Current Trends And Recruitment Criteria In The Professional Services Industry

Adopting Social Media Platform

The professional service industry has been rapidly growing over the past few years since the demand for services are growing rapidly among the consumers. Therefore, demand for services such as accounting, advertising, legal and others from various companies are growing day by day. It has been observed that those who are employed in this industry are paid highly depending upon their knowledge and expertise (Bello, Radulovich and Javalgi 2016). The professional service industry being in the competitive market have to abide by the current trends that are making an influence in various aspects of the industry. Some of the current trends of the professional service industry are as follows –

Adopting Social Media Platform – With the popularity of social media platforms among majority of individuals across the globe, professional services firms are adopting the use of social media for various range of aspects that benefit the firm to attract skilled candidates for recruitment in their firms. It has been observed that the professional service firms that have a developed and advanced presence of social media in their functioning, have an advantage of hiring quality professionals towards the firm compared to those that do not utilise the social media platform (Melanthiou, Pavlou and Constantinou 2015). The reason behind this is that, nowadays, majority of candidates use social media for the purpose of job search. This provides firms to hire suitable candidates as they utilise social media platform for the announcement of hiring for their firm.

Delivering a quality candidate experience – Providing a quality and great candidate experience have become one of the trending recruitment criteria for staffing firms in all major industries including the professional services industry as well. It has been observed that talent shortage and is one of the key challenges that the management of top professional services firms face however, this issue can reasonably be decreased with the implementation of an improved recruiting candidate experience (Allden and Harris 2017).

Setting up semi-automatic referrals – Recruiting with the help of referrals is another trending recruitment process that various organisations adopt (Sinha and Thaly 2013). With the changing organisational structure and procedures, referral programs are regarded as one of the key sources of placing new candidates into organisations and firms. It has been observed that referrals are regarded by many organisations and firms as one of the best derivation of high skilled employees or staff members for the firm or organisation (Brown, Setren and Topa 2016). In addition to this, it can also be said that a good candidate experience delivered by the firm during recruitment process could not only fill up the current job role instead can also contribute for sourcing other candidates in future with the help of positive referrals from the hired candidates.

Delivering a Quality Candidate Experience

In accordance to the current recruiting trends of organisations, more and more organisations apply full proof recruitment process in order to select the most suitable candidate for their organisation. During the hiring procedure, organisations look for certain factors such as diversity and cultural fit level among candidates. The presence of these factors in candidates are considered to be beneficial for the organisations in various ways. Cultural fit can rightly be described as a concept in which the candidate’s values, beliefs and behaviours aligns with that of organisation’s core values and culture (De Leersnyder et al. 2014). Now, this factor is considered by majority of firms and organisations as an essential factor that must be present in the candidate. Now, it is evident that every individual have a set of values and beliefs that drives them towards achieving a goal and accomplishing a task (Endsley, 2017). However, if these values and beliefs in any way appears to be contradictory with that of an organisations values of beliefs then it possess to have a negative impact on the individual’s performance. This scenario ultimately results in increased employee turnover rate that costs an organisation a heavy loss. Henceforth, more and more industries such as professional service industries are considering this factor in candidates during the recruitment process. In addition to this, another factor that are majorly determined by organisations is recruitment of diverse candidates. It has been observed that a diverse team of individuals have the ability of solving problematic circumstances more efficiently compared to those teams that have similar group of individuals (Reynolds 2018). Additionally, a diversified working environment boost up the brand of the organisation as well.

From the above discussion it is evident that there are many trends and factors that organisations adopt and consider these days in recruitment procedure. In addition to this discussion, soft skills are regarded as another requirement that the organisations these days seek in candidates. Soft skills are even regarded as emotional intelligence that an individual possess with the help of which an individual communicate efficiently with others (Kyllonen, 2013). Organisations seek for candidates that possess an ample amount of soft skills such as negotiating power, working under pressure, ability to solve conflicts and others. Presence of soft skills among candidates makes them efficient to attract and impress clients and customers that are one of the key stakeholders of any organisation or a firm (Deepa and Seth 2017).

Setting up Semi-Automatic Referrals

All the above mentioned recruitment trends and requirements makes a great impact on the application and interview process for my selected job role of accounting. Accounting is one of the categories of professional services industry and like any other industry, this specific industry follow these trends and considerations for the recruitment of suitable candidates.

91 Coleman Road, Wantirna South, 3152

T: 0469873520, E: [email protected]

Hiring Manager

Sydney, NSW

30^th September 2018

Dear Mr.

In response to your recent advertisement regarding the vacant position in Accounting category, I would like to consider myself for this vacancy and enclose my CV for review.

Currently I am pursuing my undergraduate degree in Bachelor in Commerce at Deakin University, Burwood. Whilst pursuing my undergraduate course, I have also worked as an intern in Millburn Investments, Australia for the period of April 2018 to July 2018. Apart from this, I also worked as an intern for Book keeping of accounts for Sanjay Bansal & Associates (Chartered Accountant) in India. I gained valuable knowledge in the field of book keeping, tax accounting and other essential accounting related job. The course that I am pursuing at the moment along with the past experience I have in the field of accounting has provided me with both theoretical and practical knowledge that is required to efficiently take on any future position in this department. I now have an extensive range of experience that allows me to work in tough working situations with ample amount of confidence. I even possess the quality of undertaking my job roles and responsibilities efficiently and honestly. However, I have a keen interest in Accounting and a thirst to acquire more knowledge that this internship shall offer.

As the position that you are offering is predominantly related to Financial Accounting, I am confident that I can make a considerable contribution to your company. I have acquired all the essential professional skills that is essential for this position. I even have the potential of adapting and learning new technologies that are essential to work efficiently for this job role. Apart from this, some of the key strengths that I can deliver includes:

• Excellent communication skills in English
• An expertise knowledge in Microsoft Office Suite
• Excellent ability to perform research work

I believe that this internship programme would be a great opportunity for me to further expand my knowledge in the field of accounting. However, with the prior internship experience along with my skills, I can prove to be a worthy addition in your company. In addition to this, I would even like to state that prior to applying for this job vacancy, I conducted a thorough research on your company. I was greatly impressed by the reputation and status that this company has upon its competitors but also among the associated customers. This job role would be a delightful opportunity that would satiate my interest and shall also fulfil my career objectives.

Recruiting for Cultural Fit and Diversity

Kindly accept the enclosed CV and feel free to communicate with me at your earliest convenience. I would be extremely delightful to have an opportunity to personally interview with you. I appreciate your time and consideration.

Yours sincerely,

karan behri

In order to prepare for the interview I had listed down some of my strengths and weaknesses. This would help me to analyse the areas where I require improvement and develop my skills for the purpose of excelling the interview. Additionally, the necessary action plan are also discussed in order to overcome the challenges that I faced during the preparation for my interview. The actions that I took for the preparation of this interview, did not only help me in to complete this interview efficiently instead, shall also help me in my future interviews as well.

However, I lack in some areas that may come in way for securing this job role. These weaknesses may have a negative impact on my career for the long run. Firstly, even though I excel in English communication, my habit of speaking in lower voice acts as one of the weakness. Therefore, one of the weakness that I possess is to communicate with the interviewer with confidence. Another weakness that I have to overcome is that I lack the ability to analyse and or foresee any difficulty situation beforehand. In today’s world, majority of companies seek for candidates that excel in this area of soft skills and I happen to lack this attribute. Lastly, I am not acquainted with some of the software knowledge that have been demanded for this job role such as XERO, MYOB. Therefore, this may come in way for achieving the job for this interview.

One of the key strengths that I possess for this particular interview is that I have ample amount of knowledge and experience in the field of accounting due to my past experience as an intern in various companies that I was associated with. As the job role for this internship seek for a candidate that have good knowledge of accounting related tasks, my prior internship experience will help me significantly in order to fulfil this criteria. Another significant strength that shall help me to excel in this interview is the ability to handle difficult situation and my ability to work under pressure. In any job role, there are bound to be difficult circumstances and in such tough situation I am capable enough to deliver my performance efficiently. In addition to this, the job role seeks for a candidate that have an interest for accounting and I do have a keen interest for accounting. This shall help me learn new skills efficiently since my interest in accounting will act as an advantage for securing the position for this internship.

Situation	One of the major challenge that I faced during the preparation for my interview was my inability to communicate in a suitable voice as I have a habit of speaking in a much lower voice. In addition to this, the job role specifically mentioned that the candidates must have a basic knowledge regarding software such as MYOB, XERO and I am not acquainted with these software knowledge.
Task	In order to overcome these challenges I was told to take some significant steps that would help me not just to excel in this interview instead for future interviews as well. In order to improve my communication skills I was suggested vocal exercises that shall improve my speaking voice. Additionally, I was suggested to learn the software that would further enhance my professional skills.
Action	The first action that I took regarding to enhance and improve my communication skills was to practice vocal speech aloud alone. This helped me to find out the perfect speaking voice and further enhanced my pronunciation of words. Secondly, I practiced the same vocal speech exercise but in front of my friends and family. This gave me the confidence to speak aloud as they helped me with their honest feedback. Lastly, I took the step to enhance my non-verbal communication as well since it is significant to have a good body language. For the purpose of learning the software efficiently I did some research upon the software. The research helped me to understand the basics and also provided me the option to take online lessons to learn the software knowledge. The online course helped me systematically to learn the software knowledge that was required for achieving the job role for this interview.
Result	The vocal speech exercise that I practised daily helped me significantly to enhance my verbal communication skills. Additionally, I gained the confidence to speak in a comparatively large audience group. The online course that I took for the purpose of learning the software such MYOB, XERO helped me significantly to enhance and develop my professional skills that shall help me in my future career as well.

Soft Skills in the Accounting Industry

The actions that I took in order to prepare for this interview were significantly focused to enhance my communication and professional skills that was chiefly demanded by this job role. The vocal speech exercise along with non-verbal communication practice helped me to overcome my weakness of speaking in a lower voice and enhanced my ability to communicate more efficiently. Another major action that took for securing the job role for this interview was to acquire the software knowledge of MYOB and XERO. The online courses that I took helped me significantly to learn the basics of this software. In fact, the course proved to be significant added attribute in my CV for my future career. These two major actions were significant to take for the preparation of my interview. Both the steps were aimed for excelling in this interview as the job role specifically seek for candidates that have excellent communication skills and have the basic software knowledge of MYOB and XERO. These actions for enhancing my skills helped me to further enhance my CV.

References

Allden, N. and Harris, L., 2017. Building a positive candidate experience: towards a networked model of e-recruitment. Journal of Business Strategy, 34(5), pp.36-47.

Bello, D.C., Radulovich, L.P., Javalgi, R.R.G., Scherer, R.F. and Taylor, J., 2016. Performance of professional service firms from emerging markets: Role of innovative services and firm capabilities. Journal of World Business, 51(3), pp.413-424.

Brown, M., Setren, E. and Topa, G., 2016. Do informal referrals lead to better matches? Evidence from a firm’s employee referral system. Journal of Labor Economics, 34(1), pp.161-209.

De Leersnyder, J., Mesquita, B., Kim, H., Eom, K. and Choi, H., 2014. Emotional fit with culture: A predictor of individual differences in relational well-being. Emotion, 14(2), p.241.

Deepa, S. and Seth, M., 2013. Do soft skills matter?-Implications for educators based on recruiters’ perspective. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 7(1), p.7.

Endsley, M.R., 2017. Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. In Situational Awareness pp. 9-42. Routledge.

Kyllonen, P.C., 2013. Soft skills for the workplace. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 45(6), pp.16-23.

Melanthiou, Y., Pavlou, F. and Constantinou, E., 2015. The use of social network sites as an e-recruitment tool. Journal of Transnational Management, 20(1), pp.31-49.

Reynolds, A. 2018. Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse. online Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2017/03/teams-solve-problems-faster-when-theyre-more-cognitively-diverse Accessed 30 Sep. 2018.

Sinha, V. and Thaly, P., 2013. A review on changing trend of recruitment practice to enhance the quality of hiring in global organizations. Management: journal of contemporary management issues, 18(2), pp.141-156.