Must-Have Advice When Looking For A New Job (2022 Update)
Do you feel lost when you're browsing through the job-boards? Is your CV letting you down? If you're finding it difficult to find your ideal job, this article should help you take your next step.
Looking for a new job will always be a confusing and humbling time of your life.
It's important to bear in mind that the average turnaround from applying for a role to actually starting the position is 6 months. With this being the case, it’s advised that you set yourself up with a productive routine as soon as possible, otherwise the 12pm lie-ins will become all too frequent.
It's best to focus on these essential steps to ensure that you get your job-search off to the best possible start:
Control your application numbers
In this technologically-advanced and candidate short world, you have a whole host of job sites and recruiters battling it out for your applications. Unfortunately, all too often this can result in a barrage of irrelevant calls for positions that don't work for you.
Most of the time, this happens because the candidate panicked in the first stage of their job-search and blitzed hundreds of job applications out, without really assessing whether the roles were right for them. It’s best to be more targeted and thorough on this side of things to ensure that you land the job that‘s right for you.
It's fine to scan a job posting, you obviously don't have the read every single word of the specification. Yet, it's advised to make sure that you get a well-rounded opinion of what the role actually involves before applying.
How long do you take reading through the job advert before applying?
- Less than 15 seconds
- 15 - 60 seconds
- More than 60 seconds
Consistently trawl through relevant sites
It's vital that you regularly review all the different platforms to help with your job-search. This involves a different job-boards, company websites and social media pages too. The benefit of this is that you're not overly dependent on one source for job openings and your search is nice and diversified.
I like to view the jobseeker as being a fisherman and the job openings being the fish. You need to consistently throw out the nets and pull them back in (regularly browsing through the sites), otherwise the job openings (the fish) will simply pass you by and fall into the laps of other candidates.
Keep your job searching refined and focused
The past 12 months has been a record year for UK job postings, with 1.3m (figures from the ONS) live jobs between Dec 2021 - Feb 2022. For candidates this tends to be a good thing as ultimately more jobs means that they have more choice for roles. However, when it comes to searching on job-boards it can be incredibly difficult to narrow down a manageable volume of roles for certain positions. That's why it's vitally important that you refine the filters so it only shows roles that you'll be willing to work. It's incredibly easy to do, just alter the filters so they work for you. You can do that in the following ways:
Salary brackets
The locations radius
Any keywords that are relevant to what you're looking for e.g. IT Sales
Recognise your value as a candidate
It’s also important to understand your value during your job-search. This isn't to say that you should start to throw your weight around as if you're some £100m footballer being hounded by the biggest clubs in Europe. What I mean, is that it’s important to read the room for what the markets currently like as the factors in the market all determine which hand you play with your job-search and to consider the following points:
Are potentially employers desperate for candidates right now?
Is the sector going through a strong level of growth currently?
What unique selling point do I have over other applicants for these roles?
If you can, look for new positions whilst you’re still employed
This isn’t an option for everyone as many job-seekers have been made redundant, however it can get you off to a great start if you can successfully balance work commitments whilst you’re also seeking new employment.
By doing this, it can be a huge stress reliever and bide you some valuable time with your job-search. It goes without saying that you need to be careful with how you approach this - as it’s evidently going to be frowned upon by your previous employer. Just make sure that you don’t slack off at work and try to keep the job-search both out of hours and off company devices.
Embrace the job interviews
For the odds to start to turn in your favour where you have a 51% chance of being accepted, you’re going to need to attend at least 3 job interviews. Most of the time I hear of how candidates hate job interviews, but like many things in life they're no where near as bad as they first seem. Once you master your pre-interview preparation, they become a lot more bearable and it's sometimes quite nice to showcase your skills and personality.
What exact sites shall I look at?
It's advised that if you are keen to start a new position immediately that you take advantage of all the online recruitment sites. LinkedIn is an obvious one and fantastic for office and senior positions, whilst the likes of Indeed, CV-Library, Totaljobs and Reed are great platforms for more proactive job-seekers.
Stay positive
It's imperative to stay positive during your job-search. I appreciate how difficult this may be difficult when you have been left out in the cold after going through an intense three-stage interview. Nevertheless, the next call could be around the corner. If you answer the phone and sound sapped of confidence - is the recruiter going to want to give you a chance and put their name on the line by recommending you? Probably not.
Align yourself with the role on offer
I recommend studying the job specification and analysing all the key information that you have on the job role. Are you mirroring the words and phrases in the job description? Are you showcasing your strengths in the areas that seem to be of paramount importance to this role? Let's take a Sales Manager vacancy for a local car dealership as an example, they'll most probably be looking for someone who ticks the following boxes:
Someone who's target-driven and motivated: Maybe mention that Half Marathon that you ran a couple of years ago or how you play for a local sports team.
A leader with a strong level of integrity: Have you ever led a successful project or been a captain of a local sports team?
The candidate to be able to handle objections and customer complaints: Give an example of when you were able to overcome an objection for a high-ticket sale at your previous role.
What about my CV?
Your CV is your own representative. It champions your career-path, characteristics and positive attributes - to possibly hundreds of different recruiters.
At the very least you need to make sure that your CV is neat, informative and shows some resemblance of what the ideal candidate for that role will be like. What this means is that a one-size-fits-all approach simply won't cut it in the modern recruitment world. When you start looking at your CV from the other side of the table and amending it accordingly then the response rates to your applications rocket.
It would be great to hear from you if you're currently looking for work and what challenges you're facing right now? Please leave a message in the comment section below or via email to smartfind@outlook.com if you have any questions.