You applied for jobs that went into a black hole. Never heard back from interviews you thought that went well. Or you simply want to move on to greener pastures and not getting anywhere so far.
It is easy to get frustrated, feel stuck and unfulfilled.
At some point, you might wonder if your CV, your LinkedIn profile, even the way you interview…Are these doing you justice?
Is the job you are gunning for, too far beyond your reach? Didn’t people say shoot for the moon? Where should you be heading? How to get there? Who can you talk to?
Questions in your head but no one experienced in this to talk to.
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Every day for nearly 12 years, our team pitches to hiring managers, curates CVs, combs through LinkedIn for candidates, prepares our candidates intensively for interviews and helps them negotiate a fair salary that doesn't make them look greedy yet a motivating number to get excited about.
The team is made up of senior consultants, some with 35 years of experience, who have been job hunters themselves before. We know how it feels to be in your shoes.
It is not easy to know what should go into your CV, the keywords recruiters are looking for in your LinkedIn profile and how to articulate your achievements in an interview. You need to understand the hiring manager and recruiter psyche.
It is hard to expect a regular employee to know these extensive and intricate skills. After all, your main job is not job hunting.
So, you either need luck or get expert help.
Career Advisory Service Framework
In our advisory sessions, we tailor the session/s to the individual with this framework:
1. Current Status & Ideal Goal (15mins pre-engagement, non-chargeable)
We assess your current state and your goal destination.
Where are you now and where is your ideal role?
What have you tried so far to attain it? Can you do more?
Essentially this session determines what would you need to get the maximum chance of landing your ideal next role.
The following sessions are in blocks of 60 mins. To make sure you get the most out of it, we will need your data from the pre-engagment meeting, your CV and LinkedIn profile before we start the session to prepare beforehand. Your money is hard earned - the pre-work should not eat into the actual consultancy.
2. Derive and Define Ideal Goal
We help you clearly define your ideal next career move and give you practical advice on how to work towards achieving it.
Some of our candidates merely want to get rid of a terrible boss or working environment and still put food on the table. Some want to shoot for a certain role but don’t have the experience yet. What is ideal to you, is very personal. There are no judgements. We can be quite honest to tell you if your ideal job is way out of reach but we will break it down to smaller steps for you to aim for the next landing. Our job is to give you practical advice that will help you towards that goal.
3. Develop a Job Search strategy
If you have the skills to get the job you want – good. We will cover the searching for the ideal jobs online, how to go about it, the channels you should use.
If you don’t, we discuss what transferable skills you can show for now, what you need to go acquire in the next 6 months.
4. Execute the plan – Part 1. Make sure you look like the ideal candidate on paper
Your LinkedIn profile to be easily surfaced, whether if it’s a junior recruiter doing a simple keyword search or experienced head hunters - you need to be on the first page of that search result - headlines, keywords, acheivements all have to be well though through and crafted nicely.
Also, the angles and the objectives are different for a CV and a LinkedIn profile. The achievements and impact in your CV need to be relevant to the role you want. E.g. If you are a channels practitioner applying for revenue channels role, it may require more meat for partner sales activities and impact versus how many partners you trained.
We will tell you how to include the above and work with our partner https://www.excellenceresumes.com/ to ensure these are written in your portfolio so that we are in shape for the next few steps. You also get a member price if you use our code for their services.
5. Execute the plan – Part 2. Apply for you
If you don't have the time or energy to pore through companies and open jobs, we can sit down and identify a list of ideal companies or roles for you that you are suited for. We will either help you apply through the portals or pitch your profile to the appropriate hiring manager or talent acquisition person.
This service is available at a cost of 10 USD per application and comes in bundles of 10 and 20 applications.
6. Execute the plan – Part 3. The Interview Preparation
In an interview, you have to understand the interviewer psyche. A regular recruiter will want to qualify if you have the right skills and culture fit, broadly. A peer interviewer might focus on certain identified expert areas. A hiring manager may look at his gaps in the team and value certain traits/experience more. Using AI tools, we will look up your interviewers profile and coach you each of their communication and management style - e.g. their DISC profiles, what to say or not to say, certain preference of keywords etc. We will teach you our MSA (Most Significant Achievements) way, taught by the famous Lou Alder so that your conversation topics have an objective of showing your value for the job. Make sure you demonstrate with examples in the interview.
We will help you to prepare as much as we can, so that you never go in blind. And hopefully ace the interview!
7. Salary Negotiation
This is the part where most candidates do not know how to handle with finesse and most hirers will take advantage of this awkwardness to see what they can get away with. We will coach you on what is fair to ask for, HOW to ask for it so that you do not come across as greedy which will put you in a bad light and when to ask for what. If certain benefits and perks are important to you, we will help you craft the best angle to put it across. At the end of the day, you have to be happy enough to quit your current job for this one and the hirer needs to feel they were fair. Lastly, we will also coach you, how to quit with class. Afterall, it is always better to maintain bridges than to burn it.
Are you ready to do something about your career?
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with us today.
Hear from our candidates who benefitted from these sessions:
“Tricia did an excellent job in preparing me for the interview. In the few meetings prior the interview she shares what the company is looking for and how should I present them in a professional manner. For example, she pointed out that the client is looking for trainers with technical background so I should highlight my technical training experience during the interview. It helped me to win the offer ultimately. Tricia did mention the weakness in my profile and shared how I should fine tune it. I would recommend her to any candidates who need help to be shortlisted, know what to prepare to ace the interviews".
- Michael Lam, Product Trainer Hong Kong, Automation Anywhere
"Josephine reached out to me a role in Citrix 7 years ago. She knows the company culture well and very good instincts about people and naturally I fit well in my new role and did well there. 7 years in, she remains my confidant when I need advice on career decisions or if simply need help to do well in an interview. While she has all the necessary tools and technology to ensure there is a good match between candidates and their potential company, more importantly, I trust her instincts, knowledge and experience. Thank you Jo for always being there for me all these years."
- Jamie Lim, Senior Director, ISG Channels and Partner Presales, APJ at Dell Technologies
"Josephine is probably one of the best headhunters I have worked with. She is genuinely concerned with placing and matching the right candidate in the right job environment/company and employer. She is detailed and thorough in preparing the candidate through the hiring process and has also helped to refine and hone my approach through her wealth of experience in recruiting. It has been an absolute pleasure working with her and I strongly recommend her and her team at Progression as the go-to for advancing the best interests for both employers and job seekers."
- Benjamin Lim, APAC Leader, ISV/Developer Platform Business Development, Zoom
“Tricia had been a great help to me to better understand the interviewer expectations and company profile. She gave me all the information that was useful to be prepared in the interview session. Tricia is a very experienced headhunter in the tech vendor space - she basically provided insight of the entire IT market ecosystem and current recruitment demand trends. She also shared the relevant useful information for current and near future IT market movements.”
- Roland Chew, Country Manager, Symantec"I have worked with Suyie on a few opportunities in my career. She is not a recruiter, she is a professional career advisor and consultant. For every opportunity, she sends me the hiring company profile/website, hiring team Linkedin profiles and their styles so that I can study and be prepared. Suyie will explain the role and job scope to me and check out my comfort level on the potential role, unlike other commercial recruiters in the market. Additionally, she helped me to polish up my CV and highlight my achievements which will make me stand up among other candidates. I highly recommend her."
- Lynn Wong, Senior Account Manager, Tata Communications
Imae helped me to be well prepared for the interview. She gave me guidelines of the expectations of the interviewer, I prepared the thought process and the materials if the interviewer asked me. In the four rounds of interview, I was prepared every step of the way. That’s why I can preservere to the last round without too much stress. For my CV, I remembered she asked me to highlight the important achievements that are more relevant, as most people don't read long CVs. I also had a good conversation with Imae who advised me about my future career growth in IT industry like AI, automation, big data."
- Alliance Director, Greater China
"Progression provides quality job openings with careful and professional selection candidates for job matching. In addition, the team approach candidates in a very personal and personalised way that make them a really genuine partner for long term. I am well prepped with information of hiring company, profile of hiring manager and selection criteria details. Tricia provided advices on what key areas to highlight to suit the requirements. Tricia gave great detailed input to my profile for appropriate positioning. Useful to help hiring manager to see my strengths. She provided useful advice with sharing of tech trends including competitive analysis of market space of the similar tech areas eg in the BPM and BIBA space."
- Christina Tan IT Sales Leader/Coach
"Michelle is amazing. She always find the candidate with perfect skill set to match the ppsition. She always understands requirement of employers very well, not just what is shown on JD, but also corporate culture and recruitment preference. That makes her outstanding. It is totally pleasant working with her."
- Arthur Shi, Technical Support, ANZ. Cyberark
"Alan handled my preparation professionally, reviewing my CV and discussing about my job histories. We discussed the highlights of my career history and the areas that I should focus on that is specific for the job opportunity he was preparing me for. This led to a revised CV that highlighted my strengths, lose the mundane and also a cover letter that Alan and I believed will make me stand out among all the candidates that the employer was reviewing. After being shortlisted for an upcoming interview, Alan provided invaluable help to prepare me for the interview, such as on the details I should highlight during the interview and also giving me the company background I was interviewing for. In the end, the interview was a success and this led to subsequent 2 more interviews in a matter of days after the first one. In those subsequent interviews, Alan also provided me with the profile of the person I would be speaking with and what to focus on so that I will make an impression on my interviewer.
Progression Search actually have a team that manages their accounts and I had the pleasure with working their team which I believe is a huge plus point. Because the team provide me with a 360 view of the people in company that I will be interviewing with, in the end, from 1st interview to an offer from the company, was a 2.5 weeks and Alan who was my mentor recruiter was in constant contact with me on a daily basis to followup and plan for next activities. On the whole I am extremely pleased with the recruitment process and how quickly I landed a job."
- Christopher Tan, Account Director, Opentext
"Tricia is thorough in finding out the hiring manager’s business requirement. She shared to her best knowledge with her candidates and furnished them as much information about the hiring manager’s expectation for the specific role. It helps to equip any candidate to walk into the interview with some good knowledge and confidence. She establishes good contact, learns about the strengths and profile of the candidate which is critical in finding a successful placement.
She is very professional in handling senior executive candidates too. She is transparent and open, setting realistic expectations which I personally appreciate her approach very much."
- Jacqueline Tan, Director, Appway
"Yasmeen was clear and detailed in describing the Job Scope, interviewing process, interviewer background and expectations. Yasmeen diligently followed up communication once each interviews was completed to provide feedback and improvement. These feedback is essential for me to prepare for the next successful phase of interviews . The entire hiring process experience was excellent. She also advised me re my LI profile should emphasize in HOW I did it rather then what I have done. She advised me to continue as hunter sales track as I have a good track record, and that I should continue to focus in Tech Sales and not switch if possible."
- Evelyn Lee, Regional Sales Director, ASEAN, Commvault
"I am happy to share my work experience with Suyie. I would like to say that it was a great luck to know Suyie. She was quick to understand the kind of role I was looking for and contacted me to introduce me to the job as a very humble and professional consultant. As a headhunter, she was proactive in giving me the kind advice I needed for each interview. Her advice helped me prepare for the interview in advance, and helped me to have a confident interview during the interview. After the interview, she followed up on what the interview was like, and she provided strategic advice to help me prepare well for the next interview, and to make me feel comfortable.I am grateful for all of this and for her hard work and consideration, and for landing a job after working together."
- Jung Min, Compensation and Benefits Manager, Poly
"Firstly from starting the work, Alan did a great job to align client and myself on expectations and interests. He introduced what kind of role the client is looking for and expectations, qualification, client company background and competition status in RPA market; technical strength, its business goal in this region.
Alan asked me in details about my past experience and role, what exact roles I did in SAP etc, industry customer and channel resources. He understood and picked out my strength and value points which is most likely to fulfill the client need, such as SAP gold partners, their industrial strength and focus, which matches client's industry focus. He helped me to correctly understand the role responsibility and what is going on for the role should take accountability, possible resources needed and strategy to make. With his advice, I managed to summarize and highlight my experience’s value points and strength on CV. For example, in each working experience in past 5 years, the major deals with correspondent partners, especially in recent jobs in SAP and BlackBerry, what kind of leverage I used on channels and how did we co-work on the deals.
Because we prepared above specific key points related to client requirements, the interview process was very profoundly successful to move forward smoothly and that I am very confident if we handle well the final face-to-face meeting, I have a high chance of getting the job offer. So during the several rounds of interviews, Alan did confirm a lot of things, remind and highlight each interview goal need to achieve, and double checked each question and answer I will be asked and replied, then we got mutual idea. Alan suggested many tips about how to reply some particular questions which managers will be interested to know and what is the good way to get straight to the answer with good response. I highly recommend Alan."
- Harry Hu, Senior Enterprise Sales Manager, BlackBerry (China)
"I have had the pleasure of knowing Suyie for more than 8 years and engaged her as my career adviser. Above all, I looked upon Suyie’s ability to guide business professional seeking career development to excellence with her consultative approachable style. And of course, her personality of being a patience and supportive coach makes her a well respected person with great integrity. She has also helped to build and strengthened my interviewing skill and professional profile with detailed job matching. With her interviewing preparation skill, I have managed to secure a valuable job opportunity through her company’s service.
I am sure professional will agree with me that Suyie being a passionate career coach with great credibility, earning everyone the trust to help develop their career."
- Richard Wong, Poly Account Manager
"Tricia, you and Imae helped me a lot in preparing the interview for the opportunity. You explained the job description in detail and analyzed the possible career path that I can have a whole picture about what I will faced and worked in this opportunity as well as the environment and culture. Also, you explained a lot about the interviewer’s background and what kind of questions he might ask during the interview that I can well prepared before the interview. Prior to this, my CV and LinkedIn profile looked like a list of my career history and not that focus on my strengths/advantages for the specific opportunity before your input.
After consulted with your advice, it became more attractive and professional for sure. I was considering 2 different roles in 2 competing company during that period of time. Although those 2 company are both leading company in the same are but the roles they offered me are very different, one was sales presentative role and the other was sales engineer. You and Imae arranged many times of discussion and gave me consultancy advice based on different perspective point of view, from the career path development to my skills set match. I did learned a lot from your professional input and it helped me to made the decision of my next movement."
- Sales Engineer, Taiwan, Leading RPA firm