chinwagjobs

Getting that dream job, sometimes requires more than a straight-forward job hunt, application and nailing the interview.

As an extension of a marketing discipline, it's all about understanding your audience and targeting them with an effective campaign. That's exactly what Alec Brownstein did using ingenuity and the grand total of $6 on Google Adwords.

The result? A gig at Y&R New York. Here's how he did it...

If you're interviewing with a start-up, in digital there are thousands, there are a whole bunch of interview questions you should ask.

It's not just a chance to make yourself sound smart, but to find out if the company who are interviewing you are going steady, not just in the financial sense.

It's something you'll want to know before you commit yourself.

Interviewing; it's just like dating.

Things like burn rate, financial backing and their current profit/loss situation should all be subtly investigated.  Here's our list of the top questions to ask in a start-up job interview:

I've noticed a steady increase in the number of roles on Chinwag Jobs that mention "social media" or "community" in the title. But what's it like to do the job? In this guest post, Rebecca Jesson, Social Media Manager at Sheffield-based agency, Quba shares her day...

One of the questions I get asked frequently is “What exactly does a Social Media Manager do?” As Kat French so rightly puts it “…because apparently, people think social media managers spend all day on Twitter/Facebook collecting followers and congratulating each other on getting paid to spend all day on Twitter/Facebook”. Her “day in the life of…” post covers a lot of the things I do all day, but I wanted to write one of my own. So here it goes...

In spite of job prospects for graduates looking bleak, there appears to be lots of opportunities in the digital sector to score some fantastic internship opportunities.

Roll up, roll up, we'll be publishing the list of programmes at the end of this week...if you'd like to include your company's programme/requirements, fill out the simple form and yes, it's all free, just something we're trying out.

Last week, a student on the hunt for work experience, posted to Chinwag's uk-design email discussion list:

"I am looking to do a web dev / usability / UX type internship but the results of my search thus far have been disappointing. Most of the places I have been in touch with seem to want a general office bod who will do menial tasks for free under the guise of "work experience". I'm aware that most of these positions are unpaid, and I'm happy to do that, as long as I'm learning something along the way.

Fortunately, the good folks on the uk-design list responded en masse and we later heard that she'd found a suitable spot in under 24 hours. What followed, was a flurry of firms asking for interns.

We're big fans of intern programmes at Chinwag and have had a few successful candidates pass through Chinwag Towers. Seeing such a strong interest, we've decided to gather the information together, and summarise in a blog post, or something more industrial, if necessary.

If your firm, or you know people looking for real interns and not just office juniors, please do get them to fill out the form below.

There's some exciting positions that have been added already from the likes of Pharmiweb and Adidas, so add yours. We'll leave the form open for a few days.

Too many candidates, chasing too few jobs mean that you have to be just a little bit sleeker than your average to score that prized interview. It's tough out there, I tell you.

If you're churning out the CVs, rapid-fire style, have a read below and see. You could be missing a trick.

Sending a CV online is quick, free and gets your an instant response, even if it's a ping back aknowledgement. Unsuprisingly it's the most common way of applying for a job but at the same time a CV sent by email runs the risk of just festering in an inbox.

Rather than sending your CV as an attachment, paste it into the body of the email. Attachments are often ignored because people are worried about viruses and wasting time downloading documents. With this in mind, stay clear of multi-media CVs. They may make you stand out and prove your technical credentials with their singing, all dancing displays but they're awkward to download, never mind format. 

We all love our iPhone apps. How did we possibly live without them?

There are green ones, dating ones, financial ones and ones that can even teach your kids how to read. Even the free ones can let you do a background check on a blind date and give you a turn at playing God.

So far the number of iPhone apps downloaded is sitting at a mind-blowing 2 billion. We're downloading from the app store at a rate of 6.6 million every day and the market is worth an estimated $2.5 billion US dollars each year. That's quite a hunk of cash.

The US picture may be bleak but are British women really as worse off as women in the States when it comes to social media salaries?

We got in touch with a UK-based social media recruitment company to find out if we really have anything to worry about.

According to Emma McNamara, Managing Director of recruitment firm Propel London, there are just more men applying for the roles at the outset:

"We have experienced more male applicants for the roles, however have not seen any gender preference from clients or differences in salaries offered. I think it really depends on the community involved and the candidates overall experience."

There are a lot of challenges for any company taking on an intern.

From where to advertise the vacancy to the costs involved in hosting and training can all be a drain on company resources.

It's been challenging at Chinwag, so I bent the ear of Dominic Potter, co-founder of Internocracy, a company that helps employers set up and run their internship programmes.

Here's a brief run-down of his top-tips to consider before taking on an intern:

The benefits of having an intern are numerous. It’s not just cheap labour and someone to make the tea.

Many organisations are reaping the rewards that come with an internship and a skilled graduate.

It was a case of unknown territory when Chinwag took on Gregory, our first tech intern. It took time and effort to get him started, but the investment paid off and the work he did was invaluable.

So, in the sprit of this, we’ve created a series of blog posts, from an employer's perspective, that aim to cover everything you need to know about offering an internship.

After video clips of a store employee running riot in corriders, staff rooms and damaging stock were posted on YouTube the ASDA fought back with some damage limitation, social media style.

Clips showed My Ayub, employee of the ASDA Fulwood store, licking and stamping on a raw chicken and putting it back on the shelf for customers to buy, he set off fire alarms and cut other employees clothes.

In retaliation employees from ASDA Fulwood branch posted their responses to his YouTube carnage online. The staff members featured in the comeback video look genuinely upset and called for, 

"the person involved to get what's coming to them."