1. Resume and Cover Letter
Get your resume and cover letter in order – seek professional help if required but be confident in the documents which will be the first thing a potential employer will see. Your aim with your resume is to end up in the “Yes” bundle and progress to interview stage.
2. Target Your Market
So many times I have asked people what jobs they want to apply for and they simply don’t know. This is a fatal flaw and generally leads people to applying for hundreds of jobs that they do not really want and don’t have the skills for. Determine your target market and this will provide you with a much better success rate in your applications.
3. Track Your Applications
Finding a job is a job in itself and I advise my clients to treat it like a project. Setup a simple Excel spread sheet and track all your applications in terms of dates, job titles, company names, contacts and status. Be sure to follow up on your applications if you have not received a response – this can open up doors and lead to potential interviews!
4. Approach Companies Not Currently Hiring
So everyone applies for jobs with business who are advertising thus increased competition. Why not apply to companies who are not hiring? Create a list of companies you feel would be interested in your skills and send them your resume and cover letter with an introduction. Who knows? They could be planning on hiring in a number of weeks and you could have just saved them time, effort and money by being the right candidate!
5. Keep Your Chin Up
Finding a new job can be quite stressful and often people find rejection difficult after not being successful with an application. Best advice here is to remain positive, seek feedback from HR personnel and Recruiters and use this to improve your application tactics. Remember, it only takes one call and some interviews to land your dream job. Just keep applying and keep trying.
Good luck.
