5 Ways to Impress – Résumé
Recollections from the Future Print Apprenticeship Advisors, shared by David Galbraith, Senior Recruitment Consultant at JDA Print Recruitment (VIC).
Many people are put off by the thought of finding an apprentice. Everyone seems to have a horror story about their recruitment search, or the apprentice from hell… fortunately they aren’t the norm, but it does happen.
To avoid a horror story, here’s some not so obvious advice gleaned from the Future Print Apprenticeship project that may be helpful when recruiting.
Where do I find candidates?
- An advertisement using traditional advertising channels including SEEK, Indeed, local newspapers, and community noticeboards.
- Participation at local secondary school career nights and career expos to raise awareness of printing industry apprenticeships and careers – offer to conduct school tours to interested Year 10 students.
- Ask your staff, friends and suppliers if they know of any school leavers interested in an apprenticeship. Design a flyer for your vacancy and hand it out.
- Put up the flyer at work – your next apprentice may already be working for you! Don’t discount the mature age candidates either – they’ve usually got life skills, experience and knowledge you’ll benefit from.
- Tap into your local sporting club connections – speak to the office bearers and coaches about potential apprentices.
- Speak to the local training provider or Australian Apprenticeship Support Network provider and see if they have anyone on their books looking for an apprenticeship.
- There’s been apprentices let go by companies due to the Coronavirus – contact the National Apprentice Employment Network to see if there’s someone you could re-employ. Click here for details.
There’s hardly anything on their resume…!
Most school leavers don’t have an extensive resume with lots of relevant experience. So, look for….
- Participation in a sporting team – besides leading to better workplace participation, this normally means they know the value of hard work to get ahead, understand the need to work as a team, provides leadership opportunities, to be respectful of authority and hierarchy, recognize ethnic diversity, and usually strive to succeed.
- Play a musical instrument – very similar to elements of sporting team participation, importance of practice to improve, value of teamwork / playing ‘as one’ if in a group and demonstrates the ability for complex learning along with potential hand to eye coordination.
- Work in a multi-national fast food business – I have always valued someone who had worked at McDonalds for an extended period. Making fast food products can be repetitive and needs to follow stringent processes to ensure quality and consistency. This ensures the products are produced efficiently to the required standard with low waste, and more importantly with a strong focus on safe work. Sound familiar….? Success in a fast food environment does translate into a printing environment.
- Volunteering – more an insight into the character of an individual but can demonstrate a more caring and altruistic personality.
- Hobbies – look for things that may translate into possessing a mechanical aptitude or need good hand/eye coordination e.g. construction tasks, woodwork, helping with fixing broken mechanical items (lawnmowers, engines), building stuff with science kits.
- Subjects studied at school – sciences or humanities? VCAL or VCE?
Some final thoughts…
- Consider offering a work trial if you think you’ve found the right person – pay them apprenticeship wages, work apprenticeship hours, doing apprenticeship tasks. Review after a week – is it what they think, and are they still keen to proceed?
- Is your workplace easily accessible by public transport? Remember some school leavers may not have their own transport yet. Will the public transport operate around the shift times you require?
N.B. JDA Print Recruitment offers apprenticeship recruitment for no fee – please get in touch if we can help source your next apprentice.
Next topic – Managing your Apprentice – what to do.
David Galbraith – JDA Print Recruitment (VIC) david@jdarecruit.com.au
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