Job Hunting over Christmas
Hints for graduate job seekers
For any recent graduates looking for employment opportunities, why not take advantage of the holiday season to refine your job hunting skills.
Here are some tips from ProGrad to help you over the festive season!
1) Start off with re-writing your resume. It shouldn’t be more than 2 pages long and should be filled with RELEVANT and concise information. Ensure your career objective highlights specifically what you’re looking to achieve with your graduate career. Ensure that your language is not too generic. Your work experience needs to discuss the skills you have generated, not just the tasks that you completed.
2) Don’t take a machine-gun approach to job applications. Take your time to really research the type of job you want. Get some knowledge about the type of role that would satisfy your personality. Don’t limit yourself in the industry, but do be specific about the role (job) you would want.
3) Then start to apply, slowly and carefully to roles that appeal to you. Keep a note of the roles you have applied for and which companies they’re with. It is also worth tracking the company phone numbers too, as this will ensure you can make follow-up calls in January about your application.
4) Start to research information about job interviews and types of questions you can expect. Ensure that in the New Year, you are well researched, well prepared and well rehearsed for interviews. This will all help in your job applications in January 2010.
More than anything, don’t be lazy. Don’t expect that your degree is enough to land you your dream job. Be proactive, and contact people directly. Speak to humans on the telephone, not through the internet. This is such a simple skill, and yet massively under-utilised by graduate job seekers.