Name: Pierluigi Catello
Company: Michael Page
Role: Head Hunter
Job role description: Research and selection of senior professionals in the field of Marketing and Sales.
Personal short BIO
I started working in the HR area soon after completing my master in Marketing. I found a position at Hays looking for junior profiles in the Finance area to suddenly move to Michael Page in the Sales & Marketing division.
1) How would you define job the searching activity today? What is the winning approach to be adopted at this stage? The job searching has become much simpler, nowadays there are many more job opportunities thanks as well to online job portals such as LinkedIn. The only winning key is being very careful on structuring our cv and keeping it updated.
2) What are the key elements for building an efficient professional profile? Focusing on developing the skills required from the sector of interest.
3) What are the characteristics that a good curriculum vitae should have? A good curriculum vitae must contain: personal data, working experience, academic experience, linguistic knowledge and IT knowledge. Besides these, it has to look neat and tidy, graphically correct.
4) How important is the Cover Letter in the application? The Cover Letter is a fundamental tool for transmitting some more insight and personal information that cannot be included in the curriculum vitae, it helps to complete the candidate profiles and sometimes it makes the difference when it comes to choose between two candidates.
5) What are the personal characteristics of the candidates most appreciated by recruiters? Motivation! Motivation and motivation! Recruiters doesn’t like to waste time with candidates who are not passionate about pursuing a new career path.
6) What are the professional skills indispensable nowadays to be hired?The most required skills are the ones, related to communication, team working, leadership, time and stress management, in other words the soft skills.
7) What are the most effective channels and platforms for job searching? In my opinion, the most effective tools for job searching are the web ones like: Linkedin, Indeed, Infojobs, Monster…it is also important to analyze the web sites of interested companies, they might publish some job announces on their official page.
8) How important are social media for finding a job? Not having a LinkedIn profile nowadays can limit the chances of coming across new job opportunities. Recruiters usually get in contact with candidates via social media or look for their profiles in order to get additional information about them.
9) How important is knowing how to compromise? For example, accepting an opportunity that is not 100% in line with our expectations? It is very difficult to find an opportunity that meets 100% our expectations or our dreams, especially if it is a very high one. Both the company and the candidate sometimes have to change their plans in order to find better solutions. This doesn’t mean that they can’t reach their goals anyway.
10) What suggestions would you like to give to the students to overcome the current difficult situation in which job opportunities seem to be decreasing? It’s very important to collect some job or internship experiences while studying. This will allow the students to apply the knowledge acquired during the master, as well it is a good idea to direct the studies according to owns goals.
11) Skills, qualifications and technical skills are important in the job, but what do you think is the key to success? In my opinion it is important to have a good perception of our self and of which are our own strengths and capacities. We need to understand which are the competencies needed by our dreamed job and work to develop them.
12) Define “professional achievement” Being professionally realized means being passionate about your job and being motivated to keep on learning.
13) Your first work experience? My first working experience was in the sector where I currently work.
14) Sensations about it … I felt lucky to find a job that I liked right away and to have the possibility to immediately grow on a professional and personal level.
15) What do you feel to say to young talents who are entering the world of work? To never give up to keep going and to look for a job that really passionate them and that is as close as possible to their attitudes.
