipient of the 2022 “Love Your Future” Scholarship. To find out more about Nova’s scholarship opportunities, click here .

Management Role – Are you Ready to Step Up?

Sun, 06 Nov 2022 08:45:00 GMT

Do you think about a management role within your company, but one question keeps nagging: Are you ready to step up?

You feel secure in your role and know you have produced consistent results. Within your current position, you have forged strong bonds of trust with your colleagues. Although you are proud of your accomplishments, does this mean you are ready to move up the corporate ladder?

Ask yourself these questions to help you through the twists and turns of entering the realm of management.

Do you have the patience to help others?

Becoming a manager means that you are going to become the go-to person for questions and queries in your team. Are you ready to help? Or do you see the continued interruptions as an annoyance in your workday? How will you react?

If this does not sound like your cup of tea, then perhaps you are not ready to step up to guide others. But if you relish the opportunity to help others learn and grow, maybe there is a management role suited for you.

Can you give up some of your control?

You may be asking yourself “If I am the manager, then why am I giving up control? Do I not get more power?” Yes, you do, but the manager title does not give you carte blanche to boss everyone around. Managing a team involves releasing some control by trusting your direct reports that things are getting done correctly.

You are accountable for what your team produces, but you need to delegate and trust your team to empower others.

Do you enjoy collaborating with others?

You should be excited about heading into a brainstorming session rather than thinking of it as a chore. Team meetings are a highlight, where collaboration flows. As a manager, you will have more and more meetings and regular check-ins with your team and other supervisors and team leaders; you should enjoy this collaboration time.

A large chunk of your workweek will be away from your desk and often spent working with others. Does this sound like a disaster? Perhaps now is not the right time to move up.

Are you a problem solver?

As a manager, people expect to use you as a resource, especially those that work below you. Are you already treated as the go-to person within your firm? To be a strong manager, you need to be able to go beyond identifying problems; you need to be able to provide solutions and collaborate with others to do so. Problem-solving indicates that you are ready to formalize your leadership role.

Everyone knows you roll up your sleeves when a problem or challenge arises. You are motivated to solve an issue rather than pass the buck. If this is you, then you are not only ready to be a good manager but a great one.

Do you love to celebrate other’s successes?

How do you feel when someone in your company achieves a significant win? Jealous or celebrating? If you are the one organizing the celebration, then it is a reliable sign that you are more than ready to step up to that management role.

Remember, if one of your team members fails, you have also failed! But if one of your team members has a win, you do too!

Are you invested in the growth and development of others?

Successful managers should want to see their team grow by championing development opportunities throughout their careers. Your team members will be ready and confident when it’s their time to step up the corporate ladder .

As you develop your skills for that first jump into management, you may want to think about the different management-style questions you could be asked at an interview. Reviewing these ahead of time will stand you in good stead for that first leap of faith.

______________________________________________________________________________

It can be challenging to tell if you are ready to become a manager. It’s a step up, more responsibility, and you need to be confident that you will do a great job. If you can identify with these six questions, it will help you decide if you are ready for a new exciting and demanding role.

A final thought, every manager must take that first step into managing people, and someone has to give them that opportunity in the first place.

Are you looking for a new opportunity and interested in moving into a management position? At Nova, we constantly look to place candidates in management roles . Reach out to our team at Nova for more information. Email info@nova.ky or call 1 345 623 1029 to arrange a confidential chat about your move up the corporate ladder.

HR Apprentice: Hungry for Knowledge & Chocolate!

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 17:53:00 GMT

As Nova’s HR Apprentice for the last two years, I have grown personally and professionally. But there is no universe where I would have envisioned myself studying voluntarily. Surprisingly, the overall experience has been good for me, and upskilling is something I’m going to convince myself to do every year going forward. I can say with utmost confidence this would never have even been a consideration had I not started this apprenticeship.

Top-Secret Projects

I’m pleased with how much I’ve grown thus far. I’ve been lucky enough to have been assigned essential roles on projects, helped organize work events, and now actively use spreadsheets to keep track of all my current projects. I’ve even gained experience that I am proud of by working with the HR team on top-secret client projects. There’s still so much I need to learn, but this is easily the most organized I’ve ever been, which is beneficial at home and the workplace. I’ve had the privilege of sitting in on several meetings, where at this point, I can convince clients, candidates, and colleagues that I’m not only following along but able to contribute intelligently to the discussions.

Networking at a Golf Tournament

My work on the Social Committee, paired with the work environment and culture, have also pulled my personal and career interests in directions I would never have thought possible. Over the last year, I’ve practiced yoga (or, as I used to refer to it, ‘New Wave Stretching’) at the same time as my colleagues (not with them, that’s another story). I recently helped with our corporate golf tournament, which surprisingly was a good time, and I’m now looking into lessons. Previously I regarded golf as perhaps one of the dullest pastimes, but I see it now as a great way to network .

HR and Recruitment Foundation Firmly Grasped

Over the past two years, we have seen society go through pandemics, war, and eternal inflation with no sign of slowing down. For myself, though, my two years as the Nova HR Apprentice has left me feeling accomplished. I greatly admire and respect my colleagues (and, dare I say, friends), and I enjoy my position immensely. With an HR and recruitment foundation firmly grasped and as I plan my future, I am fortunate to develop my career goals within a great team at Nova .

Malique Richards   is the current Tomorrow’s HR Talent Apprentice , working with the Nova Recruitment team during a 2-year rotational program. Throughout his apprenticeship, he learns all there is to know about HR & Recruitment here in Cayman.

Temporary Work: Benefits to a College Graduate

Mon, 15 Aug 2022 17:33:00 GMT

As a college graduate, you likely aspire to find your dream job now that you have finished schooling, but many find it’s not as easy as they had hoped. Let us give you a piece of advice you may not have considered!

While the college you studied at and the degree you gained looks great on your application, we have to be honest with you; finding the perfect job out of college may not be as easy as you’d like it to be. Or you may be lucky and find something straight away; it really depends on your skills and the demand of the market at the time you’re looking!

So, if you are a recent college graduate and you’re looking to get into the working world, what can you do to start your career off? One of the things I’d recommend is considering temporary work (sometimes also known as a contract job). We’ve spoken about the general advantages of accepting temporary work before, but in this blog, we’ll specifically talk through the advantages to college graduates.

The Benefits of Temporary Work as a College Graduate

A Great Transition Opportunity

If you are new to working, temporary work can be a great transition into the working world. As a newbie, accepting a contract job can also help you better perceive how your chosen career will run daily. This you will gain a better understanding of whether it is or is not the right path for you.

To all employers and hiring managers, having the right experience and knowledge is key. By accepting a temporary placement, you will gain experience using many tools that are commonplace in your study of interest. You can learn anything from specific niche software programs to key communication skills and how to engage in office banter.

*Our career partner Connect by Nova offers free training on transitioning from student to high-performing employee; check out their upcoming trainings to register.

Practical Knowledge

A good university professor and challenging courses can teach you to become an amateur expert in your chosen industry. However, university knowledge, until you get out into the working world, may not compare to businesses’ nitty-gritty, day-to-day operations. By temping, you get a practical lesson in how your chosen job is done on the ground – rather than how it is perceived and taught.

True, the tasks you get as a temp might not be as challenging as in a full-time role, but when you put your mind to it, there is usually room to take on some more challenges. Taking on these tasks gives you something University couldn’t do; it gives you an elevated perspective on the career of your choice. After, you can self-assess – “Is this the career truly right for me?”

Learning to Work in a Working Environment

Life in an organization filled with busy people trying to get things done whilst managing and supporting one another is a unique experience. Being exposed to a well-oiled environment should only be appreciated. You can undoubtedly learn many things by working alongside people already in your chosen career, such as office procedures, effective methods of organization, working effectively in a large team and other key soft skills. Environments like this are usually foreign to new graduates, but it allows them to form invaluable skills you wouldn’t have learned in college.

One Foot in the Door

Temporary work is also a great way to get your foot in the door. While you may only start off on a temporary contract, there are sometimes opportunities for those contracts to be extended, or hiring managers may realize there’s actually a need for someone in that role on a permanent basis. If you can show your value, work hard and that you integrate seamlessly into their team, then they are more likely to hire you who they already know than have to go through a formal recruitment process to fill the role.

Are you a college graduate looking for a foot in the door? Nova Recruitment works with many employers on temporary contracts and can help you kickstart your career. Please get in touch with us at info@nova.ky for more information.

What is Upskilling, and Why is it Important?

Fri, 10 Jun 2022 13:32:00 GMT

According to the experts, upskilling is one of the most urgent challenges the workforce faces in its future. By learning new skills, workers can future-proof themselves against workforce changes, especially with more talk of automation on the horizon. The workplace is rapidly changing, and upskilling is curbing the fear that workers’ jobs will become obsolete.

The World Economic Forum states: that upskilling is crucial to the post-Covid economic recovery; it could boost global GDP by over $6 trillion and create 5.3 million new jobs by 2030.

New Technologies and Automations are on the rise

Before the pandemic, we could not anticipate how dramatically the world would change over the last two years. How we work, live, and think about the future has drastically changed. Before Covid-19, the rise of new technologies and automation increased within the global job market. Now, with a re-emerging workforce, it has highlighted the urgent need for upskilling and reskilling in the workplace.

There is a clear message that with a rapidly changing workforce, we need new skills. But what is upskilling? Many current employees, or even those returning to work, don’t know what it means or how to upskill themselves.

Anyone can upskill – Help is out there

Awareness of what you need to do is one of the most significant barriers, but fortunately, anyone can upskill, and there are plenty of resources to help once you know where to start.

Ultimately you want to be a more effective worker and stay relevant and competitive in your industry. With upskilling, there is potential to get noticed for more recognition or position yourself for better opportunities.

Jobs are changing fast, even if you are not changing position. Simple examples of upskilling can be learning a new skill in a program that you use every day, like Excel or practising tips on how to have an effective performance conversation with your manager. These simple examples of upskilling can help you be more productive in your role and set you up for possible promotion.

Hard Skills & Soft Skills – what’s the difference?

There have been lots written about hard skills versus soft skills. As a reminder:

Hard skills refer to job-related knowledge and abilities you need to perform your duties effectively. Soft skills are personal qualities that help employees thrive in the workplace.

Upskilling your hard skills can be learning how to use new software or basic graphic design. Soft skills can include practising your listening skills and giving and accepting constructive criticism. Upskilling can be anything that would benefit your current role, boost your resume, and generally help you do your job better and further your career progression.

There are some great resources to help you on your upskilling journey:

Connect by Nova – our sister non-profit, assisting the Cayman Islands to achieve career success through career guidance and training services
47 Free Online Classes to Improve Your Career (and they are FREE)
Skillshare – thousands of creative courses taught by experts to help you learn new skills
Coursera – advance your career with more than 5000 courses, certificates, and degrees
Udemy – learning marketplace with over 150,000 courses
LinkedIn Learning – Learn in-demand skills with over 16,000 online courses taught by real-world professionals

Try and get ahead of the curve

Remember to think about what skills are essential in your sector. Take a step back and read about what’s happening in the wider industry. If you are in marketing or media, check out new apps, social media platforms, and how consumer trends are emerging. HR Professionals could look at becoming competent in a new, in-demand information system. And lastly, say you work in oil and gas, taking a course on green energy, electric vehicles, or emerging technologies could benefit your future career.

Upskilling shows that you are invested in your job and are looking for a better future; It will help you get ahead and find passion in your work. The world is changing around us at a quickening rate. Re-motivate yourself and start upskilling today!

Our professional recruiters at Nova Recruitment can review your resume and with assistance from our career partners at Connect by Nova may be able to help you identify areas for upskilling that would benefit your career search or growth. Contact Nova at info@nova.ky for more information.

How to Feel Positive by Creating your Feedback Folder!

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 19:10:00 GMT

With the help of this blog, we can show you how to stay positive and create your feedback folder. It can be challenging to stay upbeat after another year, overwhelmed with news of the continuing pandemic. As we look forward to a constructive start to the new year, it’s a time to reflect on the past twelve months and remember your career accomplishments.

But are you someone who struggles to remember what you have achieved? Do you sometimes feel like you suffer from imposter syndrome and lack confidence in some of the work you do? If that’s the case, it’s time to create your very own ‘You are Freaking Fabulous’ feedback folder so that confidence can be found at the click of a button and remind you just how great you are.

What is a Feedback Folder?

A ‘Freaking Fabulous’ folder, I hear you ask. What is it? It’s your feedback file—an opportunity to collect and store gratitude you have received across your professional career. Somewhere you can go on a day when you need to reaffirm your skills and confidence after a bout of imposter syndrome . A place to remind you of wins!

After navigating a challenging day, your folder is a source of encouragement, received as feedback from your boss, colleagues, clients, and other professionals. Revisiting these positive experiences (and constructive criticisms) will boost your confidence, help you practice self-care and motivate you to achieve new goals in the future.

Don’t think you will be the only one with this treasure trove; other professionals, leaders and your peers are all collecting their feedback to add to their folders! Search on LinkedIn or other social media platforms, and you will find others that have their version of the ‘Freaking Fabulous’ folder. Your folder is an excellent tool to reflect on great experiences and re-live those crucial accolades.

Need to re-focus after dealing with an unappreciative client or colleague? Reach out for your feedback folder to help you move forward after an unexpected confrontation. Home in on your talents and feel empowered by the stellar praise you have gathered, turning a negative situation into a positive one.

How to Create your Feedback Folder

Here’s the how-to! Go back through correspondence, which of course, we now receive in so many different formats and look for praise, kind words and any constructive criticism. Here’s a list to start you off on where to look:

Decide on a name for your folder. You are more than welcome to use our ‘Freaking Fabulous’ folder, but here are a few more suggestions:

Or pick a title you found in your research for your folder, perhaps a comment or compliment from someone that stuck with you.

The Place for Positive Reinforcement

When you come across feedback, take a screenshot, and save it to your folder. If you received positive reinforcement verbally, type it up and add it. It is that simple to create a place you can go for a positive boost and remind yourself that you add value through your work and the person you are. Now you have your feedback folder, write a note for someone else’s!

If the new year has you thinking about a career move and curious about future opportunities, feel free to reach out to our Nova Team today at info@nova.ky .

What Is Imposter Syndrome & Are You Suffering from It?

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 18:51:00 GMT

Do you know what Imposter Syndrome is, and are you suffering from it? If, like me, you recently moved careers and left an industry that you knew inside out, and now you have the feeling of being overwhelmed! Do I hear a resounding yes? Then this is probably one of the first indicators that you are suffering from imposter syndrome.

Finally, after six months, I am flourishing in my new role. In the beginning, though, I am not going to lie; I was not sure I had the competence or intelligence to thrive in this unfamiliar environment. While researching industry websites, blogs and thought leaders, I found an article on Imposter Syndrome. Not knowing what this term was, piqued my interest; low and behold, it described how I was feeling.

Those struggling with imposter syndrome believe they are undeserving of their achievements; They feel that they aren’t as proficient or clever as others might think. At any moment, their colleagues will discover the truth about them.

Understanding Imposter Syndrome

Why did I feel like such a fraud? I had no reason to. I knew I was capable and experienced enough for my new role. There was evidence of my successes. But often, those suffering from Imposter Syndrome attribute their success to luck or good timing. Whether it is career success or academic achievement, a person can struggle with pressure and personal expectations.

Specific personality traits can cause imposter syndrome; those who suffer are usually struggling with:

How Common is Imposter Syndrome?

According to Psychology Today, around 25 to 30% of high achievers may suffer from imposter syndrome. And approximately 70% of adults may experience impostor syndrome at least once in their lifetime.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

How do you change someone’s mindset about their skills and abilities? Imposters feel like they don’t exist, so acknowledging their expertise and achievements is imperative to remind themselves that they have earned their place in their professional roles.

Staying focused and measuring your accomplishments is key, don’t worry about comparing them to others. Attempting to complete every task flawlessly adds pressure to your work environment. Allowing fear to take over, that any mistake will reveal to colleagues that you are not smart enough for the role, can bring on a bout of imposter syndrome.

A small win is to start building your own ‘Freaking Fabulous’ feedback folder to collect and store gratitude and positive reinforcements you have received across your professional career. Your folder is somewhere you can go to reaffirm your skills and confidence. A place to remind you of your wins!

Tips on how to overcome imposter syndrome:

It is essential to fight imposter syndrome as it can stifle your growth, preventing you from pursuing new opportunities at work. Confronting it head-on will help you thrive in the future.

Talking about imposter syndrome certainly helped me overcome the feelings I had. Receiving positive feedback (and, of course, constructive criticism) from managers, supervisors and colleagues all helped in the struggle to keep my imposter syndrome in check.

At Nova, we will work with you to identify suitable opportunities and, when required, refer you to our career partner, Connect By Nova , to talk through career action plans, interview tips and advice to help with your career and beyond.

How Do I Start My Career in Compliance?

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 16:23:00 GMT

Looking to begin a career in Compliance, but not sure where to start? Throughout this blog post, we aim to guide you through multiple tips and suggestions into the world of Compliance.

What is Compliance?

Compliance is generally the act of obeying an order, rule, or request. When it comes to the Cayman Islands, this is following the acts, regulations, and guidance notes set out by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA).

It’s a challenge that all businesses must take seriously, and ensuring a thorough understanding of corporate Compliance will protect their company, employees, and customers. Without it, corporations are left open to:

Throughout the world, businesses adhere to a wide range of regulations, laws, and standards put there to protect. For this reason, the Compliance sector has grown exponentially and is now a lucrative career.

There are many different roles in Compliance in the Cayman Islands due to the sheer number of law firms, banks, administrators, funds, and financial planning companies. And with this, there are many clients with compliance needs from all over the world.

Why do you want to work in Compliance?

The easy answer is job security; Compliance is here to stay. Entry-level positions are available and heavily sought after, and once you are in, you can climb the corporate ladder.

There are often entry-level roles available, usually referred to as a Compliance Administrator but the opportunity to grow into different Compliance roles soon becomes apparent.

As a Compliance Administrator (or another entry-level role), your role would mainly involve onboarding the client’s Know Your Client (KYC) documents and monitoring the client’s transactions.

Compliance requirements extend across the whole business, and so in time, you will find yourself gaining experience, flexibility, and understanding in different departments of your organization.

An example of a senior role would be acting as an Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Officer (AMLCO) or a Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) on numerous funds. These roles involve daily sales functions and interacting with new clients to entice them to use the company’s services for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) & Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI). These roles also involve documentation, policy, and procedure reviews while also testing KYC documents are collected correctly by the Administrators. You would also be involved with attending and reporting at board meetings. And on an annual basis conducting a risk assessment for all the entities you act for.

As an AMLCO & MLRO’s you can expect to act as the point of contact with the Department of International Tax Cooperation (DITC) and complete required filings for Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)/Common Reporting Standards (CRS), as well as any new compliance requirements put forward by CIMA.

Several key skills are transferable to a new career in Compliance: experience in financial services, communication, business knowledge, good judgment, quick decision making, pragmatism, and risk management are in demand across multiple roles.

Compliance is global, the opportunities are endless, and the increase in remuneration packages attracts more skilled professionals to seek a new career path.

Is it boring? No, the regulatory climate is constantly changing and developing rapidly. Your activities will never become stagnant. Compliance is an exciting, expanding industry bursting with opportunity.

How do I start a job in Compliance?

Compliance is prevalent in Cayman, with most positions tending to be in the financial services and legal industries on island; as there are no specific degrees in the field of Compliance, a bachelor’s in criminal justice, finance, or business is beneficial.

Work experience is valuable in gaining the knowledge to move into Compliance, and if you have an operations background, you could be highly prized for an internal transfer. Exposure to operations and the intricacies of how a bank, finance firm, or general business works are invaluable skills when trying for a position in Compliance.

Interact with the Compliance team within your firm. Ask those in junior positions how they made a move into Compliance. Spending time with senior compliance executives can be the first step to building relationships and a great way to find out if there is anything in the pipeline and how to prepare for it.

For more information and support on moving into Compliance, visit the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) for current tools, training, and expertise.

There are opportunities to start a career in Compliance without a degree and receive on-the-job training within the firm. After initial probationary periods, some firms may offer to put you forward for ACAMS training.

A formal Compliance qualification, like ACAMS, is becoming a vital requirement and can be seen in more job descriptions for Compliance roles. Many firms would look for this certification or expect you to study for these certifications during your employment. ACAMS offers entry-level training in Compliance with their Associate Level, followed by Specialist and Advanced Specialist programs.

If you are currently employed and looking to transfer into Compliance, ask your employer what school, program, or certification they recommend in your career progression.

What should you expect to earn in Compliance in Cayman?

Compliance Administrator US$50-60K

Junior AML position with approx. 2-4 years experience with no Compliance qualifications

Compliance Officer US$70-115K

AML role with 4-6 years experience with Compliance certification (ACAMS)

Senior Compliance Officer US$95-120K

6-8 years experience with Compliance qualifications (ACAMS) and possible experience in a DMLRO or MLRO role.

Compliance Manager US$110-$150K

8+ years experience, including ACAMS qualification, having held an MLRO or AMLCO role.

Head (or Director) of Compliance US$145-$215K

10+ years experience holding all the above plus oversight and management of all AML & regulatory matters.

To learn more about Compliance as a Career, you can re-watch our recent ‘Ask the Experts’ series on The Importance of Regulatory Reporting & Investor Services in the Offshore World by our career partners Connect by Nova & Harneys Cayman. Connect by Nova offers career services and can help you start your career journey in Compliance with their partnerships at specific firms.

Are you currently employed in Compliance and interested in a move? Or looking to start your career in this lucrative sector? At Nova, we constantly look to place Compliance candidates in numerous roles . Reach out to our team at Nova for more information on entry-level and senior positions in this field. Email info@nova.ky or call 1 345 623 1029 to arrange a confidential chat about your new or continuing career in Compliance.

At Any Age, a Career Change is Daunting!

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 09:00:00 GMT

In March 2020, the world turned upside down, and with the closing of the airport in the Cayman Islands, it marked the end of the tourism sector for the foreseeable future. While tourism and hospitality employees waved goodbye to the last of their visitors, they were left wondering what to do next!

For others and me with careers in this sector, it left us (especially those in their 40’s & 50’s) considering a midlife career change. And in Cayman, this only proved harder due to the uncertainty of the re-opening of the Islands. Already in my 40’s, I was settled into a career in tourism and a way of life that was comfortable and familiar, leaving me with an intimidating decision to make a career change during a global pandemic.

Tourism employees are undoubtedly passionate about their products and invested in their success and the destination they promote. So, the thought of starting or moving into a new industry meant taking a risk with something new.

In any industry (not just those affected by COVID-19), employees suffering from burnout or even boreout (lack of fulfilment) realise that it may be the time to take a risk and make a career change.

For me, the thought of starting afresh was indeed a daunting prospect. But with careful research and leaning on those all-important transferable skills and contacts, I made the effort and the decision to begin searching for a new career.

How do you decide to make a career change?

If you’re at a point in your life and your career that you’re thinking maybe it’s time for a change, you can start by writing a list of the pros and cons of your current job and use this as a base to help you in your decision making and potential transition later on.

First things first, you need to ask yourself some difficult questions:

Asking yourself these difficult questions can help you with the ‘why’ and move you forward towards a change.

The fear factor

Earlier, we mentioned risk, but what about the fear factor? There are three main fear factors that hold people back from making significant career decisions.

Fear of failure:

Perhaps you are thinking of making a move but feel you will be no good at the new position or worried that you won’t be able to learn quick enough or have the competency to fulfil the responsibilities of a new role.

Fear of what others think:

You might be worried about what others think regarding your decision to pursue a new career after years of being in another.

Fear of making the wrong choice:

What if you regret your choice? Are you afraid to take the leap, realising that you might miss your previous career path?

Fear is normal; it’s natural to have reservations and feel anxious about uncertainty. Take time to reflect and understand why you are scared. It’s unlikely that somebody can’t overcome fear. The first step is to acknowledge it.

In most cases, those 40 and over would have family and financial commitments, adding another layer of fear or risk, especially if the career shift comes with a pay cut and no guarantee of success.

Pushing through the fear

Fear and caution are natural, especially when making such a big change in your life but it doesn’t have to hold you back. Follow some of the tried and tested tools below to help you navigate this decision so that you can feel confident in the change you’re making.

Use your support system

It’s important to discuss your desire to change your career with those it will impact. Remember, this affects all parts of your life, not just your finances. A discussion with your spouse or partner and family members allows everyone to be on the same page, be supportive and prepared for change.

Make a Plan – Network, Research and Volunteer

How long have you been thinking about a move or career change, have you made a plan? Think about what a new career in your desired sector might entail. Make connections through networking opportunities, like Leadership Cayman or other similar interest groups.

Speak to people in specific roles that interest you, ask questions and learn about the ins and outs of their job. If you are struggling to know anyone in an industry you are interested in then you can use resources like LinkedIn .

Research, gather information and perhaps even seek out opportunities to volunteer or intern to ‘test out’ your possible new career.

As an example, if you were transitioning from a career in hospitality to sales and marketing, you could volunteer with a local charity that is looking for help with their publicity and other marketing needs. This can also introduce you to the opportunity of meeting a mentor, that can offer your help and advice in your exciting transition.

Transferable Skills

Many feel that by moving careers later in life you lose all the time and money invested in your current position. Stop and think about all the transferable skills you have honed over the years in your current and past roles – where can those add value in a new career path?

Look carefully at job descriptions and compare them to duties you are doing every day in your current role. Identify the transferable skills. If you are over 40, you’ve probably been working for a couple of decades and have a host of skills you have never thought about, let alone added to your CV.

Perhaps you’ve been in sales for a substantial time and are interested in transitioning to marketing, you have skills that will help you succeed. Think about what they are and make a list:

Nothing from your career history should be considered a waste, it’s all valuable. Review your list and curate it to suit your new career path.

Revamp your Resume/CV

It might have been some time since you revamped your CV, remember that list you just created, use it to recreate your CV. Consider listing your most relevant skills near the top of the page and age-proofing the rest of your resume, like deleting dates from your education and removing positions that you held more than fifteen years ago, (unless you have experience that’s relevant to the new role).

Sell yourself in your cover letter, explain briefly about your career change, but focus mainly on how your past experiences have prepared you for this new role.

Reach Out – Help is Freely Available

Recruitment consultants (like those here at Nova) are passionate about your career. After an initial confidential and relaxed chat, they can help you re-work your CV to suit a specific role and prepare an introduction to the prospective employer. Remember recruitment consultants are working for you, as well as on behalf of their clients.

Free career advice and training is also available from our career partners at Connect by Nova . Each month Connect by Nova offers online career training on subjects like:

You can sign up for free on their website .

When many of your peers are committed to staying the course in their current careers, making that change can be scary. You may have come to feel that you are alone and that no one around you can relate to the choices you are making, however, remember there are plenty of people out there waiting to help you with your transition.

By researching, planning, networking and attending training programs, you will be ready to move forward in your search for a new career.

Reach out to our experienced recruitment consultants at info@nova.ky for a confidential chat and to find out more about the job postings and career advice we can offer.

If I can do it in my ‘mid-40’s’….. then so can you!

HR Apprenticeship: Onwards & Upwards

Fri, 17 Sep 2021 18:46:00 GMT

The last 12 months have been quite the experience for me, as I’m sure they have for you. While the world has been falling apart, hit with crisis after crisis, it’s been nothing but smooth sailing for Malique.

Throughout the last year of my human resources apprenticeship, I’ve built a skillset and relationships, with almost every aspect of my life developing on a straight upward trajectory. I came into last September blind, unsure but still hopeful and excited. I knew virtually nothing but the basics. But life is cyclical and while I enter this September, wholly changed and confident in the skills I’ve developed, the challenges on the horizon energise me.

I’ve spent the last year thriving in recruitment, and I work comfortably in my role; I know what I’m doing, speak confidently about my industry, and can talk at length about the current market. But there are various duties I must learn from scratch as a novice again as I embark on the next stages of the rotation in my apprenticeship, from processing Payroll to HR Assessments, Permits, and all the necessary laws and standards that come with it. I am agonisingly aware of my shortcomings, and they seem pretty daunting at this stage. Still, I’ve been here before, and I’m excited about the new challenges that lay ahead in the second year of my human resources apprenticeship.

But again, as life is cyclical, there’s no doubt in my mind that as I’ve grown comfortable with what I’ve learned so far, I’ll be here next year writing about the next set of skills I’ll be tackling after succeeding in the new ones achieved this year. It’s all just growing pains. It’s fulfilling to have a clear direction and set of goals to reach them and a team that supports me through these learning moments. Whenever I look back, the progress I’ve made so far is apparent to me, and I look forward to another retrospective to see how far I’ve come a year from now as well.

Malique Richards  is the current Tomorrow’s HR Talent Apprentice , working with the Nova Recruitment team during a 2-year rotational program . Throughout his apprenticeship, he learns all there is to know about HR & Recruitment here in Cayman.

Tackling the new phenomenon of ‘Boreout’ in the workplace

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 08:00:00 GMT

What is Boreout?:

While burnout is a hot topic linked to long hours and poor work/life balance, boreout , on the other hand, rears its ugly head when we are so bored at work that we find ourselves completing trivial tasks that leave most feeling totally meaningless. The job becomes pointless and devoid of any value.

Whereas the workaholic suffering from burnout receives all the attention, the employee showing signs of boreout can be misread as laziness. The phenomenon of boreout, which has been recorded across different industry sectors, can result in health problems for employees. And worryingly for employers can lead to a high staff turnover.

How to Identify Boreout

This all boils down to chronic boredom at work and combatting the health effects of boreout is not just up to the individual but also employers who must create a culture that makes their employees feel valued.

Symptoms of Boreout:

Being severely underworked can leave you feeling dissatisfied, demotivated, and exhausted, with the lack of work taking a psychological toll on your health. Symptoms may include but are not limited to:

In summing up the consequences for employees, despite hating their situation, many experiencing boreout feel unable to ask for more challenging tasks or raise the situation with their employers out of embarrassment.

Beyond just physical symptoms, you may experience a crisis of meaning and a crisis of growth which can reflect on work behavior, which for business can negatively affect client/customer relationships. The exodus of long-term employees can endanger the business, especially when a qualified team member changes jobs taking their experience with them.

How Do We Prevent Boreout?

Analyse current options

An initial solution is to analyse your unique job situation and look for an answer within the company, taking the initiative to find new tasks or areas for potential growth.

Reinvent your job. How can you add more value to your current employer? Talk to your manager about further training to help gain a more interesting position or promotion within the company. Reassess your strengths and weaknesses and think about where you could improve.

Does the company have career paths or career ladders to help employees develop and progress within the company? Employees can be more engaged when they know their employer is concerned about their growth and career progression. Career development paths may also have a direct impact on career satisfaction, morale, motivation, and productivity. The culture of the company you are employed by or thinking of moving to is highly important in your career progression and can reflect on whether you will end up stifled in a dead-end job or able to move up the career ladder with advice, support, and encouragement from your employer.

At times, however, these options just aren’t feasible in your current situation, and if that is the case, the time might be right to start the search for a new job.

Maintain and expand your network of business contacts internally & externally.

Join associations relevant to your sector and look for leadership or volunteering opportunities within the community. All of these can be advantageous for your career and could introduce you to exciting connections or even new job offers.

Something else entirely

Or is there another solution? Iceland, Scotland & New Zealand have all be trialing a 4-day workweek . Could this be the answer to boreout, freeing up time to find meaning outside of the workplace?

Speak to our team:

Feeling stuck and like you’ve exhausted all options within your current job situation? It starts with a chat. Drop us an email with your resume, or give us a call, and we can start to find out what your aspirations are and how we can get you there. We’ll work with you to identify suitable opportunities and where needed, refer you to our career partner, Connect by Nova to talk through career action plans, training, and advice to help you with your career and beyond.

Feel free to reach out to our team today at info@nova.ky

5 Tips to Ace Your Next Interview

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 18:49:00 GMT

Are you preparing for an important interview? Want to stand out from the crowd? Use these 5 tips to master your next interview.

Before we jump in, let’s review some basic preparation tips for your interview:

Now let’s talk about the interview itself. During the actual interview focus on what your resume doesn’t tell them – more about you.

1. Project warmth, likability and be personable.

The interviewer will be looking to see if you are someone that others will want to be around. An interview isn’t all about the technicalities of the job, the interviewer is aware of their company’s corporate culture and are juggling a fine balancing act of varying personalities and skillsets. They are looking to create and maintain a successful team, with new employees critically being able to mesh with an existing one. Focus on your personality. Remember to show positivity throughout by:

2. Be prepared with your own questions for the interviewer.

Think about what will get them talking and ask great questions . It proves you have done your research on the company, which of course will impress. Think outside the box and encourage the interviewer to share projects the company is involved in, have them express opinions and explain the ethos of the company. In the last tip we talked about the culture of the company, take the opportunity to learn more with leading questions like these from former Jet Blue Chairman, Joel Peterson :

Focus the question on the industry you’re in, showing that you’re knowledgeable about the company and its sector.

3. Use social media to be prepared on who is interviewing you.

Learn about them; use the same tools that, you can guarantee, they used to research you.

You can use this information to guide the conversation. It will shine a light on you but will also propel the other person to talk about themselves. And we all like to do that!

4. Use the ‘Peak End Rule’.

The Peak End Rule is where people tend to remember the peak or extreme point and the end of an interaction. Our memories of positive and negative experiences depend on two moments, how we feel at the most extreme point (peak) and the how the experience ends. Typically, our memories are not an average of the entire experience or for the full amount of time we are engaged in the situation. The Peak-end theory was created by the Nobel Prize-winning Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman. His definition is as follows:

Chip and Dan Heath also explore this concept in their book ‘ The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. ‘

They suggest that a peak moment requires at least one of the four elements below, with the best having all four:

Work in positive experiences (peaks) throughout the interview and importantly ensure the interview finishes on a memorable high.

5. Remember you are not the only one preparing for this interview.

Companies often recruit other team members you interact with for their feedback. Whoever you encounter let your personality shine through. No matter who it is, remember you are in interview mode.

By using these 5 tips, fingers crossed, you will ace your next interview.

Drop us an email with your resume, or give us a call, and we can start to find out what your aspirations are and how we can get you there. We’ll work with you to identify suitable opportunities, and where needed, refer you to our career partner, Connect by Nova , to talk through career action plans, interview tips and advice to help you with your career and beyond.

Feel free to reach out to our team today at info@nova.ky

CML Group Announces Louise Reed will be Managing Director

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 17:16:00 GMT

The CML group of companies has appointed Louise Reed as incoming Managing Director*, overseeing the function of CML, Nova Recruitment, and the newest member of the group, Connect by Nova. Louise takes the reins from Steve McIntosh, who steps down after 17 successful years in the role.

Louise’s Recruitment and HR experience span over 20+ years; She joined CML Recruitment in 2009 as a Recruitment Consultant, managing the financial services recruitment for eight years. Over the past 12 years, Louise’s successes have allowed her to expand the CML Group with the founding of both Nova Recruitment in 2016 and Connect by Nova in 2020, focusing on career development and training options for the local community in Cayman.

Louise is passionate about diversity and inclusivity and is committed to supporting the talent development of aspirational individuals. She is a founding member of NPO Gender Equality Cayman and served as Co-Chairperson of the Board for four years. Prior to this, Louise served six years as a Director for the Board of The Cayman Islands Human Resources professionals .

Former CEO, Steve McIntosh said: “I have always said that my most important job as CEO was to hire great people, and there is no greater source of personal pride for me than the incredible team of committed and able leaders I leave behind in Louise, Will, Graham, and Ambrose. There is no doubt in my mind that Louise and the team will take the success of the company to new, unencumbered heights.”

Louise Reed said: “I’m excited and honored to move into the position of Managing Director of the CML Group of companies at this important time in the company’s continuing journey of growth. We all have great opportunity in front of us: our clients, partners, and our dedicated and talented employees across the group. My goal in leading the group is to build on the achievements of the past 17 years, remaining the innovative leader in the market and positively impacting our community.”

Louise continues: “Sincere thanks to Steve for his strong leadership since the founding of CML. His insight, commitment, and support have been invaluable through our formative years in business together, from the early days of CML Recruitment to the establishment of the wider CML group of companies that we are all incredibly proud of today.”

Steve McIntosh will remain a contributing member of the board of the CML group whilst focusing on the day-to-day operations of his newest venture, CareerPoint , a career coaching app launching soon.

*The appointment of Louise Reed to Managing Director is pending immigration approval

HR Apprenticeship: A Learning Metamorphosis

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 16:27:00 GMT

It’s been half a year of continuous learning since my last blog , and what a wild half a year it has been! I’m not sure if the world is better off now than it was when I was writing the last one, but I feel confident that I certainly am.

Self-awareness, learning & growth go hand-in-hand

Never in my adult life have I learned so much in such a relatively short period. The position I find myself in is quite odd, I think. When my coworkers speak about our work, I can now thankfully follow along almost wholly, even contribute. However, the gaps in my knowledge are still apparent to me, as some topics we speak about might as well be in a foreign language at times.

I believe it is a good indicator of growth to be consciously aware of your blind spots, though, as it’s better to know what you don’t know so you can address it, but it’s still a learning process. For example, I spend a lot of time looking at resumes as part of my daily responsibilities and education, and now I am quite confident in what I’m looking for as I read through them, but I do not feel I’m in a position to give anyone advice on how to improve their own, at least in a professional capacity. There are so many titles, acronyms, qualifications, and technical terms I deal with daily that I know are relevant, but I often only have a vague idea of why . There are even some jobs and professionals I deal with semi-frequently, and I could only give a vague recant of what their work entails. But that’s what we’re working on. It’s a process, a metamorphosis! It takes weeks to turn a caterpillar from goo to butterfly, and hopefully, in this metaphor, I have moved on from the grub stage.

Teamwork really does make the dream work

It’s also important that I praise my team because I don’t know if a better learning environment could exist, or certainly not one I could imagine up. One of the greatest boons of the experience is surrounding myself with a phenomenal team. I’m an agreeable man, and I’m fortunate enough to have gotten along with almost everyone I’ve ever worked with, but never before have I admired and respected every coworker I was surrounded by, especially not to this degree. They have so much to teach. They are charismatic, conscientious, and highly competent, at least from my perspective. And as a novice among veterans, their wisdom could compare to Socrates’ own in my mind.

There is so much to learn, and I have the privilege of seeing snippets into mastery of what I hope I will one day achieve. I am constantly gaining an appreciation for the small details like the specific language and mannerisms they use when speaking to people regarding our work and the confidence that comes with it.

Only time will tell

Hopefully, the next time I sit down to write one of these blogs, I’ll be more accomplished and confident (not to in any way denigrate the progress made thus far), perhaps though, more doors will open that I’m not even aware of right now. I will find myself blind once again in a different manner to aspects and details I don’t even know I don’t know yet. And I welcome the incoming challenges and learning still ahead of me!

In conclusion, I’m having a great time; I love my work, this is a great opportunity, and I hope to become and prove myself worthy of the chance I’ve been given! If you’re a young professional and have the chance to join an apprenticeship program, my advice would be to do so with open arms.

Malique Richards is the current Tomorrow’s HR Talent Apprentice, working with the Nova Recruitment team during a 2-year stint as he learns all there is to know about HR & Recruitment here in Cayman.

Making the Most of Your Internship

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 14:57:00 GMT

Last week, Nova Recruitment and Connect by Nova had the opportunity to host two year-10 students from Cayman Prep for a work experience internship .

The purpose of doing work experience or a similar type of internship is so that students can have an opportunity to gain real-world experience and gain perspective to help them define longer-term career goals. At the end of their work experience tenure, Raven and Culainn, our in-house interns for the week, took the time to put into words their top tips for any other students doing work experience, internships , or apprenticeships to make the most of the experience.

A Strong Work Ethic Goes A Long Way

The first tip that we would give to anyone in an internship or going through any type of work experience would be to have a positive and eager attitude as well as exercising a good work ethic.  A strong work ethic will set you apart from the rest of the pack , showing that you are eager to complete tasks diligently and to a good standard , which in most positions can be a determining factor for long-term career success .

In the case of internships and work experience, showing a strong work ethic can lead to references you can call back on when looking for future employment, which when you are just starting your career can be crucial , especially in a smaller employment market like here in Cayman.   

Get a Feel for Company Culture

It will be a rare opportunity to be in a work environment before your first ‘real’ job, so take your internship seriously and learn from it . Take advantage of this opportunity and get a feel for the company culture and think about what you enjoy or dislike about it to make more informed decisions about your career moving forward.

Make Lasting Relationships

By treating your internship as more than just something temporary, you will be more likely to make long-lasting connections and leverage your experience.  If you do this successfully , you could find yourself a longer-term career mentor or referee to call upon, and in a couple of years, with a bit of luck, the same company could be employing you.

Ask Questions!

Finally, ask questions , not only about the work but also about the company – do some research before your internship begins; this creates an amiable first impression. And if you don’t know something , just ask questions ; it’ll emphasize that you are interested and keen to learn something valuable from your internship. 

Connect by Nova is a new social enterprise entirely committed to supporting individuals in the Cayman Islands to achieve career success . To find out more, feel free to email connect@nova.ky today.

Burnout: How do I prevent it?

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 15:36:00 GMT

Next up in our burnout series is everything you need to know about preventing burnout and saving not only your mental sanity but also your health and possibly your career!

Are you feeling like you can’t wait to put on your OOO and not look at your work email until Jan 2021 (or maybe even ever )? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Unmotivated? Cranky at your coworkers you normally enjoy? You may be experiencing burnout, but have no fear – you can use this holiday break to work on preventing it!

Burnout Basics

Burnout is a workplace issue and can show with varying symptoms and severity depending on the individual, but it is most characterized by exhaustion, lack of motivation, difficulty focusing, and an often-altered temperament towards others. There are times where burnout can go so far, it leads to real health implications.

Left unchecked, burnout can wreak havoc on your health, happiness, relationships, and job performance. To catch burnout and combat it early, it’s essential to know what to look out for. If you’re haven’t heard of or are unfamiliar with burnout as a whole, I recommend you check out the other articles in our Workplace Burnout series here:
• Burnout: What exactly is it?
• Burnout: Am I experiencing it?

How to Prevent Burnout

Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle

First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge what you do with your body can significantly impact your mental state – so, taking better care of your diet, sleep schedule, and exercise routine will play a huge role in preventing burnout later down the line. Sure, this seems simple and self-explanatory and you probably know you should be doing this, but are you actually ?

Here are the fast and simple rules to follow:
1. Create a proper sleep schedule, ideally with 6-8 hours of sleep at the same time each day.

2. Lighter, healthier foods that won’t make you tired. (I know, the chocolate is calling me too, just don’t overindulge!)

3. Find time for 30 mins of light exercise every other day, at least – just going for a walk around the block can make a huge difference in your outlook! (I promise, the act of getting dressed to do the walk is the most challenging part, so just push through and thank me later.)

Embrace Your Creative Side

Burnout can bring on many side effects, one of those being the stifling effect on your thinking. Individuals who are burnt out tend to see things in black and white, taking a very rigid approach to work and life. One of the best ways preventing burnout and reducing stress is just to let your creative side run free once in a while; a simple hour every week to flex your creative muscles with writing, painting, or even coming up with a new dinner recipe can go a long way in keeping you engaged and motivated.

Work With Purpose & Live Your Truth

Follow your passion – Individuals who feel as though their work has a meaningful purpose, rather than just a way to pay rent each month are actually more likely to prevent burnout. Take some time to sit down and take a third-party view of your job and think deeply about what you do and what value it adds to others.

Not every job will have a substantial, meaningful purpose behind it, and that’s okay. Just because burnout is a workplace issue doesn’t mean that the solution has to be found in your work. According to Elizabeth Saunders , a time management coach, the core to burnout prevention is about living a life with purpose and ‘living your truth’, not necessarily just your day job.

The closer you are to living a life with purpose and aligning with your core passions, the less likely you are to burnout. Simply put, find something that energizes and restores you and make time to have that part of your life, whether it be your job or in your free time.

Know What You Can Change

Have you ever heard the saying: ‘ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference’ ?

Well, according to the ‘Areas of Worklife’ model , workload, control, reward, fairness, community, and values are the main contributors to burnout. Therefore, it’s essential to take a step back and think of these areas in order to see where the source of burnout is/could be coming from and what you can do to change or lessen the impact, either by altering the environment or in extreme cases, removing yourself from the situation entirely.

How to Handle Burnout When You’re Already Experiencing It

Although preventing burnout is the ideal scenario, we all know that isn’t always going to be possible – so, what if you’re reading this and know for a fact, you’re already experiencing burnout? What then? Well, with these holidays right around the corner set aside some time for yourself and work through our tips below to start 2021 anew.

Think Before Sending That CV

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 15:46:00 GMT

Did you know that if you have applied/submitted your CV to a company within the last six months, that means an agency may not be able to represent you to that same company?

Job seeking is tough at the best of times and even more challenging when you don’t know where to begin. If you are happy to approach the market directly without assistance and do not foresee a need to ever go through an agency, that is commendable. It also means you can stop reading now. If, however, you are a job seeker keen to let a professional agency do all the hard work for you, then this information will be beneficial to know as you commence your job search.

When working with candidates day in and day out to help them achieve their career goals, we have realized that many candidates are unaware that making direct applications to companies before engaging with a recruitment agency is information that your recruiter needs to know. Many do not realize this means that we, as an agency, cannot represent them to that particular client as they are now considered a “direct applicant” for a certain period of time.

How Does a Recruitment Agency Work?

It’s crucial to understand recruiters primarily work on behalf of an employer (our clients), meaning that they gather the job description and specifications, the brief from the hiring manager, and then search for the ‘perfect fit’ candidates. Recruitment companies are private businesses that invoice the employer for their services, hence the urgent need to get the recruitment process and the candidates ‘right’ every time!

Why Does A Recruiter Need to Know Where You Have Applied Before?

One thing that is important to know and understand when working with a recruiter is that if you have applied directly to a company, a recruiter will not be able to represent you to that client, even if it is for a completely different role .

The reason for this is that most recruitment agencies have terms of business that are agreed upon with clients that outline that should an individual apply directly to the client, for a certain agreed-upon period of time, an agency would not be able to submit that same candidate and be able to invoice the client for introducing them and placing them in a role. From a business sense, this makes sense for our clients: why would they pay a recruitment agency for the information they already have?

If You Can Apply Directly, Why Use a Recruitment Agency in the First Place?

By no means are we saying it’s the end of the world if a candidate does apply directly; however, there are plenty of benefits of going through a recruiter vs. directly. Below are some examples of what you might miss out on when applying direct:

Advice For Candidates

Whether you are working with an agency or representing yourself, here are some best practice tips when sharing your CV with employers and agencies alike:

For full details on how to work effectively with a recruiter, check out our comprehensive blog here !

HR Apprenticeship: The Start of Something New

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 19:24:00 GMT

My first ever blog! This is a new experience for me, but I’m grateful for the chance to put into words how I got here, what I’m doing and why I’m so excited to be here in the HR Apprenticeship program .

Me, Before Nova

My first full-time job was as a bellman at the Wyndham Reef Resort in East End, which I’m still thankful for to this day. The opportunity gave me the start I needed, and I don’t think I’d be here if they weren’t as kind and supportive of me as they were. I worked my way up there in nearly every department until I eventually settled into an Administrator’s role in the Concierge Department, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Spending time talking to lovely people from so many different places and backgrounds, then finding the time to settle down and get my office work done suited me; I thought that a 50/50 split of socializing and cracking down at a computer was fulfilling. I still do.

…then COVID came.

It’s not necessary to go into detail on what those months were like because I’m sure everyone had a similarly unpleasant experience, or at least everyone is adjacent to someone who did. Needless to say, I was unemployed but wiser (or so I like to think), and the hospitality industry I thought I’d spend my career trying to develop expertise in didn’t appear as viable, at least in the short-medium term anymore.

The HR Apprenticeship: too good to be true?

As fate would have it, I came across an ad on LinkedIn a day or two before the deadline ran out. It seemed too good to be true, so much training across so many disciplines while being paid in a company that seemed as friendly as Disney wants you to believe it is? Not to mention, it had that 50/50 split of working with people and administrative work that I had come to enjoy.

I read it over and over again, trying to figure out what the catch was. My mother wouldn’t believe it was a real job when I talked to her about it; we weren’t sure I would get paid with all the training opportunities and benefits being offered.

I didn’t even think I was going to get considered, to be honest. The deadline was approaching, and the opportunity was the best I’d ever seen, especially for someone receiving ground up training, so I was sure every person in my age group on the island would be applying. After every interaction with the team, who I would now consider my friends, I wanted nothing more than to join this team. I did my research on the company, I practiced in the mirror using their own interview tips from the Nova website , I had to be a part of this. I had to. They were so friendly – willing to joke around even – I’d never been so disarmed in an interview in my life. I couldn’t even conceive of the idea that an interview could be anything other than stressful, let alone pleasant!

The Start of Something New: The HR Apprenticeship

BUT HERE I AM AND I’VE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER.

I’ve learned so much from my new work family in these past few weeks, from ad writing to sourcing candidates, I can only imagine what else is to come on my HR Apprenticeship. I can use a few more systems and programs that I couldn’t last year, and now I know at least five times as much about immigration and hiring than I ever have, but what’s impacted me the most so far is the shift in perspective from being on the hiring side of the equation as a recruiter. That put many things into perspective that I’d never noticed when I was the one looking for work.

Now, I couldn’t even tell you what most excites me about the apprenticeship; last week, there was nothing I wanted more than to sit at home with a cup of cocoa and write ads all week, now I can’t wait to get on the phone and talk to clients and candidates, everything that’s been thrown at me has been new and exciting. I enjoy my work. This is an excellent company with passionate people looking to help people love their work and make the job searching process a little less harrowing. I couldn’t be prouder, more grateful, or happier to be given the opportunity to be a part of it.

I am Malique Richards, the newest HR Apprentice, and I approve of this message.

Salary Expectation: What does yours look like?

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 15:58:00 GMT

What is your salary expectation? What have you done to come to that conclusion, and is it a fair expectation based on your situation?

Salary expectation is something our candidates often ask us for advice on when they are preparing for an interview , as many wish to know how they should answer a salary-related question in an interview. Although there is no one size fits all answer, the question can be very simple to answer and is often personal, depending on your current situation. Salary expectation is also more than just a question to answer on an application form or in an interview; it is a fundamental element of your job search.

You will see four different categories listed below. Read the section most relevant to your situation for some insight into salary expectations. For tips regarding salary negotiation, check out our blog here .

Are you: Currently employed, looking for a promotion or a similar role that offers more money?

This situation is the most common for people looking for a new job, and the great news is, this is a relatively easy one to answer on the salary expectation scale. We can break this down into two different scenarios:
1. Scenario one : you want a promotion in title, responsibilities, and general progression
2. Scenario two : you want more money, and that is the primary motivation.

In scenario one , consider the situation you are currently in and the one you want to move to. Let’s say you now earn $50,000 but are craving growth and responsibility. The situation you want to move to offers more growth and potential for you (and ideally more money too). Would you move to this new situation if the salary was also $50,000? If the answer is no, you need to realize that money is a deciding factor for you and move onto scenario two below.

In scenario two , it’s all about the money, so look at what you currently earn and place your salary expectation for your next role at higher than the current salary. It is essential to do some market research here, though, and see if the expectations you have set match up with the typical standard salary for professionals in your niche, as you still need to be realistic.

Are you: Currently employed and looking for a career change?

The main thing to focus on is the motivation behind the career change. Ever heard the phrase ‘short term loss for long term gain’? This category is all about that, and unless you are already at a junior level, it is unrealistic that a career change will offer the same salary level you are used to. Let’s look at it from an employer’s perspective to see why.

Employer X needs a marketing assistant and has a budget of $42,000. Jane is a legal secretary with six years’ experience who wants to branch into marketing after studying digital marketing in her spare time and is currently paid $60,000 and knows she is worth that salary based on her experience and work ethic. Jane is right; she is worth that salary, but sadly not to Employer X, who doesn’t require her legal expertise for this role and can find another candidate who has some on-the-job marketing experience and is within their budget.

In this category, it is vital to assess what is most important to you. Are you so eager to change career paths that you are willing to take a pay cut? Or are you reliant on the salary you are used to and, therefore, may have to think again about what career path you follow? In the latter, it may be worth considering what else you can do to prove your expertise in this new career path to make you worth the same salary as you are currently used to earning.

Are you: A junior candidate or someone with little experience in the role you are applying for?

As someone more junior or entry-level, your main goal should be to obtain some experience to launch into your career. That said, money is important and helps us live our lives, so I’m not saying you should work for free, but instead suggesting that if you are right at the start of your career, you may want to look into internships, trainee roles, or work experience for a short time to help you reach your longer-term goals. These types of learning positions will help to get your foot in the door and gain the necessary expertise for a well-paying job in the near future (possibly even with the firm you take a learning role with).

Are you: An experienced candidate who is not currently working?

Ah, this one is hard and will vary significantly from one situation to the next. You don’t want to feel that an employer can take advantage of the fact you aren’t currently working and give you a low-ball offer, so assessing your worth is an excellent exercise to do. You need to be mindful that if your last employment was long-standing, you might not get into a new company at the salary level you left the last one. You will also need to do some benchmarking to see where your previous salary, or the salary you are hoping for, falls within the salary range for that role.

With everything mentioned above across all categories, I feel it is important to note that if a salary range is posted on a job advert and you wouldn’t accept a salary within that range, then you may want to reconsider if you wish to begin the recruitment process for that particular role at all. Companies may indeed have wiggle room outside of a stated salary range, but the reality is that if that range is advertised, that is often all they have the approval to execute for hire.

In most cases, salary alone won’t lead to being satisfied and fully engaged in a job, especially in the longer term. There are many other factors to consider, such as culture, team structure, working hours, work-life balance, etc. You need to weigh up which of these are non-negotiable for you and what areas you are willing to be more flexible on.

As mentioned before, if you are looking for a new position or are curious about opportunities and what the going market salary is for these roles, feel free to reach out to our team today at info@nova.ky.

Resume Cheat Sheet: Our Guide to a Top-Notch Resume

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 17:24:00 GMT

Your resume is arguably the most valuable piece of paper for your career. But this document can be daunting for many. Which is why we’ve created a resume cheat sheet to take the stress out of getting it right!

Writing a resume can be one of the biggest hurdles to actually getting started with your job search. This worksheet was designed to act as a framework to determine what information to include on your resume and take some of the stress out of the process. While you probably won’t be turned away from a position because you forgot to mention your volunteer experience at the humane society, it is true that what’s on your resume can make or break your candidacy. This resume cheat sheet helps to keep you organized!

Why Use a Resume Cheat Sheet?

Think of our cheat sheet as an outline – it guides you along the way to ensure you fill out all the necessary information and helps to make sure you don’t leave anything out. It’s also a great way to keep all your information in one place and pull from each time you create a specifically tailored resume.

What Is in Our Resume Cheat Sheet?

Our resume cheat sheet is a framework to help you conceptualize all of the possible content and information you could list on a resume – you can easily do this yourself and just outline the information in a catch-all word document, but we have created this outline to do this all for you.

Some of the sections are:

1. General contact information

2. Resume summary

3. Professional/Work Experience

4. Educational background

5. Technical and soft skills

6. Volunteer experience, awards, and achievements

Fill in the sections of the worksheet; once you are complete, you can easily use this information to tailor your resume specifically to match the job to which you’re applying and better present your profile. Download your copy of our worksheet here.

Need some more guidance? Check out some of our most popular resume writing blogs here:

1. How to Effectively Tailor Your Resume

2. Inside the Mind of a Recruiter: How to get your resume into the ‘Yes’ pile

3. Resume Writing Tips: Layout

4. How to Write The Experience Section On Your Resume

5. Clichés That Will Ruin Your Resume

6. Is Your Resume Perfect?

Need a bit more one-on-one service regarding your resume? Reach out to info@nova.ky today to find out when our next resume workshop is or chat with one of our consultants about getting some bespoke advice.

What Resume Format Should You Use?

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 19:11:00 GMT

So, you’ve decided it’s time to look for a job, and you sit down and start the rite of passage that is writing your resume (either from scratch or refreshing an older one). But how should you lay this information out? What is the best resume format to use?

The right resume format captures the attention of the individual who is hiring – they should be able to get a sense of your experience almost immediately and know if you will be the right fit (on paper) for the role in question.

What are the Different Resume Formats?

Generally speaking, there are three main formats of resume that exist in the world with pros and cons to them all.

These three formats are:
1. Chronological
2. Functional
3. Combination

Each format listed above is used for different scenarios and depending on your background and experience, you should be able to determine which is the best for you using the information provided below.

Chronological Resume Format

The chronological resume is the most common resume format and is likely what you think of when you picture a resume. It has a primary focus on work experience, showcasing the companies you’ve worked for and length of employment at each job. The resume starts with your current or most recent job working backward in time.

Pros:
• This is the preferred format of recruiters and hiring managers here in Cayman, so when in doubt, go for this style to help you get into the ‘yes’ pile .
• This is a great way to give a concise, focused, and detailed snapshot of your work experience, which is what most hiring managers are looking for in Cayman.

Cons:
• If you have employment gaps, this format makes them a bit more noticeable due to the chronological order.
• When you are a first-time job seeker, this format can be less effective since you may have little experience under your belt.

Functional Resume Format

A functional resume puts the spotlight on skills and marketable abilities/competencies rather than specific work history.

Pros:
• This style of resume is excellent for highlighting skills across different jobs/industries.
• This format may suit candidates who are first-time job seekers or those looking to change careers where transferrable skills may be more important.
• It allows you to put the spotlight on what you believe to be the most important and relevant achievements.

Cons:
• In Cayman, there is a preferred focus on work experience, and with this format, the focus is mainly on skills, so it can make you look inexperienced in comparison.
• If you are applying to a position through an online portal, you are likely going to have your resume scanned by an applicant tracking system, and they may not be able to read your resume as easily in this format.

Combination Resume Format

As the name might imply, this is a combination of the above two formats; this format has a mixture of the focus on skills alongside a detailed work history.

Pros:
• This is the best of both worlds scenario where you can highlight both your work experience as well as transferrable skills.
• You have the opportunity to put your skills into the context of your work experience and paint a full picture of your career path thus far.

Cons:
• If you have a history of job-hopping or any employment gaps, this format will highlight this and do you a disservice.
• Similar to the chronological resume, this is a problematic option for first-time job seekers or those with little experience as it tends to leave the employer wondering what you have to bring to the table.

So Which Resume Format Should You Use?

Specifically, when thinking about looking for work in Cayman, our advice is to stick to the tried and tested chronological resume as this is what employers generally are looking for. The exception to the rule here might be if you are a first-time job seeker with little-to-no experience, and at that point, it might be worth looking at a functional resume format.

Get Started with a Template

Ready to get started? Stand out from the crowd with one of our sample templates or reach out to a member of our team today at info@nova.ky .

Chronological Resume Template

Functional Resume Template

Combination Resume Template

A Day in the Life of the “Tomorrow’s HR Talent Apprentice”

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 19:12:00 GMT

A first-hand look at what it’s like to work as the HR Apprentice with Nova!

As our current HR Apprentice here at Nova, Hannah , wraps up her 24-month apprenticeship program, she has put pen to paper to show you what it’s like day-to-day so you can see if being the next HR Apprentice might be the job for you! For more information about the HR Apprenticeship program and how to apply, check it out here .

1. Can you give me a brief description of what your role entails?

First and foremost, I am the first point of contact for the Nova Team. Some of my tasks include screening incoming candidates, conducting candidate meetings/calls, offering career advice, and ensuring all of our live jobs are posted to the Nova site.

Outside of my day-to-day responsibilities, each week, I also work across CML’s immigration and HR consulting teams on different projects, helping to round out my HR experience during my apprenticeship!

2. What is your favorite element of your job?

Now, this is a hard question; I love every aspect of my role!! However, my favorite part about my job is the collaboration within the Nova Team and how we all support each other and offer creative feedback.

3. What helps to keep you motivated each day?

I go to work every day knowing that I can make a difference in someone’s career journey.

4. Who do you communicate with most regularly both inside and outside your organization?

Every day there are different projects and teams I could be working with, and that is the beauty of being the HR Apprentice. You get to work alongside so many leading industry professionals, whether that be in immigration, HR consulting, or recruitment.

But to answer the question, most of my days, I communicate with the Nova Team and our beloved candidates!

5. Since you first started, what do you think has been your biggest challenge?

Adaptable, dependable, and precise!

6. What advice would you give someone who is seeking the same line of work?

Flexibility is key! My advice would be to maintain an open mind and be able to adapt and not think any request is too big or too small. You never know who is going to notice your work and remember, no task is beneath you!!

Read more about the employee value curve here .

7. How did your past experience and/or education prepare you for this role?

I think my love for organization has helped me excel in this role. I understand the necessity for ensuring top-notch customer service for a great candidate experience while managing multiple projects and being the go-to person for the Recruitment Consultants.

8. What is your proudest accomplishment through work?

Oh, this would have to be getting my aPHR certification – all while working full-time at Nova and becoming a new mom!! Nova supported me in pursuing my qualification as part of the apprenticeship program, and it has been invaluable in boosting my career.

Read more about my journey to my aPHR certification here .

9. Where do you think this industry is headed next?

The HR and recruitment industries are always evolving, and I expect this to continue for the foreseeable future in the wake of the global pandemic. With the rise of working from home and a shift in unemployment, recruitment strategy and strategic HR planning will need to be more agile than ever.

On the candidate side, now more than ever, we are seeing companies focus on pinpointing talent with desirable soft skills such as being adaptable and self-accountability rather than a hyper-focus on specific technical skills.

10. What is your company culture like?

Laughter is a backbone of our team meetings, GIFs are used religiously in our chats, and chocolate is consumed in copious amounts. What’s not to love?

Burnout: Am I Experiencing It?

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 18:54:00 GMT

Think you might be experiencing the effects of burnout? You’re not alone. Understanding what burnout looks like is the first step to preventing it, so let’s get started.

If you had said you were suffering from burnout in the 1970s, you might have raised some eyebrows. Nowadays, burnout is a known issue of the modern workforce, with many organizations grappling with almost 2/3 of their full-time employees experiencing burnout at some stage.

To read more about what exactly burnout is and what the typical causes are, read our blog here.

The Stages of Burnout

Burnout doesn’t just happen overnight; it often happens in stages and creeps up on you, which is why many people don’t necessarily realize they are at risk until it sets in.

Thrive Global describes the stages of burnout in six (very relatable) stages :

Questions to Ask Yourself

Feel like you might be experiencing some of the stages of burnout? Below are some questions the Mayo Clinic recommends asking yourself :

If you feel as though the above information strikes a chord with you and it feels eerily relatable, I encourage you to take a step back and analyze the potential sources of your burnout.

Take time to rest and listen to what your body is telling you. Switch off on the weekends and realize that you are only one person, and while you can do anything, you can’t do everything.

Burnout: What Exactly Is It?

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 18:40:00 GMT

You may have heard the term ‘burnout’ thrown around before, but what exactly is it, and what does it mean for you long-term?

Burnout is an issue of the modern workforce, with many organizations facing an employee burnout crisis in the wake of the global pandemic. While working from home can be a massive benefit for productivity, work-life balance, and overall morale, it can also be a source of burnout with many employees working longer hours, social isolation, strained team communications, and a lack of utilized vacation time.

A recent survey by Gallup showed that nearly two-thirds of full-time employees are dealing with burnout at some point while at work. Many of those employees have also come accustomed to the feeling of burnout and have normalized this. Still, there are long-term effects that can affect both the individual and the organization, so it should not be overlooked.

To find a solution to the problem, first, you need to understand what employee burnout is and what causes it, and then you can start to work backward to prevent it.

What Exactly is Burnout?

The term burnout was coined in the 1970s by Herbert Freudenberger – an American psychologist who defines it as “a state of mental and physical exhaustion caused by one’s professional life.”

Do you know that feeling of unidentifiable, impending stress that makes you feel like you’re stuck in a slump at work and just can’t quite find a way out? Or you can’t feel the fire you once did for the work you’re doing? The fact that it’s now 4 pm, and you’re only just realizing you haven’t had breakfast or lunch because you’ve been ‘too busy’? That is burnout. And yes, the struggle is real.

What Causes Burnout?

Burnout can affect anyone, and there is no one specific cause, but there are a few scenarios that, with the right personality and circumstances, can create the perfect storm for burnout to take hold.

Some of the situational causes may include:

According to the Schoen Clinic , certain personality types are at increased risk of developing burnout:

Why Should You Be Aware of Burnout?

Burnout is not merely just being exhausted; it is so much more and can have lasting effects on an individual and for the organization. It can lead to serious physical, mental, and social consequences for an individual and can also lead to unengaged employees and a high-turnover environment if left unchecked.

Are You Experiencing Burnout?

While reading the above, did it all sound a little too familiar? Did you ever pause to think ‘is that me’ or ‘could I be experiencing this’? Take a look and read my blog where you can analyze your current situation and ask yourself some questions to see if you might be experiencing job burnout .

Interview Cheat Sheet To Land You The Job

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 15:32:00 GMT

This handy interview cheat sheet will help you organize your thoughts and stay focused before, during, and after the interview.

Don’t worry; you’re not actually cheating! While it is an ‘interview cheat sheet’ it’s really just a checklist and worksheet to help keep you on track and serve as a resource that you can use to prepare for an interview and is proven to leave you feeling more confident.

Read on for a full breakdown of the different areas on your cheat sheet, and then feel free to download our PDF fillable version to use time and time again.

Do Your Research

To be fully prepared for an interview, you need to know some essential information to make sure you’re fully prepared. If the company doesn’t immediately give you this information, don’t be afraid to ask!

Know Who is Interviewing You

Once you know the interviewers’ names, be sure to check out their profiles on the company website (if available); otherwise, LinkedIn is always a great way to get a snapshot of someone’s background.

Research the Company

It doesn’t always come up, but often in an interview, you may be asked what you know about the organization, so you want to have done some research ahead of time so that you aren’t caught off-guard. Even if you aren’t asked this question, demonstrating how much research you’ve done into about the company shows the interviewer you are genuinely interested in the role and engaged in the company.

Know Your Experience & Prepare Answers

This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’re going to need to be able to speak about your experience, skills, and expertise to highlight to the interviewers why you would be an asset to the company and where you would add value to their team. Think about what you have done in the past, what you are doing now, and what you would like to be doing in the future.

Match Your Skills to the Role

When going into an interview, you should be able to highlight specific skills and experiences that meet the needs of the role in question (ideally, you will have done this when you tailored your resume to the job ).

Start with the job ad/description and look for the keywords that signal the essential qualities and skills the hiring team is looking for (this is what employers often term a ‘competency’). Once you have that list, create a list of 8-10 of your skills that match the job’s competencies that you just picked out.

Develop a Story for Each Skill/Competency

Once you have identified the competencies and examples from your experience, you need to craft the perfect story to showcase those skills ! By having stories prepared that showcase your skills, you can prove your experience and skill level to an employer, making them feel confident that you will be able to do well in the role.

Prepare Questions to Ask the Interviewers

We would argue that the most crucial question in an interview is the one at the end when the tables turn, and the interviewers ask if you have any questions for them. Having questions prepared shows that you are engaged in the interview, but also demonstrates that you are taking the interview process seriously, which will impress your interviewer.

Now that you’ve had the full breakdown of what you need to prepare, it’s your turn! Download our fillable ‘Interview Cheat Sheet’ and head into your next interview more prepared than ever.

Why Did You Apply For This Job?

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 16:11:00 GMT

Why did you apply for this job? It’s so much more than just an interview question.

A quick google search of the most common interview questions will showcase this as a question to prepare for, but what exactly is this question trying to reveal? This is a question that you should expect to be asked in your interview, but it goes much further than that; This is a very important question that you should be asking yourself, before you even hit the ‘apply’ button, and here is why.

Why You Should Ask Yourself This Question Before You Even Apply

To get the job you need to be able to sell yourself.

Interviews are your time to shine. They are your time to tell the hiring manager why you are perfect for the job, why they should pick you over all other candidates, and highlight what strengths you’ll bring to the role.

If you don’t believe in yourself or that this will truly be a great fit for you, guess what, the hiring manager will be able to feel that also. To sell yourself, you need to be confident and when a candidate really wants a job, it comes through in the interview and as a recruiter or hiring manager, that is the greatest thing to feel in an interview.

To keep the job, you need to be engaged.

If you haven’t already read my previous blog which talks about staying in interview mode once you’ve started a new job, I would suggest reading it here . To sum it up very briefly, it looks at what you should do to maintain your success through probation after being offered a job and, spoiler alert, a lot of it requires you to be present, be engaged and enjoy what you do.

Probation is that time that employers use to assess how good of a fit you really are for the business before you are a fully-fledged employee. It may seem unfair at times, and trust me, we get it, but think about it logically. If you apply for a job where you can’t confidently say why you want it, do you think that employer will want to pay you monthly to stay around and be disengaged?

You may just need “a job”

You may just be in desperate need for any job and have applied, rather generically, to many of different jobs, hoping one will come through. That is okay too, but put yourself in the employer’s shoes: If you could hire a candidate who really wants to work with you, or a candidate who just wants any job, who do you think you would go for?

I like to relate it to something on a personal level, so imagine:
1) You have been asked out to dinner by someone who just wants some company
2) You’re asked to dinner by someone who specifically wants you .

Which one do you think you would lean towards? Like I said, it is okay to just need a job but make sure you can answer the “why did you apply to this role?” question (without lying!). You could do this by researching the company and finding something about them that you are passionate about.

Why Does The Hiring Manager Want To Ask This Question?

Well, with technology such as LinkedIn nowadays, applying for a role can be a simple click of a button. Sometimes, on LinkedIn, you don’t even need to attach your resume, your profile is shared automatically with to job poster once you hit apply. This is easier yes, but also means that job seekers can apply to a role without having to stop and think about it; without having to even read into the company beforehand and research the company, the industry and the position.

Fitting the Company Culture & Employer Brand

Ever heard of something called ‘Employer Brand’? Well, it is something that companies work very hard on building, put a lot of effort into promoting and sustaining, and want their employees to buy into. Employer Branding is often considered when companies are trying to target a specific talent group and to maintain it, they will make sure to hire employees who fit this brand.

Assessing Motivation

The employer will also want to assess how motivated you are to perform in the role if hired, this relates to the earlier point on engagement. Engaged employees perform better and employers know this.

The hiring manager will also want to get an idea of your career plan. If your dream is to be an actor but you’re applying for an account’s role, do you think they will still offer you the job? Just to risk you leaving as soon as an opportunity to pursue acting arises?

The great news is, preparing for this question is easy. You just need to ask yourself why you want the job, why you are applying, and how you would feel if someone offered it to you. If you cannot answer these questions, that I would strongly recommend not applying as you will be up against candidates who really want this job, and that’s going to be hard to beat.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Tue, 14 Jul 2020 16:03:00 GMT

Over half the population of the Cayman Islands are active on LinkedIn – are you one of them? Whether you’re just getting your profile set up, or have had one for quite some time, it’s essential to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

Why Use LinkedIn?

What’s the deal with LinkedIn? You’ve probably heard it coined a ‘professional network’, but what exactly does that mean, and how is it any different or better than using Facebook?

Let’s start with the fundamental difference between LinkedIn and Facebook:

LinkedIn is different than most social media platforms as it was designed to help build business connections and for professional networking. Facebook, on the other hand, is designed as a personal social media platform to connect you with friends and family.

LinkedIn is a professional networking base that can be used for:
• Building and nurturing a strong network
• Finding like-minded individuals and groups
• Making and seeking out recommendations
• Showcasing your personal brand
• Finding work and for looking to hire

Whatever your personal and professional goals are, it is likely that with the right effort, attention, and care, your LinkedIn profile will help boost your career.

Let’s Look at the Stats

44,000 job applications are submitted through LinkedIn daily across the globe
87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates for jobs
94% of recruiters use LinkedIn to vet job candidates

It’s not enough just to have a LinkedIn profile, though; you need to optimize it. By optimizing your LinkedIn profile, you will rank higher in searches by recruiters and hiring managers, resulting in more job opportunities.

Specifically, by having a fully optimized profile, there is a 132% increase in LinkedIn profile views and 3x the amount of search appearances.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Our team here at Nova have done all the hard work for you and pulled together everything you need to know to better optimize your LinkedIn profile. Read on for expert-tested tips and tricks to make your profile stand out from the crowd—and start getting noticed by recruiters.

Technical Things to Consider

1. Choose Your Photo

It’s best to use a high-quality, professional headshot (no selfies allowed!), and for size, the recommendations are 400x400px to ensure it comes out crisp.

When we say professional headshot, that doesn’t mean you need to go out and book yourself a photoshoot with a photographer, but it does mean you shouldn’t be putting up a selfie from the beach. For tips on taking a professional headshot with just your phone, watch this tutorial here .

2. Get a Custom URL

When you sign up for LinkedIn, it will assign you a URL, which is a combination of your name and randomly selected numbers and letters. This makes it difficult to remember and to publicize/share, so do yourself a favor and create a custom URL.

Need help creating your custom URL? Watch our tutorial here.

Work On Content

3. Write a Star-Studded Headline

Your LinkedIn headline is prime real estate, so don’t pass up the opportunity to optimize it! Your headline is arguably the most visible section of your LinkedIn profile: it is at the top of your profile page, it introduces you on newsfeed posts when you share/like/comment, it appears in the “People You May Know” section. It also introduces your profile to recruiters on LinkedIn job applications.

By default, if you don’t set it, your headline will be your most recent job title and company name. While that can be okay, it doesn’t say much about YOU, does it? Make sure you include in your headline the most relevant keywords to your target jobs, as it makes you easier to find when someone is looking for a specific skill set.

4. Craft a Strong Summary

Think of this section as a professional bio that builds on what you mentioned in your headline above. Take some time and consider what you do and why you are good at it. Spend the time to make your summary informative and engaging and put into words what your personal brand is and what you want to be known for.

5. Include important Keywords

When you’re crafting your headline and summary, utilize job descriptions to help guide you by including essential points and keywords (note: we said keywords, not buzzwords!)

Find a few job descriptions for roles that you are targeting in your job search (if you don’t have an exact one, google samples) and dump them into a word cloud tool like Wordle .

See those words that stand out and are larger than the rest? Those are more likely than not the terms that recruiters and hiring managers are looking for in their next hire for that type of role. Take note of those words and make sure you have them sprinkled thoughtfully throughout your profile and you’ll be well on your way to a more optimized profile.

6. Inject Your Personality

It’s easy to look at LinkedIn as a digital version of your CV or Resume, but don’t forget this is still a social media platform, and people want to get a sense of you. Inject your personality. Let people know your values and passions. One of the members of the Nova team here has in her profile highlighted that she is a tea lover and Friends tv show addict!

7. Include a Current Job Entry

Did you know that you score lower for jobs on LinkedIn if you don’t have a current position in your LinkedIn Experience section? Why? Because when recruiters are using LinkedIn to search profiles, it often looks at their current job title exclusively.

But what if you’re currently unemployed? Our best advice is to create a current position which includes the job title(s) you’re targeting (Marketing Specialist in Training/Aspiring Marketing Specialist) followed by a phrase like ‘In Transition’ or ‘Seeking New Opportunity’ in the ‘Company Name’ box.

8. It’s Not Always About the Job

Do you speak another language? Do you have an industry-specific qualification? Do you have a passion for volunteering and work at the humane society on the weekends? While it may not seem like much, having these seemingly small details on your profile is a great way to showcase your unique skills and experiences and helps to differentiate you from the rest.

Utilize & Build Your Network

9. Get Recommendations!

When you’re working with a customer/client/colleague on a project, and they say something like ‘Wow, you did such a great job!’ don’t be afraid to ask them to write you a recommendation. Our recommendation to you (ha! Get it?) is to try and get one new recommendation per month if you’re actively job seeking.

When you’re asking for a recommendation, try to be specific (it can seem awkward asking for this, but it’s vital in the long run). When asking for a recommendation, don’t be afraid to point someone in the right direction and ask them to comment on a particular skill – that will be much more valuable than “Jen was great to work with!”

10. Manage Your Endorsements

On LinkedIn, you can list your skills, and people can ‘endorse’ you for those skills. An endorsement on LinkedIn is a great way to have your skills validated by others and is something that recruiters will take notice of.

Anyone can visit your profile, read your skills list, and hit the “endorse” button for the skills they know you possess, and this will immediately update on your profile. Your skills list should always be evolving as you develop your skills, so make sure you have the top skills you want to be known for listed, and anything that is no longer relevant can be removed.

Combined with recommendations, having high-quality endorsements will make you look like a superstar in your industry.

11. Join a Group

Are you part of a group on LinkedIn? If you aren’t, you should consider joining one for your niche. It’s a great way to meet like-minded individuals, build your brand, and gain insights into industry trends.

Another benefit of joining a group is that on LinkedIn, by default, you cannot send messages to people you don’t know other than when requesting them as a connection. This changes if you share a group in common! The ability to message someone who is NOT a connection becomes available when a part of the same group and presents a significant benefit for virtual networking.

12. Start Connecting (500 is ideal)

Once you have optimized your LinkedIn profile following the steps above, it’s time to start building your network and connecting. Start by sending connection requests to your colleagues/coworkers, your friends, and your family. Next, begin to map out the rest of your network with individuals you went to school with, previous coworkers and individuals at companies of interest. If you need help figuring out who to connect with, check out our tips here.

Ideally, you want to have 500 connections on LinkedIn – that’s the magic number. Why? LinkedIn will label on your profile how many connections you have up until you have 500, and at that point, it changes to 500+. This will showcase to recruiters you have a strong network, are social and tech-savvy, and that you aren’t a complete recluse.

Turn it On!

BONUS – Let Recruiters Know You’re Looking!

To take it one step further to optimize your LinkedIn profile, you can switch on the ability for recruiters to know you are open to new opportunities.

You can set this only to individuals who have a recruiter profile on LinkedIn (read more about this, here ) or to anyone on LinkedIn, depending on your current circumstances. You can also specify the types of job opportunities that you’re interested in, and your preferred location and LinkedIn will then help showcase your profile to recruiters when looking for those skills.

Need help on how to turn this setting on? Watch our tutorial here .

Let Technology Help Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

We’ve dedicated an entire blog to technology and job searching , but these are some of our favorites to help you optimize your LinkedIn profile and user experience.

JobScan

Jobscan is an incredible tool for multiple reasons, but one of the best services they offer is the ability to scan your LinkedIn profile and see where you could benefit from further optimizing. You input three target job descriptions into their system, along with your LinkedIn profile, and it analyzes to see where you rank and what more you could do to fit those job searches better so that recruiters are more likely to land on your profile.

Learn more about JobScan and use the tool here .

CrystalKnows

We’ve spoken about CrystalKnows before, but we love it so much we wanted to mention it again. CrystalKnows is a personality AI that can read someone’s LinkedIn profile or resume and predict specific things about their personality.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know – it sounds like a load of hoopla. But honestly, it works! We tested It against all of the staff here at Nova using their LinkedIn profiles, and it was pretty much spot on.

So how does this help with LinkedIn? This tool is excellent for when you’re reaching out to someone you don’t know to join your network – you can analyze their LinkedIn profile and find out the type of language and communication style that will resonate best with them.

Learn more about CrystalKnows here .

We hope that this information has been helpful so that you can better optimize your LinkedIn profile. If you would like some more tailored advice, feel free to reach out to the Nova team at info@nova.ky, and our team will gladly assist!

Starting A Job Remotely: Set Yourself Up for Success

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 19:02:00 GMT

It’s natural to have first-day jitters when you start a new job. But what happens when your first day is done remotely?

With many organizations still working from home and more considering every day that this may become the new standard at their organization, it’s likely you may find yourself starting a job without the typical in-person experience to get oriented with the company, with your manager and also meet the rest of your team so you can start to settle in.

Employers have a lot to consider with getting a remote worker started with an organization , but it doesn’t all fall on them. There are a few important things to think about ahead of time as a remote worker so you can set yourself up for success from day one.

Figure Out Your Working Space and Routine

One of the most important things to consider when it comes to working remotely is ensuring you have a space designated for work where you can focus solely on work. You need to set boundaries, both to ensure high productivity and ensure your first few weeks you are efficient and proving your employee value .

Test Your Tech

For many of us working from home crept up on us quite quickly, so it’s worth ensuring you have all of the things you need to succeed in your new role. Is your WiFi strong enough to host zoom meetings or do you need to upgrade/get a repeater? Many employers will understand the need for these things and maybe happy to cover part or all of the expenses.

Create a Functional Space

Do your best to set yourself up in an area free from distractions, with natural light, and with enough space to work comfortably. If noise is an issue as you have a house full of kids, make sure you have some headphones handy to help you get in the zone.

When You Say You’re Going to be Available, Be Available.

As a new employee, you want to give the right impression and highlight your strong work ethic and make your manager feel they made the right choice in hiring you. You may feel tempted to put in extra hours to go the extra mile, but it’s also important to set boundaries and close your laptop for the day and spend some time with friends and family.

Make sure to fully communicate with your manager the hours you are going to be available to work and then be available during those hours through whatever communication methods your teams use. On the flip side, it’s also important to communicate to your manager and team any times that you need to be offline so that any urgent request or projects can be handled in an appropriate manner.

Joining Your Team

Take Initiative

As a new remote employee, you’ll build stronger, more resilient relationships by driving the process rather than waiting for people to come to you, no matter how awkward this may feel at first. Set up video meetings with individual team members to get to know them or ask them out for a coffee now that restrictions are lifted.

When thinking about the relationships you want to build as a new remote employee, you should be focusing on two main types of people: someone who knows how things work with standard procedures, and someone who is well connected in the company to introduce you to others. Having people like this in your network at your new organization will help you get off to a strong start.

Reintroduce Yourself

Under normal circumstances, you bump into your colleagues in the office and you start to integrate into the team and people become more and more familiar with you. As a remote worker, it may be important in the beginning to reintroduce yourself when on larger team calls with people you don’t regularly interact with. Before speaking, think about simply stating your name, your role, and that you’re new to the company.

Work On Communication

1. How Do You Communicate?

Every organization has adopted different procedures and protocols for working remotely, and every team within an organization may have different channels they regularly use. It can often go even further than that with specific members of your team preferring a specific channel of communication to another. Take the time to speak with your team and find out the ways they work and how best you can communicate with them going forward (and also keep in mind working remotely may be new to them, so they may be figuring it all out still).

2. Continual Communication

Once you have established the best channel of communication, now comes the part that takes a little more conscious effort: the actual act of continual, open communication. Speak to your boss and see about setting up a weekly or bi-weekly check-in that you can come prepared to with the tasks you’re currently working on, what’s next, and any questions you may have.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions

This brings us to our last communication point! As a new employee, you can feel out of your depth at times, and when working remotely, it may exacerbate this feeling, so don’t be afraid to ask questions! Hop on a quick call and just double check you’re on the right page before you start a task for the first time.

Be an Engaged Member of Staff

Seek Out Opportunities

Not only for those working remotely but as a new start in general sometimes you can feel like you haven’t got much on your plate in the beginning. Once you start to find your footing and have a sense of how your team work and communicate, look to seek out new opportunities and assist on projects that weren’t immediately assigned to you.

On a zoom call with your team speaking about a new project that your colleague is spearheading? Ask them if they need a hand with some of the smaller tasks. As your team starts to see how well you can work to support them, your plate will start to fill.

Understand Expectations

One of the top tips we can give you is to understand the expectations that your team and management have of you in your new role. As a remote worker, it can be difficult to know if you’re on the right track, so establish what is expected of you, what your deliverables are on specific projects, and establish any deadlines as necessary.

Consider working with your boss to outline benchmark goals that you should be working towards across your first few months and then work to meet those goals. As you begin to meet and exceed goals, your manager will start to feel more comfortable giving you independence and responsibility in your role.

We’re Moving Out!

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 14:58:00 GMT

We’re moving fully remote!

Earlier this year we made the difficult decision to move out of Grand Pavilion, both CML and Nova’s home for most of our combined 16-year history, to move into fancy, brand new office accommodation at The Grove. We spent several months working with architects and office designers on the plans and everyone was excited about the move.

I don’t need to tell you what happened in the meantime, but it begins with CO and ends with VID. Suffice it to say that the level of excitement about working in almost any office space reduced significantly and, at the same time, a three-month-long natural experiment in working from home was foisted upon us.

Naturally, this led to a re-assessment of our office space needs and in turn to a discussion with the 24 members of our CML and Nova teams about how they wanted to work. The results of our surveys and discussions were unequivocal: the overwhelming majority of our people both preferred to work from home and believed that they were at least as productive, if not more.

Having already made one big decision on office space this year, our management committee was now faced with another. Should we go ahead with a major investment in fancy new office space, even though it was both unpopular with staff and likely to reduce overall productivity? Well, when you put it like that…

To be clear, we’re not yet ready to abandon the idea of having an office altogether. But seeing as we’d already given notice to Grand Pavilion, spent three months getting comfortable working from home and been busier than ever in nearly all areas of the business… we thought, why not give staying-put a try?

So we’re just here to let you know we haven’t gone out of business. Far from it – the last three months have been the busiest time most of us have had in ten years! We’ve on-boarded new HR and payroll clients, placed dozens of candidates in administrative, financial services, IT and executive roles, continued to help clients navigate the ever-shifting landscape of immigration regulations AND launched a new Career Coaching service that was quickly over-subscribed by 300%. And we did it all without leaving the house.

Of course, our business isn’t all about our own people, it’s also about providing exceptional service to you, our clients and community. And so we’re keen to hear from you about any concerns or questions you have. Please feel free to call or email me at louise@nova.ky , or any member of the team, if you have any questions or comments.

And if you don’t have an office either, there’s always Starbucks. And to prove we’re not just doing this to save a bit of money, we’ll even get your coffee.

Thanks for understanding and we look forward to continuing to serve you and to seeing you in person soon.

Kind regards,

Louise

How to Effectively Tailor Your Resume

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 14:03:00 GMT

If you’ve been following Nova for any amount of time, you’ve probably read or heard one of our team members telling you to tailor your resume to the job you’re applying for. But how do you actually do this?

Every job is different and what is valued by one may not be valued by another, and by supplying the same resume for every role you apply for, you are cutting yourself out of showing how you can add specific value to a job and company. If every job is different, then each resume you send out should be different as well.

Especially in the current employment market where there are more job seekers and fewer jobs available, it’s more important than ever to show future employers your value and stand out from the crowd.

Understand the Job You’re Applying For

To effectively tailor your resume, you’re going to need to understand the role and what the hiring manager is looking for, so get out a copy of the job description and get ready to read it a few times.

There are a few questions that you should be thinking when reading the job description: What responsibilities are mentioned first? What specific requirements or qualifications are they looking for? Are any themes repeated throughout? (things like strong communication skills, leadership, attention to detail, etc.)

To make it easy, follow these steps and make sure you’ve answered the above questions during this process.
1. First, just read through the job description without making any notes and take time to ensure that this is a role that is suited to you and that you’re interested in.
2. Next, make a note of anything that seems essential for the role (often, these items are mentioned a few times throughout). Another way to do this is to copy your job description into a cloud generator like this one and let the system do this for you manually.
3. Lastly, go through and make a note of all of the points in the description that you can speak to with your background and experience.

Begin to Tailor Your Resume

Now that you have pulled out the relevant information in the job description, it is time to look at your resume and figure out how to incorporate the skills you’ve pulled out from the job description.

It may seem like a lot of work to tailor your resume for each particular job you’re applying for, but this is proven to be the most effective and efficient way to job search, and will be worth the time and effort. You can use your current resume as a ‘core’ and then just tweak and tailor individual sections that are relevant per job.

Which sections should you look at when you tailor your resume?

Your introduction/summary section: Not everyone includes this section on your resume, but if you have this section, it is prime real estate to make your first impression immediately relevant as to why you’re applying. You want to showcase your most relevant accomplishments and experience here that you identified in the exercise above.

Your work experience : Generally, we would recommend using a reverse-chronological resume format for your resume as this is the most widely accepted and expected resume format in Cayman by employers. That said, if the hiring manager is looking for skills or qualities that you have not been actively using for a few years, it may make sense to break out your experience into sections.

For example: The leading quality of the job is calling for marketing experience, and you have this experience but not in your two most recent roles. Instead of listing your experience chronologically, you could break into two sections labeled “Marketing Experience” and “Other Work Experience”.

The Bullet Points for Each Job: The work experience section of your resume is one of the first places a hiring manager’s eyes first gravitate to on a resume, so make sure you have the most relevant information listed first.

For example: If the job description emphasized the importance of social media marketing, don’t mention your experience planning company events first. Instead list your experience managing multiple social media channels and creating a content calendar for the company. Even if this was a small portion of your role, find a way to demonstrate your experience!

Provide compelling evidence

Not all points are created equal. You can have two that are both written about the same core skill/experience, but one will be far superior and more likely to hook the hiring manager.

Option 1 “Frequently required to conduct sales pitches to a varied portfolio of clients.”
Option 2 “Liaised with management and developed a customer-centric sales pitch that was implemented company-wide to improve new lead conversions, ultimately leading to an increase in 32% of new client onboarding.”

Option 2 is the better option here as it highlights your expertise, paints a realistic picture of a scenario that hiring managers can envision in their organization, and shows results. Facts, figures, examples, stories. Show them proof that you can come in and get the job done successfully.

Ideas of facts and figures to include:

• Percentages (led to an _% increase in XXX)
• Dollar amounts (managed $___ worth of XXX)
• Number of people (Managed XXX client accounts, Trained a team of XXX new employees per month, etc)

Double Check Your Work

Did You Include Everything Relevant?

Once you feel like you have ticked all the boxes, included all of the keywords, and tailored your resume to the best of your ability, check it all over one more time.

You can use a site like JobScan to do this for you and take the legwork out. Upload a copy of the job description you’re working with alongside a copy of your resume that it is ready and let the system scan to see how well you’ve matched up.

Save Your Updated Resume

This may seem like common sense, but if you put a little organizational magic behind this, it can be advantageous down the line!

Think about it: if you tailor your resume every time you apply to a job, and you are applying for several roles, you’re going to find yourself with multiple versions of your resume quickly, and it can get a little overwhelming.

1. Have a folder on your computer just for your resumes and then have a sub-folder for the different versions of your resume organized in a way that makes sense so you can find them later if needed. Maybe think about saving them in a folder that is the name of the organization you’re applying to.
2. When you save your resume, make sure that it is named something appropriate and professional as chances are the hiring manager will see the file name when you attach.

Showing Your Employee Value From Home

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 18:50:00 GMT

As a remote worker, it isn’t always easy to show that you’re productive and invested in your daily duties. Follow our tips to show your employee value from home.

Right now, many of us find ourselves taking part in a widespread work from home experiment. For some employees, this may be something they always wished they were able to do (minus the virus pandemic), and for others, they may be counting down the days until they can get back into their office!

Whichever category you fall into, remote working on such a large scale is new for all of us, and it can be hard to know how to show your value when there is no one around to see your hard work or how many hours you are putting in.

You may want to show your value to prove working from home is productive and could be a long-term solution. You may feel that you need to show your employee value so that when your company is looking back at this time to those who went the extra mile, you are one of them!

Regardless of why you want to highlight your value, here are a few things you can to make sure your contributions don’t go unnoticed.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

Yes, the video chats and the phone calls may be getting exhausting, but communication is vital to the smooth running of a team, and even more important when those team members are working separately from each other. It is important to keep managers and teammates updated on what you are doing, where you are in a project, a new client you have spoken to, etc.

In addition, consider managing expectations from the start by responding to requests by saying, “I received your email and will start working on this tomorrow afternoon” or “Thank you for the reminder, this will be ready by Friday.” This allows your team to know when to expect something without adding extra stress to you by following up.

Be careful, though, as communication for the sake of it can harm your workflow, your team’s workflow, and the overall credibility of what you are communicating. Maybe schedule a time for co-worker coffees to keep catch-ups separate from work updates. It’s good to stay social and maintain relationships with those we once saw every day!

This need for communication works both ways too; you need to be available for those who need to come to you, as well as you communicating with others.

Speak Up

In an office environment, it may be evident when someone is struggling with a particular task, and you could step in to help or if you had an idea to share, you could quickly turn to a co-worker and blurt it out. Working remotely hinders that type of collaboration, so it’s essential to include that into our workdays as it won’t be easily seen. Speak up and share your ideas in team meetings and offer ways you could help with something! If that is too daunting, think about it for a while and then share it with your manager or another teammate directly.

On the flip side of this, you can also ask for help if your workload is too much. It may be a chance to show you can successfully delegate or project manage, but it will also prevent you taking on projects with deadlines that you cannot meet and will also allow you to focus on tasks that you can do a great job on, showing your worth in specific areas.

Get Involved

Leading on from above, don’t be afraid to get involved with other projects where you can, especially if your workload has lightened a bit. It is a great way to show your variety of interests and your ability to take on new tasks. Even if your workload has tripled as you are now a teacher as well as a full-time employee, register your interest in projects but be open about the level of commitment that you could realistically give . Even if you can just share some ideas verbally, your contribution will be appreciated.

Accountability

Trust me, I get it, no one would be able to see if you didn’t get out of bed on time or if you played the PlayStation while on your Zoom call, but who is that helping? It’s definitely not helping yourself. With no co-workers or supervisors around to keep us accountable, it is time to do that for yourself.

There are a lot of ways you can do this, but you need to find what works best for you. You could write a task list or use productivity trackers such as Microsoft Planner, just make sure you stick to it as much as possible and keep yourself on track to reach deadlines. If that method isn’t working well anymore, change it!

If you are like me, it may take a while to find what works for you. I researched a lot into why I couldn’t stay focused while working from home (I don’t even have kids!), and one suggestion that helped me was to schedule in your distractions rather than your work times.

Example : 8:30 am Start workday | 10:30 am Make a cup of tea/coffee and clean up after breakfast | 12:00 pm Go outside for a short walk | 3 pm Stretch and write three things I am grateful for.

I found this beneficial and much more effective as I was more likely to stay focused in the ‘ work’ periods knowing that I had a ‘ distraction ’ break coming up soon.

Employee Value Key Takeaway

Life is very different right now, not only are we adapting to a ‘new normal’ but there are financial and health worries, along with many other things. Maximising productivity and value may not be on the top of your list, and it doesn’t have to be, but using this time to recognize and highlight your employee value will be invaluable to both you and your company.

If you wish to read more about employee value, you can read the Employee Value Curve here .

Virtual Networking: Advance Your Career From Home

Thu, 28 May 2020 20:14:00 GMT

In a world where in-person networking is no longer the norm, virtual networking takes center stage. But how do you build a virtual network and leverage it effectively?

Networking creates long-term relationships with mutual benefits and is central to a successful career. For many successful professionals, when asked what is at the core of their success, many cite the strong networking connections they have created over time.

You don’t have to wait for a networking event to make meaningful business connections.

Traditional job searching has seen a bit of a change recently due to COVID-19; how you search for jobs, how you interview , and now how you network all look a little different but not necessarily more difficult! With many professionals working from home and a cut back in business travel, many are spending more time on their laptops and networking sites such as LinkedIn, giving you the perfect opportunity to try your hand at virtual networking.

Who Should Be in Your Virtual Network?

The most important question when considering networking is who you network with and their relevance to your career; this ensures you aren’t putting time and effort to nurture something that won’t add value in the future. So how do you figure out who you should build these relationships with?

Identifying the Right People

Think of a person in your network who could help with your job search. Who can make an introduction or connect you with someone at the company you’d like to work at? Who can help you brainstorm or provide you with perspective from their career journey?

Highlighting What You Have to Offer

Forging a strong relationship can’t be a one-way street; it needs to be mutually beneficial. Now that you have identified someone, next write down a list of things you can do for them. Even if it’s a minor gesture, it can still jump-start your networking — as long as the act is genuinely meaningful to them.

The key to building resilient networks is to identify individuals where you can both contribute to their success and also stand to benefit from their knowledge; It’s both a give and take.

Virtual Networking Made Easy

How To Approach a Potential Networking Connection?

You’ve followed the guidance above and have identified the ideal connections to build your professional, virtual network, but what’s next? How do you reach out to them?

Email is one of the most effective ways to connect with people, but if you don’t have access to someone’s email, you can always send an InMail on LinkedIn. To help guide you, here are a few tips for crafting the perfect networking email:

1. Be human.

Whatever you do, don’t start your message with “To Whom It May Concern” – by choosing this as your opener, you destroy all aspects of personalization before you even start. Virtual networking is meant to create new relationships and connections, so you need to personalize the content to who you are speaking to and keep it friendly.

2. Flattery goes a long way

It’s a proven sales tool that flattery leads to success in the long term , and while you’re not trying to sell anything here, it’s worth taking a page out of the sales guide book. Don’t make the first email you send be all about you, instead show that you have a genuine interest in the recipient and the expertise they possess. Again, this ties in the personalization concept we mentioned above, which is at the core of a successful networking email.

3. Keep it short & sweet

Even in a pandemic where you’re confined to the limits of your home and seemingly have ‘more time,’ I can guarantee you, no one has time for reading an email the length of a harry potter novel. Be concise.

When sending a networking email, you must keep it short and sweet. It should get your point across and leave the recipient able to respond within a few minutes without much reading or work on their part.

Networking emails are an excellent strategy for any job search. By following these tips, you’ll spark more relationships and even make connections that could lead to future job opportunities.

Sample Emails for Virtual Networking

Even with all this knowledge, actually writing a powerful and effective networking email can be daunting and feel awkward. To help, here are two sample emails that you could tailor to fit your needs – you would just need to swap out the bracketed areas with what fits your needs.

Reaching Out to a Stranger

Hello [Rosie],

I hope this message finds you well.

My name is [Hannah], and I work as a [Recruitment Resourcer] at [Nova Recruitment]. I became familiar with your work when I [saw your recent article on LinkedIn outlining how the job market has changed during the COVID-19 period] and wanted to reach out to tell you how much I admire your [career development experience and insight into the Cayman employment market].

If you’re open to it, I’d love to [grab a virtual coffee] to speak more about [what you’re seeing as trends in the market currently].

I am looking forward to connecting!

Best,

[Hannah]

Reaching Out to a Friend of a Friend

Hello [Bailey],

My name is [Hannah], and I work alongside [Louise Reed] at [Nova Recruitment], who passed along your contact information to me.

[Louise] mentioned that we share a passion [for helping young professionals identify and realize their career potential] and said you’d be a great person to get to know! So, I thought I’d reach out, introduce myself, and let you know that I’d love to find out more about you and your experience with [recruitment in the professional accounting space here in Cayman].

I am looking forward to connecting!

All the best,

[Hannah]

A Guide to Successful Remote Onboarding in Cayman

Thu, 21 May 2020 14:38:00 GMT

Remote onboarding is something entirely new to many companies in Cayman, so for those that are now having to face this latest hurdle in the pandemic: what are the best practices to manage this process, and how can you keep your new staff engaged and feeling welcomed?

The first few days (and weeks) at a new job are critical for new hires , not only to settle into their new role, but to also get a feel for the company culture , and to start building solid relationships with their colleagues and teammates.

Normally, this is all happening in an office environment where people can engage and interact directly, with the global pandemic throwing a spanner in the works, all of that has changed. For companies that are still actively hiring for roles (there are more than you would think!) , the newest hurdle is navigating not only the remote interview process but how to successfully onboard new staff in a way that engages them and makes them feel welcomed into the organisation.

How do you extend a warm welcome to new hires when you can’t do the typical first-day activities like office orientation, team introductions, and a group lunch?

Transparent Communication is Critical for Remote Onboarding

Set expectations clearly in the first week

Clearly outline what the first week will look like and how essential information will be shared (e.g., using a mix of pre-recorded videos and webinars, employee handbooks, and one-on-one video training sessions). This is crucial to set the tone for the rest of their employment as you will want them to understand the targets they are expected to reach and also for them to feel supported. There is nothing worse than going into a new job and having no idea what you need to be doing or who you need to turn to if you have a question.

Assign a mentor or “virtual buddy”

One of our top recommendations would be to assign a mentor! Not just any member of your team though; it should be someone who is a ‘culture carrier’ for your organization and represents the values you want to highlight. Regularly scheduled conversations would give your new staff opportunities to ask questions they might not otherwise ask, and the mentor a chance to offer guidance or coaching when needed.

When a new employee can make just a few high-quality connections, it sets the tone and provides them with the confidence to create new relationships for themselves.

Use technology to create simple and open communication channels

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: communication should be more than just email! To keep your staff connected, you need to have a robust communication tool (the team here at Nova use Microsoft Teams ) so that you can easily chat with a teammate or hop on a video call if need be. This will help your remote workers fit in with company culture and get to know their coworkers while keeping all communication visible, organized, and easily accessible.

If you use Slack as a communication platform, there’s an add-in called donut , which assigns your staff short calls at random with another member of staff. This is an excellent way for new members (and your existing staff) to get to know the larger organization, rather than just your immediate team.

Use project management and planning tools

When starting a new job, it can be challenging to know what you need to do, and that is only compounded when everything is virtual. Do yourself a favor and get your teams using project management or productivity tools to ease communication on deliverables.

These tools, like Asana , Productive , or Trello , will allow everyone on your team to see the projects they need to complete and access the information they need to get work done. These project management tools are so much more than a glorified to-do list; they also mean that managers can see the status of workers’ progress on different projects and give new employees a platform to show their work ethic and success.

Remote Onboarding isn’t Complete Without Training

Have a repository of relevant information for staff to refer back to

This knowledge center can include anything that would be beneficial for a new hire: employee handbook, explanation of the processes in place in the company, or access to the go-to-documents that staff members use daily, just to name a few. If there is information that is going to be shared time and time again with all your new hires, considering pre-recording the information with a video and then providing that to your new staff.

Of these, having process documentation is going to be the most beneficial as you likely won’t be able to walk them through every process. By having these documented processes and making them accessible, you will enable them to complete their core activities right off the bat with minimal training.

When set up well, this repository will have many of the answers to frequently asked questions. It can be an incredible resource for training, allowing new hires to refer back when they have a problem and then only needing to reach out with questions when necessary.

Learn from Each Remote Onboarding Experience

All in all, remote onboarding will take time and patience, and you will learn with each new employee what works best for your organization. If you strive for transparent communication, authenticity, and understanding over process, you can never lose.

Onboarding can often be a huge blur and most employees don’t remember all this new information, but they will remember how you made them feel . If you do it right, that feeling will stick throughout their time at the company and they will pass that same feeling on to other new starts in the future. That is the sign of influential, positive company culture and is what every company strives for.

How to Ace a Virtual Interview

Fri, 15 May 2020 15:39:00 GMT

Have a virtual interview coming up and you’re not sure what you should do to prepare or what to expect? Have no fear, Nova is here!

Virtual interviews have never been a massive part of the job searching process in Cayman until now, as it is possible to attend an in-person interview for a potential employer with relative ease. However, as companies adapt to globalization of the economy and the way we work, we will start to see an increased need for virtual meetings, including interviews, even after the current ‘Stay at Home’ restrictions are lifted.

Phone interviews can be daunting, and video interviews are something many of us would rather run away from, but fear not, we are here to help and provide some advice and insight for these virtual interviews and how you can ace them. We will break it down into what you can do in advance, during the interview, after the interview, and all of the technical bits too!

In advance of your virtual interview:

Preparing is the No.1 rule for most things, especially when it comes to career development, but how should you prepare for a virtual interview?

During your virtual interview:

You want to feel as ‘interview-like’ as possible, so make sure you are dressed for an interview, are set up in an interview-appropriate environment, and are away from any distractions. There are some additional things you may not have thought of until in the interview itself.

After your virtual interview:

With an in-person interview, you will usually have some ‘thinking’ time on your drive back home/back to work, so you need to create it for yourself with a virtual interview.

The technical bits:

Last, but by no means least! As one of my school teachers used to say: “Fail to prepare then, prepare to fail.”

Have an interview coming up and you’re not sure you’re fully prepared? Reach out to a member of the Nova Team at info@nova.ky and we would be happy to help you with some interview prep!

Top Tips for Recent Graduates Job Searching During COVID-19

Thu, 07 May 2020 14:11:00 GMT

Graduating. Internships. Pandemics. Job Searching. Resumes. Interviews. Rejections. Recessions. Closed for business. Unemployment. These are some of the playing cards in the game of life, but who would have thought they would be dealt in the same hand? For recent graduates (and arguably anyone), this can all be a little overwhelming.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact economies across the globe, many institutions have had to shut their doors due to government regulations. Colleges are conducting zoom calls and graduation ceremonies have been cancelled. Usually, this period is filled with the excitement of graduation and the nerves of entering the working world. For young adults currently, there is a high level of uncertainty as to how they are supposed to compete in a market filled with professionals who have been in the game for years and those who have just been laid off that are now also job searching.

So, what can recent graduates who are just starting their career (or anyone who is job searching) do to set themselves up for success in the current situation?

Embrace this time that you have

Not to say that the current global situation is ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but think of this time as an opportunity to define your career goals and set yourself up for future, long-term success.

For example, have you picked a career field? Do you know which companies exist within that industry? What kind of culture do you want in your ‘ideal’ office? This is the perfect time to research the companies you’re interested in, look at their social media profiles, and connect on LinkedIn to see what it looks like to work there and if it would be a good fit for you! It might not even be a bad idea to see how they’re handling everything during this time, as this is a great chance to see the character of an organization .

Develop your skills

As recent graduates, I’m sure the last thing you want to hear right now is to learn more. A diploma goes a long way, but often there are soft skills and technical know-how skills that can be overlooked throughout your college education.

Example: Are you planning to get a job in marketing? What about administration? Now is the time to become an expert on the basics. Take a Microsoft Office course, learn QuickBooks, familiarize yourself with social media platforms such as LinkedIn , or even practice your graphic design skills with Canva . Perfecting these skills and adding them to your resume will boost your credibility more than you think while keeping you sane with the tedious day-to-day that we’re living in.

Nova offers online training courses for our candidates, so reach out today and we can help get you started!

Don’t focus too much on job titles

It’s important to understand that with the current economy, the job you may have been planning toward might be harder to come by. Focus on what skills you have learned throughout your college career and which classes you enjoyed/excelled at.

Suppose you majored in economics. Your goal might have been to get a government job working on policy, but given the current environment, a vacancy may not be immediately available. Instead, focus on your skill set—the ability to do data analysis and research—and think about how you could use those skills within the industries and sectors that are currently hiring, such as insolvency .

Be flexible!

Many first-time job seekers and recent graduates have a vision of what they thought their first job would look like and have a list of the expectations or things they’re hoping for with their first job offer.

Your wishlist might look a little like this:

a) full-time job
b) full benefits
c) $3,500 a month
d) paid time off (25 days, please).

These requests are a lot to ask for while searching for a job in a flourishing economy, never mind during a pandemic and could mean out-marketing yourself before you’ve even started. During this time, you are going to have to be more flexible than you wanted to be; This doesn’t mean giving up your ultimate career goal, but it might mean considering something you hadn’t before.

Think about options such as a trainee position , an internship, or even a 6-month temporary contract to get your foot in the door and some quality experience under your belt. Think about what positions would give you the skills and expertise you need to get closer to your ideal job.

No matter what your first “gig” or trainee/internship/job might be, you’re always broadening your network, gaining experience, and learning lifelong lessons, so make the most of it!

Lastly, don’t get discouraged

I think it’s safe to say that everyone, not just recent graduates, has been affected in one way or another in the past couple of weeks. Now is not the time to be hard on yourself or start to discount your skills. There will be time to showcase what you can offer, but for now, you must be patient and keep chugging along.

I hope these suggestions help, and while it may seem like the end of the world, it’s not, and you certainly don’t want to look back and think of all the ways you could have nurtured your career before even starting it! Think of this time as a virtue, use it wisely and don’t be afraid to reach out to the team at Nova for more advice!

Happy Administrative Professionals Day!

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 09:04:00 GMT

Administrative professionals’ day is celebrated each year on the Wednesday of administrative professionals’ week. There is usually a conference to coincide with this week but, you guessed it, it is canceled this year.

Who are Administrative Professionals?

Administrative professionals are vital to the running of an organisation and often have a much more significant impact than many realise. The purpose of this day is to bring the spotlight onto these individuals and their work. Administrative professionals range from frontline to backend employees and often offer the first impression of an organization in a wide variety of industries, from finance to hospitality.

The term ‘administrative professional’ can include multiple roles such as Administrative Assistant, Executive Assistant, Office Manager, Secretary, etc. but the amount of these professionals and the duties of their positions will vary depending on company size and industry.

So why are these people awesome? While their roles are incredibly diverse, from greeting people, linking teams and departments, drafting vital correspondence and facilitating meetings, there is one thing they all have in common: they are often the backbone to a business’ success. If you work with one of these professionals that you know your organisation would struggle without, take a moment to (distantly) thank them for being awesome and share the below tips with them.

Top Tips for Admin Professionals

From the safety of your own home

We understand many people’s situations have changed, so we are here to share our top five tips for administrative professionals right now, whether you are currently not working, working part-time, are busier than ever or are even considering a career in administration in the future:

Break your day down into small tasks.

It’s a challenging time, and with working from home, away from managers and co-workers, many people find themselves overcompensating and working much harder to show they are busy at home. That can get very tiring, so we suggest breaking tasks down into smaller segments that you can do between coffee breaks and teaching the next school lesson! This will also have you feeling a lot better about yourself as you can tick things off as you complete rather than feeling daunted by a mammoth task.

Example: instead of writing ‘respond to emails,’ try writing more specific tasks such as “Respond to flagged emails due for completion today” or “Respond to Louise.”

Research new organisation systems.

One trait of these amazing admin professionals is their organisation skills! If, like many of these professionals, a new organisation system or fresh notebook excites you, then research a new system that can help you while working from home. New colour coded tabs I hear you say? How exciting! It may be something you had wanted to try before but never had the time; you may even trial it now and implement it fully when back in the office. The organised world is your oyster, from the safety of your own home, of course.

Take a personality style test

You may or may not know this, but the Nova team has a soft spot for personality profiles. These can be insightful and eye-opening about our workplace behaviours and interactions. Maybe ask some co-workers to do the same test as you so you can compare and understand how different profiles interact with each other. Now is a great time to do this as many of us unknowingly behave differently in stressful situations.

There are many free tests online that can be found with a quick Google search, or you can try one of our favorites:

You’ll be saying,” Oh my gosh, I do do that!” in no time.

Identify what gives you energy and what drains you.

This is a personal favourite of mine. For all of us right now, our routines have changed, whether we like it or not. Some people may be energised by the fact that they can walk five steps from their bedroom to their ‘office,’ others may have been energised by stopping at their favourite coffee shop on the way to work. The important thing is to acknowledge what it is that gives you energy and if they are not accessible to you now, looking at ways to recreate them.

Example: I am energised by being around people, so when I have a task to do where I am not on the phone, I go and sit beside my partner just for some human interaction. Sounds crazy? Maybe, but office chit chat was my energiser, and this is the closest recreation I can get.

Write.

Letters, diaries, gratitude journals, whatever comes to mind, write it down. This is a new experience for the majority of us and one we may forget when some normality is restored, so writing things down as a way of documenting them could be interesting to look back on in a few years. Also, if you are like me, anxiety can creep in when I start thinking about the long term, and this helps focus on the present.

Example: a part of my daily work routine now is to list five things I am grateful for; I do this at 11:30 am with a fresh cup of coffee, and it doesn’t matter if they are the same five every day, it is still something for which I am grateful. I also finish my day by noting my observations of the day to try and prevent me from finishing the week by going, ‘wait, what day was that on?’ Because let’s face it, they are all rolling into one right now!

The current situation we are in is unprecedented, and many people are finding themselves in difficult situations, faced with new challenges. It is important to note that while we share these tips that are designed to help you be productive and use this time for reflection, it is also more than okay to struggle to get out of bed some days! We will all handle things differently, so now more than ever, we need to encourage Cayman Kindness.

Interested in having a chat about administrative positions here in Cayman? Contact Emily at emily@nova.ky to find out more!

Internal Communication & Maintaining Positive Employer Brand During COVID-19

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 21:28:00 GMT

How important is internal communication for organizations in the overall strategy and response to COVID-19? We’d argue that for your employer brand, it’s make-or-break.

We know from history that in difficult times, strong yet empathetic leadership is crucial, and arguably the most critical factor to navigating seas of change. In these times of uncertainty, it is your role as a leader to make people-centric decisions today that won’t hinder your businesses post-pandemic, or damage your employer brand.

The Employer Brand

First, let’s start with what exactly an employer brand is: Simply put, an employer brand is how you’re viewed as an employer. It is the impression you leave on former, current, and future employees. A positive employer brand is critical, especially in today’s increasingly competitive job market.

Not investing in your employer brand can be costly and be seen affecting things like cost-per-hire, your HR budget, and overall bottom line. In challenging times, your culture and employer brand are vulnerable, and how you handle internal communication during the pandemic and how you engage with your staff could pay dividends in the future or be a pain-point for years to come.

Hardships, while uncomfortable, often reveal character, and this is as true for organizations as it is for individuals. What can you put in place for your organization to ensure your employer brand weathers this storm and comes out relatively unscathed on the other side?

Leadership and Internal Communication

Don’t underestimate the power of your voice. Leaders provide a figurehead for the organization, inspiring employees to focus and succeed despite the obstacles and should be where communication to your employees comes from in these difficult times. Leaders that embody the values of the business and empathize with their employees will be better equipped to survive the disruption and maintain a positive employer brand post-pandemic.

Be Visible

Leadership in organizations need to be widely visible and accessible. With the added hurdle of many companies now remote working, visibility is easier said than done, but not impossible.

Digital communication can still work wonders, and there are lots of options:
• Connect with staff through scheduled team meetings
• Set up anonymous surveys for staff to air their concerns & ask questions
• Share video Q&As from your CEO and Senior Management

Emails should be a last resort, as everyone knows how they can be misinterpreted and often lack authenticity and emotional resonance (even when you add in the cream-of-the-crop memes). If you can’t be there in person, be everywhere digitally.

Communicate Consistently

In a world where what was advisable a week ago likely isn’t today, having a constant in a sea of change is critical; Be that constant in your employees’ lives. It doesn’t have to be daily or even weekly, but it does need to be proactive, consistent, and considerate to meet the bespoke needs of your organization’s employees.

Here at Nova, we have a daily team meeting, even if it only runs for 5 minutes to ensure there is an open platform for the staff to speak about anything – as we have a team of only six people, this is manageable for us. For a larger organization, consider having a weekly update of relevant policy changes, good news, and answers to any questions staff may have had throughout the week.

Listen, Listen, Listen

As the saying goes: Communication is a two-way street. To fully take a people-centric approach to internal communication, you need to know what exactly your people want to know and what they need from you.

Not sure how to make this work? Consider an anonymous survey and address frequently asked questions that can be sent around to the staff regularly in reaction to surveys. WorkTango recently released some suggestions of questions to use when compiling these surveys that are really helpful.

Employee engagement surveys are a norm for Nova, but now they are taking on a whole new level of meaning. By utilizing anonymous surveys, senior management has their finger on the pulse of the company and can address the issues that matter to our people the most.

The Power of Authenticity

Authenticity and honesty are what your employees are looking for in times like these. Where possible, explain the reasoning behind decisions that the company is making (especially the uncomfortable ones) and the ‘why’ behind those decisions.

“How are your actions today going to benefit your organization, people, and culture in the long term?” Answer that question, and you will inherently win the trust and respect of your people. Show empathy for your employees and make them a priority; after all, you need them to drive your organization forward today and tomorrow.

The Key Takeaway?

Internal communication is one of the main drivers of employee engagement in normal circumstances; In the current era of COVID-19, internal communications may fuel your organization’s reputation as an employer for the months and years to come. How do you want to be remembered, and are you prepared?

Louise Reed’s HR career has spanned over 19 years – she has recently celebrated 10 years here in Cayman where she originally moved over to join our sister agency CML Recruitment before founding Nova in 2017. Here in the Nova office, Lou focuses on creating purpose, elevating our values, cultivating career passion and buying the office snacks (which consists mainly of chocolate).

For more insight on employer brand, recruitment strategy or HR in Cayman feel free to reach out to Louise at louise@nova.ky

What Does COVID-19 Mean for Your Job Search?

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 17:56:00 GMT

What exactly does the COVID-19 Pandemic mean for your job search? Many companies in Cayman (and globally) are going through changes at the moment trying to and adjust to this ‘new normal’ in the age of COVID-19. It’s valid to wonder if you should continue to send out resumes or just assume that no one is hiring for the foreseeable future (which isn’t necessarily the case) .

Sure, a company may not be hiring right this moment as they have to figure out a few things with business continuity, but this too shall pass. Once the economy starts to see an upturn, it is likely there will be a demand for talent again and you will want to be at the forefront of hiring manager/recruiter’s minds and move straight into their ‘yes’ pile . The people who continue to relationship-build will be in a much better position when companies do start hiring again.

1. Leverage online networks

Seek out like-minded professionals online! If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile now is the time to get it up and running and start making meaningful connections; don’t be afraid to join professional groups as well and connect with other like-minded individuals where you can join in on conversations and make yourself visible in the community.

If you need help setting up your profile for success, read our blogs here to help kickstart your online networking journey.

2. Stay in touch (virtually, of course)

Maybe you recently had a promising interview, but now the company has moved to remote work and things have gone a little quiet since the chaos of COVID-19 ensued. Sending a follow-up email is absolutely fine, but the key here is to be understanding that right now may not be the right time for them to hire. Show them the kind of thoughtful employee you would be in the future.

As an example – try something like: “I’m looking forward to learning more when it makes sense for your organization.” This works because it is genuine, you aren’t putting any undeserved pressure on them, but are still ensuring you show your continued interest.

As always, make sure you’re speaking with your Nova recruiter as well and staying in touch with our team so that we can make sure clients know that candidates are still as keen as ever.

3. Stay top of mind

HR and hiring managers have a lot on their plates at the moment dealing with the fallout from COVID-19 and their inboxes are filled with influxes of requests from staff and also just general chat from their teams now that they have transitioned to virtual working, so don’t risk your email drowning in a sea of other emails: take connection a step further.

It may seem a little awkward at first as you don’t “know” some of these connections you’ve just made, but try and build on the relationships a little more. Have they posted something on Linkedin? Have a read of what they posted, and if you have valuable insight to offer comment/like/share their post and strike up a conversation with them. The key here is not to bombard someone for the sake of it; be genuine and add value to the conversation by showcasing your expertise.

4. What do you really want?

It is a common mistake that we see here at Nova, where a job seeker sees an open position and dives straight into applying without really considering if it is something they would genuinely be interested in or have the right skills for. Sure, right now it might feel a little bit like anything would be better than nothing but think long-term and make a bigger picture plan for your career.

Take advantage of the extra time on your hands at the moment and really think about what you want with your career moving forward. Start to think about the kind of role you are interested in that matches up with your skillset and expertise. Then, start thinking about the kinds of companies that exist in Cayman that have those roles and have a culture that you would like to join.

Once you have your list of roles and companies in front of you, start looking into making connections with employees and employers that match. This is a crucial step in a career action plan not just during an economic downturn but a best practice for all time.

5. Strengthen your skills

You probably have more time on your hands at the moment than you have had for a very long time thanks to COVID-19. Use that time for something useful, rather than just watching TikTok videos and playing video games (trust me, we’ve all been there in the last 2 weeks).

Nova offers online training with a large selection of training options, whether it is software skills, practical work know-how like delivering presentations or understanding Excel, you’ll find what you need so that you can shine in your career. If you are interested in learning more about our online training options, please reach out to the Nova Team at info@nova.ky .

Now more than ever it’s important to focus on what you can control—improving your skills and reaching out to your network. Put the foundation down for strong, meaningful connections so that when the storm settles, you’re ready to hit the ground running with your best foot forward.

Top Tips for Remote Working

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:05:00 GMT

In the midst of the new coronavirus pandemic, many companies are implementing voluntary or mandatory work-from-home policies (the Nova team included!). That means many of us in Cayman are heading into unchartered territory: remote working, full-time.

Even if working from home is part of your regular daily life, this feels a little different for a few key reasons: it is likely going to be for an extended period of time, your whole company is involved, and you can’t necessarily socialize in-person outside of work. Cue insanity. Or does it have to be?

Keep reading for Nova’s tried and tested tips for working from home to help you keep yourself productive and stop yourself going completely bonkers in the process.

1. Get Dressed for Remote Working

It might seem like a simple tip, but it’s a crucial one. Sure, you don’t have in-person client meetings currently, but getting dressed in something more than the pajamas you slept in the night before is so important.
The Nova team remote work regularly and can attest to how tempting it is to stay in pajamas all day, but if you succumb to the lazy monster in your head I can guarantee you that your day will be less productive overall.

Besides, just because you’re working from home doesn’t mean that nobody will see you, let’s face it we’re all about to have A LOT of video calls.

2. Designate a Remote Working Space or Home Office

One of the big challenges when it comes to working remotely is keeping your work and home lives separate. You need to set boundaries, both to ensure high productivity but to also keep yourself sane.

Even if you live somewhere small or busy and can’t have “an office,” at least mark off some sort of workstation or area for yourself. Turn off the television and try to get off the couch or your bed. Head to the same spot to work each day and leave it as well at the end of the workday. Train your brain that this area is where your job happens, and the rest of your house is where your life happens.

Pro tip: make sure there is natural light wherever you designate this workspace. You’re basically a houseplant with more complex emotions: drink water & get some sunlight.

3. Define Your Remote Working Schedule

With schools closed and kids at home now, it’s important to define your work schedule for yourself and your colleagues and set boundaries. Plus, if your role is collaborative, being on the same schedule as your team makes everything much easier.

If you live with other people, this separation is arguably even more critical than a separate space. Communicate with the people you live with to establish boundaries so you can cut down on distractions during the workday – this may mean locking yourself in your room and working out a schedule with your partner if you have little ones wreaking havoc around the house. Having a separate time and space to work will allow you to be more present in your home life after the workday ends.

4. Use Your “Commute” Time Wisely

Commutes aren’t such a long thing here in Cayman (unless you’re coming from East and get stuck in traffic every day, then my heart goes out to you) but it is still such an important part of your day as it gives your brain time to prepare for work. Do you normally listen to a specific podcast on the way to work? You can still do that now at home! Maybe integrate this while going for a small walk outside or a run (exercise is crucial too, but we won’t go into that here).

At the other end of the day, the evening commute does the reverse and gives your mind a chance to distance you from work and effectively hit the ‘reset’ button. When your scheduled work time is up, give yourself chance to do something to signal the end of the day – maybe walk your dog, go sit on the patio and watch the sunset or read a chapter of a book – moral of the story is to give yourself time to decompress.

5. Minimize Your Distractions

Distraction is one of the big challenges facing people who work from home—especially if you’re new to working from home game. We’d be lying if we didn’t say we all get distracted sometimes, the important thing is to be wary of how much you let yourself get distracted.

You take breaks when you’re at work, so you should take breaks when you’re remote working too. Just don’t take advantage of the freedom and take this as an opportunity to finally Marie Kondo your whole wardrobe (you should do that though, it is life-changing, just wait until your weekend).

The less time you spend falling down the rabbit hole of social media, the better and more productive you will be. Right now, one of the biggest distractions is the news as we’re all wanting to stay up to date on what is going on. We’re not telling you to stop this, it is so important to be informed especially now, just don’t scroll yourself into an anxious mess.

6. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

If remote working is new to you, chances are this process is going to be just that: a process. The key to steering through this unchartered territory is communication—it will make or break this entire set up.
Email isn’t everything! When you were in the office working, chances are a lot of what you would communicate would be face-to-face, so instead of resorting to text-based communication, pick up the phone or hop on a video conference (trust us, they get less awkward the more you do them). This will cut down on miscommunication and break up some of the social isolation that can come from working from home.

7. Don’t Forget to Socialize Even When Remote Working

People forget they need to be around others because it’s the small talk and little moments in the office that stop that hamster-wheel feeling. When you’re remote working, you don’t have that.

Combat this by talking with your coworkers throughout the day! Nova uses Microsoft teams , which comes fully equipped with a library of cat gifs ready to lighten the mood. If you usually ask your coworkers about their thoughts on last night’s episode of Love is Blind, keep that up.

While you’re at it, don’t just check in with your team about the little things, really check in with them. When the world is freaking out like it is currently, it’s more important than ever that we reach out, connect, and take care of one another.

In the wise words of High-School Musical, “We’re all in this together.”

Tomorrow’s HR Talent Apprentice: First Year Complete

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 15:04:00 GMT

It’s been a whirlwind first year since I started as Nova’s first Tomorrow’s HR Talent Apprentice. I have developed so much throughout my time with Nova, and I feel proud to be part of such a dynamic and passionate company.

In my day-to-day role at Nova, I contribute to and support the entire recruitment team with sourcing, screening, testing, and creating long-term relationships with our candidates. One of the things I love most about my role with Nova is the variation as the apprenticeship is about all of HR, not just recruitment! As that is the case, I also get to learn how strategic operations and immigration that help to give me a more well-rounded view of HR in Cayman.

What I’ve Learned as an HR Talent Apprentice

Each day is a chance for me to learn something new, as each day brings new challenges! On the recruitment side, I have further developed my understanding of the Cayman market and how to identify, attract, and engage top talent using various sourcing strategies.

I have had the chance to work on Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) contracts, market mapping for niche industries, conduct employee engagement surveys as well as providing ongoing support for the recruitment of FS support positions with Nova. I have had continuous support from my colleagues during my apprenticeship and feel encouraged to be learning from some of the brightest minds in the industry.

I can honestly say that I have learned many invaluable life skills while being at Nova, and genuinely understand the importance of soft skills . Some of the skills that I’ve come to appreciate are: collaborating with others, betting on yourself, and maintaining a creative mindset! These are life skills that I will carry with me even as my apprenticeship comes to an end.

Stepping up to Responsibility

Finding the right balance between work, study, and personal life took me a few months to get the hang of, but the journey has been more comfortable with the support of such a fantastic team.

Each day in the office brings new challenges and new insights that have helped me to grow in confidence both personally and professionally. With the turn of my first year on the apprenticeship, I have also recently been promoted to Recruitment Resourcer and am so excited to step up my role in the team and take on more responsibility.

The Final Year as the HR Talent Apprentice

So far, it has been a fantastic experience, and I am looking forward to the rest of my time as Nova’s ‘Tomorrow’s HR Apprentice’. Not only am I working day-to-day with industry professionals, but I am also obtaining an HR qualification with the support of Nova.

I’ve already completed my aPHR , and this upcoming year, I will be completing my PHR certification as well as focusing more on the HR consulting side of the apprenticeship.

As Nova’s HR Talent Apprentice, I have been given me so many opportunities to grow as an HR professional, and I’m excited by what the rest of the program has in store!

Until next time,

Hannah

Hannah Jackson is currently working with Nova as our “Tomorrow’s HR Talent” apprentice . She has a passion for helping candidates find their perfect match and does so with a smile! Read more about her journey throughout her apprenticeship here .

If you’d like to find out more about the apprenticeship, please reach out to info@nova.ky .

Find A Job You Love This Valentine’s Day

Tue, 11 Feb 2020 14:52:00 GMT

Dreaming of the perfect Valentine’s Day gift? How does a job you love sound?

If you think about it, searching for your dream job is not that different from looking for your soul mate. I know, I know – sounds cheesy but let me explain!

In order to successfully find your soul mate or take the next step in your career, you need to figure out what it is that you are looking for, but most importantly you need to be practical! You can’t just sit around waiting for prince charming to come riding in on a white horse with a job with a 20% increase in salary and the flexible hours you’ve always wanted without even looking. It’s true that good things come to those who wait, but great things come to those who put in the work, go out & make it happen!

Your Perfect Match

When you think about your ideal partner, you probably have a list of must-haves and deal-breakers: tall, dark & handsome? maybe it’s more specific and you want to be with someone who craves adventure or must love dogs?

When it comes to job searching, the same applies; figure out your must-haves, like-to-haves and absolute deal-breakers. Are you looking for a small company startup with lots of autonomy or a large corporation with lots of opportunity for growth? Are you willing to sacrifice a small cut in salary to meet these goals? Be honest with yourself!

Your Profile

Whether you’re looking for love or a new job, you can pretty much guarantee someone is going to look you up on social media. In both your love-life and your career, your online profile can be what stands between you and the job of your dreams and heart-wrenching rejection. Have a profile that goes against the values of a company and a hiring manager might skip over you. Too little personality on your profile and they may not care enough to contact you. We have seen this happen, so be prepared and read more about our social media do’s and don’ts !

Make sure your profile highlights at least four key things that you are passionate about and skilled in so that you attract hiring managers who have the same interests and find your skills when they search for talent. Read more about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile to do just that, here !

Love at First Sight

Once a hiring manager looks at your CV, you want the search to be over. They should read the first few lines of your resume and think “this is the one” and want to put you in their ‘yes pile’ . You need to make it perfectly clear in your intro that you have what it takes to get the job done and that they need look no further.

Now you’ve got the recruiter’s attention with your personal statement and key skills, the next step is proving it! Read the job description and make sure that your qualifications, skills, and experiences on your resume match the job description perfectly in order to attract the attention of the hiring manager – you can use technologies to help you do this with ease .

The First Date

When you boil it all down, an interview really is just like a first date and the top tips are pretty much the same for both:
1. Dress to impress
2. Put your best foot forward
3. Be authentic

It’s not only about saying the right things and conveying the proper attitude though, but job seekers also need to think of job interviews as a two-way street and use this as an opportunity to interview the company as well! You wouldn’t settle down with someone without getting to know them a bit first, would you?

Don’t just rush into any job offer that comes around because it seems like the perfect opportunity on the surface. When looking for a job, it’s important to identify organizations where you will feel energized, challenged, and where you will fit into their company culture! Get as much information about the job and company you’ll be working for before you sign on the dotted line.

Dealing with Rejection

“It’s not you, it’s me” can actually apply here so don’t take rejection personally ! Maybe the company that didn’t give you an interview had 250 applications and while you ticked most of their boxes, they had applicants who ticked them all.

Even if you give a perfect interview it is important to remember that selecting a candidate is not an easy process for an employer and it may come down to very small details that cannot always be planned for. Employers spend a lot of time, effort & money in ensuring they are hiring the right fit for their teams and so if you weren’t chosen, then it probably wasn’t the right fit for you! Just because you didn’t get the job this time around doesn’t mean this is the wrong career for you, it just wasn’t the right fit this time!

The Start of Something Beautiful

After searching for a job you love – you found it & they loved you too, congrats! You’ve secured a new job, you can relax now, right? Wrong! The first six months/probation period in your new job is when you should really be shining because although you have been offered this opportunity, anything can happen! Just like in a new relationship, you need to put the effort in to make sure it keeps flourishing.

We hope this article helps you in your search, and if you need any assistance finding a job you love please reach out to the team at info@nova.ky so that we can help you #LoveYourWork.

Learning Never Stops

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 13:36:00 GMT

Continuous learning is what Rita Estevanovich is striving for as the 2019 Nova ‘Love Your Future’ Scholarship recipient. She is continuing to develop her career in performing arts by studying a Master of Fine Arts in Actor-Performer Training in the UK.

My Learning Journey:

Returning to school had long been a desire of mine. With support from friends, family and my community (Nova included!), I made the journey to the UK in the fall of 2019 to pursue a Master’s degree in acting and performance at Rose Bruford College .

What an incredible challenge this has been! I have had to answer difficult life questions these past few months, plus set aside years of stage experience in an effort to be ’empty’, to be open to new possibilities, discoveries, and approaches to what I felt at ease with. And yet, this is what I came for – to grow, to see things anew, with fresh eyes and to truly commit to my personal and professional growth and push myself towards continuous learning.

Never Stop Learning:

What I have been reminded of is how necessary it is to sharpen one’s tools to move forward, to expand one’s knowledge of self and life generally.

There are so many moments of feeling fearful, doubtful, lost… but likewise, there are moments of peace, joy, and hope! All in all, I am grateful for being able to learn from masters in the field, who themselves continue to educate themselves so that they may continue their own development. My peers all bring gifts that bring energy to our daily sessions, and this too, makes me thankful.

I wish all those continuing their studies a successful year measured by spiritual growth and to those pondering the possibility, you have nothing to lose, only gain . Never stop learning!

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” – Socrates

For more information about the Nova ‘Love Your Future’ Scholarship please reach out to scholarship@nova.ky to find out about our 2020 application and intake!

Social Media Dangers for Job Seekers

Sat, 11 Jan 2020 11:56:00 GMT

Most of us use multiple social media accounts each day (I know I do!) as it’s a great way to keep in touch with friends and family all over the world, and it allows us to share details of our lives with those people as well. Whether it’s through photos of your children or your frequent status updates, you have an easy way to communicate with people in real-time.

I’ve seen everything on my timeline from what color underwear people are wearing on any particular day, to what they ate for breakfast last week and how long they might want to sit on the toilet for after lunch. The question I ask you is: How much is too much?

It all depends on your relationship with your social media followers/friends and most important of all: your privacy settings.

We won’t go into the details but we have had candidates who have lost out on a job opportunity after being absolutely amazing during their interviews because our clients have done a quick scour of the internet and found something they just couldn’t agree with on a social media profile.

Social media searches of potential candidates when hiring are extremely commonplace nowadays so what does that mean for you as a candidate?

1. Check your social media privacy settings:

If your privacy settings are not marked as ‘Private’, your profile, timeline, photos etc. are visible to EVERYONE . If a potential employer sees something that they don’t like, or that doesn’t fit in with the company’s values, you have just lost the opportunity to work with them.

Useful links:

2. Expect hiring managers to find all of your various social media profiles:

Potential employers will search for your name (often through Google) and your Instagram, Facebook, MySpace (yes, people still use this!), Bebo, LinkedIn, Twitter (the list goes on and on and will probably keep growing through the years) profiles come up so make sure you’re considering all your profiles when looking at your privacy settings.

3. Blog under an alias:

If you do decide to use Twitter (and actually tweet!) or write a blog that’s not work-related, it may be an idea to use a pen name or at least run it by your boss to make sure you won’t step on any toes.

4. Have a look through the photos you’re in on social media:

Now I completely agree that what you do in your own time is separate from work, however, if you are going to be working for (and effectively representing) a well known, respectable company – they don’t want your image to tarnish their reputation. So the photos you have posted in your skin tight, short dress before you go clubbing the night before your interview may make you look fabulous, but think about what image this is could portray to a potential employer. Likewise with any ‘compromising’ photos that you may have posted of yourself as well.

Because it is becoming more and more frequent that our clients are doing these social media checks on their candidates, we may also be required to do this on behalf of some of our clients also, so if you are serious about getting a job it may be a good idea to check your privacy settings and make sure that your activity is only visible to your friends, or people you are connected to.

You don’t want something like this standing in the way of your dream job!

If you have any questions at all about this, or anything else to do with your job search, please do not hesitate to get in touch with any of the members of the Nova team at info@nova.ky .

Technology for Hiring – Understanding how HR uses technology to find candidates

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 11:53:00 GMT

What exists when it comes to technology for hiring? Whether you’re reading this as a hiring manager looking to streamline your internal process, or you’re a job seeker just trying to understand what you’re up against, read on more for our favorite technology for hiring!

We’ve recently written a post about how tech is changing the job searching space with incredible technologies that help you understand how well your resume compares to a job description all the way up to personality AI that helps you better understand your interviewer before meeting them! This post is from a different angle. Nova, as a recruitment agency, are uniquely placed where we work with both job seekers and hiring managers, so this article tackles how technology is changing how we hire.

Understanding the market – Technology for Hiring

We can’t stress enough the importance of thinking like a hiring manager when you’re a job seeker. With this in mind, it’s important to understand the technologies that are helping hiring managers because that will help understand what is being used to find job seekers just like you!

Applicant tracking systems

Have you ever heard of an applicant tracking system or ATS? Top employers hire for several jobs at a time and receive hundreds of resumes for any given opening, an ATS is here to make their lives easier by managing and filtering applicants just like you. Many of these systems rely on keyword matching to reject or highlight candidates via their ranking and search algorithms as well, so in theory, these systems also save time by automatically surfacing and highlighting top candidates.

So, what exactly does that mean for you? Well, in essence, it means that you need to make sure that your resume is tailored to match your skills with the job description to make sure that if a company uses an ATS, that your resume gets a high ranking on their algorithm. Even if a company isn’t using an ATS, this is what a hiring manager does when they scan your resume as well, so you should always tailor your resume to the job regardless – an ATS just automates this process.

ATS technology is everywhere

There are dozens of different ATS, each with their own features, strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. Here are just a few of the top ATS on the market currently:

If you’re applying to a large organization, chances are you’ll face an ATS. If you’re applying through any online form, you’re applying through an ATS. Even job sites like Indeed and LinkedIn have their own built-in ATS!

How does an ATS work?

Some applicant tracking systems can automatically compare your resume to the job description. For example, Taleo calls this feature “Req Rank,” which ranks each applicant based on how well their resume scores based on the job description.

When you have hundreds of applications coming in per job and have multiple jobs open, hiring managers crave ease and efficiency and this is where this ranking system adds value! Instead of reviewing each and every application, the hiring manager can focus on candidates the ATS has identified as a great match.

LinkedIn Recruiter Profile

Did you know that LinkedIn is used by more than 90% of recruiters and employers to source new candidates? As the unrivaled professional social network, LinkedIn plays a major role in how individuals search for jobs and how recruiters find candidates.

There is a special type of account that recruiters can pay for (at quite a steep price) that gives them a very different view of the site than what a normal user sees known as a recruiter profile.

With a recruiter profile, recruiters and hiring managers gain access to sourcing and searching tools where they can specifically target a geographic location, skillset, job title or even past employers to help in finding the perfect match for the role they’re hiring for. Hiring managers can even see metrics that show how likely you are to be interested in a position based on your level of interaction with their company profile on LinkedIn or if you have your profile confidentially set to “open to new opportunities”.

Boolean/Keyword searching

A common way recruiters filter resumes in an applicant tracking system is by searching for key skills and titles, and you can do this using a specific technique known as Boolean searching.

For example, if a recruiter is hiring for an Administrative Assistant position and they have had 200 resumes submitted for this role, their first step will probably be a search for “Administrative Assistant.” What this does is isolate candidates that have done the exact job before. This is why this is important! If you didn’t have that term on your resume that could mean you’re out of luck, so you always want to make sure you’re tailoring your resume for the job you’re applying for.

A search can contain multiple terms. For example, they might perform a complex search that contains a combination of titles and skills important for the job: Administrative Assistant AND data entry AND payroll …

Candidates who can predict the correct resume keywords will have the greatest chance of being included in these search results. The best way to figure out which skills and keywords to include is by analyzing the job description ( this is where our tech for job searchers comes in handy! ).

We hope with this list covering the different technology for hiring that exists, you’ll have a bit of insight into how hiring managers and recruiters search and use this insight to help you in your job search personally!

How Technology Can Enhance Your Job Search

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 22:39:00 GMT

Technology is always changing and the ways we’re used to doing things are constantly being innovated, and job searching is no different!

Competition in the employment market is stiff at the moment, so it’s more important than ever to stand out – this article goes through some of the technologies on the market at the moment (some free, some not) that can help you to do just that!

To really understand how tech is innovating the job search, you need to also read our post on technology for hiring because that will help understand what is being used to find you!

Top Technology for Job Hunters

Jobscan

Jobscan is a mind-blowing, game-changing online tool that was born as a result of a job seeker’s frustration and is a technology that aims to help you have a resume that stands out of the crowd to get your resume to the top of the yes pile .

Jobscan analyzes a job description to your resume and pulls out the keywords to see which ones are missing from your resume and gives you tips on what keywords you should mention to better tailor to the job in question in an easy-to-read comparison. It shows the top skills from the job description as well as the frequency of keywords compared to your resume, you can even click on a skill to see the context in which it’s used in the job description!

Jobscan even has a LinkedIn optimization that you can use to see how well your profile on LinkedIn stacks up to jobs you’re interested in, which brings us to the next tech tool you should be using – LinkedIn!

If you’re a job seeker actively on the hunt for a new role, you should be using LinkedIn to your advantage. So, what are some of the best ways to optimize your profile and usage of the site?

We have a blog just for optimizing your LinkedIn profile , check it out if you’re new to the site or if your profile maybe needs a little extra TLC to stand out.

Crystal Knows

Crystal Knows is a bit different, it is actually a personality AI app that analyzes millions of online data points from an individual’s online profile to identify personality. It sounds a little out there, but we’ve tested it on the Nova team members here and have to say it is eerily accurate!

So why exactly is that useful? Crystal will give you tips and tricks on how to communicate with a person like you’ve known them for years – this helps to arm you with insight that is invaluable when it comes to an interview and allows you to communicate more effectively and build trust faster with new people.

For instance, does your interviewer appreciate details? If yes, you might cut down on the small chat and dive into the numbers of how you created efficiencies in your most recent job and how that lead to an increase in ROI. Or is your interview someone who is expressive, warm and open when interacting? If yes, instead of diving into the numbers you may be more likely to impress by telling stories and examples of your expertise from the past.

Email trackers – Hubspot

Have you ever sent your resume in for a position via email and then wanted to send a followup but weren’t sure when to do just that? Email trackers like Hubspot allow you to track your email so that you can see if/when your application email has been opened.

This allows you to accurately and efficiently time your follow-up to send after you know your profile has been reviewed.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a lifesaver and can mean the difference between a good resume and a great one! Imagine spending hours and hours perfecting your resume, getting all the skills and keywords right and you did manual spellcheck but didn’t pick up on the little grammatical mistake in your opening summary? That one line can sometimes be enough to put another applicant with the same background and skills higher up the rankings due to their perceived high level of attention to detail.

Grammarly is here to help and stop this from happening! You can upload your resume and cover letter and Grammarly will scan it and let you know areas of improvement so that when you send your profile out, it is of the highest standards.

Technology is making everything we know around us more efficient, don’t let your job search be any different! Let us know how you’re using tech to help in your search, or if you find success using any of these tips!

What Working Parents Really Want

Mon, 16 Sep 2019 13:11:00 GMT

September 16th is National Working Parents Day, a day that was established to honour all the hard-working parents that do the impossible; have a day job and raise children at the same time!

As a team of many working parents ourselves (half of the Nova office have toddlers running around at home!) we believe work-life balance to be a vital factor for high-performing employees and maintaining an overall welcoming office culture.

Figuring out how to balance work and family commitments is a challenge. That’s why the hard-working, insightful recruitment consultants/parents at Nova have pulled together some really useful tips and market research on not only how to manage work-life balance as a parent, but how employers can create environments that support this as well!

Tips for working parents: navigating work-life balance

To start let’s look at 5 quick tips to make sure you are acknowledging work-life balance and getting the chance to spend some quality time with your family!

Be honest with yourself

Turn off the electronics (yes, it can wait)

Identify your priorities

Company flexibility/programs

Socialize!

Why should employers adopt family-friendly work policies that promote work-life balance?

How can companies stay competitive in a market that craves work-life balance?

Work-life balance is a topic that is constantly evolving, and in recent years family-friendly work policies have become what is expected of a leading company. However, even with the rise of importance of work-life balance, the benefits survey from the Society for Human Resource Management in 2017 reported no significant increases in the number of companies offering family-friendly benefits.

Here are 3 key perks why as an employer you should adopt family-friendly work policies that will not only motivate current employees but attract top talent with a competitive benefits package!

Increased Productivity

Competitive benefits package

Better retention rates for quality employees

If you’re an employer or manager, think about what you can do for the working parents in your team, we guarantee you it will be beneficial in the long run, and a big thank you to all the hard-working parents for everything you do – keep it up!

Until next time,

Hannah

Everything you Ever Wanted to Know About Working with a Recruiter

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 14:36:00 GMT

So, you’re looking for a new opportunity and you’ve decided to reach out to or maybe you’ve been referred to a recruiter to help you in your search – what should you expect when working with a recruiter?

What are the benefits of using a recruiter?

A recruiter’s number one goal is to get you hired and until that happens they will do their best to educate you, prepare you, and coach you through all aspects of the interview and hiring process!

How do recruitment agencies work?

Imagine a company is a huge puzzle – you’ve spent forever putting all the pieces together and right when you think you’re finished, there’s one piece missing! That’s where recruiters come in, we look long and hard to find that missing puzzle piece that is the perfect match for our clients.

It’s important to understand recruiters tend to work on behalf of a client’s company, meaning that they gather the job description and specifications, along with the brief from Management and then search for the ‘perfect fit’ candidates. So, while helping people is the most satisfying part of our work, it’s literally our job to put forth candidates who meet our client’s needs. Recruiters don’t find jobs for people — they find people for jobs. There are a few occasions where this wouldn’t be the case, for executive search for example or for very niche roles but your recruiter would speak to about this.

That sounds pretty cutthroat, but this can work in your favour! Recruiters want you to be the successful candidate for the role they’re putting you forward for, so take advantage of your recruiter’s suggestions whether it be resume tips or interview insights!

Will a recruiter charge me for their services?

Using Nova as a candidat e is completely free of charge. We will never charge you for our service of putting you forward to clients. Our revenue comes from charging clients (the employers) a “placement fee” when our candidates are made an offer – hence why we have to find that perfect match!

How long will it take to hear about a job?

Keeping in mind what was explained above, it really depends as we work on behalf of our clients and so, while we wish we could control the market, we react to the needs of our clients and their internal processes. We’re always here, so feel free to reach out to the team if you ever have any questions!

It is important to know from the get go that a recruiter is not going to do everything for you, this is going to take some effort from your end as well – it is your future after-all! For example, if we recommend a resume change, it’s because we think it’s going to get you more interviews or increase the odds that our client responds positively. Make sure you’re easily reached, open to suggestions and ready to put in work where needed!

Remember how we said that recruiters work on behalf of their clients? As that is the case, you want to make sure that when you’re meeting/speaking with a recruiter for the first time that you are there to impress !

As recruiters work on behalf of their clients, you can think of this meeting for all intents and purposes as a screening interview – a chance for the recruiter to get to know you, see how you react and compose yourself in an interview setting and also start to see what clients/positions you might be suited for.

Thinking of this like an interview, that means you should dress appropriately , be on time (aka be 10-15 minutes early), have positive body language , and be confident in your skills and abilities as well as be ready and able to answer questions your recruiter might have.

Keep an open line of communication

From the very first meeting onwards, ensure that you keep communication with your recruiter consistent, updating them on your key criteria for the perfect opportunity. This is essential to building a relationship, ensuring that your recruiter is working with you to the best of their ability and presenting you with roles that are best aligned with your search.

Things your recruiter needs to know

For a recruiter to be able to match you to the perfect opportunities, both now and in the future, they need to know a few key things to ensure their search is aligned with yours and that they are presenting you with roles that tick your boxes as well as their client’s.

What is your motivation for leaving/looking for a new opportunity?

You’re looking for a new job, you likely wouldn’t have reached out to a recruiter if you weren’t. Your reasons for wanting to leave your current job could be anything from the culture, the lack of growth opportunities or maybe you’re looking to move into a role with more flexibility. Whatever it is, your recruiter will find this information invaluable, and it will only benefit you in the long run to help us understand your motivations.

No matter what your reason for leaving, relay that information in a positive way! Sure, you could absolutely despise your current workplace for various reasons, but one of the biggest pitfalls candidates make in meeting with recruiters (as well as in interview) is talking negatively about your current/previous employer – trust me, it’s never a good idea! Instead of saying “All my boss ever does is micromanage me, I feel suffocated and that everything I do is being scrutinized.” instead, you could say “I prefer to be given more autonomy in my role and be trusted to get on with the task in hand.” See what we did there?

What is your ideal job?

We’ve all heard the saying “find a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life”, so what would your ideal job description look like? Obviously, we need to still be practical here but some starting points thinking about this would be your key responsibilities and your strengths and weaknesses. Write down the key responsibilities of your ideal role, based upon what you enjoy about your current role as well as in previous jobs. Next, be clear on what your unique selling points are, identifying the hard and soft skills which suit your ideal responsibilities, and the areas in which you may need to up-skill.

Your recruiter can advise you on how to bridge any skills gaps and may know of opportunities that can support you in doing this. Nova has a wide range of training workshops and online training options available for candidates to utilize, as well as our tailored careers advice sessions where we can help you to come up with a plan for this!

Your ideal company

When you think about what makes somewhere a “great place to work” what comes to mind? What you’re picturing in your head is likely to be different to what I’m envisioning and that’s completely expected! We’re all unique and what we’re looking for is no different, so it’s important to have an idea of what you’re looking for so that your recruiter knows what roles to present to you. These are a few things to consider: company size, company culture, industry as well as the nitty gritty practicalities such as benefits and compensation.

Maybe you already have some companies in mind which you like the sound of working for? If not, do some research based on the above criteria, and take this list to your recruiter in this meeting.

The “non-negotiables” and the “nice to haves”

Now comes the part where you really need to think about things and boil down what you need and what you want. That said, you need to be realistic here. Some roles won’t tick every box, but there could be certain factors that are extremely important to you. Highlight the parts you could compromise on, so that your recruiter knows not to pass you up for a promising opportunity, just because it wasn’t 100 percent perfect.

Are you non-negotiable on a flexible working policy because you have a small cake business that you’re trying to get off the ground, but might have a little wiggle room on salary? This is important for a recruiter to know!

Where have you applied?

If you’re working with a recruiter but see a position that you might be interested in that they haven’t approached you with just yet don’t just go and apply directly – speak to your recruiter first ! The reason for this is that your recruiter often has strong relationships with HR teams and hiring managers and so they may be able to approach these companies for you and get you in front of the ‘powers that be’ as opposed to getting stopped by a gatekeeper application portal.

Are you working with other recruiters/agencies?

We understand that you’re looking for a new position and want to tackle your search as best as possible and so we understand that you might feel you should register with multiple agencies and work with multiple recruiters. While there is no inherent issue with this, it is important to understand that if a recruiter has represented you to a client then a different recruiter cannot double up that application – just like how if you’ve applied directly they can’t represent you.

To find out more about Nova’s recruitment services and how we can help you with your job search, reach out to our team at info@nova.ky or fill out our consultation request form and come in for a meeting now that you know what to expect!

10 Top Tips for Salary Negotiation

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 20:10:00 GMT

For most people, just the thought of a salary negotiation can be intimidating, and the process can be awkward and uncomfortable if you’re not prepared.

Whether you’ve just received a job offer or you’re up for a promotion at your current employer, you should be considering the importance of salary negotiations and what that means for your future.

According to a study by global staffing firm Robert half, only 39% of candidates tried to negotiate the salary with their last job offer. Of those people who did negotiate, they were able to increase their salary by over 7%.

Now, I know 7% doesn’t really sound like all that much when you think about it without context so why is this significant? Well, first off it is important to note that often raises and promotions are calculated as a percentage of salary, so if you’re starting at a lower salary, you’ll grow slower too. Example: if you were hired at $100K per annum and your colleague managed to negotiate their salary 7% up to $107k, presuming you and your co-worker are treated the same from that moment on it will take you 8 years to be as wealthy as them at retirement.

Moral of the story? Salary negotiation is important and it’s time to learn how; that’s where Nova comes in as we’re here to help to get you prepared for that courageous conversation!

Before the Salary Negotiation:

1. First and foremost, speak to your recruiter

If you have a job offer on the table and you’ve been speaking to a recruiter throughout the process, speak to them about what you’re looking for in a salary and if you’re wanting more than the offer reflects. Recruiters have developed a relationship built on trust and market expertise with both their candidates and clients, so will be able to give you some insight as well as be a great mediator to negotiate on your behalf, so always go through your recruiter!

2. Know your value

If you’re you’re thinking about salary negotiation, first you need to know the value of your skills in the current market. You need to know what the benchmark looks like for your position in your specific industry in your specific geographic location, because all of this can make a difference to what a salary might look like! Confidence is key in these conversations, and without being fully prepped and knowledgeable, you’ll never have the confidence that you need to have this conversation with the outcome you’re hoping for.

Here are some questions to consider as you begin your market research:

• What is the national average salary for the position?
• How much do similar companies in your area pay employees in this position?

Some of the best ways to look into this salary information is to look on search sites like Glassdoor , look at recent positions posted in the Cayman compass (or whatever your local job posting site/newspaper is) and by speaking to other individuals in your field (ideally both men & women to avoid any gender pay gap that may exist).

Another easy way to gain insight into the current market is to speak to recruiters like our team here at Nova! Recruiters have a really good insight into the market and know what people with your experience and expertise are worth, so use it to your advantage! We work on positions with clients all across Cayman and have a great insight into what the going value for skills is currently and what competitive benefits packages look like for someone with your experience and expertise. Some recruiters even pull together salary surveys on an annual basis and may have this data publicly available to see.

3. Prepare a highlight reel of your contributions to the company

Our next piece of advice is to pull together a brag sheet, or a one-page summary that highlights all of the things you do as an employee that makes you amazing. Have some key achievements ready to mention alongside that market research that you found – this will help to back up your findings on a more personalized level and tailor it to how you add continued value to the company.

List any accomplishments, awards, and customer or even co-worker testimonials that you’ve received since your last review. You want to demonstrate your value to your boss or whoever it is you’re meeting with about this negotiation. You don’t necessarily need to give them this brag-sheet, but by pulling this together, you will have consciously thought about it and feel more prepared and confident when negotiating.

4. Practice Makes Perfect

Practice, practice, practice! We can’t stress how important this is, because if you are nervous about negotiating salary (which most people are!), the only way to feel more confident is to feel prepared and that happens through practice! Write down what you want to say, and practice to a mirror, on video, or with a friend until you’re comfortable having the conversation and know your major points by heart.

5. Set the Meeting for a Thursday

Studies show that you’re more likely to get a raise if you ask on Thursday. Why you may ask? Well, psychology of course!

We tend to be a little less flexible and agreeable at the beginning of the week, probably because we’re wishing it was still the weekend and that we were watching Netflix. As the week goes on, we become more flexible and accommodating, we stray away from choosing a Friday as often they can be a little hectic trying to wrap up work for the weekend, so Thursday is the perfect choice!

Note – If you’ve received a job offer and want to see the salary a little higher, don’t make your potential new employer wait a whole week to hear this because you’re waiting for a Thursday. Use your best judgement on when to mention this to them as they will be impatiently awaiting your decision, so don’t put them off!

The Main Event:

6. Treat it as a collaboration, not a fight.

Never approach a salary negotiation as an ultimatum — an either/or — but rather as a collaborative process and a unique opportunity to create a compensation package that makes sense for both you and for them.

7. Demonstrate your value

Before you start talking salary you need to talk about what value you have added to the company and more importantly, what value you can continue to add in the future! Remember that highlight reel? Now’s your chance to walk through your accomplishments with your manager or your potential new boss to really show your worth – the key here is to have proof that you’re indispensable to your organisation.

8. Say an exact figure!

You should never use the word “between” when negotiating. When it comes to salary, that means don’t give a range like “I’m looking for between $60K and $65K.” If you say this, it makes you seem as though you’re happy with any number on that scale so why would the person you’re negotiating with not immediately jump to the smallest number?

By saying a precise number, you are more likely to get a final offer closer to what you are hoping for. Why? We’re glad you asked! Psychology shows this is because you will seem to have done more extensive research into your market value to reach that specific number (which you should have if you read #2 on this list).

9. Don’t get too personal

While it might feel logical to explain your personal financial situation as your reasoning for needing to earn more money, this can also ruin your salary negotiation. Remember you’re negotiating for a better salary, but they are still a business and so they will be much more engaged when you focus on your performance and achievements and make it business-related.

10. Think beyond dollars and cents

What if your boss (or the hiring manager) really won’t budge on salary? Try negotiating for flex time, more vacation time or other benefits that would be competitive for you.

Other possible benefits:
-Child and Elder care benefits
-Higher pension contributions
-Life and disability insurance
-Professional development programs
-Tuition reimbursement

Putting All Of This Into Practice

So, you’re probably thinking this is all great – but how do you actually say all this in reality? What are the words you actually should say in a salary negotiation? Read below for a possible example!

Example:

“Thank you for sending over the job offer package for the Senior HR Manager position. I am excited about the opportunity and would like to reiterate how grateful I am you’ve considered me for this role. I believe in your firm and know I could help you drive even greater results in employee engagement, recruitment campaigns and develop policies and procedures to further refine the firm.

However, before I accept your offer, I want to address the proposed salary. As I shared during the interview process, I have more than twelve years’ experience in HR, including eight years of experience at leadership and management level. In my role at my current employer, I have reduced time-to-fill on recruitment efforts by 50%, increased offer acceptance rates by 23% and implemented a regional benefits strategy for the firm that has been regarded as ground-breaking in this industry here in Cayman.

Given my experience and expertise, I am seeking a salary of $125,575. However, I am open to discussing alternative compensation, such as opportunities for additional stock options, increased performance-based bonuses or a guaranteed salary review after a short probationary period.”

If you’re interested in learning more about salary negotiation, current market value of salaries or just want to speak to a recruiter about current opportunities and what the employment market looks like, reach out to our team at info@nova.ky

Tomorrow’s HR Talent Apprentice: How HR certification programs can enhance your career

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 14:35:00 GMT

For the past six months, Hannah has been gearing up to take the Associate Professional in Human Resources (aPHR) exam through the HR Certification Institute (HRCI) . Read more about her experience in continuous learning below!

Before: Why get a professional HR certification?

Some of you may be asking, why get a certification? And why the aPHR?

The reason I chose the aPHR certification was because this program gives a kickstart to individuals like myself just beginning their HR career. Also, in 2018, Payscale reported from their online survey that 34% of respondents in the HR field have a least one HR certification and 30.4% have one from the HRCI.

As the job market becomes more and more competitive, continuing education has become central to achievement, now more than ever. Specific to my personal development journey, an HR certification shows that I am committed to my profession. Not only that, but it helps position me to be a thought leader in the industry by teaching me best practice and relevant industry knowledge.

During: Preparing for the aPHR exam

The HRCI offers a variety of programs to choose from, however since I am still a breastfeeding mom, I felt the online modules were the best form of study as I was able to study at my own pace. There was even a mobile app which I highly recommend when you have a scooting toddler around the house!

‘Twas the week before my exam and I was freaking out! I had been studying for weeks, however for some reason I felt like I was no way near ready to take a 2hr 15min HR exam. Remember the part about how I am still breastfeeding? Well, how was I supposed to leave my 10-month old for 3 days to fly off island to take my exam? That wasn’t going to happen. So, I decided to take her with me to New York to be my moral support (I’ll thank her when she’s older).

The flight was a success! My daughter slept most of the way (amazing, I know!) and I was able to get a bit of studying in. By this point, I was feeling a little bit better and kept thinking it is okay to be nervous, just remember to be confident and positive.

My exam was the next day. Luckily, my mom met us in the city and was able to watch my daughter for the duration of the exam. As most parents do, my mother gave me some words of wisdom before the exam. “No matter the outcome of the exam, we will celebrate afterwards. You studied and worked hard, and that deserves to be celebrated!”

After: The outcome

As I was about to leave the testing centre, the receptionist called me over to the front desk and handed me an envelope. To be honest, I was too scared to open it. So, my mom did. After studying every weekend for months on end, I am proud to share that I passed the aPHR Certification exam and am officially a certified HR professional!

This is a huge step in my professional development, and I am so excited to grow my knowledge and experience in the HR field.

Take a risk, work hard and believe in your path.

Until next time,

Hannah

Hannah is currently working with Nova as our “ Tomorrow’s HR Talent” apprentice , she has a passion for helping candidates find their perfect match and does so with a smile! Read more about her journey throughout her apprenticeship here .

Inside the Mind of a Recruiter: How to get your resume into the ‘Yes’ pile

Fri, 26 Jul 2019 17:59:00 GMT

Have you ever wondered what goes through a recruiter’s mind when they look at your resume? Well now is your chance to find out!

It All Starts With The ‘Why’

The first thing the recruiter will want to know is why your resume is sitting in front of them and why you applied. What has been your career experience so far, why are you applying for this job, and most importantly why should they take an interest in you?

Depending on how you lay out your resume, your personal statement/objective is likely the first thing the recruiter will read, so make sure it is tailored to the specific job and explains why you are applying. This is crucial! Keep it brief and focus on your experience and why you are the best fit for the job. Don’t be tempted to write about what you are looking to achieve next in your career – the recruiter needs to know how well you fit an organization’s needs right now, not how the organisation can help you move forward.

What Are Your Skills?

After reading your intro, recruiters will search your resume to look for the suitable experience you mentioned in your intro. Make it easy for recruiters to find! Place a short list beneath your personal statement, almost like a quick snapshot of your main skills, starting with those that are most aligned with the job you’re applying for; e.g. accounts receivables, plus your technical abilities such as Quickbooks or Excel.

Where’s The Proof?

Great! Now you’ve got the recruiter’s attention with your personal statement and key skills, the next step is proving it! You need to highlight and showcase evidence of your skills in the career history/work experience section of your resume.

Starting with your most recent role, list your relevant career history to date. List the job title and organisation, and then follow with a few points detailing your responsibilities and achievements. Try to showcase this in a way that mirrors the key words and language used in the job description – think about the job description as a question and your resume as the answer. Does it actually answer it?

Where possible include facts, statistics and links to your work! This is where you can really show the proof recruiters are looking for. For example, if you listed web content management as one of your key skills, you could try including some analytics numbers like click-through-rate and conversions. You should also link to some of your online content so that they can see what you can do!

If any past roles aren’t relevant to this opportunity, simply list the name of the company, your job title, and the dates you were employed. This shows you were employed during this time, while freeing up space for your more suitable experience.

Has Your Resume Ticked All The Boxes?

At this point, a recruiter will have likely already made a decision on whether to add your resume to their ‘yes’ pile or not. But we’re not done yet! To take your resume even further, think about the following things:

These include:
1. Attention to detail – Resume mistakes reflect badly on your attention to detail and this can be extremely off-putting for a recruiter. Proofread at least once before sending it, even better get someone else to proof read it for you! A fresh pair of eyes is never a bad thing.
2. Can a recruiter easily get in contact? There is nothing more frustrating than when a candidate either has no contact details, the details are no longer up to date or they are incorrect. If there are other start candidates out there and you made yourself difficult to contact, you may have just cut yourself out of consideration.

In a given week here at Nova we review at least 100 resumes, so you really need to think about how to make your resume stand out! To catch the attention of a recruiter (whether at an agency or not) you need to make an instant, positive impact with your resume and hopefully these tips will help you do just that.

Top 10 Job Interview Tips

Fri, 26 Jul 2019 08:34:00 GMT

Interviews can be scary but the more you prepare, the more confidence you can have! Have a look at our top ten hints to think about and take into your interview!

1. Knowledge of company

This should be some of your homework before the interview – what does the company do? what is the company involved in? what other jurisdictions is the company found in? Have they been in the news recently? You should have the answers to these questions!

Sounds very basic, doesn’t it? But you will be surprised how many candidates go into an interview clueless about the company – don’t be like them, be prepared to wow!

2. Interviewers know how unprepared you are!

Please do your research on the job and industry you are interviewing for, this will be a differentiating point between you and the other candidates. If you can talk about the role and industry as an expert this will go a long way to getting the job. Preparation is key and if you go unprepared, this will be reflected!

3. Attire matters

This one shouldn’t be news to you! But what you wear in an interview is indeed an important factor, a dress/skirt too short, casual wear, wrinkled shirts – these can all be decisive and reflect your professionalism and character.

4. The interviewers will make an instant decision about you.

Yes, you read that right – interviewers make judgements within 30 seconds of meeting you on whether you will be successful. So, make sure you walk in confidently and give firm handshakes alongside clear and personable hello’s.

5. You must have answers!

Before your interview, really think about your previous experience and how this experience translates into this new role you’re applying for. You should think of some key examples and situations that you can talk about so you can demonstrate your experience.

Never-ever say “I don’t know” in an interview. If you are asked a tricky question, take a deep breath and think about it.

6. Body language speaks loud and clear!

We all get nervous before and during an interview. But it is how you deal with this that will make a difference. Wild hand gestures, stuttering or looking uninterested can turn off interviewers – be open and positive.

7. Employers may have no clue what they are doing.

Surprising, right? How does the employer not know what they are doing?

Well, the interviewers may often be put on the spot to conduct the interview without any training – so they don’t know what questions to ask or even what the role may consist of. But this is where you make a difference – ask questions about the role, about the company’s culture and environment.

Once again confidence in what you say can help them to believe you!

8. Ask questions!!! Ask questions!!! Ask questions!!!

Prepare two or three questions beforehand. If you don’t ask any questions, it shows lack of engagement and interest. Really think about what you want to know and what’s important to you.

But, whatever you do, don’t make your first question about salary! If the salary is not advertised, of course you can ask. Make sure you ask in the right way though! Rather than, “So, how much are you paying?” say something more like this, “The role and the company seem to be a perfect fit for my career move, what is the compensation range?”

9. Interviewers like personable.

It is important to stand out in the recruitment process. How can you do that? Be personable with the interviewers – find common ground (whether you like the same football club, or you have the same work ethics).

10. Following up will make you standout!

Yes!! You have survived the interview! But it doesn’t end here. Send an email thanking the company/interviewer for the opportunity. If you think this is a right fit for you, then express that in the email as well. This will give you extra points!

If you are still feeling nervous and you need help to prepare, reach out we would be more than happy to assist!

Emily Murphy is a recruitment and HR professional who loves to get new careers off to a great start.

Survival Guide for New Graduates: Transitioning from student to young professional

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 16:17:00 GMT

Congratulations you’re a new graduate! Done, dusted and now on to the “real world”! But how do you go from student to high performing employee?

The world of work is pretty different to the life at college and you’re going to face some growing pains as you adjust to this new chapter. New challenges come with new responsibilities and a whole new rulebook in terms of how you are assessed and how to forge relationships that will guide you to success – so how do you navigate this change and come out on top?

From Graduate to High Performing Employee – Setting Yourself up for Success

The simple fact is that you can’t take the same approach to work as you did in college. Can you really expect the same methods you used to do well in school to automatically be the same at work?

The way your success is measured at work is different to what you have become used to in college as there is no rigid system of timetables, scheduled assessments and exams – so how do you set yourself up for success and add value to the company ?

1. Ask questions! Your new job doesn’t come with an instruction manual and while you are expected to figure some of it out on your own, always ask questions. Sometimes it can feel like asking questions shows that you don’t know what you are doing but in reality, asking for clarity will go a long way in building respect and developing your skills, so take notes and learn!

2. Go above and beyond – If you feel you have the capacity, ask for more work! Maybe there’s a project you’ve noticed is being put off that you can push forward with? At the very least you will appear keen and capable and this is key to making a good early impression.

3. Find a mentor and speak to them regularly – Find someone that has been in a similar situation earlier in their career who has gone on to be successful. Ask them for their tips and tricks and use them to your benefit!

4. Understand your role in the organization – Another challenge you can set yourself is to examine your role from all angles looking at how your job fits in with the wider operation. By doing this you’ll have a better idea of the difference you can make in the organization and understand the unspoken expectations your superiors may have of you.

5. Create efficiencies and take initiative where you can – After you’ve evaluated your role, look for any pressure points where things don’t run as smoothly as they should. If you can propose any solutions to these issues to your supervisor, that demonstrates real creativity in the workplace and being able to think outside the box which are two hugely important skills that are well worth sharpening up.

6. Ask for feedback – There is nothing more beneficial than direct feedback from your manager. Once you are armed with information on how you performing, it’s a shorter leap to bridging any gaps, so don’t wait around for the annual review and instead actively seek out feedback and you’ll be much better placed to focus on where you can improve. This will also make sure you go from just being “the new graduate” to an engaged member of the team!

7. View every day as a learning experience and be humble – just because you’re fresh out of college doesn’t mean you’re not going to be able to kill it in the workplace, just take every day as it comes and learn from every experience – good or bad!

Resume Writing Tips: Layout

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 21:17:00 GMT

One of the most important parts of the recruitment process is your application, and this can come in many different forms, but the most common is your resume. This is the first step that will determine what happens in your job search, hence why it is vital to nail it!

I know what you’re thinking – but how important is your resume really? It only takes on average 5 to 7 seconds for a recruiter to review and make a decision on your application. Imagine that! As soon as your resume falls on the recruiter’s desk, a decision can be made in a blink of an eye.

So here are some tips to improve your resume and make sure in those first few seconds you grab their attention! If you want advice on choosing the right resume format, check out our blog here.

You may be thinking these are pretty basic things and most people should be aware of them, but when was the last time you revised your resume? A few months? Maybe a few years? Well now that you’ve read through these tips, you can revamp your resume!

Rosie Ryan is a recruitment and HR professional who loves to get new careers off to a great start.

Soft Skills, Hard Impact – Understanding Changing Trends in Recruitment

Fri, 05 Jul 2019 21:20:00 GMT

As a regular participant in careers advice and training sessions as well as one of the leading recruitment agencies in Cayman, a common theme we are seeing arise recently is the importance of soft skills in the workplace and how they are moving up the priority list when considering possible candidates for hire.

Technical skills & expertise just don’t cut it anymore:

The truth is that soft skills can have a hard impact and make a big difference for employers and for employees looking to succeed in their chosen field.

Essentially, the mindset that being the best candidate comes down to a simple matter of having the right blend of experience and technical skills in one major exercise in box ticking, has become outdated. Absolutely it’s still important as a way of getting your door in the door and securing an interview, but if you really want to stand out from the crowd and make that position your own, it’s the soft skills you want to be working on! By demonstrating these soft skills to potential employers, you’re showing them you’ve got what it takes to turn you from a possible candidate to an outstanding one and that you will take that job to the next level.

Why soft skills?

Soft skills such as communication and etiquette, the ability to listen and get along with other people are rising to the fore in the workplace. So much so that in a recent study on global talent trends conducted by LinkedIn, an overwhelming 91 percent of talent professionals agreed that soft skills have gained an increasing importance to the future of recruitment and HR.

In an age of new technology, automation and artificial intelligence, it’s the soft skills that machines can’t replicate (yet) that are garnering greater prominence, especially in a crowded landscape for talent. They’ve always been important but now, according to the survey, it seems that things have moved up a notch and from our conversations with employers, have graduated from welcome additions to absolute must haves, with hard skills alone, such as experience, qualifications and technical know-how, no longer being enough to cut it.

What soft skills are the most sought after by employers?

Having gained an understanding of what soft skills are and how effective they can be in the workplace, the next step is to identify what particular skills are likely to be of most interest to a potential employer and then how you can show that you’re ahead of the game and the candidate of choice.

So what are some of the most important soft skills?
• Creativity & Problem solving – We aren’t talking about graphics and art here, but rather think of creativity in the sense of problem solving! Are you able to tackle worth in new and innovative ways and think of creative solutions to problems and challenging situations? These are skills that really set candidates apart to hiring managers and set you up for success.
• Time management – Time management skills are another important differentiating factor and being able to juggle multiple projects and still meet deadlines will show you have the ability to succeed in the modern work environment.
• Adaptability – How do you approach your work? Hiring managers are looking for candidates who are agile, who listen to the needs of clients and customers and adapt processes that are tailored to their needs to ensure efficiency and satisfaction is always at a high.
• Overall emotional intelligence – Showing professionalism and self-awareness in how you carry out your duties will set you apart from your peers and again, make the difference between good and great.

How do you show potential employers these soft skills?

Trouble is that even employers who know what soft skills they are looking for will understand that they are not so easy to assess, traditionally relying on interview questions and body language to make these judgments, which can allow bias to creep in without being applied with 100 percent consistency.

Keeping in mind the list of sought-after skills above, when we are coaching candidates ahead of important interviews, we recommend preparing three examples or scenarios for each type of skill, where you can explain and help employers visualize how you approached these situations and ultimately prove that you have successfully used those skills in the past.

How do you develop your soft skills?

When you start to break things down and isolate the kind of soft skills that employers are increasingly interested in, you can see how an individual with that kind of ability can make a measurable difference to a company. So how do you develop these skills?

It’s fair to say that soft skills like creativity or negotiation perhaps come more naturally to some people than others. If you feel that it’s something that you really need to work on then read around the subject, broaden your horizons, listen to podcasts or watch TED Talks and don’t feel you have to spend your career in the same box that you’ve always been in. Think about different ways to tackle a problem, good questions to ask in a meeting, request feedback from your manager and see what valuable lessons you can learn from others!

How the Nova Scholarship Broadened My Horizons

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 19:51:00 GMT

Tynisha is our 2018 Nova ‘Love Your Future’ Scholarship recipient – she is currently studying Web Design & Development at the University of North Hampton and has just finished her first year of study. Read about her favourite moments so far on her learning journey!

When I first decided that I would be studying abroad, I was both excited and a bit worried about what to expect. I applied for a number of scholarships and once I found out I had received the scholarship from Nova, things started to get real extremely fast and next thing I knew I was leaving! As the date for me to leave drew closer, I started to feel even more anxious, and a bit scared knowing that I couldn’t back out of my decision. Despite having those last-minute feelings of uncertainty, after I arrived in England, my doubts and fears just seemed to disappear instantly. From the moment I stepped foot on to my university, all I’ve felt is pure excitement to start my studies in a new country!

Best Part of Going to University Abroad:

Biggest Learning Points:

Overall continuing my studies abroad has been a great decision and a fantastic experience! I thank Nova for assisting me on this journey by awarding me my scholarship and wish the best of luck to any young Caymanians that have chosen to pursue their dreams!

To read more about Tynisha’s story, read her other articles from her scholarship with Nova here!

4 Tips to Jumpstart Your Job Search…

Sat, 08 Jun 2019 18:54:00 GMT

Job searching 101: follow these tips for better results

If you’re new to the world of job seeking, perhaps you have just come out of school , and you’re not sure what to do next, then I’m here to share four tips to get you started on your job search.

Tip #1 – Do Your Research

The internet is not only good for posting pics and keeping up with the latest in celebrity news. It’s also a good way to determine what the employment market is like in your area. Start by thinking of things that you are good at, things that you might be interested in, and then do some research to see what kind of jobs are available that would best be suited for you. Need some more ideas? Check out our career paths blog category for some inspiration on top job titles here in Cayman.

When seeking employment, you need to utilize every avenue that’s used for advertising jobs. The most popular in Cayman are the Friday newspaper, JobsCayman portal, LinkedIn, websites like EcayTrade, or recruitment websites.

Tip #2 – Get Your Resume Ready

OK, now that you have identified the areas that you are best suited for due to your background and what jobs are available in the employment market, next is to prepare your resume. Your resume speaks volumes about you; it’s your first encounter with the recruiter or potential employer. It will determine whether or not you make it to the next round, that being an in-person interview or a phone interview.

Remember that there are loads of people searching for jobs globally, and that is no different here in Cayman. Therefore, you need to put some effort into it, and make it stand out . Show them what makes you different. Make them clearly understand why they should hire YOU over the 45 other people in Cayman that also applied.

Tip # 3 – Work on You

Now the reality of the matter is, after leaving school there often isn’t much to put on a resume other than your education. But there are still other areas to consider!

Every experience in life is an opportunity to improve yourself and build your skills in some way.

Tip # 4 – Make Looking for a Job, Your Job

Looking for a job is no walk in the park and you can’t sit around waiting for an opportunity to come to you. It takes a lot of time, patience, and commitment. So how about you make it your fulltime job until you actually get a job?

That’s right…get up, take a shower, and put on some proper clothes (not that sweatsuit that hasn’t been washed in a week) and get to work. Do your research, identify available opportunities, perfect your resume, and sign up for a seminar. Make it a goal to get at least one application out for the day and no matter what, do not give up.

Tomorrow’s HR Talent Apprentice: How an internship kickstarted my career

Wed, 29 May 2019 16:13:00 GMT

Hannah is our current “Tomorrow’s HR Talent” Apprentice , but before she started this program she actually started with the Nova team through an internship – read more about her and her experience below!

I was 6 months pregnant and heard that Nova Recruitment, a recruiting agency was looking for a summer intern for two months to help out around the office with administrative work. Immediately, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get my foot in the door! With only a couple months left until my daughter’s due date, Nova’s internship would expose me to recruitment, Cayman Islands Immigration services, payroll etc., even if it were only for a short time. In other words, I would finally have some human interaction and stop binge watching Netflix. There are only so many episodes of Great British Bake Off one can watch…or is there?

So how did I land the internship of my dreams you ask?

Well, to start I polished my resume , re-wrote my cover letter and sent it to dozens of companies, personalized accordingly for each position. After not receiving news from many of the companies on island I decided maybe let’s try a recruitment agency. So, I reached out to Nova as a candidate in hopes that they would be able to help me in my own job search. A meeting notification came into my inbox and I was thrilled! Nervous, but thrilled. I hadn’t even gotten the job yet, or even had a job in sight but someone answered my email…this was progress!!

The morning of, I woke up early, put on a dress and heels (remember: I was quite pregnant then and heels are not a pregnant girl’s friend!!), prepared my notebook with a few follow up questions and planned to arrive 15 minutes early to my meeting. I was prepared; I knew if I spoke with confidence and demonstrated my passion for HR, I would make a good impression and they would remember me.

Fast forward to a few phone calls, two in-person meetings, and many follow up emails later, I received an email stating that I had been offered the Recruitment Administrator Intern position!

So what can you learn from my experience?

Like I experienced, it may take more than one application to get you your dream job, so don’t feel disheartened if you were not chosen this time, rather go back and look over your work. Check to see if there was something you could have improved on.

Nova’s ‘Be The One’ campaign can help you along the way making sure that you are making star applications and representing the best version of yourself. Should you be interested in learning more, please get in contact with one of the Nova Team for a careers advice session at info@nova.ky .

Until next time,

Hannah

Why Team Training is Important

Thu, 02 May 2019 15:03:00 GMT

How do organizations stay relevant in their industry? Through training.

Closely following our ability to innovate is our ability to learn. When organizations support their people with strategic training and learning opportunities, they become agile, ready to respond to change or pioneer change ourselves.

How To Be Strategic About Team Training

Most companies that don’t engage in a lot of training blame high costs for their lack of learning opportunities. It’s no excuse! You can create a learning culture that encourages your staff members to be proactive about their growth.

Of course, there is a time cost for in-house training, but lunch and learn sessions, job shadowing, mentorship, and projects are all effective, low-cost options to up-skilling and teaching your team on a regular basis. Of course, your culture must support this learning focus. Show your staff through your practices that learning is a priority.

Do you know which positions in your organisation are business critical? Are you able to effectively identify your high performers and high potentials?

When it comes to training, you want to be conscious of return on investment. Your dollar will go furthest with the employees who are already succeeding or those who have the ability and opportunity to succeed with some support. You also want to be sure that you’re thinking about what jobs are critical to revenue generation and eliminating risk. Focusing on the employees in these business-critical roles will help you drive profits or cut costs. A great first step is to complete a SWOT analysis that will help you identify your training needs!

Failure to set post-training objectives is the easiest way to waste your budget. You want to make sure that the learning on which you’ve spent money has an impact to business, otherwise, what’s the point? The courses or learning your employees undertake should have an evaluation component so that you can measure their improved skills and use those to drive business results.

Your employee should have short-term and long-term goals that will demonstrate their improved abilities – go ahead and build this into your performance management process. Your finance team can help you track your training spend and may be able to give you advice on how to put a dollar figure to increased productivity that has resulted from your training.

To find out more about Nova’s training opportunities , please reach out to the team at info@nova.ky .

Interview Questions to Get You Hired

Thu, 02 May 2019 14:22:00 GMT

It’s your turn to get insight into your potential new role. The role reversal where you question your employees. How many hours will I normally do? What’s the salary? What are the benefits? Be careful what you ask! These questions infer you’re not interested in the role or work. You don’t want to come across as money focused or lazy!

When thinking about interview questions you need to stay flexible in your responses to the questions. This is so you don’t repeat anything that has been covered in the interview and make it seem like you weren’t listening or are inattentive. You need to prepare multiple questions or think of themes to cover with your questions. Here are our hints and tips based on this approach…

The first thing to think about is your position within the team and building a picture of what working there is like. Remember the interview is a two-way process and you need to figure out if you’ll love working there, so working out the company and team dynamic is vital. Use questions like:

You’ll also want to find out more about the detail of the job and what’s expected of you. This will give you more of an idea of what your day-to-day will be like and if the role is right for you.

It’s good to show motivation and aspirations. You’ll need to handle this with sensitivity so you don’t come across as arrogant. This means get your wording just right and you can ask something like:

A good way of showing engagement with the company and showing your aspirations to work there is to ask something topical about the company or industry. Make sure you do your research and fully understand what you are asking as it may well develop into a conversation. These will need to be bespoke to your role but here are some examples:

It’s also important to make sure you have covered everything in the interview. You should always switch the conversation back to the interviewer with the final question:

Remember, the questions you ask will be your last chance to form a good impression so follow these tips wisely.

Why Does Onboarding Matter?

Sat, 20 Apr 2019 19:39:00 GMT

Why does onboarding matter? Onboarding is more than a process. It’s more than a tick box on your to-do list. It shouldn’t take one day.

It’s the start of someone’s new career and their future. The core of this, what makes it so important to your new starter is quite human – everyone wants to be made comfortable and feel welcomed into a new environment. Planned and engaging onboarding does this.

There’s certain elements to onboarding that everyone should be doing such as setting objectives and meet and greets. But the ultimate aim for an employer is to engage with a new employee, engage them with their role, and values and life at the organisation. This will get them familiar with your business and a successful relationship can start.

Onboarding a new employee remotely? Check out our guide to doing this successfully, here .

It Starts Before They Start

This engagement and relationship starts from the second you are looking for a new person. From the very start of your recruitment process and your early communication, you are building your first impressions. Whether that’s a job advert or a recruiter head hunting on your behalf – there’s a picture of your business forming. This is all about building the right impression.

Wow Them

Once they’re ready to start, to get someone truly excited, you need to wow them. It’s a chance to show them how amazing their career and work can be. Whether it is the ground-breaking work that they will be working on or the quality of clients. Wow them, inspire them and engage them.

Why Bother?

The benefits for you as an employee of engaging onboarding are enormous. The first is higher retention rates. Employees that have gone through an engaging and inspiring onboarding process will buy into your company and have a clear idea how they can be a success within your company. They’ll understand the culture and build relationships that makes them feel part of a welcoming environment. This also has knock on effects where your current team is stable and happy with their roles, so increasing retention rates again.

Also, you’ll have lower time-to-productivity. Your employee will understand their role, their objectives and have the tools to succeed. They’ll also know what ‘successful’ looks like and will be engaged and motivated to get there quickly. An informative and engaging onboarding process will have your new hires performing like your top employees sooner rather than later!

So why does onboarding matter? It makes employees feel welcome. It builds long term careers. It engages people to be motivated and successful. Oh, and it will save your business time and money.

Nova’s ‘Love Your Future’ Scholarship

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 16:24:00 GMT

At Nova, we’re here to help you, and want you to fulfill your potential. That’s why we’re offering a CI$3,000 scholarship to support you through your education or professional qualification. With this support, we want to help you to achieve your career aspirations.

Requirements:

Firstly, you must meet certain criteria in order to apply. If you are applying for a scholarship to help with your associates degree or similar, we require that you have achieved a minimum of 5 GCSE’s or equivalent.

If you are applying for a scholarship to help with your bachelor’s degree, professional qualification or equivalent, you will need to have either accomplished or be predicted a minimum of 2 A Level’s at grade C or above or comparable.

To apply:

For the first part of your application you will only need your smart phone! We would like you to produce a 1-minute film, telling us what career you would love to do and why.

To go along with your video, we also would like you to write a maximum of a 500-word answer on each of these questions:

Along with your application, please send:

This scholarship in only open to those applying for or currently studying towards an associates or bachelor’s degrees or equivalent, or professional qualifications.

Please send all of the information requested above to scholarship@nova.ky .

Closing date is on the 30th April 2019.

Next Steps:

Additional Information:

Please get in touch at scholarship@nova.ky if you have any questions.

So I Started A New Job…I Can Relax Now Right?…Wrong!

Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:33:00 GMT

Firstly, congratulations! You successfully got through the shortlisting and interview stages and were chosen as THE candidate for the role. So, the interviewing stage is over now…or is it? Read more to understand how to make the most out of your probation period!

The Probation Period

When you start a new job of any kind, you have a probationary period. This is usually for the first six months of the job. Have you ever put much thought into what that period is there for? If not, it is important to understand how vital the probation period is and why it exists.

To begin, let’s look at a definition of probation in the workplace:

“You can think of a probation period as a trial period of employment during which someone is employed only subject to satisfactorily completing this period of time. They are mainly used with new employees and vary in length but typically last between one and six months

When the trial period comes to an end, the company reviews the standards and levels achieved by the employee, and if they have been met, the employee “passes” their probation period and their employment continues. Equally, the employee can terminate the employment if they feel the role or the company is not suitable for them.”

The first six months/probation period in your new job are where you should really be shining because although you have been offered this opportunity, it is not secured yet! This probation period sets the foundation for your career progression within this company.

Setting Yourself Up For Success

Aside from doing the daily tasks and duties assigned to you, here are my top tips to making sure once your probation comes to an end, there is no question whether to continue your employment.

There are a lot more points that can be added to this list, and they could be tailored to each person and each role differently but the above are some of the more important things that managers look for in new hires during the probation period.

So, keep the “interviewee cap” on and make sure you show the best version of yourself in this new role and make sure there is no reason not to continue your employment after probation.

Avoid the Three Most Tempting Lies to Tell in an Interview

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 15:16:00 GMT

Whatever you do, don’t tell one of these lies in an interview!

You’re prepping for an interview and there is one thing you know for sure: you want this job. But whether or not you land it relies on a series of uncertainties to come: will you and the interviewers hit it off? Will they ask you about or forgive you for your weaknesses? Will someone “better” apply?

After a few practice rounds with the bestie, you’ve crafted the perfect responses to the tough questions. The big day has arrived and you shake off your doubts, walking into the lions’ den with your head held high. I’ll urge you to stop here and consider why you may want to rethink your approach:

So next time you’re about to walk into an interview, remember that fudging the truth to manipulate the outcome can backfire! Sometimes the best outcome is rejection.

The right opportunities find you much faster if you’re authentic in your approach and honest about what you’re really after.

LinkedIn Tips and Tricks

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 15:03:00 GMT

Do you have a LinkedIn profile? We hope so! If you do, do you feel like your profile is in tip top shape? Here are some tips and tricks to help you develop your personal profile on LinkedIn.

Profile picture:

Be identifiable:

Connect:

LinkedIn background:

Headline design:

Write a compelling summary:

Highlight your professional experience and qualifications:

In terms of highlighting your experience, follow the below steps to ensure you are covering your expertise…

AND FINALLY…

Give and receive recommendations:

So there you go! If you follow the above steps, you are on your way to having a stand out profile that may just get you the attention you need for your next opportunity!

5 Interview Tips to Always Remember!

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 14:10:00 GMT

Here are our 5 top tips to remember for any interview!

1. BE ON TIME!

This is something so obvious that it shouldn’t even be included on the list! But you would be very surprised to learn how many times people fail to arrive on time for an interview.

Consider how it looks to any employer, when a candidate who should be trying to sell their qualities to them, can’t even get the first basic step right and be available at the time that was arranged. Do not even aim to be there on time, aim to be there early ! Then, you can sit and compose yourself before being called in for the interview

2. First impressions count…

It is vital to create a great first impression; firm handshake (no need to squeeze!), smile, and maintain eye contact with your interviewer. Give a brief introduction about yourself, and your professional background. Your attitude should be positive and friendly, speak with enthusiasm, and stay focused.

Oh, and turn off your phone! And if by chance you have forgotten to turn it off and it rings during the interview, never ever ever ever answer it!! Again, this should be an obvious one, but some people fail to recognize how bad it looks to an employer when they are more concerned with who is calling or messaging them instead of the job they are trying to obtain. In fact, just leave your phone in the car!

3. Do your research

When you know a bit about the company, the role, and the interviewer, you are going to feel a lot more confident and at ease. The more research you conduct, the more you’ll understand the employer, and the better you’ll be able to answer interview questions.

Ask your recruiter for as much information as possible, scour the organization’s website and other published material online and ask around in your network – you may know someone that has worked at the company and your recruiter for as much info as possible.

4. Be aware of how you are speaking

Nerves can get the better of us in interview scenarios and that is natural. Consequently, we can end up talking far too quickly. Take deep breaths before the interview and try to moderate your pace throughout the interview.

It is vital that you do not interrupt the interviewer either; nothing is more irritating than someone cutting you off mid-sentence so try not to be impatient when wanting to get your point across. Nobody wants to interview someone who the information has to be dragged out of but it is also important as the interviewee that you do not talk too much! Yes, you’ve got so much to say and an array of experiences to shout about, but the interviewer will be looking for a concise, knowledgeable answer.

5. Ask questions

When the interviewer asks if you have any questions at the end of an interview, never ever say you have no questions!

Studies show that employers make a judgment about an applicant’s interest in the job by whether or not the interviewee asks questions. If you have questions to ask it shows the employer that you have followed point three and researched the company and role as much as possible which already shows a level of engagement and interest that other applicants may not be showing.

As mentioned in point two, first impressions count and you want to present yourself as keen, engaged, enthusiastic, and curious about the opportunity. So, ask about different aspects of the job/company and express interest and excitement in the opportunity, the company, its culture, and people.

Looking to take your interview prep even further? Try downloading our interview cheat sheet to help you be prepared and confident going into every interview!

How To Impress In Your First Week At Work

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 15:06:00 GMT

We all know first impressions count, so what should you do to impress in your first week?

You might be surprised at how much you already know about how to impress in your first week at work. It’s basically an “on steroids” version of how to impress at your job interview (without the actual steroids, of course). Starting your job remotely? Read our tips for setting yourself up for success here .

Here are 7 things to keep in mind if you want to leave a favourable impression:

Research the Company

Spend the weekend (or longer) before your first day, doing some additional research on the company. What is their raison d’etre? Go online to see if there’s any news about recent successes of the business itself or the senior staff. If you find negative news online or anywhere else, don’t let this throw you off, every company has its (hopefully, temporary) failures. Instead, let this insight inspire you to think about how you can add value to the organisation.

Arrive Early to Work

Forget whatever official time you’ve been told you’re supposed to report to work. Tell yourself you’re to be there half an hour earlier than that. This may seem excessive but it really isn’t. Do I really need to remind you of the traffic situation driving past virtually any school on island, downtown on cruise ship days, rainy days, days when there are vehicular accidents minor or major (basically every day)? If you’re lucky and there’s no delay of any kind on the way in, and you actually do arrive half-hour early, stop at the nearby coffee shop and get yourself, and the person you’ve been assigned to shadow, a cup of tea or coffee. No, you’re not sucking up. A little bit of goodwill goes a long way.

Stay Organized

Keep your work area organised and work appropriate. You’ll have done your best to dress the part for the job interview and, no doubt, you’re following the dress code now that you’ve been hired. Your work area is, more or less, an extension of the way you comport yourself (an old fashioned, but still relevant, concept). It doesn’t matter if you’re not customer-facing if your boss passes by and your desk has fast-food wrappers, stuffed animals, and random Post It notes all over the place, it’s not a good look.

Be Proactive

You may not have been assigned a ton of work to do on Day 1, but rather than sitting there scrolling through your cell phone, ask your supervisor specifically what priorities you should be focussing on and, at the very least, start to strategise on your computer or notepad. Depending on your level of experience, you may already know how to get started on the project/assignment but, even if you’re fairly new to the field, you can begin to make a plan for getting the task done; list what you understand about the objectives, resources needed, timeline, costs, and so forth. It’s fine if you have to revise once you get a better understanding of what’s expected of you.

Show Your Enthusiasm

You should feel free to show your enthusiasm for the work the company does. If there’s a disgruntled colleague with a different point of view, avoid being drawn into criticising your former or current employer, or former or current colleagues. Instead, try to ease yourself out of the conversation in a non-judgemental way and get busy on your assignments. Discretion is always the name of the game in such situations.

Take Notes and Ask Questions

Regarding those assignments, take notes as you’re being told what’s required, listen carefully and ask for clarification if you’re not certain about something, but also be prepared to independently come up with solutions to challenges once you get started. An employee who’s ready with well thought out suggestions for the way forward usually leaves a good impression.

Remember Why You’re There

Getting back to that expression “adding value”, mentioned earlier, you’re there to bring something to the organisation that they need. Whether you have a little or a lot of experience, they hired you because they need something you have to offer, don’t forget that. The boss may not tell you every day how well you’re doing, but if you’ve put your talent and energies to good use, been thorough in your work and met or beaten deadlines, he/she will notice and you’ll feel a valuable sense of achievement.

Why Competency Based Interview Questions Are Great!

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 20:03:00 GMT

Competency based interviews aren’t just a trend that employers are using (like those thinking outside of the box questions such as how to fit an elephant in a fridge!). No, a competency based interview is a great way for an employer to gain an understanding of how you think in certain situations related to the workplace and the role you are going for. The great news is… they work well for you too! How you ask? Keep reading!

Firstly, let me explain what employers are looking for by asking these questions. By asking these questions the employer is looking for you to provide a specific example of a situation from your own experience and explain how you reacted to it. They want to know what you did and what the outcome was. Remember to be specific and avoid terms such as “If this happened…” “I would always give…”

The ideal answer will be in this format:

Situation

Give context to the example, so talk about when, where and what the issue or event was.

Task

Explain the task that was involved, i.e. what needed to be done in this situation either as a team or as an individual to resolve the situation.

Action

This is probably the most important part of the answer because this is where you elaborate on what you did. Remember to focus on your actions specifically. If the situation included a team, describe your individual action.

Result

Lastly, to close the answer you need to provide the result. What was the outcome of the situation? Were the customers happy? Is it something you can learn from? Something you were recognised for? Numerical results tend to go well here as you can show exactly what you did.

So why is it a great thing for you?

A competency based interview is your chance to shine! The employer only has a certain amount of time to establish whether you can fit into their company and into that role. With this in mind, candidates often prepare for questions about the role and the company and may forget to prepare situations based on personal experience. The competencies that will be asked will be in relation to the role and what skills it will require.

Although you will not know exactly what they will ask, you may be able to predict the competencies they will be based on. Research the role, read the job description and adverts, and pull out the important skills. The competency questions will quite often ask you to demonstrate how you have previously used these skills ,

Then prepare situations where you have demonstrated these skills. Use real situations that have happened in the past from work, college, training courses or sports teams. This lets the employer see what you would do and how you react to situations.

Being prepared will help you perform well at interview and will give you confidence as you won’t be sitting there racking your brain trying to think of an example and then just saying the first thing that comes to mind.

Emily Murphy is a HR and recruitment professional who loves helping people start their careers.

Scholarship 2018: Finding My Passion and Changing Careers

Fri, 07 Dec 2018 16:37:00 GMT

Tynisha Ebanks is Nova’s “Love Your Future” Scholarship Recipient for 2018 – this is her story, in her own words! Tynisha is currently studying Web Design and Development at the University of Northampton.

Where I started:

All my life, throughout the ‘growing up’ phase, attending school and learning about the world we live in, and learning how to become a good contributing member of society, I had always struggled to find what would be the right fit for me and what I was passionate about career wise. I spent a large portion of my life not knowing what I wanted to study or what direction to take career wise.

For a long time, I recall the suggested career paths being the usual, doctor, lawyer, police officer or teacher. Sadly, none of which genuinely piqued my interests, except for when I briefly wanted to be a police officer because I thought it seemed ‘cool’. I presume it may have been due to my limited exposure or better put, my lack of knowledge about the vast careers and fields out there! Perhaps this may have been the leading factor as to why my ability to dream big did not happen at a younger age. (My biggest learning point from this is: do your research! Find something that sparks joy and look for roles that have something in common with this!)

Despite that, looking back one of the most significant impacts on my life during my adolescence stage, it was when I saw a computer for the very first time and got to use it. I can remember being extremely captivated and excited whenever my class would go to the computer room. Then during my time at high school, I still very much liked working with computers and always gravitated to understanding them and learning more about them. Unfortunately, the topics covered about them at that particular point in time in my schooling were substantially inadequate and so it never really clicked that there was so much more I could learn if I had the opportunity to do so.

After graduating from high school, I was a bit confused and very much worried about my immediate future and what my next step should be. I was not particularly passionate about anything, I knew I enjoyed art and computers, but at that time I was not aware of any courses or careers available that unified both. With my inability to make a decision I became extremely stressed, mainly because my friends and most of my peers had already decided what career goals they would be pursuing and I felt left behind and pressured to find something quickly.

After a lot of stress and lots of thinking, I somehow ended up studying accounting for a year. How I arrived at this decision still amazes me to this day – the power of enough stress and pressure is obviously incredible. Nevertheless, I took this path for the obvious reason being that I knew the financial industry played a pivotal role in Cayman’s economy, and not having any previous exposure to the world of accounting, I could not ascertain whether or not I enjoy it without learning about it first.

Shortly after completing a one-year course in accounting, I decided not to continue studies (shocker, I know!). I considered trying a different approach to finding a career that I would love; I was extremely fortunate to get my first real job at one of the top banks in the Cayman Islands. My operational knowledge and personal skillset increased tenfold by working there and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Despite the fact it was a genuinely fun and invaluable experience (that I am wholeheartedly grateful for) I knew that it was not the career choice that I candidly wanted and one that aligned with my interests and passions.

Ultimately, I had to make one of the most difficult decisions, which was not only to leave the organization that I had grown in for more than 5 years, but to change my career path entirely while in my mid-20s. After a whirlwind of decisions, I then went back to university and studied Computer Science (yay me for finally getting there after 7 years!!).

Where I am now:

It was only after completing my associates degree in Computer Science that I was not only able to identify fields within that area that I enjoyed most, but I was also able to find my main passion, which is web development and design. Fast forward to today, now I am currently undertaking my BSc in Business Computing at the University of Northampton. The course I’m studying takes a business-oriented approach to web design and web development. In short, this means that upon completion of my degree, I will be able to utilize the knowledge and skills I’ve gained within a working environment and hopefully hit the ground running.

The route that I have taken may have been quite an unusual one, but I do not regret in the least. I am ecstatic and very pleased with my decisions thus far and looking forward to the duration of my studies.

10 Most Commonly Asked Interview Questions

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 10:44:00 GMT

If you’re preparing for an interview, it is a very good idea that you familiarise yourself with some of the possible questions that will be asked so that you can think about what kind of answers you will give.

I’ve reposted this helpful discussion from one of my Linked In Groups…

Source: www.cavendish-mr.org.uk

10 most frequently asked interview questions

Interview questions may vary but in essence they are all trying to establish the following:
• Your skills and experience to do the job
• Your enthusiasm and interest for the job
• Whether you will fit in

If you can answer these questions, using real-life examples to illustrate your points, then you should be able to answer most of the questions that arise including the following frequently asked questions.

1. Tell me about yourself?
This question or something similar usually starts every interview. Your answer should be well-rehearsed, confidently delivered and last between 3-5 minutes. It should also:
• Focus on the areas of most relevance to the job in question
• Include some impressive achievements e.g. improvements made
• Convey your enthusiasm for the job
• Avoid personal or irrelevant information e.g. your children, un-related jobs

2. What are your key skills/strengths?
Focus on what you know they are looking for, even if it has been a smaller part of what you have been doing to date. The job advert or person specification form will give you the information you need about their requirements.

3. What are your weaknesses?
Choose a weakness that:
• Doesn’t matter for the job e.g. languages for a UK firm.
• Is a positive e.g. “I like to make things happen and get frustrated if too long is spent sitting around discussing it without action”
• Used to be a weakness but which you have improved upon e.g. presentations

4. Why did you leave your last job?
Your answer should be positive and upbeat even if the circumstances were difficult. If you were made redundant, depersonalise it by talking about company restructuring rather than your individual circumstance. Never criticize a previous employer no matter how tempting.

5. Why do you want this job?
Your answer should reinforce why you are such a good fit for the job and then convey your enthusiasm for the role e.g.
• good match between your skills and their requirements
• interested in the product/market/sector
• company’s excellent reputation, exciting challenge etc.
Do not say (even if it’s true) that you just need a job, or you want it because it’s local.

6. Tell me about a difficult scenario at work and how you dealt with it
They are testing how you cope under pressure as well as your problem-solving and communication skills. Good examples are where you:
• helped resolve or improve a difficult situation
• were resilient in adverse conditions
• showed emotional intelligence and cool-headedness
Avoid any examples which still feel sensitive, because in a high-pressure interview situation, old emotions can easily resurface and throw you off balance.

7. Tell me about an achievement of which you are proud?
Choose work-related examples that shows a tangible benefit to the business. Personal achievements should only be included if they are very impressive or prestigious.

8. What are your career goals?
They are checking if you are likely to stay and if so, for how long. Reassure the employer that the role you are applying for fits your career plan and your longer term commitment to the company.

9. What are your salary expectations?
Salary negotiations are best handled at the job offer stage so try to avoid this at interview if you can. If forced to name a price, give a realistic but wide salary range and say that you feel that salary won’t be an issue if you decide to work together.

10. What do you know about our organization?
You need to know the following:
• Company structure, finances, products and services, key staff
• Customers and competitors
• Market trends and challenges

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Internship

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 20:48:00 GMT

After searching for months, you finally landed your internship! Now what?

There are countless benefits of doing an internship – not only will you be learning about a potential future career, you’ll be gaining valuable transferable skills and you never know you might even land a job.

Here are 8 things you must do to make the most out of your internship

Work hard

Go the extra mile and complete all your assignments with excellence and you’ll impress!

Network, network, network!!!

Connect with your co-workers on LinkedIn and Facebook and make as many connections as possible. Expanding your network is vital to success!

Volunteer for extra work

Have you finished all your tasks? Is it a slow period of the day? Ask for extra assignments. Supervisors love nothing more than someone who is genuinely interested and wants to help. This may help you get a full-time position!

Make notes for your future CV

The last thing you want to do is forget are all the awesome things you’re doing! Make a note of your accomplishments and update your CV as you go.

Ask for recommendations

You may be the only intern or one of a bunch. If you ask for a recommendation while you’re working, you and your amazing work will be fresh in their minds!

Learn from your co-workers

Observing your supervisors and co-workers will help you understand how to effectively accomplish your goals. Also, get to know them! It’s nice to build a good relationship with the people you work with every day.

Use your intern access

As an intern you are a “visitor” in the office, but that doesn’t mean act like one. Take advantage of the meetings and access to all the information in front of you. Ask to attend higher level meetings to understand the how things run, and decisions are made.

Stay in touch!

It’s an easy way to keep your name fresh in their minds, when hiring in the future. And you may want a reference from them and even if this internship wasn’t really your style or place of work you would want to return to, making connections can always lead to more opportunities!

Top 5 Reasons Why Temping Is Great

Mon, 20 Aug 2018 20:23:00 GMT

Temping or ‘contract employment’ may be the perfect option for your career – find out why!

When asked the question ”Are you looking for temporary or permanent roles?”, obviously the most logical answer is permanent only! But have you ever thought about why temping is a great idea?

Here are my top 5 reasons why temping is great

Most importantly, if you are interested in temporary roles, and have skills to thrill, please let me know!

A Day in the Life of a Compliance Manager

Thu, 09 Aug 2018 20:27:00 GMT

As one of the fastest growing areas in Cayman we have been seeing more and more compliance roles in the market recently. So, I wanted to delve a bit further and find out a bit more about what a Compliance Manager does day-to-day. Last week I met one of our recent placements to find out more…

Can you give me a brief description of what your role entails?

I work for an investment bank and ensure we are legally compliant. This means reviewing new accounts and making sure all the documentation is present, filled out correctly and the information is compliant. I also have to monitor the internal processes so that these are best practice.

At the end of the day I have final say on the documentation and it is up to me to decide if something is sufficient to go ahead. If I don’t feel that everything is OK I can refer back for more information.

I also need to keep up to date with new regulation and prepare presentations of new policies that come in, so I can pass onto all my staff.

What is your favorite element of your job?

I’m definitively a people person, so I’d say dealing with people. As a manager and dealing with compliance a large part of my role is answering various questions. I love that members of the team just come in and and ask me anything they need.

How do you like to start your day?

It can be busy, so I like to get in before everyone else so that I can review everything that came in the day before and try and get ahead of myself.

What helps to keep you motivated each day?

It’s a job where there can be large volume, and so when we get the job completed I feel very satisfied. Keeping that end goal in sight helps to keep me motivated.

What do you dislike about your current role?

As its compliance, there is a lot of paperwork involved and alongside that we get a lot of emails and queries that we have to deal with. It can just be the volume really!

Who do you communicate with most regularly both inside and outside your organisation?

Inside the company I deal with Investment Advisors and Associates, and anyone who has any compliance questions. Outside the business I deal with CIMA and other regulatory bodies who are checking what we do!

Since you first started, what do you think has been your biggest challenge?

Trying to keep attention to detail high during busy times.

What advice would you give someone who is seeking the same line of work?

It is a good career choice as it is a growing market and there’s lots of opportunity, but it can be challenging. You need to be prepared to deal with people with positive and negative responses – it is a big part of the job!

How did your past experience and education prepare you for this role?

My previous role was very similar, so it was just about familiarising myself with new company policies and procedures. Prior to that my trading background gave me the knowledge of the industry and helped me to know what I was looking out for. Educationally, my ACAMS designation as been a great asset.

What is your proudest accomplishment through work?

I was extremely proud when I was promoted to Compliance Manager from Senior Compliance Officer as it showed the hard work was paying off!

Where do you think this industry is headed next?

It’s definitely a growing industry with the introduction of many new policies and regulations to be followed. It is a massive sector and I don’t see the growth slowing down soon.

What is your team culture like?

Currently, I am in a team where we all contribute to the overall task. Each Manager has certain companies that they look after. At manager level you are often on your own overseeing things and I am comfortable with that but also enjoying getting involved in projects.

How to Write The Experience Section On Your Resume

Tue, 24 Jul 2018 16:20:00 GMT

Your job duties and experience is the main thing that employers look at on a resume, so get it right!

The work experience section is the core of your resume, where you are tasked with proving the skills you’ve listed in your qualification’s summary or career objective.

Layout Matters

Don’t Just Copy Your Prior Job Description

A lot of people copy and paste the job description from each position they have worked – whilst this may give an idea of what you did, it does not provide enough information (it can also make you come across as lazy). You will often have extra responsibilities given to you throughout your time in a certain company that are not listed in your general job description, and it could be these tasks that catch the eye of your next employer as they are the most relevant!

Write A Strong Bullet Point

When you list your experience, you will likely lay this information out in bullet points; you want to aim for at least 3-5 key points per job experience listed with each of your job duties being specific and listed in decreasing importance.

Your bullet point should consist of three main areas:

For Example:

Example 1:

Trained 5+ cashiers, managing their cash limits and guaranteeing quality customer service at all times.

Example 2:

Spearheaded the development of the first media kit amalgamation for all company projects, increasing national sales by 8%.

Tailor Your Experience to the Job You’re Applying For

One strategy for making your experience section even better is to create it with a specific job advertisement/company in mind.

Find the main job duties, skills, and keywords in a job advertisement and then find examples in your own experience to mention this and strike a chord with the hiring manager. Read more on how to effectively tailor your resume here .

Take a look at your resume… Does it need some work??

A Day in the Life of a Corporate Secretary

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 15:45:00 GMT

I recently had the pleasure of sharing a coffee with an experienced Corporate Secretary here in Cayman. The purpose of this coffee date was to find out what life is like in the shoes of a Corporate Secretary and give you useful insight in to their busy work life.

Can you briefly describe what your role entails?

As a Corporate Secretary I carry out board support functions and facilitate the board meeting process for my clients. This means I prepare board packs and arrange the timing of the meeting and deal with the logistics of the meeting such as organising conference video calls to ensure the meeting runs smoothly.

Once the board meeting has started I sit in the meeting and take minutes and draft them up afterwards, normally circulating them to the client and Directors within an agreed time frame, between 10-15 days. This will include an action list which will be sent to attendees who have been given tasks to action before the next meeting.

The thing to be so mindful of with minute taking, is that they are approved and signed and then that becomes a legal document. You need to be extremely focused in the meetings and be familiar with vocabulary being used in the meeting, as well as the preferred style of that specific board of Directors to ensure the minutes are correct.

What is your favourite element of your job?

I find it really interesting as I meet so many different people and have exposure to senior stakeholders. I engage with so many different people daily and not all are in the financial field, so I get exposure to many different areas and industries. In meetings, I often hear Company Directors talking about how different ‘world news’ issues may affect their work and how they currently operate. I find this fascinating!

How do you like to start your day?

Normally with a coffee and then its straight into my emails. As I deal with people globally and in different time zones I’m normally playing catchup from what’s come in overnight. Sometimes it can be straight into a board meeting though. With such a geographical range of stakeholder, I could have a meeting starting at any time. I’ve even had meetings before at 4am that I have had to facilitate!

What keeps you motivated each day?

It is a very deadline orientated role and I’m always working towards them. There are so many different things that need to be completed before a certain deadline such as year-end reports and financial statement approvals. I am motivated by my clients, who I enjoy working with and also taking pride in my work.

What do you dislike about your current role?

Converseley, there are often a lot of deadlines that need to be met at the same time. For example, when end of year financial statements need to be all submitted by the same deadline we can become extremely busy with multiple meetings at the same time. It helps me to keep focused but can mean a lot of late nights.

Who do you communicate with most regularly, both inside and outside your organisation?

There’s a range of stakeholders. Internally, I would regularly work with my Assistants on the corporate team who help keep me organised by completing administrative tasks. Outside, I would deal with my clients and different Lawyers, Directors and their Assistants.

Since you first started in this role, what do you think has been your biggest challenge?

The volume of meetings/clients can keep me very busy, particularly at the end of the financial year, and it can be difficult to keep the quality of my work high at this time but that’s where having pride in my work comes in. There is also pressure from clients when deadlines are coming close, which I have to meet.

What advice would you give someone who is seeking the same line of work?

Time management and organisation are very important so make sure that you have these traits in abundance. You should also look at doing a minute taking course and make sure you’re first class at these. Ongoing, for a Corporate Secretary role, it is really important to have the ICSA qualification. It is not the only qualification out there, but it is becoming more sought after by employers and clients.

How did your past experience and education prepare you for this role?

Initially I studied Law at university and wasn’t sure whether I wanted to follow a career in that industry. My sister actually told me about the industry and then I researched the role and decided this was the career for me. So, I started at the bottom of a co-sec team and studied my ICSA qualification while I worked.

What is the culture like on the corporate team?

As a team, we help each other out. We rely on each other as there are clashes of meetings and with the volume of work we have to share the load. The support from our Administrators is especially vital as I lean on them heavily to ensure we give our clients first class service. This also means that we have a lot of fun as we work so closely together.

Emily Murphy is a recruitment and HR professional who loves helping people find careers they love.

Develop Relationships, Develop Your Team

Fri, 13 Apr 2018 14:42:00 GMT

Training and development are at the heart of a happy, successful team.

Most managers know that training and development are essential for their team to succeed . They build engagement and motivation from the employee and upskills your team adding value and skills to your business. But how should you approach this?

Engage and Build Relationships

I have found the best way to do this is to engage with the individual and build a relationship to understand their individual aspirations. Each person in your team will have different skill levels so will need different training. Each person will have different aspirations for their careers and associated paths. Try to find out what they really want to do so ask probing questions; What’s your dream job? Where do see yourself in five years? From here you can really get an idea of how to get the individual to where they want their career to go.

Where Can They Improve?

Obviously, this isn’t about just your employee’s own growth. Training and developing the right skills will help your team and business improve and develop. So, it’s important to see where they need to develop in their current role. You can do this in several ways, such as analysing performance data, observing them, and asking them what their weaknesses are. And my favourite, weekly check-in meetings covering the previous week’s performance, what would have made it better and what will make this week fantastic. You should use all of these if you can.

Create a Training Plan

Once you have looked at where they want to go and how they can improve you can get a written training plan in place. Everyone learns differently, so the plan is going to be bespoke. The best way is to ask them how they learn. Find out for example, if they like to learn by themselves or in a group so you can find the most suitable training programmes. It’s all about knowing that persons own learning style.

Followup and Feedback

It shouldn’t end here! Once training is in place, the follow up is just as important. Giving regular feedback on their improvements shows your desire for them to improve. It also allows you to monitor this over shorter periods of time and help keep your employee on the right direction. This ongoing conversation allows regular communication and encouragement to keep them motivated and engaged.

Managing your team and helping them develop isn’t easy. In fact, it’s a lot of work! But if you get to know your team and develop bespoke training and development plans, this will lead to a motivated, engaged and high-performing team. Once you add this to the higher retention rates you’ll see it’s well worth putting in the effort, not to mention making your job easier.

What is an Executive Assistant?

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 14:24:00 GMT

They may not always be at the front-and-center of an organisation, but an Executive Assistant is the chief efficiency creator in a team.

They make organisations run smoothly by supporting their manager to increase productivity, making decisions more easily, and supporting the leadership team. Usually, this means saving the Executive’s time by managing processes meticulously and communicating with internal and external partners on their behalf. This will ensure the Executive is more available to make the critical, high-level business decisions. With all that needs to be done in a single day, Executive Assistants ensure that Executives have the bandwidth to do what only they can do, and delegate the rest appropriately.

What would you be responsible for?

An Executive Assistant is the ‘right hand’ of the person they support, handling everything from personal schedules to executive board meetings. In many respects, the role of Executive Assistant is that of a Secretary, Receptionist and an Administrative Assistant all rolled into one! They perform clerical tasks, like accepting and making phone calls, maintaining files, scheduling meetings, sending memos, drafting and editing correspondence, accepting visitors, reviewing incoming reports and setting the Executive’s daily schedule.

The Executive Assistant’s role is also one of the ‘gatekeeper’. He or she controls which phone calls and reports go through to the Executive, as well as what meetings are scheduled. In order to fulfill this responsibility, Executive Assistants must clearly understand the goals, values and needs of both the company and the Executive(s) they work for.

Scheduling meetings is an absolutely imperative part of the role. The Executive Assistant should feel comfortable doing everything that is needed to successfully schedule and execute a meeting for their Executive from start to finish, from selecting a date and inviting the appropriate attendees to clarifying the agenda, taking minutes and sending follow-ups, to-dos, key dates, or recaps.

Other daily functions will include booking travel, preparing meeting packs, organising corporate/team events, proof-reading, ordering of office supplies or even catering a business lunch. While these tasks and responsibilities may seem unrelated, they all have the same mission, which is to keep schedules and processes running smoothly for your manager so that work isn’t interrupted for unnecessary reasons.

What are the standard requirements?

Successful Executive Assistants are reliable, professional and responsive self-starters. Traditionally, they are punctual, diplomatic, and skilled conversationalists in both written and verbal form, which is important because they will regularly be called to represent the Executive(s) they support or to represent the company. A successful Executive Assistant must also be accessible and available when their Executive needs something done quickly.

You will also need to be comfortable with standard office equipment, including personal computers, printers, fax machines, scanners, multi-line telephones, and advanced computer software programmes, including Excel, Word and in some instances even accounting programmes.

Essential skills needed…

Serving as a key support for an in-demand Executive can translate to long hours, late nights, and sometimes even working weekends or holidays. Occasionally the work might feel thankless but It’s important to maintain a positive attitude at all times, and not to let the work suffer or details slip through the cracks. When all’s said and done, there is a tremendous amount to gain from being surrounded by brilliant leaders, it’s not uncommon for an Executive Assistant position to eventually lead to an Executive position.

What if I’m just getting started?

Like any career, it is important to either get a qualification and/or experience in the sector. If you are already working, then you can look to get involved in the preparation of internal meeting’s and assist with minute taking to get an insight into this field. If you are currently working as an Administrative Assistant, this can be a great stepping stone into an Executive Assistant role.

If you are not in a role then you should look at gaining different qualifications such as a degree or professional qualification; the ICSA (Institute of Chartered Secretaries) qualification is internationally recognised and a great option.

Networking Made Easy

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 20:05:00 GMT

Have you ever been told that you need to be actively participating in networking events in order to progress your career?

Does the idea of networking leave you with cold and clammy hands at the thought of business development, with perhaps some constricting of the throat when facing public speaking? Relax, you’ve come to the right place for some advice!

Relax

Step one is to seriously relax. Take a deep breath. Still nervous? Take another and read the below so you can engage with networkers in a comfortable and personable manner.

Keep it Simple

Imagine you’ve been dropped into a new country, speaking a foreign language, with no idea what’s going on. Great! This is a good starting place for resetting your approach to networking. Most folks think the purpose of networking is to walk away with some new business opportunity…a modern, corporate, tactical war to be won or lost. This is not the case. In fact, quite the opposite!

Simply make your best attempt to truly have a frank and honest conversation with whoever happens to be placed in front of you. Ever notice how the most senior leaders seem to have a natural rapport with their audience? This is because they are connecting with each person on a human level, rather than trying to extract some piece of business information with a scalpel.

Listen, Listen, Listen!

Listening becomes your biggest weapon here. People love speaking about themselves, and rarely in the sense of their latest office achievement. It may seem counterintuitive, but discuss the big tuna they reeled in last weekend, a particularly astonishing article, or perhaps a funny story from the office holiday party. Walk away learning any fact or morsel about the person…the bond you form with some personal knowledge will far outlast the latest business jargon.

Realize There Is No ‘Right’ Way to Network

The above applies to anyone across the spectrum, from the most senior executive to the freshest college graduate. There is truly nothing to be lost or sacrificed by networking, only information gained and relationships built. The truth is that there is no secret, gilded path to fame and fortune, but rather a combination of hard work and being in the right place at the right time.

By applying some of these newfound “casual” networking skills, it will become exponentially easier to find yourself in the right place at the right time simply by knowing who among your connections has the information. Happy networking!

What is a Fund Administrator?

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:30:00 GMT

A Fund Administrator carrys out administrative tasks that help to support the running of a fund and help to keep the fund compliant.

As a fund is a group of investments this means setting up new investors on the funds database, preparing investor statements and updating subscriptions and redemptions of transactions on the fund. A Fund Administrator will also have an understanding of compliance and due diligence to ensure the fund is compliant.

Over their career a Fund Administrator can move through different levels of seniority up to managing their own team of administrators.

What would you be responsible for…

What the standard requirements are…

Essential skills needed…

To be successful you should…

What if I’m starting right at the beginning…

As in any career, it is important to obtain the necessary qualifications or experience. In Fund Administration a qualification in a course such as business administration and/or the ICSA qualification would be an asset. It’s also useful to hone your regulatory knowledge in areas such as FATCA. If you are already working, you could request a rotation to the funds team or look at completing a contract role with a fund company.

What is a Receptionist?

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 20:43:00 GMT

A receptionist is an employee taking an office or administrative support position where they are typically employed by an organisation to meet and greet clients and answer telephone calls. They are responsible for making a good first impression for the organisation, in order to promote a successful business.

However, the role can often be a lot more varied than you would expect Receptionists cover many areas of work to assist the businesses they work for, including setting appointments, filing, data entry and record keeping.

What would I be responsible for?

The business duties of a receptionist may include answering client or visitors’ enquiries, directing visitors to their destinations or appointments, organisation of incoming and outgoing mail, answering incoming calls on multi-line telephones, setting appointments, filing, record keeping and data entry amongst other general office administration duties. Some receptionists may also perform bookkeeping duties.

A receptionist is often the first business contact a person will meet; it is an expectation of most organisations that the receptionist maintains a composed, courteous and professional demeanor at all times.

What are the standard requirements?

Essential skills needed to succeed…

Some personal qualities that a receptionist is expected to possess in order to do the job successfully include attentiveness, a well-groomed appearance, positive attitude, initiative, ability to multi task, loyalty, discretion and dependability.

When the phone goes unanswered during normal business hours, or a line of impatient customers waits in front of the empty reception desk, it reflects poorly on the business. A receptionist is counted on to be at the desk on time in the morning, be prompt returning from lunch, answer correspondence quickly and give precise, consistent information about the company to all queries.

At times, the job may be stressful due to the interaction with many different personalities, and being expected to perform multiple tasks quickly, so it is important that you can work well in a high-pressured environment.

What if I am just starting…

Hiring standards vary by industry and company, but generally you will only require a high school diploma to start as a receptionist. Most training is received on the job, but prior knowledge or experience of how to answer telephones professionally, spreadsheets or other office administrative tasks is preferred.

What is a Board Support role?

Mon, 05 Mar 2018 19:35:00 GMT

More and more companies are expanding their teams to include a board support function which is why the need for quality Board Support personnel continues to increase, even though it is a relatively unknown position. In this position, you will usually be working with a dedicated board support team and company secretarial group which provides governance support to the directors of a company and assists clients in maintaining good corporate governance standards.

This rise in demand is leading to Board Support becoming a more valuable role within the employment market. Cayman is no different, and our clients are consistently requiring this support function in today’s job market.

What would you be responsible for?

Board support services are responsible for assisting with the administration for board meeting’s from start to finish, this will include; preparation of meeting agendas, preparation and distribution of meeting packs, attendance at board and shareholder meetings, preparation of relevant minutes, maintenance of minutes and records as well as other ad hoc secretarial duties as required. Post meeting, you will be accountable for the timely preparation and circulation of minutes and all necessary follow-up of action points to ensure the attendees are up-to-date and compliant.

What are the standard requirements?

Confidence and professionalism is key when attending meetings and liaising with Senior Executives. As this role can be client facing, previous experience in dealing with a wide range of clients will be useful too. You will need to approach your work with a strong level of attention to detail; ensuring that the administrative functions and detailed minutes are carried out with the highest degree of accuracy and timeliness.

Previous experience in a Board Support or Secretarial role is preferred, however a strong background as an Executive Assistant will usually be considered too. It is essential that for this position you are skilled with transcribing minutes from a digital recording via audio typing; being an ICSA qualified chartered secretary would also be an advantage in this role.

Essential skills needed…

What if I’m just getting started?

Like any career, it is important to either get a qualification such as courses in business administration and/or an ICSA, and/or experience in the sector. It’s also useful to hone your IT skills too. If you are already working then you can look to get involved in the preparation of internal meeting’s and assist with minute taking to get an insight into this field.

What is a Trust Administrator?

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 19:31:00 GMT

Before we think about what a Trust Administrator is, it is important to understand what a trust is.

A trust is a legal device used to hold assets for one or more persons. It is a relationship where one party (Trustor/Settlor/Grantor) gives another party (Trustee) the right to manage these assets for the benefit of a third party (Beneficiary). A trust is established to provide protection for the Trustor’s assets and to make sure those assets are distributed to the beneficiary/beneficiaries according to the requests of the trustor. The Trustee is an individual or firm given control or powers of administration to do what is best for the trust.

There are several reasons a trust is set up. For example, it may be that a minor must reach a certain age before receiving an inheritance. Or it could be that the trust pays to maintain a property for a deceased individual. Whatever the reason, a Trust Administrator typically provides direct support to Trust Officers and follows the explicit details of the written trust, communicates with all parties involved, and maintains the payments and receipts of the account.

The trust is a fiduciary relationship that requires your professional services as a Trust Administrator to be properly carried out. On a day-to-day basis, you can expect to monitor investments, clear up overdrafts, set up and close out accounts, and make money transfers. This will include updating paper and computer files, answer phones, and respond to emails. In addition, you assist with paying taxes, make distributions, and provide asset information to beneficiaries on behalf of the trust.

Each trust will clearly outline what is expected of you and you are bound by those directions. This can often require patience, for example, when dealing with a son who was cut out of an inheritance, or a business requesting information they are not entitled to. You must treat each beneficiary equally (unless otherwise outlined) and seek legal advice with any questions. With your attention to detail, unflappable demeanor, and knowledge of business and accounting practices, you can handle several trusts at the same time.

What would you be responsible for?

What are the standard requirements?

Essential skills needed…

What if I’m just starting out?

What is an HR Administrator?

Fri, 16 Feb 2018 18:36:00 GMT

As an HR Administrator you can work in almost any industry, in companies of any size or location, even internationally. HR is an exciting and rewarding profession in an ever-changing environment.

The HR industry has gone through significant changes over the past decade. It is no longer seen as a purely administrative function, but as a career that brings multiple specialist opportunities for career progression and business impact, including at board level. In today’s market, the human resources department is expected to contribute to modern thinking and enhance company profitability.

What would you be responsible for….

One of the main things to understand about an HR Administrator is that their responsibilities can vary considerably. In smaller companies, one or two human resources professionals may be hired to handle all of the company’s HR needs. In larger organisations, the duties can be distributed between several employees or an entire department.

A few of the most common things that HR Administrators are involved in are:

There are many other employee related activities that an HR Administrator may get involved in. These include benefit planning, incentive programmes, internal communication, payroll and even corporate events! HR Administrators often assume a variety of roles in administering programmes that benefit employees.

Every HR department is unique and the responsibilities of individual HR professionals vary depending upon the employer. No matter what the daily responsibilities are, human resources is a vital part of all businesses.

What the standard requirements are…

To become an HR Administrator it would be beneficial to enroll in a human resources or related degree programme. Many Business Administration degrees offer programmes with an emphasis in human resources. There are also a variety of HR Certifications you can pursue, such as the SHRM-CP, PHR or CIPD programme that together with a degree will open many doors within the human resources field.

Essential skills needed…

The skills needed in HR are often misunderstood. It’s not just the softer people skills and strong organisation that are required, although these are important, you also need to have a strong interest in business and strategy.

For example, as you progress in your career, you may need excellent analytical and Maths skills to analyse information including employee surveys, key success indicators of projects, or the financial and personal value of an employee to the organisation.

The ability to coach others in the business, to partner (but also be willing to challenge) managers and to become someone they trust implicitly is also critical and of course, it is imperative to have strong interpersonal skills if you want to be an HR professional .

What if i’m just getting started…

Like any career, it is important to either get a qualification and/or experience in the sector. If you are already working then you can look to get involved in projects such as recruitment to get an insight into this field.

If you are not in a role then you should look at gaining different qualifications such as a degree or professional qualification like SHRM-CP, PHR or CIPD programme. Alongside this you should look to try and get experience through internships, temping and applying for junior roles.

Louise Reed is an HR and recruitment professional who inspires career success.

What is a Compliance Administrator?

Mon, 12 Feb 2018 20:07:00 GMT

A Compliance Administrator oversees a firm’s corporate compliance programme; reviewing and evaluating compliance issues within an organisation. They ensure that the board of directors, management of the company, and employees are in compliance with the rules and regulations of local regulatory agencies.

The Compliance Administrator also works to ensure that company policies and procedures are being followed, and that the organisation is meeting the minimum company standards of conduct. So, the Compliance Administrator develops, initiates, maintains, and revises policies and procedures for the general operation of the compliance programme and its related activities in order to prevent illegal or improper conduct. They will also develop and review the standards of conduct to ensure they are up to date in providing proper information to management and employees.

What would I be responsible for?

You will perform quality assurance to ensure that the company meets regulatory standards. This will include:

What are the standard requirements?

In this position, honesty, integrity, and the desire and ability to build great relationships is key. Prior compliance experience, with a knowledge of local procedures paired with strong administrative skills will give you the foundation you need to be successful in this position!

Experience requirements:

Essential skills needed to succeed…

You’ll need self-motivation and strong attention to detail, which will enable you to maintain strong compliance records for customers and clients alike. A strong working knowledge of systems skills such as MS Office applications is also required.

What if I am just starting…

Starting out in this industry can be tough as it’s a competitive market, but it is also an area with a great need in Cayman. If you have a desire to work in the compliance field it is possible to find entry level positions.

What is a Marketing Administrator?

Wed, 07 Feb 2018 19:56:00 GMT

As a Marketing Administrator, you can work in nearly every industry imaginable. Regardless of which industry you work in or the size of the business, your job is the same: to support the work of Marketing Managers and Executives to promote the company and its products and increase customer awareness of the business. They do this by creating memorable copy, designing artwork and developing sales strategies and advertising campaigns.

Depending on the structure of an organisation, a Marketing Administrator can work closely with employees in other functions; such as advertising, market research, production, sales and distribution.

What would I be responsible for?

What are the standard requirements?

Essential skills needed to succeed…

What if I am just starting…

Starting out in this industry can be tough as it’s a competitive market, but if you have a degree in marketing or communications this is an advantage!

If you decide that the graduate route is not for you, then you can still work your way in to a marketing career but you may need to be willing to take on an entry-level position such as a Marketing Administrator role and work your way up.

Showing a strong desire to work in this field by completing creative courses such as photography, Photoshop, InDesign and online social media courses would be an advantage. It is also essential to ensure you spend time working on your own personal brand; for instance, is your resume creative? Does your LinkedIn page have an innovative profile to showcase your writing skills?

What is a Corporate Administrator?

Fri, 26 Jan 2018 19:35:00 GMT

This is one of the most in demand roles in Cayman, but what is a Corporate Administrator?

Let’s start by explaining how the industry works. Many of the companies incorporated within an offshore jurisdiction like Cayman are investment holding or dealing companies holding investments throughout the world. So, the majority of offshore companies are registered and managed by specialist company management businesses.

There are larger organisations and institutions that generally have their own company management or corporate administration departments that provide a similar, in-house service. This means that the organisation or institution are not managing these investments for clients but for the organisation or institution themselves. However, both need corporate administrators to help set up these investments and carry out ongoing administration.

So, it’s important you don’t think of this as a general administration role. Corporate administrator roles require specific knowledge and experience of the sector, for example trusts, so that they can support financial service providers. There are a range of tasks, including the registration and incorporation of companies, checking documentation including regulatory checks, liaising with regulatory authorities, filing and maintaining records and invoicing that you’ll be involved in.

This means you will need strong organisational skills and superb attention to detail to support financial services professionals. Alongside this, if working at a service provider you may be client facing so excellent verbal and written communication skills are required. Quite often, along with these soft skills you will need experience in certain software such as CORIS or EDMS.

What would you be responsible for…

What are the standard requirements…

Essential skills needed…

To be successful you should…

What if you are starting right at the beginning….

So, You Didn’t Get The Job You Were Hoping For….

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 18:35:00 GMT

You didn’t get the job, so what’s next?

It is a stressful time looking for a job, deciding you want to apply, fixing up your resume/CV and waiting by the phone hoping for an interview. You finally get that interview and prepare. You complete the interview, then wait. You finally hear back and it is not the news you were hoping for. You didn’t get the job, so what’s next?

Firstly, it is normal to feel disappointed, but try not to stay in this mind frame for too long. Each interview is an opportunity to better understand what employers are looking for and what you can develop on for next time. Think back over the process and see if there is anything you could have done differently.

Here are a few things to think over:

Then reflect on non-verbal communication:

Some of these things cannot be immediately fixed and will only develop over time as you gain confidence. However, you should always feel that you prepared as much as possible for an interview and that you had a relevant answer for whatever was asked.

Even if you give a perfect interview it is important to remember that selecting a candidate is very difficult for an employer and it may come down to very small details that cannot always be planned for. Employers spend a lot of time, effort and money in ensuring they are bringing in the right fit for their teams and so if you weren’t chosen, then it probably wasn’t the right fit for you! Just because you didn’t get the job this time around, it doesn’t mean this is the wrong career for you, it just wasn’t the right fit this time!

Emily Murphy is a HR and recruitment professional who loves helping people start their careers.

What is an Accounts Assistant?

Fri, 19 Jan 2018 19:33:00 GMT

Accounting roles are very popular and a great way to begin a career journey in the financial industry. Generally, an Accounts Assistant is a professional individual providing support in general bookkeeping duties. Quite often an Account Assistant will be gaining relevant experience and begin working towards their professional designation.

Normally, an Account Assistant assists Accountants in the course of their work. They might help accountants directly, helping them complete daily tasks, or work indirectly, keying in data and compiling information for the Accountants but leaving the final analysis, audit, and approval to the Accountants themselves.

Being a successful Accounts Assistant relies as much on administrative skills and organisation as accounting knowledge and understanding of financial concepts. However, it is important to have knowledge and understanding of accounting terminology and accounting systems.

Accounting Assistant positions can be found in a range of industry sectors, such as the legal field, financial services, smaller corporate environments and the hotel and retail fields.

What would you be responsible for….

The standard requirements are….

Essential skills needed….

To be successful you should….

What if I’m starting right at the beginning…

The best place to start is with your current employer:

Madalena Alves is a recruitment and HR professional who loves to get new careers of to a great start.

Interview Body Language 101

Sat, 13 Jan 2018 20:47:00 GMT

It’s a silent language which remains on a subconscious level but your body language can speak volumes about you without you even being aware of it.

It is likely that if you have a strong CV you may well land an interview for your dream job but your chances could be wasted with weak body language even if you have polished up your verbal skills. It is said that a first impression is made within the first three to seven seconds and a first impression is very difficult to overcome so here are a few tips on good body language when attending an interview:

Going Through A Career-Crisis? We’ve Got You!

Sun, 31 Dec 2017 20:39:00 GMT

From when we were in pre-school we were slammed by the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I am sure we all had an idea of what we wanted to become – a lawyer, a police officer, a scientist, an astronaut.

But as we grew older our minds started to change and we started asking ourselves what’s the next move, what’s our passion, what will bring long-term happiness and stability.

And if you are in this situation right now, then keep on reading. Yes, yes, it sounds pretty scary going through a career-crisis, but here I am shedding some positivity into your worries! If you want the career of your dreams, then read on, there maybe a few tips for future reference.

Questioning your current career is a great opportunity for you to evaluate your purpose at work, how do you contribute to the success of the team, what motivates you, and what are your overall needs. So, how do you make sure you are in your dream career?

Chasing your dream career has been made so much easier with today’s technologies and social changes – now you have an extensive list of options to choose from, you have emerging fields that never existed before. And this gives you ample opportunities to find the perfect job and the career of your dreams.

If you are still feeling confused on whether you are in the right job or right field, then book a consultation with one of our specialists to discuss your options.

How To Compose Your Cover Letter

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 20:32:00 GMT

Writing a cover letter for your application can be just as important as your Resume/CV.

It really is a key selling point of you, showcasing your talents and your motivations on why you want that job. Here are our tips on how to get the most from your cover letter!

Before you begin writing, do as much research about the role, company and industry. This way you can write with knowledge and enthusiasm about what you will be doing and who you will be doing with it. This can go a long way to securing an interview.

1. Write a New Cover Letter for Each Position

If you’re anything like me, you feel like there’s never enough hours in the day and time is always slipping away, but this is NOT a moment you want to cheat yourself in the essence of time.

Yes, it’s way faster and easier to take the cover letter you wrote for your last application, change the name of the company, and send it off, but it won’t do you any good in the long run. While it’s OK to recycle a few strong sentences and phrases from one cover letter to the next, don’t even think about sending out a 100% generic letter.

2. Plan and Structure Your Cover Letter

Keep your cover letter to one side of A4 which includes:

3. Style Your Cover Letter

The style of your cover letter completely depends on your audience. For example, if you are looking for a role in a corporate environment then you need to write in a formal tone. However, if you are looking for a creative role then this will be completely different! It’s really important that you understand the culture of the company and industry to get the tone right. If in doubt be cautious in your approach, keeping the tone professional and neutral.

4. How You Will Add Value

When writing about how you can do the job, work out the specifics of what the employer actually wants you to do by reading the job description and/or advert. Just as your CV/resume should be tailored to the role, so should your cover letter. Make sure you use examples to demonstrate how your expertise matches what they are looking for, showing what you can do for your future employer.

5. Back it Up with Stats

It’s all good and fun to say you have skills, but to really make an impact you need to ‘prove it’, so throw in some supporting stats! They show you’ve had a measurable impact on an organization or company you’ve worked for.

It doesn’t mean you have to have doubled revenue at your last job, but did you decrease time to hire? Increase your client portfolio by 15%? Made a process at work 20% more efficient? Those numbers speak volumes about what you could bring to your next position.

6. Strategically Use Keywords

Ensure your cover letter contains the keywords from the job description. Most recruiters are looking for headline information that will get you through the initial stages of the recruitment process. So, make it easy for them to include you by ticking these off! But avoid repeating the exact phrasing and be aware the job adverts and descriptions can contain an element of fluff.

7. Show Your Interest

When you’re signing off, state your interest in the role and be positive about your suitability for the role. It’s always a good idea to express that you’d like to meet in person to discuss further. Make that final paragraph to the point and positive but not too pushy.

8. Double Check Before You Send

Once you’re finished it is vitally important to check the grammar, punctuation, and spelling in your cover letter. And get someone else to proofread it for you too. Any mistakes that are picked up can quite often lead to your application being ignored as it is an easy way for recruiters to disqualify you!

HR Manger’s Perspective: Interview Tips to Impress

Wed, 18 Oct 2017 21:05:00 GMT

If you’re in the process of interviewing then effectively you’re in “sales mode”, selling yourself to a prospective employer – here are a few interview tips to consider straight from an HR Manager to give you some insider tips!

An important point to note is that the prospective employer is also in “sales mode” because they have an open position to fill and they are also trying to sell their company to you, if you’re the kind of person they are looking for .

Remember- if you’ve been invited for an interview they already think you might be who they are looking for , so you have a good head start. All you have to do is prove them right!

Here are the top interview tips that I look for as an HR Manager that a candidate can do to prove they are the right fit.

Whether you get the job or not interviewing is a really good learning and growth opportunity for you and meeting new people helps to build and establish your personal brand and your social capital so look on it as a good investment in time.

If you’re interested in reading more specific tips on interviewing, we’ve got a number of blogs written covering questions to ask at the end , how to answer competency interview questions as well as how to talk through your CV – feel free to have a read or speak to one of our consultants for more tailored advice!

What Not To Wear!

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 19:46:00 GMT

Wondering what not to wear in an interview? We’ve got you covered.

Being prepared for an interview is so important, researching the company, the interviewers, the job and your work experience but often what we are going to wear and what that says about us is left until the last minute.

Dressing for an interview in Cayman is a little different to somewhere like London but it is still something that still requires some attention.

What Should You Wear?

What Not To Wear

One common mistake that gets commented on often by clients in Cayman is when a candidate dresses in what is probably their favorite and nicest outfit, but not the most conservative and sensible. It is actually just as bad to look like you are ready for a night out as it is to have made no effort at all.

Does Color Matter?

For those at slightly higher levels, it is also important to consider the colors you are wearing and what they say about you. A recent article by Gladys Stone & Fred Whelan discussed the reactions to the most common colors chosen for interviews.

Although giving some thought into what color you wear and what it says about you, it shouldn’t be mulled on too long, after all, wearing the right color and not knowing about the company and role is very rarely going to lead to an offer.

Embracing Recruitment Testing

Thu, 14 Sep 2017 15:22:00 GMT

Recruitment testing can be nerve-wracking – here are some tips to help calm those nerves so you can shine!

Testing is quite normal in the recruitment process but you’d be hard-pressed to find many people that enjoy taking tests. For some of us, anxiety kicks in and there’s a fear of failure. For others, tests feel limiting… putting us in a box that doesn’t reflect our true abilities. Maybe we’re just too busy to complete yet another to-do. But the reality is, tests are built in to so many parts of our lives, and are almost always attached to consequences. The trick in overcoming your nerves when taking an assessment may be to change how you interpret those consequences. Here are some ways you can switch your thinking:

Fear: I might score poorly

Solution: That’s okay

It’s always a good thing to learn about and accept your weaknesses, because you become empowered to develop and grow. Top candidates are very conscientious about their abilities and are constantly aiming to improve. Nova will review your test scores as a baseline of your skills, as opposed to using them as a tool to eliminate you from a shortlist. We can also introduce you to trainings that help you improve your scores and your chances for a job!

Fear: People might judge me

Solution: That’s okay too

In cases where Nova sends your test results to clients, you win whether they progress or decline you. A rejection because of a test score could mean that the potential employer has made assumptions about your abilities. If their assumptions are accurate i.e. you don’t have the skills for the job, then (you must admit) it’s fair that they haven’t chosen you. And it’s okay, because taking on a job that you don’t have the skills for will set you up for failure. If the employer’s assumptions about your test score is inaccurate, you may have dodged a bullet by being turned down. Top employers know how to qualify test results and make a judgement call about whether your low score really matters.

Fear: Tests scores put me in a box

Solution: Talk it through

A test score doesn’t put you in a box, so much as it opens a door to a conversation. Sometimes that conversation involves genuine learning needs, or sometimes it involves figuring out what the test didn’t measure. Either way, a test only limits you if you don’t have the ability to accept what is valid about it and put it into context when speaking to your consultant or your potential future employer.

Fear: I don’t have time to take this test

Solution: Accept that you’re making a choice

You’re right, we all only have a limited amount of time in our day. But how we use that time is up to us! Communication is also key here. Confirm with your consultant whether there is a deadline on any tests you receive, and why or why not you cannot meet that deadline. By not making time to take tests, you are making the choice to push your job search down the list of your priorities!

So go ahead! Take those tests with confidence that no matter the outcome, you can still pursue your goals. Tests tell us how to move forward, they don’t take us a step back.

How to Progress Your Career With Confidence!

Fri, 04 Aug 2017 20:08:00 GMT

Confidence at work is a massive part to moving your career forward.

Whether it’s performing at an interview, delivering a big presentation or negotiating at a client meeting – confidence will really help you succeed. Confidence can help because it can give clarity in your communication, show self-belief in your own skills and ultimately ensure people trust and believe your judgements and decisions.

But how do you do this? Here are some tips to help you in the context of your career.

Know What You Know

Confidence is a mindset, so you need to believe that you know what you are talking about. And not only do you know what you are doing, in fact, you are very good at it! You will have experience and/or qualifications that have all lead you to this point, so believe in yourself! If you don’t, then no one else will.

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!

In the context of work, preparation will really help you! Spend time thinking and planning for a meeting or interview. Will you need stats or numbers to back up what you are saying? Do you need to produce a presentation? Think about who is going to be in the meeting and what types of communication or detail they like to see and then include this in your preparation.

Set Strategic Objectives

As part of your planning set yourself an objective of what you want the end result to be. Then work out a strategy of how you’re going to get there. Having an objective gives you something to focus on and a result to get. It gets you in the mindset of being positive and achieving which negates the nerves. So, be positive and see yourself getting the right results and you’re much more likely to get there!

Look The Part

Often the end goal of being confident is ensuring people react positively to you. This means looking the part is vitally important. If you are looking your best, not only do you feel better about yourself, which gives you confidence, but it also gives people confidence in you.

Communicate Clearly

One of the most important elements of confidence is how you communicate. Speak clearly, and breathe rhythmically with your speech to set a pace. Try and use positive language where appropriate, like ‘this will’ and ‘definitely’. Language that has definite out comes shows a belief in what you are saying! Remember to make eye contact, and use open positive body language.

So, prepare, think positively, communicate clearly and positively, and take into account your audience. Then you’ll definitely create a good and positive impression and help you be more successful in your career!

Louise Reed is a HR and recruitment professional who inspires career success.

How to Employ the Right Personality?

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 20:03:00 GMT

Quite often, by the time you are looking at a shortlist of CV’s, the candidates on paper will look great, and it can be difficult to differentiate between them. As the skills are likely to be quite similar, the decision will often come down to personality and attitude.

No matter how right the candidate is on paper, there is so much room for error with personality. Is this person going to fit into the team? What will they be like day-to-day? Are they a born leader or someone who is going to get things done? Are they going to have a positive input on your business?

How do you deal with this? At interview, outside of skills based questions, to find out more about their personality there are questions and routes you can go through, such as asking about why they have left jobs and get examples of how they overcame adversity or difficult challenges. These are quite traditional questions that can be prepped for, so it’s really important to dig below the first answers, and although it may be uncomfortable ask those difficult questions.

There are little signifiers that can really help to find out more, like do they talk about “we” over “I” which can suggest what their team ethic is like. You may have to look at their style of response too. Are they on the defensive, uncomfortable or unconvincing when asked about how they deal with stressful situations? Do they put blame on others? What’s their body language like? Are they stressed when you are probing? You can also find positives too, such as if they respond in a positive way to difficult questioning – this can really show someone who has a positive approach to stressful situations.

Outside of a probing interview, another great way to find out more about a person is through online personality tests. In modern recruitment, there are many different types of test. Often, the main focus of these are mainly to identify candidate traits. For example, are they a follower or do they like to lead and how dominant a leader they might be. These tests can show strengths, weakness and approach to work. They can show a range personality types, scales of personality traits and what their dominant traits are.

So as a hiring manager, not only can you see what they are really like, if carried out with every member of the team you can build a picture of your team and how they will fit into this. The tests normally will give insight into managing these people and teams. Some also delve into emotional intelligence which can be really useful too. You should look at using scientific tests based on principles of phycology and in-depth research that can help take put the gut instinct of an interview and build a consistent recruitment approach.

No matter what, any help that can be used to make the right hiring decisions should be used as generating a great team and positive work environment has to be one of the key priorities of any manager.

Louise Reed is a recruitment professional and is passionate about matching people to their dream jobs.

Get Your Career Going With LinkedIn

Thu, 06 Jul 2017 21:13:00 GMT

LinkedIn is a key part to modern recruitment and having a professional profile is key. Here’s our quick guide to get you and your career started!

Suitable Photo

Let’s begin with a suitable photo. This should be a shot that shows you as a professional, wearing office attire with a plain back drop. If in doubt play it safe as this is your professional social profile, not your Facebook page! You should also pick a background photo too. This can be difficult as some of the image gets covered by your profile photo, so you may need to play around with this. Once again pick something that reflects you and the work that you want to do.

Experience/Achievements

Much like your CV/Resume you need to get as many of your professional achievements and experience on there that will help sell you. Put in your full professional background and skills. Then talk about how you grew business, improved ways of working, targets you exceeded, promotions or award-winning work you produced. And then tell us how you did it!

When writing your work history, you should use obvious job titles such as Marketing Executive, instead of new-fangled job titles like Marketing Wizard. The obvious titles make your profile easier to find for recruiters searching for candidates. Another important element is to use keywords that make you relatable to the roles that you want. This makes your profile instantly connected to the roles you want, and recruiters and HR staff can find you, see this and match you to roles.

Networking

Now you need to network and connect with your professional connections. Link up with any one you have worked with, whether it’s a previous colleague, someone you’re currently working with, and recruiters, clients and suppliers. Anyone that you have had a professional interaction with! If you’ve just finished university then this can be difficult. So, add your fellow graduates, recruiters, and HR people that you speak to when applying for jobs or at companies that you want to work at. If it’s someone you don’t know then you should send them a personalised message too.

The next thing to do is follow relevant individuals, influencers, companies and groups. If you make this industry or specific to the jobs you are looking for then your LinkedIn feed will be full of the latest blogs, news and jobs that are relevant to you. This will help to build your knowledge as well as give you opportunities. You can also join in on discussions that are going on, share stories that you like and leave insightful comments. All of this will help you build connections, a personal professional brand and ultimately more career opportunities.

Find Jobs

LinkedIn is a great way of directly finding jobs too. Go into the jobs section and career interests section and set your job search preferences. You’ll then be able to search for jobs, but you’ll also get recommended jobs in your feed and emails about roles that are relevant to you. Also, make sure your preferences say you’re open to recruiters! Watch our tutorial here on how to set this up.

For a full breakdown on how to fully optimize your profile for job searching, read our blog here !

Why Engagement Begins With Your Employer Brand

Wed, 14 Jun 2017 15:23:00 GMT

What does employee engagement mean?

To me, it’s the employee’s attachment to their employer and the work they are doing as well as their desire to perform for the company. There are many elements that build this such as culture, management, and communications.

What Does This Have To Do With Your Employer Brand?

Well, it’s about attracting the people that are going to be engaged with your company rather than engaging people that you want to work for you. Someone who likes your business from the outside. Someone who aspires to work for you. Taking this approach means you are more likely to get a better ROI from an employee who wants to work for you, and also means that there is more likelihood of a long-term relationship forming with them.

So, to really engage with candidates it is essential to produce an honest and real employer brand. Allowing your brand to show off your true culture means that candidates applying for any role in any team will get the essence of what it is like to work at your company. Not only does it help attract the right candidates it can help with candidates self-selecting – which will save time for you.

Communication is Vital

This should start from the very opening communication, whether that’s a job posting or a recruiter speaking to candidates. Using the right messages, vocabulary, style, and tone across all these channels is essential. It is vital to get that communication style right!

Having this approach means that candidates from the offset know what to expect from you and the company. This allows you as a manager to know the type of person you need and to recruit people that fit your culture. So, normally people fit in from the offset, building strong team dynamics and get their buy into what you are looking to achieve.

Yes, there will be differences from team to team but there are strategies to help with these nuances. Telling stories from your best employees within a team can really help by getting them involved in the interview process or in marketing strategies. Having these stories can help get the tone right for what is to come for the employee – in a strong and real way.

Keep it Positive

Using a real and honest, you will obviously need to show your positive approach. You need to take this positive story and highlight the themes that apply to your target audience. What is the unique selling point and how are you different from competitors? What are the intricacies of your business?

Make sure candidates are engaging with your company’s unique culture and brand from the first touchpoint and you can look forward to great employee engagement.

Why You Must Train Your Leaders

Mon, 29 May 2017 21:32:00 GMT

Training your leaders is a cornerstone to business success: here’s why.

One of the many perks of being the boss is more free reign… but let’s not forget that a leadership position endows employees with a unique responsibility: to drive business results from a group of individuals.

For this reason, it is critical to business success that leaders have the right skills and training to lead people towards a goal, i.e. to identify their team’s weaknesses, leverage their strengths, and motivate them to connect their interests to those of the business.

Risks of Ill-Equipped Employees Taking Charge of a Team:

Leaders must be able to have courageous conversations with their staff. They must be able to give honest and fair feedback to create a sense of trust on the team, which we know forms the basis of productive teamwork! If a manager can’t identify and address misconduct or poor performance effectively, they are not mitigating business risks. Not acceptable!

Leaders must be able to give time and attention to maximising their team members’ potential. They must be perceptive enough to acknowledge what things their staff does well, and what things they don’t. Great leaders will often approach upper management about re-working job descriptions, developing stretch projects, and providing external training opportunities for staff. If you notice a team has failed to grow revenue, opportunities or savings… the manager has responsibility for that stagnation. That manager also risks massive turnover expenses by suffocating their team members.

Leaders must have the self-awareness to hold themselves accountable. This lends itself to a level of objectivity when interacting with the team. We’ve all seen disaster scenarios of favoritism, discrimination, neglect or volatility by managers, all of which are a direct result of managers making decisions based on personal preferences. While there should be room for authenticity in management styles, leaders must be trained to make decisions based on company values that are consistent across the business. If not, you end up with cultural silos… different teams operating by different standards. Ultimately your product or service to customers, and your internal engagement, will suffer.

*Quick reminder to not confuse technical-managers with people-managers! There should be room in the organisation to promote strong performers without adding people-management to their job duties. Not everyone is suited to lead others.

So, if you’re transitioning a strong employee to a leadership role, it’s in the business’s best interest to ensure that person has what it takes. Managers who take their new title as a lease to blame or belittle others are a dangerous breed! Top employers and industry leaders supplement the skills that future leaders already possess with dynamic development plans that prepare them to take responsibility for the success and failures of others. Training is critical to leaders’’ success.

What Makes You Unique?

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 15:56:00 GMT

Being unique can be a huge positive when it comes to your career.

My friend Louise at Nova asked me to write this blog because, as she put it, “your career has been a bit odd”. I wasn’t convinced. I’m a lawyer who went to law school. I worked for a few law firms before moving in-house. So far, not exactly a crazy career trajectory …

But as she’d promised me wine as compensation, I gave it some thought and realised maybe Louise has a wider point. My career path has been around the houses a bit.

In the Beginning

My first degree was in Film & Literature, which has fairly limited relevance to what I now do. I converted to Law in the UK and worked in competition (anti-trust) law, a discipline that doesn’t exist in Cayman. When I moved to Cayman during the financial crisis, I had to temp for a while before finding a role as a litigator. In 2012 I left law and began to work for DMS as Operations Manager. Four and a half years later, I’m their Global Head of Legal.

Change Can Be Good

I think the message Louise took from this is that taking a chance or making a change in your vocation won’t necessarily cause harm. Changes in your career plan can feel very dramatic and inevitably you’re going to worry about the consequences of getting them wrong. And when I say wrong, I guess what I mean is hard to justify to future employers .

But rather than justifying or defending a non-linear career path, I wonder if we should instead be promoting any peculiarities as being what sets us apart and distinguishes us from the herd? Employers will inevitably notice and interrogate gaps and oddities, so maybe we should make the most of them instead of making excuses? If I’m interviewing a candidate with an unusual or non-linear path, I’m often rooting for them to convince me that the more offbeat aspects of their CV are what will make them an interesting fit for the role. But if a candidate is going to convince me, they must believe it themselves first.

So Why Might Change Be A Good Thing?

You decided to make a U-turn career change : So, you decided to move from accountancy to marketing. To me, this indicates bravery, self-awareness and the maturity to identify that you’re no longer bringing your enthusiastic best to your original profession. You’ve also chosen not to be dissuaded by the reasons not to take the risk (a pay cut, more exams or just a giant learning curve), which suggests you’re determined and unafraid of hard work.

You took a temporary break from your profession to do something different but then decided to return: For me, this meant moving to a completely new role, but for others it could mean parental leave, travelling or any other temporary employment gap. Whatever the reason, a different experience can give you new perspective (on an unfamiliar culture or industry), opportunities (time to volunteer or learn a language) or enhanced skills (multi-tasking or better budgeting). On paper, a move from law to operations might seem detrimental to a lawyer’s development, but it increased my understanding of the workings of the business, which meant that when I transitioned back into a legal role, I had a much better commercial understanding of how DMS operated than I would have had if I moved directly into the in-house legal role. Without that interruption, I wouldn’t be in my current role.

Your change looks or feels like a change in title or offers lower pay*: Particularly if you’re senior, making a career U-turn might mean having to “suck it up”, in terms of salary, title, or support resources. But if you’ve stuck with it, that tells me that you’re probably not precious, you’re keen to learn, happy to take advice and to roll up your sleeves.

(*salary is, of course, one of the main reasons people avoid change, and understandably so. But, whilst it’s true that following your passion may result in less pay, my personal experience has been that choosing a job based on culture rather than salary can enhance your earning power. If you’re in the right role and you align with your company’s values, you are more likely to do good work, be valued and paid accordingly.)

While Change Can Be Good, It’s Not Always Easy

I’m not suggesting that you can flip a positivity switch and the world will view an unusual CV through rose-tinted glasses. There will always be employers who struggle with the concept of a career change and are looking for cradle to grave employees (although can you honestly say you want to work for one?). I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t continue to use the traditional toolkit to enhance your CV (at DMS we really value voluntary work and people who have a passion for learning and development) as these are going to be vital skills whatever your career path.

But I do think that if you let your career freak flag fly and try to treat vocation changes or gaps as examples of what makes you a more interesting and developed candidate, you’ll have an easier road to success. My trajectory proves that some diversity in a career path can sometimes work to your advantage when you find the right employer. Identify and promote whatever it is that makes you unique rather than excusing it.

Is Your Resume Perfect?

Tue, 28 Mar 2017 14:20:00 GMT

It can be difficult to get your resume noticed – follow these tips and you won’t have to worry.

If your resume isn’t noticed, then you won’t get beyond the first recruitment hurdle. And your resume is also the first thing your recruiter, HR team and hiring manager will see and know about you. So, it’s vital to make it perfect and ensure they know from the start how good you are. Here are our top tips for your resume!

Tailor to the advert

You must tailor your resume to the advert. By matching your own experience to the requirements of the job you are showing the recruiter that you can do it. At the end of the day this is the focus of your resume. So, make sure it matches the role and this will get the recruiter interested in you and your resume straight away.

Keep to the point

Usually a resume should be two sides of A4 paper. Recruiters see many, many resumes each day and by going over two sides you’ll be giving them extra work, which will put them off straight away. So, keep the information relevant to the role you’re applying for and at a high-level.

Start with a personal statement

Start with a personal statement summarising your key achievements that are relevant to the role you are applying for. This will show off why you are good at your current role and why you’d be good at the role you are applying for. It’s the first thing a recruiter who looks at your resume will see, so can get them interested in you straight away.

Numbers convince

Saying that you are good at something is one thing. Using numbers to support and show how good you are makes you stand out. For example, saying you grew sales is very vague. Showing you grew profits by 40% year on year, shows a real and strong output. But remember to be honest and relevant with these!

Be honest

There is no point making things up on your resume. At some stage, whether at screening, reference checks, interview or if you do get the role, you’ll get found out that you can’t actually do what you said. And it will be embarrassing! Whether it’s not being able to answer questions at interview or not actually being able to do your job, your true abilities will become appraent. Be aware that lying about your experience or skills could also lead to dismissal!

Keywords are key

Job titles and technical terminology from your industry/role will help get your resume to the top of searches so a recruiter sees you first. Used in the right way, keywords show that you’re an expert. Remember to match these keywords to the job description of the role you are applying for as it will help get you through the first recruitment stages.

Professional presentation

Remember your resume is your own personal professional advert. Design your resume so information is clear and easy to read. So, break it up using headers and bullets. Also, keep formatting standardised throughout and use one font style. Another simple trick is not to clutter the pages and leave white space between sections.

Don’t make mistakes

Recruiters do look for mistakes on resumes as this is an easy way to reject a resume, especially when they are getting large volumes of applications. Proof read, use online spelling and grammar checks and get somebody else to proof read this so there is no chance of a mistake.

Managing Your Performance Management

Mon, 06 Mar 2017 19:32:00 GMT

Step aside traditional performance management, it’s time to take a more human approach.

In the modern workforce, there has been a move from the traditional box-ticking process of traditional performance management to give this process a more human approach. The yearly annual review is becoming a fortnightly coffee catch up and the goal setting is becoming less focused on ratings . What does this mean though?

Build a More Engaged Workforce

Well, this regular face-to-face approach is definitely one that works and builds a supportive, engaged, and collaborative culture. It allows employees to regularly benchmark their performance and work to ensure they are doing what is required and more so that they are progressing. They can also see what their upcoming work and projects will look like and what is expected of them. It also allows them time where they can build relationships with their boss which can only help their career.

Open Up Dialogue

Also, for the business this means flexibility and agility to move to business needs, setting short term goals. It allows for a continuous dialogue and with the team to build an engaged collaborative team environment and ensure they are focused on their objectives. With the move away from performance reviews and the semantics involved, which with the wrong employee can have negative outcomes. Now, we are moving towards processes, for example, called capability building, which can only help drive positive performance.

Make Room For Autonomy

Netflix moved away from a process-driven culture as they believed eventually this drives out high performing employees, they instead allow their employees to make their own decisions to reach the end goal. They employ adults and treat them like adults, investing in high performing employees and building and maintaining a culture that rewards high-performers.

But the employee still needs to manage these catch-ups carefully. Employees should be ensuring that they are still preparing for these like reviews and can highlight their achievements and the areas that they need to upskill in and the best way to do this. They also should be aware of where they want to go with their career. So, it’s key to remember what their high-level objectives are, make sure they have long-term goals for themselves and still have a learning and development plan so that they can grow their career in the way they want too.

What is a Corporate Administrator?

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 19:18:00 GMT

Working in an offshore jurisdiction brings along with it many unusual jobs and job titles that don’t exist elsewhere. As recruiters we are often asked about the different jobs on offer and the experience and qualifications needed to apply, Corporate administrators are just one of these roles that brings along the most misunderstanding and questions as the title can be misleading.

Corporate Administrator (sourced data: CML 2011 Salary Survey)

Average salary range (Cayman)

US$50,000 – $70,000 (mainly non-qualified)

US$70,000 –$100,000 plus (qualified candidates)

Average opportunities with in Cayman : 2 vacancies per month

Average Entry Requirements:

Many of the companies incorporated within an offshore jurisdiction like Cayman are investment holding or dealing companies holding investments throughout the world.

The majority of offshore companies are registered and managed by specialist company management businesses. Larger organizations and institutions generally have their own company management or corporate administration departments that provide a similar, in- house service.

A corporate management/corporate administration department will provide a wide range of services but the basics tend to be;

A corporate administrator will become involved in some, if not all, of the activities above, depending on their experience and authority level. However, the majority of duties would fall under the compliance, record keeping and administrations sectors.

The most widely recognized professional designation within corporate administration is ICSA – the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators which studies high standards in corporate governance. Most senior level positions will require an ICSA qualification however many companies support the study of this qualification for junior or mid level corporate administrators.

Nova – Love your work

Esther Cameron: 2025 Education Grant Recipient

Nova Recruitment Announce Esther Cameron as Recipient of Annual 'Love Your Future' Educational Grant

Successful Caymanian student receives $3,000 to further their studies

﻿

PHRi Certification 101 for Aspiring HR Professionals in the Cayman Islands

PHRi Certification 101 for Aspiring HR Professionals in the Cayman Islands

Step 1: Set Up Your Study Framework (180 Days of Access)

Step 2: Make a Monthly Study Commitment

Step 3: Use the Final 2 Weeks for Deep Review

Step 4: Schedule Your Exam Locally

Step 5: Test Day Tips

Step 6: You’re Now a Certified HR Pro – What’s Next?

Ready to Get Started?

Top Tips On Changing Your Career

Is a Career Change Right for You?

Change Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Tailoring Your Resume for a Career Change

Don't Underestimate the Importance of Networking

Seek Support and Utilise Available Resources

Reach Out for a Confidential Chat

How to Evaluate a Job Offer & Compensation Package

Be clear on your “must haves” and your “like-to-haves” in a job offer

How much do I need to earn?

What to consider:

What kind of benefits package am I looking for?

What to consider:

Where are you willing to compromise on the above?

For example:

Do you have all the information to determine the actual value of your job offer?

What is my base salary?

What kind of benefits are included in your job offer?

Know your value in the current market

Compare similar jobs

For example:

Speak to your recruiter about your job offer

Don’t be afraid to negotiate your job offer

Develop Your Career in Insolvency

Discovering the Lucrative Career Path of Corporate Insolvency ﻿

What Exactly is Corporate Insolvency?

What Does the Insolvency Market Look Like in Cayman?

Career Progression in Insolvency

A Day in the Life of an Insolvency Trainee

Let’s Talk About A Career in Insolvency

What are the Benefits of Using a Recruiter?

What Does a Recruiter Do?

What are the Benefits of Using a Recruiter as a Job Seeker?

Knowledge & Insights

Access to More Job Vacancies

Negotiation Support

Confidentiality & Data Protection

It's Free!

Receive Useful Feedback

Nova Recruitment Celebrates Placing Over 500 Caymanians in the Local Workforce

Nova Recruitment is proud to announce a significant milestone: placing over 500 talented Caymanian candidates into various roles across the local workforce.

Discovering my HR Passion: The Nova Apprenticeship Experience

Embracing Change, Inspiring Growth:

﻿ My Leap into Nova’s HR Apprenticeship

Before I found Nova.

When Nova Found Me.

Support From Connect by Nova.

A New Chapter: Becoming the HR Apprentice

Environmental Economics, Swim Team Success and Winter in New York City

Love Your Future 2023 Educational Grant Recipient - Krishna Adapa updates us on his studies in New York

Adapting to New York Winters

Appreciation for Environmental Conservation

Insights into the Cayman Islands Impact on Pollution

You Could be Next!

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Hiring and Retention

Building a Stronger Workplace Through Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Hiring and Retaining Top Talent

Identifying Emotional Intelligence in the Hiring Process

Emotional Intelligence and Retention

Emotional Intelligence for Leadership Potential

Emotional Intelligence and Inclusivity & Diversity

Embracing Emotional Intelligence

Employers: How to assess for emotional intelligence during the hiring process

Unlocking the Power of Emotional Intelligence in Your Hiring Process

Emotional Intelligence: What to Look for

Self-Awareness

Empathy

Discovering the Lucrative Career Path of Corporate Insolvency

My Leap into Nova’s HR Apprenticeship