Job searches



Resume (curriculum vitae) preparation

Interviews

The aspect that the casual applicant will spend the least time and effort on is job searches – yet logic dictates that this should be the area that gets most attention. For every job offer there are typically a higher number of interviews. And not every application receives an offer of an interview.

So it is amazing how many people treat finding jobs so casually. Typically they will have two or three places that they focus 90% of their effort on and the remainder of their time is spent browsing a few more sources once every few weeks.

It is no surprise that these people tend to have the least success in finding a new role. Good job hunting requires effort and nowhere is this more important than finding the vacancies in the first place.

Most job hunters tend to only focus on advertised vacancies – and then they only look for a small percentage of these. Typically they have a favourite paper or magazine and a few internet jobs boards. They will also register with a few agencies and wait to be called if any openings arise.

And their effort usually ends there.

First of all this restricts the volume of advertised vacancies that can be found and it also ensures that they never get to find out about the jobs that never find their way into the papers or onto the internet.

Here are ten very quick tips for increasing the volume of openings that you can apply for:

1. Read every local newspaper in the area you'd like to work. Most of them have an on-line presence too.

2. Find out which trade journals are published in your chosen field.

3. Find out which agencies specialise in your chosen field.

4. Draw up a list of companies you'd like to work for. Find out where they typically advertise.

5. Build up a network of people that work in recruitment.

6. Build up a network period. People know people who hire.

7. Spend some time finding out which companies are growing – and therefore likely to be hiring.

8. Find out which companies are moving to your area – and therefore likely to be hiring.

9. If you register with a recruitment agency, try to meet them face to face. You're more likely to be remembered by them.

10. If you are serious about getting a new role, factor it into your schedule. Allocate, say, an hour a day and stick to it.

There are two factors that kill recruitment effort. The first is apathy. If someone can't be bothered to find out which agencies specialize in their chosen field then they are doomed to failure.

The second is distractions. People start out with the best intentions to research some recruitment information on the internet. Oh yes, the internet. And so, just before they check out that new jobs board, they check their email. Then they find out about the score from last night's game. Then they check a friend's blog.

Before you know it, they've been on the web for forty minutes of their scheduled hour and that only leaves them a small amount of their allotted schedule to do any work.

Worst of all – they kid themselves they've spent an hour researching.

Job searching may not be fun – but it's productive time. Unless being productive is more important than having fun, the aspiring job hunter will still be stuck in the same old job.

Remember the fact that it's a numbers game. If you only find a fraction of the jobs that are out there, you'll limit your chances of getting a new job. And if you only look in the obvious places, you'll be up against all the other lazy job hunters who only looked there too. Meanwhile the hard worker finds the off-the-beaten-track jobs and ends up with the post you were better qualified for. If only you'd known about it!