Working in the UK advice - finding a job in London

So I’ve decided to get you guys some hot tips on recruitment. CVs, what to bring over, what to expect, visas, you name it. I’ve tried to find out for you what the best thing to do is. Now I’ve got Kristen here from Blue Skies Recruitment and she’s my inside girl. She is going to tell us what you need to know to get you guys in front of recruiters as quick as we can.

Okay. Hello. Hello. Right so say they are in Australian and they are willing to work as soon as they can, what is the best thing? To get their CVs in front of you guys. To get over here even. The first thing you’ve probably already done or you’re thinking about is your visa. Now the first one you probably think about is the tourist working visa which is great. You’ll all pretty much get it. The only problem is it will give you two years but only one year working. So if you’re coming over to freelance, do some contract work, great you’ll be absolutely set. You can earn lots of money and do lots of traveling. A lot of people are coming over here to do a couple of years over here and get a bit of UK experience on their CV. In that case a working holiday visa is not so good.

My suggestion is to call the British Embassy or first contact to find out about something called the highly skilled visa. Oh, this sounds interesting. Yeah. It’s actually best gotten before you come over here. It’s going to be a lot easier and less time consuming for you. Basically the highly skilled visa if you’re a doctor, nurse, engineer or trade such as that, you’re probably just going to get it. You’ll have no problems so really look into it. If you’re a marketing professional, accounting or law or office worker or anything like that, which a lot of us strains are coming over here, you will need to apply for this visa but it is quite, not too hard to get but it works on a point system.  You need 65 points and the way you get 65 points like to give you some examples. If you are under 28 you get 5 points. So a lot of us are under 28. I’ve not heard this. This is so much easier. Well maybe not easy but. It is a good thing to look into. If you are a graduate, you’ll get 15 points. If you’ve got a masters or a PHD, well then your points are going to go flying really. If you’ve got two years of experience in the industry you get 25 points. You got 4 years, you’ve got 45 points. Oh my gosh. As you can see points are going up. Now one other thing they do look at is what you’ve been earning in the last 12 months so around 27,000 pounds equates to, I think, you know not doing fantastic equation now, ,000, ,000. So ,000 in the first, in the last 12 months when you apply. Oh right. Okay. So that’s something you might have to keep in mind but I would always say never be deterred by any one thing that I’m says because it works on a point system so the whole idea is to spit out points out of a variety of areas. So you might have points in one area but not the other but you might be able to reach the 65 so speak to the British Commission or First Contact. Yeah First Contact you all know about the agency there. They’re excellent. Definitely, I’ve spoken to them there myself on a number of occasions. They are very helpful actually. Yeah they are brilliant.

Okay. Alright so you’ve got the visa, which ever it may be. Now do they send their CVs before hand? Would you recommend they send their CV before they even get on the plane? One thing a stranger might not know about UK is it is begun recruitment agents. Oh my God. It is just a recruitment agent over here. Because there’s a lot of, there are so many people over here but there’s so much work, which is fabulous for you guys. Yeah don’t worry about that. There’s lots of work. Don’t ever listen to anyone that says there aren’t any jobs out there because there it. In UK it is unbelievable. May not be your dream job maybe, I don’t think but like that’s okay, you don’t have to have your dream job the first 6 weeks that you get here. I’ve been here for 4 years in the UK and never been out of work. This can come, come, come, you just, it just happens. But okay recruitment agents, because I think if you send your CV direct to some companies you might on some odd occasions get some response but I just think that companies like to work with recruitment agents. Everyone over here in England won’t go through just a person so I think if you just send your CV off to 20 companies you’re unlikely to get a response so basically you want to get in with recruitment consultants. You might be thinking how do we do that?

My first suggestion is one either speak to friends who have come over here in the same industries because they can tell you which obviously industry specific ones to go into. That’s true. Friends are always a good resource to use guys. Definitely and you know a lot of people have been to the UK or are going to the UK know of brothers, sisters, friends. It’s so true. Just someone who knows someone who can help you out. We’re all over here and we all want to help you out. So if you just drop them an email or give them a call to find out.

In marketing, I mean Blue Skies specializes in marketing and advertising recruitment and we do, you know, pr and a whole range of design agencies as well. You know there are a few other players in the game and then, you know, in accounting there’s some other big ones as well. Yeah there’s quite a few. We’ve got a lot you guys can check out.

Other thing may sound really basic, but in case you’ve never thought about it, it’s typed in recruitment agents, UK then industry. Recruitment agents, UK, advertising. I promise you they’ll pop up and my suggestion is email them before you come over. Definitely. The amount of emails I get from Australians still in Australia who found out about Blue Skies, you know, through friends or on the internet. They’ll email me and say hi. I am coming over in one week. Here’s my CV. I’d be emailing straight back saying excellent let’s set up a meeting. Oh good. That’s really good response. Definitely. Okay well that’s a good thing. So email your CV before you leave and try to set up a meeting obviously if you’re coming straight over from Australia. If your traveling wait until you get here or wait until you know you are about to get here. Don’t send your CV 3 months before you get here, no one will respond. People want to know people coming over soon. That they can place as soon as possible. Yeah. Definitely.

Now your CVs, tip on this one. Keep it succinct and shorter. CVs are generally 5 to 8 pages because we like to say every little bit of information of what we’ve done. Which is great but in UK companies aren’t really. They don’t care. They won’t look into it. They don’t have the time. They’re busy. So they just want to see your skills highlighted and your experience highlighted. So I say keep it to 2 to 3 pages as a word of thumb. If it has to go over 4 is your very max but I’d say 2 to 3. Okay. If you’re feeling really stressed about that also work with a recruitment consultant, they should be able to give you tips on how to shorted your CV.  That’s the other thing I was going to say. Your credo should be your friend really. You should be able to have a relationship and call them and say this is what’s going on, this is what I need. They’re not big scary people. They’re there to help. Exactly, people like me from Australia who have been over here a couple of years, where I worked in advertising and then recruiting. They know what they’re talking about.

So you’ve got your CVs possibly crossed over for your meeting. Okay so you’ve got your meetings. Don’t forget to pack your suits or I would say depending on what industry, you know for advertising, design kind of work, quite funky industry over here as you can imagine. So I wouldn’t actually be going in there with your buttoned up collars, a shirt and a suit. I would be wearing something quite funky if you can. I mean guys a nice pair of trousers, a nice shirt. Girls in a skirt not trousers. I think you know what I mean. Just not your really formal suit but I think if you’re a lawyer or accountant, I’d think you’d want to speak to your recruitment consultant about what you should wear but you should always be able to get that information from your recruitment consultant, who will be able to show you the cultural of where your getting your jobs as well.

Also what I found over here was asking how much it is and where it is. Do you think that’s kind of important? In terms of location? Yeah, the jobs you are getting like there’s a few things because you are so eager to get the job sometimes that you do it and then you find that it is at 6 or 7 in the morning and you’re getting paid 5 pounds an hour. Really true. London is absolutely massive and I deal with advertising agencies that are in central London but some are way up north actually Hackenshire, which is a totally different part of the UK. You know you still might want to consider the job because it’s your dream job or it’s great but you need to think about the fact that public transport in London can take it’s time and can be quite busy in rush hour. So you want to check that you’re not going to take 2 ½ hours to get to work and that’s something you’re recruitment consultant should be telling you about. Oh definitely. You should always ask how much it is and where it is.

Alright then their off the plane and they’ve got there appointment at 10 am on Thursday. They’ve got their suit, funky gear, whatever. What are they going to expect to lack for their registration? Obviously every recruitment agent will probably work different, especially different industries. I can speak on behalf of Blue Skies which is marketing, advertisement, recruitment. First of all actually I just had one bit in, you need to bring references with you. Okay of course. References. I’m just thinking when you’re arriving in the interview room all the things you want to have with you. Good things are to have references from your former employers and it is brilliant to have a written reference and if you can in electronic form as well because that just speaks a million when you are setting up someone’s CV and saying here’s a reference and they’re saying Director of this company, she’s fantastic, self motivated, really energetic, hard working, great, it’s just great sort of stuff to have so definitely get that. Looking out for yourself. Exactly. Okay so bring those with you. If you can, if you work in, every industry will be different but bring examples of your work. Marketing and advertising bring stuff that you’ve developed. You know accounting or law I wouldn’t say any in those industries but maybe you’ve done some reports, maybe you’ve got cases or an accountant maybe you’ve got documents. Something you can bring. It gives you more substance to who you are, what you’re saying and what the companies are back in Australia. Definitely. In case they don’t know. Definitely. I mean also some companies in Australia might be big in Australia like Ergon Energy or something or whatever and big thing in Queens and a big thing in part of Australia. Some people over here won’t know them. It’s good to have a little blurb on your company or have thought through or have looked up an equivalent UK company so you can say Ergon is equivalent to British gas over here. People can give you a level of what they’re representing.

So they’re going to bring their references in and their going to be a new student or whatever, what else do they need to bring to the registration? Definitely bring your passport with a copy of your visa in it because obviously they’ll need to see that. Bring any certificate. You know, your degree, your HAC, whatever you’ve done because it is just better to have all that information. If you don’t need all of it. If you’ve got it there at least you’re not going to feel like they’re asking and I don’t have it. I’ve got to get it sent from Australia.

So references, passport, CV, certificates. That pretty much covers it. Oh bank detail. Definitely, to get paid definitely. I mean freelance basis or contract basis which is big over here if you are on the working visa; you’re probably going to go on your recruiter’s payroll so you’ll need to give your bank details to your recruiter. Hopefully I think you’re hearing about how to set up a bank account. Yeah. We’ve sorted that one. They should have their bank account sorted by the time they get off the plane. Email address. Good if you can get a prepaid phone when you first get over here. Oh definitely. We’ve also mentioned that because it’s so important. Because you know we’ve met, we’ve had our meeting that’s great, I find out there’s a job opportunity that afternoon and I want to ring you and you’re not checking your email for 4 days, the job might go. So you want to have a mobile phone with prepaid minutes. Even if you don’t set up a monthly. Just prepaid so we can call in. Add 5 pounds whenever you need to top off. Yeah because you need to be in contact with your recruiter constantly until you’re working. Definitely.

In terms of recruitment agencies, you’ll find there’s a lot over here so you might want to meet a couple and you’ll want to get, they’re actually going to give you a real personalized service I would think. But when you come over here, they’re going to go through your CV and their going to really look out for you and give you tips because I think recruitment over here should be servicing you, not getting you and treating you like just a number and just sending you out. I think, in your industry, you need to find that recruitment agency that’s going to look after you, give you tips on how to set out your CV if it’s not working, give you tips of what to talk about in interviews, give you tips on the company that you’re going into. These are all really important things. Definitely, they should be looking after you.

Alright guys. Think we’ll rap it up there. Hopefully we’ve given you some hot tips. Good luck with job hunting.

So you’ve come in for your job interview and you’ve got all the bits and pieces that we’ve talked about. You’ve got your references, your examples and your CV and you’re in your suit, great or your funky clothes, as I said myself. Other things they’re going to talk about are your national insurance number. You’re probably thinking what is a national insurance number. Basically it enables you to work in the UK. You will need to have it. Now don’t worry if you don’t have it straight away. It is a bit of a process to get it. What you’ll need to know is you’ll need to contact your local job center so basically look up job center on Google. I think it actually is jobcenter.UK and they will tell you your local job center. They’ll set up an appointment where you go and have an appointment to get a national insurance number. Now in the meantime obviously because that might take a few weeks and you might want a job right away and you’re placed in a contract straight away by your recruitment consultant, you’ll probably hear something about a P45 and a P46. P45 is going to be from your last employer, obviously as an Australian employee that’s not going to work so don’t worry about that. P46 is what you should be signing so you’re not paying emergency tax because generally when Australian’s first get over here and don’t have a national insurance number, you have to pay emergency tax, which actually good news is not as bad as it used to be. Used to be something like between 40% and 45% tax and now I think it is around 30% to 35%. So it has reduced a bit. But people are going to give you and you’ll be able to fill that in and you have to put in some details to get a temporary number for you in the meantime.

I may have just confused you with all of that talking about P40 whats and everything so literally if you are confused just call first contact or call your local job center and it is actually called a job center so look that up on Google. That might be the easiest way or your recruitment consultant should know everything.

Basically it’s not as hard as you think. There are loads of jobs over here. I promise you in every industry you will get a job. It is great. It is exciting and you’ll meet some great people, get some great experience. You just need to get over here basically.

Alright guys so you’ve done the hard work at home. You’ve got your CV out and in front of some recruiters. You know about the recruitment companies so what’s the next step? Okay. Go to the local internet café. Take your CD with your CV on it. Grab your TNT that has your recruitment section in it and start sending those CV out. You need to harass. Otherwise Google London recruitment companies. You will come up with heaps. Send your CV out and keep hounding and you’ll finally get a job in london.