13 tips to make the perfect first impression

Norrie Johnston, one of the UK’s leading interim recruiters, shares his top tips for interim candidates.

How to sell yourself as an interim candidate:

1. Ensure that your CV sells what you are really good at. 3 or 4 pages is normal. The first half page is crucial to catch the reader’s attention.
2. Your CV is a sales document. Apply the “So What” test to each of your statements.
3. Begin with “Profile” which tells the reader within a few lines who you are and what you are famous for.
4. Include data on the size of companies that you have worked for, plus data on your responsibilities (number of staff managed, budgets, targets).
5. You are selling your past experience, not your future aspirations. Eg: a good interim sales director candidate will have been a successful sales director at least 3 times before and ideally will have reached a higher level once before becoming an interim.
6. Include on page one a “Relevant Experience” summary in your CV for a job application. This needs to show why you are exactly the right person for the role and that you have done the same role 2 or 3 times before. Are you a 90% match? against the client brief. At any one time there are lots of good interims chasing a small number of interim roles.
7. Do not mention “Consultant” in your CV. Consultants are advisors. Interims are people of action and do’ers.
8. Do not suggest that you can tackle most things. A good interim is not a “jack of all trades”.
9. Register for job alerts with job boards such as: Executivesontheweb.com 
10. Ensure that your LinkedIn profile is updated and has several strong recommendations from previous bosses/clients. Xing is bigger than LinkedIn for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
11. Ensure that the data available on public display at Companies House is consistent with your CV content.
12. Video interviewing is now common practise.
13. All agencies use the same candidate acquisition channels: (1)  LinkedIn which typically provides 50% of all candidates. (2) Job Boards. (3) Agency’s own data base and (4) Personal contacts.