Well I'm guessing you would need to be living under a rock to have avoided the news that Tom won this year's version of "The Apprentice" last night. It wasn't a huge shock to any of us here, we've been saying for weeks he would be hired. It was just all a bit suspect when he wasn't fired a few weeks back when he fully deserved to be. We did say his business idea must be amazing and I don't know if that is necessarily true considering Sir Alan has decided to go back to his original invention (the nail file) and work with that instead.

The final saw the candidates being interviewed by various experts and entrepreneurs. It was great to see Margaret back again and hilarity ensued when she attempted to get Jim to complete a sentence without using a cliche and his response was "I am exactly what it says on the tin".

Jim was ok in the interviews, I won't say brilliant, he sold his e-learning idea well and is obviously very passionate about education but I think the consummate sales act he has going on and the fact that he had tailored his idea too much to Lord Sugar even including the "AMS" in the name of the brand went against him in the end. You knew he was in trouble when he described one of his interviews as "a walk in the park with people shooting at you and grenades being thrown at you" - another top quote from Macho Nacho.

Suzie fared well with her cosmetics business plan overall aside from her over-ambitious figures and slight naivety when it came to her budgets in general. Sir Alan did say he would do business with her though in the aftershow and he sees a link between the nail file business and her cosmetics business plan so keep an eye out for her.

Helen was the biggest disappointment I think, she presented well and as always was very organised and looked the part. Her business plan though just was not feasible at all, from my understanding she wanted to develop a Reminder Service which would look after small jobs for a busy professional and remind them when they needed to do things such as visit the dentist etc. She did get to the final two with it and then last minute came in and changed her plan to a chain of bakeries. Had she gone in with that there plan originally Tom may not be sitting in the position he is in today.

Tom's business plan was a chair to cure back pain and a method to detect if an employee is likely to suffer from back pain. It went down well overall but there was a distinct lack of detail in his plans, he did know his product and his market well though although as I have already mentioned this business plan seems to be thrown by the wayside now (or in Sir Alan's words "it's being tweaked...a lot") that he has become Lord Sugar's business partner with LS preferring to pick up his original invention and use that as the basis for his business. To be fair though Tom's creativity and passion for invention is what makes him the ideal candidate for this particular Apprentice role.

If you missed the episode I highly recommend you check out the "You're Hired" show, Michael McIntyre was hilarious, well worth viewing.

Here's a little clip;

Morning all

Our Sales Assassin Charlie is taking a well deserved break this and next week so you're stuck with my views on The Apprentice for the last two episodes I'm afraid.

Last night saw yet another food task - I'm wondering will it be called "Masterchef Apprentice" next year. This time round the teams had to come up with the whole concept, brand and design for a fast food restaurant. 

On one team we had Helen and Tom and on the second team Jim, Suzie and Natasha. Both teams were given assistance, Helen's in the form of a kitchen helper and a counter person and Jim got a chef. 

Jim could have done with a lot more than just a chef to be fair and from the first few minutes it was like watching a car crash, you could see the disaster unfolding before your eyes and wanted to look away but just couldn't tear yourself away from the screen. I watched quite a lot of last night's episode with my hands almost covering my eyes as if I were watching a horror.

Natasha and Suzie sniped and argued with one another from the get go, they went with a Mexican themed fast food restaurant, sombreros and cacti on every surface. Jim did the market research, decided on the menu, choose the name and brand colours while Suzie and "Tash" sat and glared at one another and argued about whether peppers were Mexican. 

Tom and Helen went with a pie and mash theme and 100% British, there was a slight moment of panic when they choose Columbus (who was Italian I believe) as their British mascot for mash but they seem to have blagged their way through it. Their branding and name "MyPy" was excellent and Tom played a blinder on the decor to be fair to him.

When they did their trial runs with 50 customers it was clear "MyPy" was going to be the better brand and the fact that they didn't make their patrons wait over 10 minutes for "fast" food was testament to the planning and prep that went into their business. The sight of Suzie running manically around their restaurant trying to seat people then realizing she didn't have enough seats was classic.

All in all it came down to the experts opinion though and even though "Caraca's" had already lost in my eyes Macho Nacho aka Jim only dug humself a deeper grave when he couldn't answer the mark-up and business expansion questions the experts posed. I bet his mental arithmetic will never be classified as a strength again! 60 x 7 anyone? £4600 pounds it is not!

This task should have been a doddle for Natasha with her hospitality degree and ultimately her claim at the start that she had run her own restaurant as part of her degree shot her in the foot. Sir Alan finally took his opportunity to give her the sack and not a minute too soon we think!

So who do you think will win?

@garydickenson

"Thinking about what I saw on #apprentice last night. I can't understand why anyone would want to go into business with any of them?"

@josephbelll

"Heyy Susan, do the mexican like their children? @bbcapprentice #Apprentice"

@djbentley

"A Mexican restaurant named after the capital of Venezuela and a British pie named after an Italian explorer. #backtoschool #apprentice"

@pokomon

"catching up on #apprentice. even my spleen is cringing."

The Sales Assassin took a few days off this week so you're stuck with me for the review of last night's Apprentice - We are all wondering why he needed to take time off when "Herself" is due to visit Cork tomorrow... hmmm

Last night gave us week 3 and I have to say I sincerely hope the Irish producers are watching and taking note of the tasks because they really are streets ahead of ours... Sorry Bill.

They were given a list of 10 items from the Savoy Hotel which they had to source at the lowest price while maintaining the quality associated with such a venue. Project leaders were Gavin and Susan were selected as PMs and from the get go it was clear Susan was a much better leader than Gavin. Within 2 hours they had sourced 8 of the 10 items and were out on the road negotiating, meanwhile Gavin's team were still trying to figure out what a "Clochaaaayyyy" was and it took them 2 hours more to get out on the road with just 2 items sourced.

The task continued to run along these lines with Gavin's gang failing miserably to source all of the items, they only found 6 and were on their way to a garden centre to find a cloche!!

Susan's team in contrast were much more organised and found 9 of the items, there was a moment of slight panic when they were about to pay £990 pounds for loose tea but they managed to get this down to £410 and it didn't stop them from winning. Having said that it did mean they only won by £8 which was a narrow victory for them. Nevertheless they went off to live it up in Circus London while the other team went off to the dreary greasy spoon to fight it out.

Gavin took Zoe (who I never noticed before) and Vincent (Who you couldn't but notice and not for the right reasons) back into the boardroom and ended up getting the boot himself which to be fair he deserved I think.

So all in all an interesting task which highlighted how reticent some of the candidates are when it comes to sales (and really could you classify this as real selling) and highlighted how some of them really need to pick up some general knowledge, I mean seriously not knowing what a cloche is even after 4 hours is just not good enough.

I find the most entertaining part of watching the Apprentice UK (and Don't tell the bride incidentally) is to follow the commenting on Twitter, here are some classics last night;

@nicolemoody95 "You couldn't run a bath" lolol I love the #Apprentice
@Maxi_man to @Lord_Sugar is it me or does everyone not get why on the #apprentice they dont just #google the #unknown on the smart phones
@gavjessop right, im off to go and get my top hat cleaned, then a trip to the garden centre for a cloche. #apprentice #muppets
@Nidgey_TW Even I know what a bloody cloche is!!! Idiots!! #apprentice
@babelfishpr to @StylistMagazine We are addicted to #apprentice Not sure Lord Sugar really wanted to keep any of them last night!
@toonbird101 to @slaptvorg Roland rat ha ha vincent #Apprentice
@neverenoughshoe Catching up with all the BLADDY BIZNISS from last night's #apprentice.
@laura_steele Why have the #apprentice candidates never head of google?! They've spent hours phoning people to find out what a 'cloche' is.
@laurendowsland 'I know you're belgian, that's where the waffles come from' hahahaha! I love @lord_sugar #apprentice

 So have you picked your winner yet?

Morning all 

I had a friend recently who needed help with her CV so she called me and asked could I advise her. Now it's a common misconception among friends and family (and we have all experienced it) that we work for a recruitment agency. That we are recruitment experts. That we know all there is to know about (a) writing a CV (b) going for an interview (c) finding jobs. Now while some of this might be somewhat true, not the agency bit obviously, you do gain some knowledge over the years but we are most definitely not experts.

So, in order to help I needed to seek expert advice. Firstly I checked out the CV section on the career centre and read some of Paul's great advice.

Then, I emailed a friend who works in HR and asked what she thought. She gave me two words which helped no end and I wanted to share this advice with you.

She said - "SO WHAT??"

I asked her to expand (obviously) and she said, after every sentence you write, ask yourself "so what?" and if you don't give yourself a good response then remove that sentence. This is probably most relevant to the Achievements section of a CV, from my own experience recruiting I always advise people to include an achievements section under each job description and this is where our friend "so what?" really comes through for you. I guess it's all about putting yourself in the recruiters shoes and if you're bored or not seeing the point of some part of your CV, why will they?

My friend who I helped is moving to London incidentally and had some interviews with recruiters last week and all of them commented on how well her CV read therefore it must be true, RIGHT?

I know this is completely off topic for a blog about jobs etc but I thought it might be of interest to any Marketing/Brand professionals or Sales professionals out there who are interested in how the power of the internet and social media can influence a brand.

As you will see from the link here, Gavin Duffy showed us how it's done on Beaut.ie recently - online engagement for any brand is really important and especially when most of the time its free - a word we all love given "the current climate"!!

Any thoughts?

Morning all - here is the second in our series of blogposts from Peter in CPL - some great advice regarding writing your CV and what NOT to do... 

A candidate’s cv is the first thing a recruiter sees, so make this count!

Your cv has one purpose, not to get you a job but to get you an interview. These 2/3 pages are your primary selling tool so why do so many people take insufficient time to put the work into their cv?

The obvious mistakes are grammar and spelling - over 80% of cvs would still have grammar, spelling or formatting errors which is unbelievable. If you get past this the biggest frustration regarding cvs is that they are written as a list of responsibilities not achievements. Think about this from an agency perspective, how can they differentiate on paper between two candidates who write down the duties of the job even though one may have been a stellar employee and one may have been fired!

You need to ensure an employer sees what you have done well, not what you have done.

So when a recruiter looks at your cv is it full of achievements, measurables or does it look the same as the previous cv? In this marketplace you have to give the recruiter a reason to pick up the phone and talk to you as there are so many cvs coming in, they need to want to talk to you.

This is not just the cv but also how you email it in. Phrases like “I am desperate for a job” or “ I will do anything” may be written with a well intentioned mindset but do not endear you to any recruiter. Employers are not looking for an employee who would take any job, they want one who wants their job. So have a world class cv and be clear that you are applying for a specific  job/ job type not just any job.

Feel free to comment below.

Morning all

Here is the first in our series of blogposts from Peter Cosgrove of CPL.

Even more frustrating than someone who has a job telling you that “it is tough out there” is not getting any response from recruitment agencies when you send in your cv. Why is this, are they that unprofessional? that laissez faire? – well, the answer in the main is no!

The challenge that recruitment agencies have is the volume of cvs that come through to their inbox. There is a story that Google receive over 1.5 million unsolicited cvs every year in a company that employs less than 20,000, would this still be the case if every one of those cvs had to be sent as a hard copy letter – absolutely not. I am not advocating a move back to snail mail just trying to highlight that with the growth in online technology many many more cvs come in and often with a lot less thought put into where they are sending them or why they are sending them.

A recruiter needs to differentiate between appropriate, thought out cvs versus those sent out on a whim because the candidate thought “ah sure why not give it a try”.

So one of the challenges of a recruiter  is not having the right cv, it is trawling through many cvs to understand those that are both right for a role and interested in that role specifically. It also amazes me the amount of people who are called about their cv and do not answer their phone – guess what, recruiters are working 8 – 7pm in many cases – they expect you to be available as the market moves very quickly even for permanent roles, so ensure you have your phone on and if not at least a professional voicemail message.

Finally remember this - a recruiter only gets commission if they place the right candidate, if you are the right candidate and you are not getting the job or interview – ask yourself what could you improve about your cv, first impression, interview technique – there is always room for improvement.

Some quality advice from Peter here I think - feel free to feed back below...

Morning all

Peter Cosgrove from CPL has kindly agreed to write some guest blog posts for us and we will be featuring these and blog posts from other recruiters offering invaluable advice for candidates over the next few weeks so keep your eyes peeled. We will also be tweeting and linking to these posts on our Facebook page.

We asked Peter to focus on the permanent job market and how best to approach agencies and we also asked him to address some of the issues candidates have with agencies at the moment the main one I think being (correct me if I am wrong), that agencies don’t respond to candidates. 

Peter started his career in banking with JP Morgan before working with PWC in London as a management consultant. He began his career in recruitment in 2000 with Robert Walters, subsequently with Hudson in 2003 and currently is a Director with CPL.  Peter is a regular contributor to the national media on areas of recruitment, assessment and retention as well as a speaker at industry events.  Peter is also a Board member of the not for profit organisation Junior Achievement, an organisation targeted at keeping students in schools to improve their education. 

So if there is anything in particular you would like us to cover pop a comment in the box below or feel free to email us. 

It’s time for good news Friday.

It’s a Long Weekend and it looks like it’s going to be a hot one too, time to dust off the BBQ.

AXA to create 200 jobs in Dublin

More than 50 Jobs for Kerry, 30 roles in Enercon and 25 at Straker.

The Gardai are set for Recruitment drive, more than 100 new trainees could be taken on by the end of the year.

Only 7 days to the World Cup.

That’s all folks, have a great weekend!

This week's good news is much varied...

Rebecca has achieved nail success thanks to @beautie - here's a pic;

Good news for Galway - 200 new jobs if you're into games

50 Internet security jobs in Dublin

We are off on a night out tonight which is fantastic news we feel - Cork city beware, chicken wings will be consumed at some stage so Soho beware...

@ccrossan is delighted she got to go to Chic last night and free entry always a winner

@sciencejobs are having a BBQ on their balcony for lunch today = good weather = good news

That's about it this week - if anyone else has good news they want to share comment below