Our Job Shop is the one stop place for career skills advice for all Oldham College students.
Whether you’re looking for your first job or looking to move on to an apprenticeship, we can advise you on the best way to go about things. Here are our top tips for getting ready to send your CV to prospective employers.
Firstly, get to know yourself – your strengths, values, interests and ambitions. Next, do your research on your chosen job – make sure you know as much as you can about what the job is really like and if it’s the right job for you. Finally, get some advice from our Job Shop team. There might be other options or funding schemes open to you that you didn’t know about that we can advise you of. It always helps to have someone impartial as a sounding board to check if you’re doing the right thing.
If you’re planning a career change, look at the skills mentioned in job adverts. Which have you got and which do you need to work on? Change your CV format so that it covers key aspects of the job description and person specification.
“The Job Shop provides a central location for people to check out all available apprenticeship vacancies and work opportunities, as well as seek support with applying for jobs such as developing your CV and reviewing interview techniques.”
Transferable skills are general skills you can use in many jobs. You gain these skills from previous jobs, work experience, projects, voluntary work, sport, your home life, hobbies, and interests. They enable you to be adaptable and flexible and are useful when applying for jobs, apprenticeships and traineeships.
What employers look for
As well as IT, numeracy and good communication skills, these are some of the common skills employers want their staff to have:
In your job applications and interviews, employers will be really impressed if you can provide examples of when you used these skills in different jobs. This shows that you’re adaptable and can bring useful skills to a job straight away.
