Sarah Beaton.

Sarah Beaton is an example of a professional wanting to later move back into her area of expertise gained through her tertiary degree.

Sarah is an account manager with five years of experience in the area. Having worked her way up through her graduate position as a sales analyst and later into an account management role with two freight companies – she was most recently employed with a major Australian owned insurer and bank.

Having graduated from Victoria University with a Marketing and Management major and completed some travel to Europe, she found her true calling to still be her creative strengths and in January wanted to move back into the field of marketing.

However despite many applications to marketing roles and having five years of experience as an account manager on her side, employers were often telling her that she just ‘would not be the right fit’ for the role. Sarah did tell us this made her feel very discouraged, seeing as she knew where her heart was – and yet was still told that she wouldn’t be right for marketing positions.

Sarah sent us her CV for an appraisal and our marketing recruitment guru was able to pinpoint that she was overselling her analytical abilities and failing to grasp the attention of recruiters as being a creative genius who had travelled the world and loved marketing from a young age.

We reformulated her CV within a week and produced three cover letters – one targeting large companies, one targeting medium sized businesses and one targeting not for profit organisations. We also spent three hours with her coaching her on how to present herself over the telephone and in person for interviews.

Sarah then attended a casual career fair and wrote to a number of employers she fancied working for. She also spent a weekend working through Seek.co.nz and TradeMe.co.nz applying for jobs.

Following on from that, Sarah did hear back from five employers who all interview her over the telephone, leading to an impressive four face to face interviews. Given that she wanted a role in marketing, we also helped her put together a portfolio showcasing her creative work so that employers could see she actually had the skills she talked about.

Sarah tells us felt absolutely confident in the interview room and was able to well handle deal-breaker questions including “What are your greatest weaknesses”, “What are your salary expectations for this role” and “What would make you the most ideal candidate for our role”. On face value these appear as though they may be simple to answer – but the reality is employers will criticise you harshly over them and you really need expert advice on how to handle them.

Fortunately – it all worked out with Sarah and she received two job offers – one from a marketing agency and one from a not for profit animal care organisation. She picked the one paying slightly less but closer to home and working with animals which was her absolute dream come true – Congratulations Sarah ! Well done.