To give yourself the best chance of finding employment, make sure that you conduct your own research as well. Spend time researching on the Internet. Look into different job posting websites and other recruitment websites that may list potential jobs that are relevant to you. Consider going directly to company websites that you wish to apply to you. Apply directly through their website, or print off an application, fill it in, and send it off to them.

When looking for local work, newspapers will also be helpful. Look in the classifieds section and the job listing section in various local, and even national, newspapers. Look for relevant job adverts that you could apply to you and follow the application instructions listed.

Quantity is important when searching for local job vacancies. The more you apply to, the better chance you will have of successfully entering the job market.

Do not waste anytime, and work on your resume. Again, your university career services can come in really handy as far as preparing your resume is concerned. You can get the details the details on various do and don’t from them. Work is in order for interviews as well.

Participate in mock interviews. Ask your family and friends to interview you. In this way, you will learn to respond well. Do not be mistaken into thinking interviews do not matter. They count a lot. Many people do not get jobs because they are not good at giving interviews. Work on your speaking skills. By practicing, you will get over your fear of speaking.

Few months before your graduation, start looking for internships. Internships are excellent ways to kick start your career. You can get permanently appointed if you perform well as an internee. In addition, you learn a lot.

Many people would testify hat they were able to professionally establish themselves because they started as interns. Internships also provide a way to get to know the important people.

Find a career coach. A career coach is the fastest, most effective way for you to find success in your job search. An experienced coach can pinpoint exactly what’s holding you back from your goals by looking at your particular situation, with your unique skills and experience. You can get resume help, role-play interview questions, and get strategies to help you get the offer.

Join a coaching club. There are coaching clubs that will provide you with regular topics that pertain to your job search. You can also find articles and videos online that will add to your knowledge and interview skill sets.

Go crazy with LinkedIn. (Well, not too crazy.) It’s just that LinkedIn is such an amazing resource for you. You can create a profile that will attract the attention of hiring managers and recruiters (if you need to, get professional help). You can join groups, participate in discussions, and make connections that will allow you to directly contact hiring managers for interviews.

If you are relying on the same things you’ve always done, or the same things everyone else is doing, then you’re probably not going to get great results. You want to make yourself stand out in the job market, and you want to be smart. Be strategic, and be willing to go the extra mile to land the job you want.

Add to this dismal fact that only about one-half of ALL available jobs are even advertised on the Internet. And, statistics show that only ten to twelve percent of all jobs advertised are filled with applicants from the job boards. When all jobs (advertised and unadvertised) are considered, the percentage of Internet applicants filling open positions is reduced to only five to six percent.

Vegas offers better odds of “winning” than this!

IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER HOW JOBS ARE REALLY CREATED

Following is the typical “cycle” for how companies create job openings:

Hiring managers have meetings. They think through upcoming possible employment needs. Or, they may be watching the lack of performance regarding certain employees. They begin to keep their eyes open. They talk to colleagues. They make a few phone calls to people they know and trust and ask the question, “Who do you know?”

The fact of the matter is, 26.7%, or nearly three out of ten jobs are filled from internal referrals, i.e., people from within the company recommend someone for hire. Many more positions are filled as the result of external referrals, and then, of course, there are the positions that are filled by recruiters.

Here is another disconcerting fact: One-half (or more) of a company’s openings are filled before they ever get posted! So, what you see on the job boards are merely “the leftovers.”

FATE OF THE TYPICAL INTERNET APPLICATION

My recruiting firm recently posted an ad for an opening in Charlotte, NC. We received 570 resumes in just three weeks! Let me tell you what these 570 applicants can realistically expect to receive for their efforts.

Typically, hiring managers want recruiters to present only three to five candidates for any given position they are trying to fill. So, let’s assume we present the maximum number of candidates, five. Your odds of being presented are 0.9% (5/570 = 0.00877 or, rounded up, 0.9%). Since only one person will be hired, your probability of being hired is now down to 0.18%.

Here is another example.

A potential client company recently received federal stimulus money which created 20 positions. They posted the positions and received over 14,000 resumes. i.e., 700 per opening. This gives you a 0.7% chance of being presented and a 0.14% chance of being hired!!

SIX ‘CHANNELS TO MARKET’ IN JOB SEARCH

Essentially, there are SIX major “Channels to Market” job seekers use to get their information in front of a hiring manager:

• Job Boards
• Job/Career Fairs
• Recruiters
• Networking
• Direct Mail
• Telephone Prospecting

While all six approaches have their place in a job-search, far and away the MOST effective approaches to use in today’s job market are these:

• Networking
• Direct Mail
• Telephone Prospecting

Job seekers who spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on the first “channel” cited above–Job Boards–are wasting a LOT of valuable time and energy and can expect to get back little, if anything, from their efforts in today’s job market. Yes, yes, I know… it USED to work, but I am here to tell you that it no longer does!

To be successful in today’s tremendously challenging job market, which is destined to only get MORE challenging, you must learn how to properly do networking. You must learn how to properly craft direct mail (letters and email). You must learn how to properly conduct telephone prospecting. Otherwise, you are destined to continue to do a whole lot of “wheel-spinning.” You are destined to face disappointment after disappointment, frustration after frustration. Wish I could tell you differently, but that, unfortunately, is the plain, simple truth!

SKIP FREEMAN is a veteran “headhunter” with offices in the Atlanta, GA, Metro Area. His professional recruiting firm, Hire to Win, is affiliated with the Management Recruiters International network. Skip’s recruiting firm is consistently among the Top 200 offices in the MRI network.

In the advertised market a candidate should:
• Identify the skills required of the advertised position.
• Analyse their skills to determine if they match 95% of their requirements.
• Modify their resumes to ensure that job requirements are addressed.
• Develop a cover letter to address gaps.
• Develop a follow up action plan and conduct regular follow-up.