Back once again…
Hello and welcome to the second edition of the E-Mobility Search candidate enhancement newsletter – “E-levate”. As veteran readers of this small but perfectly-formed tome will know and fresh eyes will come to appreciate, this is your chance to gain insider recruitment tips to support your career in the E-Mobility sector. We know a bit about this kind of thing.
Read on to borrow from our recruitment toolkit, including:
- Candidate best practice tips
- Insider recruitment advice
- Trend-logging
- Empowering, novel solutions to fiendish career challenges
At E-Mobility Search we are unafraid to challenge your perceptions. Read on and empower yourself to secure the right role for YOU and excel in the career YOU deserve.
Finding the right route to the job you want
We’ve all been there, constant CV and pitch-editing, duplicating answers for never-ending applications, scouring jobsites and LinkedIn hoping for elusive leads, eliciting repeated rejections or worse, drawing no responses.
There is a better way to do things. Here at E-Mobility Search, we like to empower our candidates to give the best first impression of themselves to potential admirers. Just by contacting our tremendously knowledgeable agents, familiarising yourself with the guidance on our website and opening our newsletter, you’ve increased your chances of securing the right opportunity for you. Bravo.
E-Mobility Search specialise in bringing together high-end EV talent and our distinguished industry clients to create mutually beneficial, satisfying business relationships. We promise to:
- Get to know you, what you can offer and where you fit best
- Coach you to market yourself for optimal impact in your chosen field
- Run effective recruitment campaigns to match your talent with the right enterprise
If you are a tech-titan or an engineering god, you no longer need to spend your precious free time guessing which companies may be interested in you. E-Mobility Search do most of this work for you and have pre-existing relationships with the leaders in the field. Let us introduce you to each other.
Our E-Mobility Search consultants are on standby to assist you. Don’t hesitate to speak to your specific adviser or use our contact us page to tell us about you and find out how we can help you.
Market Watch: East Asia leads the solid-state battery race…
Gunpowder, the printing press, paper, the magnetic compass, contactless smart cards, lean manufacturing, camera phones, QR codes, pocket calculators and PlayStation. These are just some of the major inventions originating in East Asia through the centuries. As the race to be the first commercial solid-state battery powered vehicle manufacturer hots up, the list may need amending.
Sony and Toyota are two major, global, Japanese brands. The former, a technology giant operating at the summit of consumer and professional electronics for many decades. The latter, a renowned automaker known for legendary reliability, The Toyota Way (lean manufacturing) and many famously beloved cars such as the Hilux, Corolla, Land Cruiser and the rare classic 2000GT.
These two Godzilla-sized Japanese brands could also soon find themselves namechecked on Wikipedia pages dedicated to battery evolution. That’s because in 1991 Sony produced the first commercial, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and in 2022 Toyota own more patents than anyone (1000+) concerning the potential next step in universal battery technology.
Back in 2020, Toyota offered a glimpse of the future in a short YouTube video featuring a car driving down a test track with “Powered by All-Solid-State Battery” on the side. Toyota have since announced they’ll be selling hybrid vehicles containing smaller solid-state batteries by 2025 – a possible smart move given current production costs which will need scaling in the future. The technology is something of a holy grail for commercial automakers, promising potentially superior energy densities, faster charging, longer cycle life and lower fire risks than lithium-ion cells.
We await to see if the scaling challenges posed by this impressive and evolving battery technology are resolved first, like so many things are, in the Land of The Rising Sun. Volkswagen, Ford, BMW, and Microsoft among others, are all investing heavily in solid-state batteries. If you haven’t done so yet, contact E-Mobility Search now to find out how we can help you to exploit your talents.
Smile, shout, punch the air, call a friend or family member to relay the good news, then panic, check your calendar, re-check the job spec’ and intensely contemplate the approach you’ll take. These are some of the common reactions to winning an interview for a position you really want. Read on over the next two pages to improve your interview tactics via the E-Mobility Search-approved 10 nifty do’s and don’ts for your big day…
Firstly, the Don’ts (BEWARE):
- Never bad talk your previous/ current employer or boss
Prospective new employers will meet this with scepticism, and you could be seen either as a potential risk to the harmony at the company or even as a political player. When asked about your reasons for leaving, accentuate the positives, for example ‘My job is boring’ would be ‘I am ready for a bigger challenge.’
- Don’t talk about money/ benefits unless asked
If and when you are asked about salaries be honest and realistic – the average pay increase when moving jobs rarely exceeds 10% of your current package. If you are aiming for more, you will have to justify this with a compelling rationale
- Don’t be over familiar
Some personality types quite often kill the goose here. It’s important to strike a balance between being a human and a complete chat bag. It’s also important to remember to keep on track, avoid diverting from the topic in hand.
- Don’t communicate ineffectively
Do yourself justice. If your first language is not the one being used and/ or you have a strong accent, practice and beware of speaking too quickly for your interviewer(s). Keep your language clear and concise and give your listeners(s) sufficient time to absorb what you are saying.
- Never display poor body language
Yawning, itching, feet up! Elbows on the table are all bad signs that rarely culminate in a positive conclusion.
And now, the Do’s (these should become axiomatic to you):
- Prepare
A great candidate prep’s correctly and will use available time to:
- Review the company website, social media channels and Google recent news items.
- Get to know their products, people, processes, culture, customers, and competitors.
- Exploit Linked-In, scrutinise your competition and check out who already works for that business – familiar faces can provide additional useful info.
- Absorb the format and requirements. You may need to show ID or provide a short presentation so read all comms closely.
- Look and sound the part
Read all comms, check out their website and any media content they’ve put out and mirror their dress-style as best you can in both face to face and video interviews. In general, T-shirts and shorts are OUT. For video interviews, ensure your IT (including camera, microphone, and speakers) supports your best performance, with a sensible, undistracting background and ambient noise.
- Listen and get to the point
Don’t talk over your interviewer(s). Listen intently and answer concisely. Over-elaboration, presuming the listener doesn’t know the basics, can come off as rude. This is even worse if the question remains unanswered. Elaborate only when asked.
- Be the kind of person you’d want to work with
Chemistry and reading signals are key. Smile and engage genuinely in friendly but limited small talk to break the ice, but don’t force it and appear over-familiar, as this can kill your credibility. Be clear about how you can add value for the business. Project passion and enthusiasm for the brand and your potential future work projects.
- Ask good questions
Keep these salient and relevant to the discussion. Be discerning – you don’t have to ask them all or in the order you thought of them. Build empathy and credibility by asking questions where you know the resulting conversation will offer you a chance to speak about a tough challenge you’ve overcome or one of your key successes. For example:
- What are the plans for growth?
- What does the product development roadmap look like?
- What will be the key challenges in achieving these objectives?
- Why is this position open right now and how do you think I’d fit in?
- Why did you personally join this business?
And finally…
End on a positive. Thank the interviewers for their time and express how much you have enjoyed the meeting as well as your keenness to progress to the next stage!
For more advice, contact your specific adviser or use the contact us page to say hi and see how we can help you.
