Finlay McArthur, the CEO and Founder of Finlay McArthur, shares some of his coaching knowledge and stories on approaches you can take to reach your personal development goals along with steps you can take to become a standout candidate.

With extensive experience as an NLP Master Practitioner, Cognitive Hypnotherapist, ILM7 and 40 years in senior management positions, you have been able to guide many from all walks of life on their journey of personal development. From your sessions where you have successfully helped people reach their goals, can you draw any parallels between them eg. a certain characteristic or something that they focussed on which paved the way for their success?

I would definitely say that building a self awareness is key to reaching your personal development goals as this would allow you to objectively evaluate yourself in terms of your actions, thoughts and emotions etc. and then realign them with how you would aspire them to be.

Our brains have the ability to learn things really quickly but our experiences and how we choose to analyse what we learn shape who we are, for the most part at least, and determine our actions, thoughts and emotions etc. Because of this, I always think that when we look inwards at ourselves, we need to ask deep probing questions to find the root cause of things in order to find out who we really are.

For example, one of my clients told me that he had always wanted to try rock climbing but had never brought himself to do it because he had a fear of heights. After hearing this, you may think that the best thing to do is to try and face your fear and reduce it bit by bit by experimenting with different heights. However, the preliminary step is to figure out where this fear originated from in the first place. After a few sessions, we discovered that my client’s fear of heights had been subconsciously programmed into him from a young age after he saw his mother have a panic attack from looking over the edge of a multi-storey car park.

This is a perfect example that highlights how we aren’t just simple two dimensional beings and what we do or don’t do and the way that we think may be influenced by other factors which could be the reasons that we sometimes hold ourselves back from reaching our goals. Building your self awareness allows you to look at things properly through your own eyes to discover what you truly want and then manage and align your behaviour with your values.

Are there any words of wisdom that you could give to candidates who are struggling to find a job because of the market being so saturated eg. particular key areas that they should focus on to try and make themselves more employable?

Always be yourself. It sounds clichéd but it’s true. From my experience, the successful candidates are the ones who are not afraid to put their head above the parapet and be a little different and say how good they are (without going overboard obviously). It makes interviews feel more natural and like I am getting to know that person, rather than a version of who they are trying to make themselves out to be based on what they think we want.

However, if you are letting your best self shine, and you feel like you aced every question during your interview but still aren’t receiving offers then remember that they probably just thought that your culture and values didn’t align with theirs and hence you wouldn’t have enjoyed the environment there – it has no reflection on you as a person!

Another point which ties in with the first one is following the motto ‘honesty is the best policy’. A person in HR who is good at their job will be able to suss out whether or not you match with the depiction that you’ve given of yourself in your CV or profile. Remember that when you see a job description that has listed maybe 8 things that they want from their preferred candidate, it’s probable that 4 of them are what they actually require and the remaining 4 are part of their ‘wish list’.

So don’t try and make yourself out to be the perfect candidate that ticks all 8 boxes because they know themselves that that hardly exists. Be honest about yourself and your experience and this could be enough to account for the not having the experience that they’d want from a ‘perfect candidate’. The right match will come so just hold on and be resilient.

What do you think is the best approach to take?

A technique I always like to use is to create a list of say 8-9 points of things that you know you’re good at (and make sure it’s not what others think you’re good or not good at). Then make a list of no more than 8 things that you think you need help with and write that adjacent to the first list. Now try and compare the lists and see if you notice patterns emerging. You’ll probably find that the majority of the things on your 2nd list are skills which you may not have necessarily had the opportunity to improve on or perhaps that someone else has told you that you’re not very skilled in that area.

However, you need to remember that having no experience and needing to improve something are 2 very different things so it’s important to distinguish between them. Notice how I didn’t ask you to make a list of ‘weaknesses’: this exercise is a good opportunity for you to rewire the way you think in the fact that we don’t have any weaknesses because things that we may not be great at are things that we can improve on given that we have enough time to.

We’re conventional beings so we should think in unconventional ways to tackle things. I am a strong believer that there is no such thing as failure because everything is feedback and just areas that you need help with.

Is there anything else that you’d like to add which you think is important for young job seekers to know?

Here are a few things that I think are important to remember as a general rule of thumb:

• Make sure you enter every interview prepared, knowing exactly what you want, what the job entails and information about the market that you’ll be working in as this shows a genuine interest and passion in the field you want to enter
• Even if you the role you are applying to isn’t a client facing role, it’s extremely important to understand how to build rapport and good and healthy work relationships
• As talked about in question 2, don’t bypass a job because you think they want more than what you can give – remember that a lot of their points for their ideal candidate is just a ‘wish list’
• Always write a cover letter, especially now – tell the hiring manager why you think you’d be good at that position and what you can bring to the table.

Here is some advice that’s specific for the job hunt at the moment:

• Remember that the job market is saturated with candidates and there are few jobs to go around, so competition is remarkably high. Naturally, this means that you will be pushed back several times before the right opportunity comes your way, so be resilient and try not to take the rejections to heart
• Job hunting at the moment has become a numbers game for many but I don’t think that you should spend too much time on applying for anything just because you want a job. Now is an opportunity for you to actually take a step back and look at the things that interest you and consider what you actually want from a job
• Never be afraid to reach out and ask for help, using and building up your network is important
• Try to keep looking at the positives even if there doesn’t seem to be many at the moment. Remember that this is temporary and things will improve.