Manage your job search, before it manages you!

Manage your Job Search

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How to manage your job search. If you’ve worked with me before you’ll know that one of the early questions I ask is “Where have you applied to already?”. The response more often than not starts with “Erm…”, not a good start in my opinion. How you present yourself from the outset is incredibly important, sending the same email with the same text and attachment comes across lazy and unorganised, neither quality I’d want in an employee. I’ll give you an example, I currently have a lady who’s sent her CV to me 20 times in the past 3 weeks, she starts the email “Dear Recruiter”. It doesn’t bother me that I’m on a mass email but she could be going about it in a far better manner

In today’s job market it’s not uncommon to submit applications to multiple organisations at any one time, in fact I’d recommend it but your squandering precious first impressions if you don’t portray yourself well from the start. Social media, A.I, virtual reality and many more technological advancements have rapidly changed the way employers and recruitment companies search for staff which means we have a larger pool of candidates to choose from than ever before so the smartest strategy is to plan your job search

Track your search

There are some brilliant tools out there to help you track your applications, responses your receive and much more. Jibberjobber.com and workray.com are just a couple of tools in the marketplace to help you keep track of who you are applying to, which positions plus it gives you an overview of your search so you’re not guessing how many applications you’ve sent out. Also from a psychological perspective you’re in control, you’re making clearer career choices of where you want to work, you’re not going to panic as much plus you’re going to come across so much more professional when one of the employers calls you out of the blue because you’ve been tracking their responses 

Only apply to suitable positions

Years ago when I first started looking for a job I applied to anything going, I really stretched that unrealistic imagination of mine. You’ll see from my LinkedIn Profile I didn’t get the Graphic Design or Marketing job I wanted after working at my father’s architectural company but I did get a call from a recruiter at Hays and that’s how my career in recruitment started. In this economy I wouldn’t advise applying for an under qualified role, the chances you’ll hear back are slim to none especially when you consider it’s so much easier to find job postings with the technology we have. Some ATS (applicant tracking systems) will disqualify or delete your details from further receiving or applying to job posts as you haven’t read the basic requirements so applying to multiple jobs on an agencies website can dramatically hinder your current and future chances of finding work too

Streamline your CV

We see hundreds of CVs come in everyday and truth is that outdated CV templates aren’t read by hiring managers or recruiters. Due to the volume of CVs that recruiters receive everyday they’re are trained to look for keywords initially and take on average 6 seconds to run through your CV so you have to make it easy for the person recruiting to read your information. Also if it isn’t formatted correctly there’s a good chance your details don’t even make it into the database itself so it most likely wouldn’t have been seen by the recruiter or hiring manager (see http://aerecruitment.ae/lesson-no1-how-to-avoid-the-resume-blackhole/)

Avoid CV templates with the logo below as they’re the worst format I’ve seen

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If you’re not tech savvy or don’t understand how a recruitment database works, outdated ideas of how recruiters operate is going hinder your chances of advancing your application further because ATS systems and workflows within those databases are one step ahead of you so you don’t waste a recruiter’s/hiring manager’s precious time. 

Remember you’re still emailing a person whether you can see them or not, don’t think your email has gone unnoticed, it has been seen but for all the wrong reasons. By managing your search properly you will come across as well organised, much better presented and have a higher chance of being employed

If you would like advice on your job search contact me on hayley@aerecruitment.ae or book a one to one coaching session with myself or one of our trained coaches on http://aerecruitment.ae/coaching/

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