Careers Support Hub

The latest resources to help you in your search for work that matters

Our job seeker hub contains all the latest resources, advice and videos to help you in the search for your new role and reach your career goals.

If you have any questions about these resources please contact us on 020  7198 6000 or email info@tpp.co.uk, alternatively to arrange a call, contact us using the form below. 

If you have a disability or health condition, you can get support in work, through Access to Work, find out more here

CV & Application advice

A good CV and application will give you the best possible chance of securing an interview or a new job with a prospective employer. Here  you can find our latest advice to support your job search. 

CV

CV template

Download our CV template (word doc.)

 

 

 

 

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Application

Application tracker

Want to keep track of your job applications. Download our useful application tracker below.

 


 

 

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CV image

Top tips to write a winning CV

A good CV will give you the best possible chance of securing an interview or a new job with a prospective employer.






Read our top tips here

Writing

What to include when writing a supporting statement

When applying for a job in the non-profit sector, employers will often request you submit a supporting statement. Here is our advice on what to include in your supporting statement. 


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Career Questions: Writing a powerful application

You asked the following questions at our Candidate Career Workshop.

Yes definitely, we encourage you to share information about career breaks on their CV. Very often these breaks are legitimate reasons for not working at that given time of your life and we believe many valuable transferable skills and lived experiences come from career breaks for reason such as, starting a family, travelling, volunteering, or caring for a relative to name just a few. LinkedIn have also recently included a new feature that allows people to represent a career break within their LinkedIn profile, with 13 options.

This usually indicates that the employer may have concerns around why you are applying for a role that they deem to be more junior than the applicants experience suggests. These concerns could be around your genuine interest in the role or how long you will stay engaged and productive doing the work. They may also have concerns the role will not be challenging enough and therefore lack development potential.

Our advice to help overcome this, would be to be very clear in communicating why you are interested in the role and cover off any concerns by clarifying the reasons for your interest in your cover letter or supporting statement. You might mention points such as; you are changing sectors, or because you have other commitments that mean you will be very happy with a role at a particular level, or as is more common these days, the role or organisation has many other attractive qualities that appeal to you as well as a genuine willingness and desire to do the role.

Another helpful approach is to always ensure you tailor your CV according to the role you are applying for to highlight your most relevant skills and experience.

A disability is defined in the Equality Act as a physical or mental condition which has a substantial and long-term impact on your ability to do normal day-to-day activities.

We would advise anyone that is unsure about whether they have a disability or not to discuss this with your GP, or access other support services for specialist and tailored advice, for example Access to Workor Evenbreak Career Hive. It is important that as a job seeker, you are aware of the resources and support available to you when searching for a job.

At TPP, we encourage job seekers to share information about any support and adjustments that would help with the application process and if needed, to share this with prospective employers so that they can do the same.It is our experience that organisations are usually open to making adjustments and we believe it will allow you the opportunity to present yourself and your valuable experience in the best possible way.

In this blog we share information about what reasonable adjustments are and how you can go about asking for these.

 

This is disappointing however, some organisations do unfortunately have very rigid application processes. We encourage organisations to offer alternative application methods and would always explore this with hiring organisations on behalf of a job seeker who requested this.

If you do have a disability or long-term health condition under the Equality Act, organisations are obliged to consider making reasonable adjustments to the process and you should definitely explore this with them.

Inflexible organisations will miss out on attracting the best and most diverse talent and an inflexible recruitment process might give some insight into the working environment and overall culture of that organisation.

Preparing for an interview

Interviews can be daunting, so we have compiled lots of resources to help you perform your best and secure your desired role. 

Cheat Sheet

Interview Cheat Sheet

Even the most prepared can stumble during an interview or forget their key achievements, weaknesses etc. Therefore we have created a guide to creating your own cheat sheet.


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Interview

4 Tips to Succeed at your Second Interview

Congratulations for getting to the second stage! Here are our 4 top tips to help you prepare.



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How to make the best impression via video

Here are some helpful tips that will aid you in presenting yourself in the best possible way via video.  



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Interview

Competency based interview tips

Competency-based (or behavioural) interviews are based on the premise that past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour.


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Career Questions: How to ace an interview

At our Careers Workshop on how to ace an interview, the following questions were asked: 

Firstly, here is a link to more information about the STAR technique, which is a commonly used formula for preparing the best answers to competency based interview questions.

S – Situation
T – Task
A – Action
R – Result

In the absence of a person specification, you could do the following:

  • Review the essential criteria and try to apply the STAR technique to some of those elements

  • Review the duties and responsibilities and assume, based on those, what personal attributes would typically be associated with that, eg – if the role was a Student Records Manager where you were going to be managing a large team, prioritising work and overseeing the student records system you would need to evidence strong management skills, past experience of student records systems/databases and having worked in a busy environment where you were able to prioritise accordingly

  • Look at past, similar job descriptions you may have access to

  • Google the role and you might find some example job descriptions online that you could pull the person specification from to draft some preparation answers

  • Ask your Consultant or the recruitment team if they could provide you with a person specification for the role ​

The internal language used in organisations can vary, you might get a sense of this from the website or the job description itself. For example do they use quite formal, academic language? If they do, it might be okay to sound a little ‘textbook’. If, however, the tone is fairly informal you might want to avoid using too many theoretical phrases perhaps. Saying that, the answer is probably somewhere in between, you want to give the impression that you are experienced at a leadership level and have had the relevant training perhaps, but you also want to use examples and language that speak more to a real-life approach to management. Use language that most authentically reflects you and your style. You could even use quotes from current/past colleagues or appraisals that evidence your leadership and management style.

With this question it is really important to personalise the answer to the specific role or organisation – pick out 2 or 3 aspects of the role/organisation that really appeals to you. This feedback often comes up if the organisation is worried about you becoming bored too quickly and then moving on, so try to demonstrate what it is that would keep you engaged and interested in the role and/or organisation. Consider whether there is something in the job description that you haven’t done before and are keen to learn/improve on. Alternatively, you could explain that the organisation is larger than your current one or that you will be challenged by learning and getting exposure to new projects for example.

This is not very helpful feedback unfortunately. For this feedback to be more constructive you would ideally want examples of answers that lacked the strategic element. We would however suggest that if you are applying for a role where strategy will be a focus (usually a more senior role), then cover off both the strategic and practical elements of what you did. Ensure that you put some emphasis on the vision and your ability to plan forward strategically. You can do this by explaining how you put the strategy together, how you implemented it, monitored and measured outcomes, and the role you played. You may need to focus a little more on the strategy element by talking through exactly how you developed the strategy. It is, however, impossible to do this without covering actions, process and tactics, so it is very likely a blend of both.

Take some time to gather your thoughts, allow some uncomfortable silence (it feel’s worse than it is in reality). Re-focus by controlling your inner voice which is likely to be negative, and bring yourself back into the moment by noticing something visible on the interviewer’s face, the colour of their eyes or hair for example. Have a glass of water with you, so that you can break for a sip and gather your thoughts. You could also ask the interviewer to repeat the question which might be all it takes for you to come up with a suitable answer. If you really find the question difficult and do not have an answer, then we would suggest you are open about this, rather than attempt to give an answer under pressure that you might regret later.

Career Questions Answered

Once a month, our specialist team answer your burning career questions to help you in reaching your career goals.

Volunteering can be a great way to boost your career.  

Volunteers



Excellent reasons to volunteer

Volunteering opportunities come in many different guises, from long-term regular commitments to one-off individual or group projects. Read about the benefits of volunteering for your career and more here. 


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Permanent



Are you thinking about becoming a Trustee?

We know you may be unsure about what is involved and how to become a Trustee, so we’ve compiled some frequently asked questions below.


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Find a volunteer job

We advertise a number of volunteer roles for charities and non-profit organisations. View their latest opportunities here. 



Find Opportunities

Looking for flexible temporary opportunities?

TPP have been successfully placing temporary workers to non-profit and public sector organisations for over 26 years.

Whether you are looking for your first temporary assignment or if you are an experienced temporary professional, TPP have a variety of roles within charities, education and membership organisations. 

Find out more
Flexible worker
  • info@tpp.co.uk
  • 020 7198 6000
  • TPP Recruitment, Northern & Shell Building, 4th Floor, 10 Lower Thames Street, London, EC3R 6AF