Too many jobs advice

dmliverpool

I currently help people to find work. As you can imagine this is full of barriers. I have now met six people all with the same issue. They al have had lot's of short term vacancies lasting between 2-9 months a piece.

They all say it's a barrier to work and it is when filling helping them to fill in application form's etc.

Who has come across this and how did the overcome such a barrier?

InsideInsurance

They've had short term roles not vacancies, and if your job is helping others then I'd imagine you're the one with the experience of how to cover come the issues.

It will certainly be concerning for a prospective employer to see a lot of very short jobs on a CV and simply rings alarm bells that the person gets itchy feet and leaves or doesnt get on with people or is getting dismissed during probation for not being up for the job etc.

How to tackle it will really depend on when that period of short roles were and what the real reason for them being short was. If it is more historic you can potentially bundle them together - in the 90s I did call centre style work and excluding the last one which was when I moved into insurance the rest I put as one entry of "various call centre roles" and just high level details.

If it is more recent and all through a single temping agent then put the temping agent as the employer and list the clients under that heading

If it is for legitimate reasons such as just short term roles covering maternity leave etc then be sure that it is clearly stated that these were only maternity cover roles etc or if redundancy then make sure that is clearly stated as the reason for leaving (something I would otherwise not normally put)

The hardest is obviously if it is because of itchy feet or dismissals in which case there needs to be comments in the covering letter and/ or the CV personal statement section saying why they are now going to settle down etc.

Jarndyce

dmliverpool wrote: »

I currently help people to find work. As you can imagine this is full of barriers. I have now met six people all with the same issue. They al have had lot's of short term vacancies lasting between 2-9 months a piece.

They all say it's a barrier to work and it is when filling helping them to fill in application form's etc.

Who has come across this and how did the overcome such a barrier?

Er, shouldn't you know the answer to this then? Seems fairly obvious to me that you accentuate the positives and group temp posts together as one period of work etc etc. But what do I know.

SnowyOwl_2

I'm in a similar situation, I've had a long succession of contracts lasting anything from a month to 12 months over the past eight years through various agencies or else direct with employers. While I personally feel that I have learned something from each of them they however make my CV very cluttered. Another very very basic problem is that if I apply for a job using an application form, especially an on-line application form which won't let me add space to fit everything, then I end up having to omit earlier experience because there is no room. It looks like I job hop constantly and that I actually want to work like that, and also looks like I entered the work place in recent years rather than over 20 years ago due to the design of the form. Changing jobs is so stressful, no wonder I am a bag of nerves.

InsideInsurance

You can certainly be the sort of person that wants to just do short term contracts and effectively become an expert at being able to hit the ground running etc but people will still have some concerns so you'd need to be very clear about that all over your CV. This would limit where you can go as whilst people will bring temps/ contractors on board for a defined short term period in many cases they may have a mind that the person can subsequently move on to something else were as you effectively stating you will never do more than 6 months anywhere still could be a negative even if the particular contract is only for 3 months.

Caroline_a

I'm astounded that you are helping people to find jobs and you can't cope with this basic part of CV writing! Lots of people work on both long and short term contracts, these need to be highlighted as such, it is a bonus if they have continued with the same employment agency as it shows that they had build up enough trust to be re-employed.

Many years ago I used to help ex-offenders with getting back into work... now that was a challenge!!

magenta22

I don't get your question.

You're a recruitment consultant but you don't know how to advise people who have lots of temp roles on their CV? Please tell me which agency you are from and I will avoid it!

Having lots of temp/contract/short term roles, what ever you want to call them to me shows that you are at least willing to do other things while waiting for the right job to come along. Most potential employers would undertstand that at the moment.

On application forms you just put 'various temporary positions between xxx and xxx' you can go into further detail when you get an interview.

If they want to know why there are a lot of roles on CV they will ask and then candidate will say well it's because....

My advice, get them to put temporary role next to that position on CV and suggest you look for another career.

dmliverpool

magenta22 wrote: »

I don't get your question.

You're a recruitment consultant but you don't know how to advise people who have lots of temp roles on their CV? Please tell me which agency you are from and I will avoid it!

Having lots of temp/contract/short term roles, what ever you want to call them to me shows that you are at least willing to do other things while waiting for the right job to come along. Most potential employers would undertstand that at the moment.

On application forms you just put 'various temporary positions between xxx and xxx' you can go into further detail when you get an interview.

If they want to know why there are a lot of roles on CV they will ask and then candidate will say well it's because....

My advice, get them to put temporary role next to that position on CV and suggest you look for another career.

Thanks for the advise. It's with a government funded project and wanted a second opinion.

RadoJo

To be fair, the OP never said they were a recruitment consultant - they might be doing this as part of another role in adult care etc, so I think some of the comments on here have been a little harsh.

OP - As some people have said, it can help to group together a period of time on a CV as 'Temping in various roles' giving relevant details of experience gained without specifically mentioning how many roles were involved. You can also group together roles with similar responsibilities into one giving the dates between which those roles were performed without drawing attention to the fact that they may have been for different employers.

When it comes to interview, sometimes honesty is the best policy. Someone willing to work hard and do their best in whatever opportunity comes their way might find those qualities appealing to an employer if that's how they explain their work history. Or they can say that they wanted to gain experience in x field and were prepared to take short term roles in order to achieve that, or point out that it demonstrates flexibility an ability to pick up new skills on the job. There is always the chance that an employer won't mind at all, so long as they haven't been consistently dismissed - with the job market the way it is, it must be becoming more common for interviewers to see CVs with several short term positions on them, especially people who aren't necessarily qualified for any specific career but are willing to learn.

an9i77

I think that employers are extremely fussy at the moment, and looking for anything to exclude candidates so as to narrow down the field of applicants. So it is difficult. A recruiting manager will only have a few minutes to look at each CV and it's easy to come to conclusions ie that person is a jobhopper/troublemaker/incompetent. and that's why the job didn't last. So it's important to state on the CV that the job was interim or temporary, I'd advise putting after the job title in brackets temporary role - three month contract or something to make it obvious that it was the job and not the person which made the position so short.
Even so, it may still be difficult for those with a lot of short term work to get a permanent role. Many companies now recruit on a temp to perm basis, and this can be a good way in to a permanent role for those who don't feel that going straight into a permanent role will be feasible for them.