by Regi Publico
The job market is in a very odd place right now. The world is recovering from a pandemic, and that has opened up the recovering economy to a whole host of open job positions. However, with demand comes millions of people that you have to be up against during the job hunt.
Don’t lose heart! With the right mindset and preparations, you’ll be able to land a job that best suits your skill set and personality. Today, we’ll talk about what you can do to power up your potential and become more attractive to employers.
Update your Resume
Have you been using the same resume for over a year now? It’s time to get rid of that outdated PDF and make a new resume. A lot of things can happen in a year that even you haven’t noticed. Take stock of what happened in the year and see if there’s anything you can add to your resume.
If you are now a college student looking for a job, take into account anything you have done in a “professional” capacity. No job is too insignificant. If you are looking for part-time work in food service, event management in school events counts as a significant experience. If you can think of a way to connect it to your prospective job, add it. For young recruits, this is important as it shows employers you have much-needed experience in a work setting.
Alternatively, if you are older and have significantly more job experience, it’s in your best interests to only include highlights. A clunky list of everything you’ve ever done might come off as overcompensating to certain recruiters. Experienced workers should have an air of professionalism.
An updated resume is key to informing potential employers of your skills. Don’t ever leave it outdated or incomplete. The first impressions always start at the resume level.
Never Stop Learning
Don’t think you can just finish your resume and call it a day. Your resume only gets your foot in the door. You need to build your technical skills and prove to your employer your resume is no lie. Be proactive and start honing the skills you need for the job you want.
If you are a prospective writer, start a personal blog. Plenty of recruiters view blogs as proof of a candidate’s passion. Not to mention, it acts as a semi-portfolio of your writing abilities. If you’re an IT professional, consider undergoing a hackers boot camp.
The point to remember here is that your downtime should never be empty. As much as possible, fill yourself up with knowledge of any careers you want to pursue.
Hone Your Soft Skills
Technical skills are what enable you with the know-how of your job, but soft skills are what let you keep them. Knowing how to type with 80 wpm might be impressive, but if you’re bad at managing your time, it means nothing. Here are examples of soft skills:
Attentiveness
Reliability
Creativity
Work Ethic
Teamwork
Positive Outlook
Team Management
Project Management
Communication
These skills smooth out your job-hunting experience. Having these on your resume then showing them off during training is sure to impress your employers.
Get Certified
Now that you’ve got all that training and free time, go for a certification. There are many things you can get certified for, and they increase your resume’s legitimacy. Many professional organizations offer tests and courses that provide certification.
These also double as pseudo-references, as an employer could even call the institution to confirm the veracity of your skills.
Strengthen Your Network
Networking helps narrow down your job hunt in several ways. For starters, it gives you an “in” to a lot of jobs through your connections.
Having an established employee within the company vouch for you is one of the best ways to land a job. These are called referrals, and some companies even reward the referrer for successful hires as an incentive.
Referrals aren’t the only way networking helps you land jobs, of course. If someone in your circle has a good working relationship with your recruiter, they can put in the good word for you as well.
Of course, you still have to prove to the employer your worth, but a good endorsement lightens the load considerably.
Adapt To Your Recruiter
Now you’re face to face with an interviewer. To be perfectly frank, no catchall attitude works for every single employer. Different companies look for different attitudes in their workers. Some prefer formal and to-the-point employees. Others value people who can talk casually even in a professional setting.
What you can do is scout the company you plan on joining and figure out what their work culture is like. The best way to do this is by simply looking the company up online.
From social media, gauge what kind of culture the company fosters within its ranks. Plus, it helps you see what the company’s employee retention rate is like.
It won’t be perfect, but it gives you a head start. If a recruiter feels that you fit well within the company, they’ll be more open to hiring you.
Conclusion
There may be hundreds of tips out there for job hunting, and they are all certainly valid. However, these tips are at the core of every single one. Stick with these methods and you’ll find yourself hired sooner than you’d think!
Photo Source: Vlada Karpovich
Regi Publico is a full-time writer based in Manila who is also an artist for fun. She takes pride in her towering collection of books and loves reading about anything under the sun. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge through every article that she writes.
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