How one woman is helping job seekers harness the job market

After two of the most bizarre years for the economy that many of us have seen in our lifetime, it can feel unsettling to consider a career move. The pandemic led to many companies downsizing or placing people on furlough, and rules around vaccination status have affected some workers’ job stability – but in December 2021 there was a record 3.5million job vacancies. For today’s job seeker, it can seem a strange and challenging place.

Yorkshire-based company, Send Me Your CV, was founded by Francesca Kaye (pictured) in 2017 and focuses on helping candidates to stand out for the right reasons across the UK, through CV and cover letter writing, interview coaching and other associated services. With the job market currently dubbed as ‘candidate led’, meaning that it is more favourable for those seeking jobs than the companies recruiting, there is more opportunity to negotiate and secure a beneficial employment package if employers can see the value that employee would bring.

Oliver Berry, managing director at Impression Recruitment Ltd. also based in North Yorkshire, and which works in partnership with Send Me Your CV for research purposes, said: “The start of 2022 is looking really positive for those willing to make what may feel like a bold and confident job move and it is certainly a good time to try secure the best deal. As an agency we are seeing that employers are combatting their recruitment and onboarding challenges through altering their strategy to ensure they source and retain the right candidates. This can be through increasing wages in line with the ever-changing market, upskilling internal workforce and hiring more trainees in order to improve the overall job quality for both candidates and the business itself. With this being said, now is a great time to negotiate and secure a beneficial employment package, often with multiple options to decide between.

“With a skill shortage in particular industries, clients are likely to start considering candidates’ future potential rather than current or past skills and experience, so this could also be a great opportunity to make the longing career move people have desired for some time.”

With a CV and LinkedIn profile being the ‘shop window’ for a candidate to a potential employer, getting these steps right can quite literally make the difference between being invited to interview or your application ending up in the ‘to shred’ pile.

Francesca explains: “Recruitment managers see hundreds of CV applications to a single role, and they can become very ‘samey’. The typical qualities of loyal and hardworking candidates aren’t enough to cut through the noise and it’s important to tailor an application to the specific business, not just the role.

“We work with job seekers to do just that, and to bring to the fore all those additional snippets of information in an ‘out of the box’ fashion, to grab attention and make it more likely for them to secure that interview and aid them in getting back to work or in a new role. As Oliver says, it’s an ideal time to show your future potential and value to a business, rather than just what you can bring to the table now, and that’s where we come in.”

Francesca has a small team of former and existing recruitment consultants who have rewritten CVs for a vast number of roles and industries, interviewed a wide range of candidates for clients and offered plenty of advice to help their candidates get the job that they desired.