Job Search Strategies To Put You At The Head Of The Jobs Queue
Posted on 12:11am, 22nd June 2010 • 2 Comments
What job search strategies give you the best chances of getting back into a good job fast in spite of the awful state of today’s jobs market?
Be warned – the job search strategies you’re urged to use by Job Centre staff don’t work that well (especially if you’re after professional jobs). Job Centres’ job search strategies will have you scurrying after every vacancy, regardless of its suitability and the chances of you being offered the job, just to prove you’re genuinely looking for work. This approach to job search infuriates employers and wastes job hunters’ time and energy. You’re better off developing your own job search strategies, then persuading your Job Centre advisor to let you try them.
The most successful job search strategies start with a little hard thinking plus basic research and a bit of project management planning.
Effective job search strategies depend on researching your job market and the right niche for you within it. Go online, tap in [your job title] jobs. Do a broad UK wide search first, just to get a feel for the jobs market, then narrow it down to the locations you’d consider working at. Do you see a reasonable number of vacancies offering salaries you’d find acceptable? If not, tweak your job search strategies to track down a more promising career path.
There’s a reasonable number of jobs at the right level – now are you a good candidate for them? If there’s a shortfall in your skills and qualifications that hampers your job hunting your job search strategies should include how you top them up at least cost to you.
As you go through all the UK jobs advertised online, take notes of the exact words employers use to describe their jobs and what they want from applicants. One of the easiest and most profitable job search strategies is to give recruiters the “messages” they want to hear about you, in the words they themselves use.
Now think about project managing your job search on your PC. Set out on your work plan / electronic diary each of the job search strategies you’ll use (eg “use Tuesdays for networking activities”, together with the results you expect to achieve from them (eg “Tue wk 1 -make 1st approach to 5 contacts on networking database, aiming to achieve at least 2 useful pieces of job market information / further contacts”). Regularly monitor whether your job search strategies are working as planned.
Don’t forget to reward yourself (quickly and often) for all the hard work you’re putting into your job search strategies. Job hunting is draining, demoralising and thoroughly awful. A bit of spoiling does wonders in restoring your energy levels and helping you stick to the task unfazed by reject letters and other disappointments.
This is sensible advice, aimed at getting you back into work fast with least damage to your morale and finances.
The job search strategies recommended by the Job Centre seem to assume the jobs are there, it’s just that YOU need chivvying into applying for them. At a time when you’re really down, broke and worried stiff, why do they have to make life even worse?
Cityboy • 23rd September, 2010 at 8:01 pm
“Job hunting is draining, demoralising and thoroughly awful” – yes, it’s all of that.
What makes life even harder is all that s*** from the tabloids and politicians about how the jobless must be feckless oiks gladly living off public money. I hate saying I’m unemployed and I’ve tried my hardest to get another job. It’s not my fault there are so few jobs and so many applicants for each of them.
I can’t even afford to EAT properly on the pittance I get as a single person and as for winter energy bills, I’m too scared even to think about them.
Sad-Grad • 15th August, 2011 at 3:26 pm