Elise Paramore

Coming to uni from a small town in the South West of England, I knew that I was going to have to do some additional activities in order to improve my career prospects. As someone who is always striving to achieve the absolute best for myself, I knew that I needed to do some sort of professional work experience in order to get ahead. As there are a small number of opportunities in the area I live in, I decided that a year in industry was the way to go for me. Placements are a pretty daunting prospect. Looking for a full-time professional job when my work experience is limited to retail was a challenging thing to try to comprehend. However, I knew that I had to take what I had and run with it. I was very fortunate to have a module dedicated to learning about placements. I quickly picked up how to construct a cover letter, CV and application form and the importance of not restricting your search by location. This sort of mentoring was so valuable, even if it was a 9am lecture. I sta...

As a young person, I find myself using social media on a daily basis. Whether it's scrolling through Instagram while waiting for a bus or using Facebook to connect with my family whilst I'm at university, it surrounds me constantly. It often crosses my mind about how it's being utilised in business whether it be to assist in recruitment, marketing or to maintain balance between work and home. Social media is increasingly used to screen for potential candidates in the recruitment process and I think it is really interesting the amount of data that we share on social media. A simple search of my name brought up all my social medias in the top 5 results.  Research conducted in 2009 showed that 45% of over 2600 hiring managers used social media in their screening of potential candidates (Grasz as cited by Brown and Vaughn, 2011). Considering that this figure is a decade old, it's fair to assume that it is even more prevalent in recruitment today. I find this baz...