Key Responsibilities
• Becoming acquainted with, and keeping abreast of all changed to PIPS.
• Evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of all PIPS (and changes thereto) and making recommendations to improve them as required.
• Performing tests to confirm whether PIPS have been fully implemented and whether they are being adhered to.
• Assessing the effectiveness, efficiency and adequacy of the store audit programmes on an ongoing basis and making recommendations for changes required.
• Performing store audit assignments (in RSA, Namibia, Botswana) according to the store audit programme of coverage.
• Communicating the findings to the store manager and area management on completion of each store audit.
• Submitting formal written reports to the internal audit manager at the conclusion of each store audit, detailing the findings.
• Carrying out special investigations/projects/transaction audits at the request of the internal audit manager.

Key Competencies
• Customer service focus
• Good communications skills (verbal and written)
• Good interpersonal skills and conflict handling skills
• Attention to detail and time management
• Ability to handle pressure and meet deadlines
• Planning and organising skills
• Business understanding (retail)
• Professionalism and Team Player
• Self-motivated/ability to work independently
• Ability to use initiative
• Ability to handle constructive criticism

Qualifications and Experience
• Matric required
• Minimum of 2 years experience within a Retail audit or field / store management
• Commit to at least 60 nights a year away from home
Travel independently

Job Description:
1. diary management, including arranging and co-ordinating meetings and travel arrangements (flights, car hire and accommodation);
2. processing mail and email, and screening telephone calls and answering and / or directing enquiries;
3. attendance of meetings and taking and producing minutes
4. transcribing dictation of documents
5. maintenance of registers, distribution lists, contact details, etc.
6. general secretarial functions including, but not limited to, typing, printing, faxing, copying, binding documents and e-mailing,
7. booking attendance at events, conferences and seminars;
8. preparing and filing correspondence and maintaining records
9. maintaining confidential files and documents
10. liaising with staff on matters pertaining to the organisation’s operations where applicable
11. assisting in researching and assembling information for the preparation of reports
12. preparing reports, briefing notes, memoranda, correspondence and other routine documents, slide presentations, contracts
Candidate Requirements:
Qualifications
1. matric / grade 12 qualification with English passed on higher grade
2. secretarial diploma (or similar)
3. Pastel is non negotiable
4. tertiary qualification in office management or similar would be an advantage
Experience / Knowledge
1. at least 2 – 5 years post schooling work experience of which at least 2 must have been in a personal assistant role.
2. a basic understanding of the export and import industry would be advantageous
3. proficiency in Microsoft Office, PowerPoint, Excel (intermediate), Word ( advanced), Outlook (skilled in calendar management), is a non-negotiable
4. excellent customer or client engagement competence
5. demonstrated ability to take accurate minutes of meetings
6. a good telephone manner and well-spoken and eloquent in both English and Afrikaans with both subjects having been passed on the Higher Grade at matric level.

Competencies
Must be very accurate and ability to type would be advantageous.
1. Punctual
2. Reliable and dependable
3. Good initiative
4. Ability to operate both independently and as part of a team.
5. Attention to detail.
6. Highly organised and energetic.
7. Flexibility and adaptability
8. Professionalism
9. Presentable
10. Able to work effectively under pressure
11. Good interpersonal and communication skills
Salary: R15 000
If you think you have what it takes to be part of this dynamic team then e-mail your CV to Lianne@talentfusion.co.za

Key Performance areas

Act as a business partner who can see opportunities within discussions and be able to converse as all levels
Effective communicator
Upstanding community citizen
Proven team player, professional, flexible and friendly
Ability to follow up effectively on queries
Ability to prioritize and redirect where necessary – use of initiative

General Tasks
Handle a busy diary and coordinating with other personal assistants within the organization.
Travel planning, itineraries, accommodation, car rental, flights etc for client
Following up on behalf of the client with sensitive and private information
Minute taking
Administration, quoting, invoicing, filing, record keeper
Maintaining a status schedule and check list of all tasks undertaken
General office administration

Additional
Be able to converse with individuals from different backgrounds, i.e. street merchant to royalty.
Performance orientated
Friendly disposition
The ability to work and cope under pressure – deadline driven
High attention to detail and accuracy
Must be able to work under minimum supervision

Skills:
Computer Literacy, Microsoft suite, E-mail, Internet, Galileo (advantageous)

Requirements:
A degree
Valid passport
Reference letters

Below are a few simple tips on getting better results when sending your CV to a recruiter or potential company.

Blanket Sending: You start your day off with going through different job boards and just apply. Apply to this, apply to that, ohhh that looks like fun, I could do that too. This is not a strategy that is not going to get you favour.

Vocational Goals: Have you really sat down and decided where you are going with your career, have you made a list of all that you want to achieve? By when? Take responsibility for your career. Nobody else is going too.

Are you being realistic: You have your goals; you know what you want to do. Ask yourself… are you qualified for this career? Do you need more training in this field? The chances of getting hired without the prerequisite training will not get you to the top of the shortlist pile. Be realistic about your goals. There is nothing wrong with a vocational change but be realistic on how you are going to get there.

Cover Letters: Cover letters do not have to become and essay. It could be a brief overview of who you are. Even better it could be a description of how you best suit the job description you are applying for. I would go as far as adding a link to your LinkedIn profile to show complete transparency at the end of your cover letter.

Transparency: You see a job and you think this is the job for you but you are missing a quality or a specific requirement that is in the job description. Be honest and upfront. Have the attitude that a recruiter is trying to assist you, the more they know the quicker you will get an answer to your CV.

Ideal Candidate vs. Ideal Job: Do not take it personally when your CV gets rejected. You are looking for the perfect job and the company is looking for the perfect candidate. So when your CV does not get shortlisted it is not a personal attack on you, the company could be trying to find the most qualified, experienced candidate within their budget constraints. This does not mean you are not an amazing candidate.

Follow up: There is nothing wrong with following up on why you never got the position or if you are going to be considered. Know what positions you are applying for. Keep a list, try and learn from the advice of people that are reading your CV, perhaps there is an insight that you overlooked.

Motivation: Do not lose faith in your job search. Remind yourself of your goals, do not be that pessimistic person that looks for external reasons. Stay motivated, stay positive. Your perfect job is out there.

Good Luck with the job search, wishing you success in finding your perfect position.

OUR CHOICES

Yesterday, I was sick with a head cold. I chose not to blog at [chrisbrogan.com]. I also didn’t get my Blog Topics letter published. These were choices. I could have written enough posts and had some in draft so that I didn’t miss either publication, but I didn’t. I chose to use that time for other things, like my upcoming book. These choices impacted my day yesterday. But even then, I made the choice not to feel bad about it, because I wasn’t feeling well, and it just didn’t feel as important.

I have many choices in front of me today. We all do. That’s the point. There are choices all around us that need to be made. But we make so very many of them without thinking.

RECOGNIZING OUR INTENTIONS

Answer some questions:

• Is rest and sleep important to you? What time did you go to sleep and wake up? What did you do instead of going to sleep? Which choices did you make instead?
• Is your health important to you? What did you choose to eat yesterday? How much time did you schedule for your fitness?
• Is your future important to you? What moves did you make yesterday towards advancing that future? What did you do with your time instead?

If you stopped and answered those questions honestly, you’d see your choices in action. But more interestingly, you’d hear the voice of guilt, the voice of justification, the voice that excuses make to dull your guilt. You’d hear many little decisions and self-talk click in, all of which serve a purpose (most of which is the purpose of avoiding pain and discomfort, or the perceived pain and discomfort we associate with guilt).

WE ARE ADDICTED TO EXCUSES

What I’m saying is that we all grow very comfortable with our excuses and justifications. This impacts how we do our job. This impacts how we relate to those we love. This impacts how we face every moment of the day.

And the gravitational PULL of excuses and justification are huge. Think about it. “I really should work out today, but I’ve got so much stuff on my plate.” The word “but” is your indication that you didn’t mean what you said in the first half of the sentence.

The truth is, in the above example, you will always have so much stuff on your plate, and if you don’t, the excuse will be that you really should work out, but you’ve gotta search for work, so that you can have a lot of stuff on your plate.

I’m right there with you. I’m addicted to excuses the same as you, the same as everyone. But that’s also not an excuse, not license to do nothing. It’s a call to action.

LIVE YOUR PLAN

If you don’t have a direction or goal or path in mind, how will you know you’re going the right way? I’ve recently made a commitment to my fitness and health. I now have a very simple path that I can clearly explain. When I’m not on the path, it’s really clear. So I make choices that keep me on that path. In my case, my simple path is to eat more meals than not according to my goals, and to make time for fitness five times a week. There are no excuses allowed for this. Even with a head cold, I’m working out today.

The trick to this all is creating enough simple paths and putting success in our way every day (I wrote about this recently in a post about discipline.)

But then beyond that, it’s becoming acutely aware of choices, and of seeing each moment that they come up as an opportunity to practice the response that is in better alignment with your goals. I’m writing about this today because I saw a very obvious stumbling point of my own come up. And for once (and yes, it’s rare for all of us, and even that is something to think about), I made the right choice in this specific instance.

SUCCESS BREEDS SUCCESS

One last point and then I’ll let you go. The more times I choose to honor my paths and avoid excuses and justification, the more times I can leverage that success for other things. My eating better and getting more healthy remind me to stay more disciplined about other things in my life. All of this together is leading me towards even better choices. There’s a snowball effect at play here. The more we can work on our choices, the more times we can have small victories and bring that success to bear on other choices in our lives.

If you stopped right now and just wrote five choices you’d like to think about today and for the rest of the month – just five, I bet you’d have a better time of things. If you had even the simplest of guides to the path you’d prefer, versus what comes up or what can be excused and justified, even if this is just a starting point for something else, I promise you’d feel better.

What do you think? Are you willing to make that choice?

Thank you to Chris Brogan for allowing Talent Fusion to use this in our blog post. http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ourchoices/. This article has been inspiration in how we tackle each daily activity and making everything count.  If you would like to get hold of Chris, please contact him directly at the below details.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/contact/

Have you ever been confounded by this employer request?

“Please send a 1 page CV.”

You may think that one-page CV is just not long enough to do you justice. How can you possibly describe where you’ve been and what you’ve done in one page? So, when you’re asked for a one page CV what do you do? Is it worth the hassle and the time it’ll take to put it together?

Good Reasons for a One Page CV

Yes it is, and for good reasons.

One, that’s what the employer or the recruiter as asked for, give it to them. But secondly, writing a 1 page CV is a good exercise for you.

It’s good because …

• it’ll force you to think hard about who you are and what you do;
• it’ll force you to put it in the simplest and most concise terms;
• it’ll force you to make it easy to understand;
• it’ll force you to define it in your own mind – it’ll make clear.

And all of that is good for you. In a crowded job market, where few have a sharp, simple, hard hitting message of benefit to an employer, you will stand out! You’ll be fresh. You won’t be weighed down by detail.

In my experience as a CV writer and recruiter, very few people ever do this. Yes they can go on for 10 pages about what they do and where, but can they be concise and clear, definite about what they do and the benefit they bring to a company? Not very often.

And it’s the reason recruiters and employers HR people ask for one or one or two page CV. It doesn’t take them 10 pages to figure out whether you should be called in for an interview or not. It takes just one or two. They want relevant information short, sharp and concise.

How Does a One Page CV Help You?

But there’s another benefit. And it is this: a one-page CV creates a great first impression. In what way?

A 1 page CV exudes confidence.

There is an energy about it. The opposite is the 45 or 60 year old person with a 20 page CV and he’s uncertain, and he’s lost confidence, and perhaps he feels he’s no longer relevant in the job market. But that’s not necessarily true. It’s maybe that he’s just presenting himself badly.

My 1 Page CV Challenge to You, NOW

So, I challenge you: take all that you’ve learnt, take all your skills, take all your qualifications, and all your experience and distil it down to one page.

Show clearly and concisely what benefits you have brought to your previous employers; highlight your biggest achievement; even include a quote or two from a performance appraisal or a testimonial. Make this one page CV your marketing showcase.

Here are some other one page CV writing tips:

• Focus on your most recent experience
• Focus on your most relevant qualifications
• Focus on your most relevant and recent achievements
• Summarise older experience
• And lastly write a short three or mostly at most four line opening paragraph explaining what you do, that you do it well, how long you’ve been doing it, for and how you are qualified to do it

Even if you never use the one-pager CV, you’ll feel more confident, more prepared marketer of “you” once you’ve done it.

_________

Gerard le Roux is South Africa’s leading CV writer (www.wowcv.net) and Job Search Coach. Get his hard hitting free e-course “12 Breakthrough Job Search Secrets” by sending an e-mail to 12jss@getresponse.com or by visiting www.jobsearching.co.za

All of us in our professional lives tend to measure ourselves against whether we are promoted, get that salary increase, receive a fantastic performance review and many other “things” that society uses to tell us that we are successful. The American Heritage Dictionary defines success as “the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted.” That something can be anything — such as financial rewards, the balance of family and work obligations, or the search to fulfill a personal passion.

So if all of the above is in place, why are we disenchanted with life? I believe that it is because we are in fact measuring ourselves according other peoples criteria. Even as far back as 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his book called Self-reliance about following society’s programming & not following a trail of uniqueness. According to Emerson, a person who is self-reliant should be able to live in the world & make a difference not simply be a product thereof.

Obviously if you are in corporate you are going to have to align yourself with whatever performance management system that is used within your company, and of course, there are the bills to pay, but does it really have to stop there? I so no.

So do you have an idea of what your definition of success is? You probably do, but how current is it? When last have you actually taken stock of what it is that you want to achieve & what energizes you?

Ask yourself, what am I passionate about? Is your current work aligned to this? If not, does it at least provide you with the financial reward that allows you to pursue your passion? If your answer is still no, then it is maybe necessary for you to re-assess what you do for a living and develop a plan allowing you to make the necessary changes. That is of course a process on its own, yet starts with defining what you would deem to be success in your life.

If you do know your passion and your work is aligned, the question that you need to ask yourself then is why am I still not happy? Research has shown that if we do not align our personal values and our goals, we are going to constantly find ourselves in the position of discontentment. Why? Because if there isn’t an alignment, there will be a natural “rift” between what you value & what you actually achieve.

How do we change this “rift” then? You need to define or re-define both your personal & work values. It is important to note that they will differ and that they change with time. This is okay as our values will shift as we have new experiences in life.

The next step is to assess whether your personal values & work values are congruent or not and the final step is to asses whether your work values & the values of the company that you work for are compatible. Remember that when it comes to your companies values, don’t assess according to the values on the poster, but the values actually in practice.

Once we understand our values we can then look at what is truly important to you.  Don’t be surprised if what you thought was your definition of success is in fact truly different to your current reality. What I have found many people do is assess their success according to criteria they set for themselves when they were young & single. Now running their own business & wanting to spend time with their kids, it is necessary to amend this definition or else there will be a rift between what you value & your definition of success.

Your definition also doesn’t need to be grandiose. Remember it is your definition and yes, you will have people questioning you, if you suddenly change how you measure yourself. That’s fine; remember that they are looking at what you are doing in terms of their values & definition of success. Be honest with yourself, be true to yourself and importantly, have fun. If you are not having fun, chances are that something isn’t aligned. Sit down & assess what could be causing the “rift”.

One last thing, be flexible, sometimes you will create your definition, only to find a few months down the line, that it isn’t really in tune what you want to do. That’s okay. Give yourself permission to change it. Also remember that your personal definition of success & professional definition of success will differ. That’s okay; just make sure that neither of them undermines your values.

This article was written by Carol Gerber who is a Career & Life Coach. Please feel free to contact her on 021 526 0469 for more information or visit her website www.GerberaLifeCoaching.co.za

Talent Fusion gets BBBEE Certified!

So what makes a CV stand out? There are many things but I think for this blog post I want to focus on the basics, these are things that should be a given, they should be in your CV, they assist each client in evaluating how you can add value, if you will fit in culturally and if your salary expectations are in line with the job at hand.

Profile Overview
This is your opportunity to point out what makes you unique, what is your amazing X factor. It doesn’t have to be long, it has to be personal, this is not about blowing your own horn arrogantly, it is about being able to demonstrate your key qualities and your motivations and drivers. A CV is a piece of paper, the only that that brings it to life are the words that you chose to you. “Make sure your canvas is portraying the colours that suit you best.”

Layout
Everyone is different, but I find it easier to read your most recent job first and then working backwards in your career. It will be easier to see if you are a match for the job.

It is recommended to make the layout very easy to read. To do this you should set it out that you can see the previous employer, previous job title, amount of tenure and job description for each individual career movement.

Honesty
Honesty is the best policy. Do not lie on your CV. You will get caught out, your CV is a reflection and collection of your “stories”. You will be more respected if you bring things up before they get asked.

Salary Expectation
Some people find this offensive to answer but the reality is that this a deal maker or breaker. So if it is so important then why not be honest and upfront about it. An average of 7% increase is the norm when applying for a new position (of course this depends on each job specifically and 7% is a guideline). My advice is be realistic about your expectations.

Your CV is an extension of who you are, if you not going to take the time to put everything you have into it to find that perfect job – will that perfect job be able to find you?

Good luck with your CV, if you require any tips please do not hesitate to contact Talent Fusion.