Many people don’t realise that far more jobs are found through the informal than the formal jobs market. The formal market is what you see in recruitment agencies, vacancies advertised on employers’ own websites, newspaper ads and so on. The informal market is one where the job is never advertised but is filled through personal contact. Many job-seekers will say with truth that they are working diligently to find a job but often they are wasting their efforts on job search tactics that are far less likely to work
Job search tactics that are less likely to get you a job
- Believing that the employer can see for themselves how wonderful you are; sitting at home waiting for the employer to discover this
- Relying on passive methods of job search; expecting the employer to make the next move
- Sending out your CV to hundreds of potential employers: the chances that it will be read are minimal
- Having an all-purpose CV which fails to show any individual employer how you could be good for them
- Applying for jobs that are advertised online: the simplicity of online application tempts hundreds of people to apply, regardless of how well their profile fits what the employer wants
- Hoping that a recruitment agency will solve the problem for you: their role is to find people for jobs, not jobs for people
- Being inflexible about the type of job or where it is located; wanting to reproduce exactly what you had in a previous job or getting fixed on a promotion of some sort or on a particular type of employment
- Looking for work in dying industries or sectors
- Restricting the search to large organizations
Job search tactics that are more likely to get you a job
- Being clear about your personal ‘brand’; knowing that it is better to concentrate on selling your strengths; understanding your weaknesses and avoiding jobs that could emphasize them
- Targeting: focusing on a few carefully researched employers, especially smaller organizations which tend to be a lot more flexible and less bureaucratic
- Seeing the employer as a customer for your services: what problems can you solve for them?
- Identifying your personal network and using it with ruthless charm to help you contact people who might help you find a job
- Doing ‘research interviews’ which help you understand how people get jobs in that employer/sector and build awareness of your ‘brand’
- Building relationships and expanding your network
- Using social media to build your ‘brand’ – eg Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, a personal website
- Crafting your CV uniquely for each employer/possible job
- Using multiple methods of approaching an employer: social media, CVs, introductory letters, phone calls, emails
- Being willing to take short term assignments, secondments, part time work etc as a way of letting the employer see what you can do
- Understanding that the initiative ALWAYS lies with you
- Being persistent – realising that it can take up to 9 steps to make a sale – ie in this case the ‘product’ is you