One of the most significant differences between the job market of the past and the job market of today is the need to sell yourself. If you are unable to sell yourself to recruiters you have to work on your weaknesses to get your dream job.
Those who ignore this aspect of modern job hunting are likely to find themselves stuck in a string of unfulfilled jobs.
You have to adapt new strategies, you need to start thinking like a marketer, you should work on your career plan and skill set if you want your dream job.
If you still think that the traditional approach of finding a job is going to work for you, then you are going to stuck in a string of unfulfilling jobs, up-gradation is the key to success. Remember what happened to Nokia when they just ignored the new technology changes and continued their old practices.
In this journey of job search, before starting the process of job search you need to identify what is your dream job? In which industry you want to work? What are your skills?
If you want your dream job you need to identify the job market, industry, and skill set required for those roles.
Five things you should do before initiating the job search process:
· Identify and segment the locations of the industry
· For which industry you want to work in those locations
· Select 15 companies in that industry you want to work
· Identify roles being offered by those companies
· Which designation you are looking for in those companies, identify the hierarchy of the company
Now that you have identified the locations you are available for work, industry, companies, roles, hierarchy here is what you have to do next.
The rule of 33%
The rule of 33%, has anyone heard about this rule? It says that 33% of your time you should spend with mentors and experienced persons who have gone through the path that you’ve just started, people who are in the industry for which you want to work for.
Spending your time with experienced people will give you insights that you can get by working for decades, learning from their experiences, mistakes that they made at that time, challenges that they faced in their journey can help you to embrace your future.
LinkedIn- “your virtual resume”
If you are searching for a new job or about to start your career you may come across the app LinkedIn, but are you utilising this app enough to get you to your dream job. If you think that by just creating an account, adding connections is going to get you a good job then you’re wrong,
What to do?
Have you ever checked your social selling index(SSI), this is a great tool to analyze your profile, it will calculate your net-worth on basis of 4 parameters.
1. Your professional brand
2. People you connect with
3. Engagements
4. Building relationship
If your SSI score is below 65, you should start working on your profile because what’s get measured is what’s get improved, how?
Implement the 30-minute rule!
· Do you produce content on LinkedIn? If not start producing the content, show your skills, ability, and talent. Content that attracts the right people to your page build your professional brand.
· Connect to the people who work for the industry you want to work for, reach out to the employees, employers, friends who are related to the same industry.
· Engage yourself in content posted on LinkedIn.
If you do these 3 things it will help you to increase your presence and attract the right recruiters to your profile.
It’s all about Networking
Networking the most important and ignored tool in the job search.
Though finding connections and reaching out to new people may be uncomfortable for some but with some effort and strategy, you can outreach and build connections.
When it comes to building a network, network in alignment with your goal job portals and social platform like LinkedIn plays a very important role to reach out to potential employers.
As mentioned earlier to improve your portfolio profile in LinkedIn you need to reach out to people who are from the same industry, but by just adding them to your connection makes difference? NO
Take a step ahead and interact with the people who are from your industry or company, make appointments for interaction, interview them gather information about the industry that’s what known as NETWORKING! Because then people will recognize you, they will see your skills, ability, talent, and refer you for the roles offered in companies.
Skills – what is your NET-WORTH?
Why a company should hire you? Or will you hire yourself? Based on what skills you’ll hire?
Do you have the skills required for the job or you need to upgrade your skills or acquire a new skill set? You should know your worth, your capabilities, skills, ability to get your dream job.
Research what skills you can acquire that adds value to your career map, to have a good career map you should have the right skill sets both technical and non-technical skills, non-technical skills such as interpersonal skills, communication skills, presentation skills are very important to close the deal in front of the recruiter while technical skills will prove your worth.
Adapt to ATS
ATS- Applicant tracking system an AI-based software technology that helps recruiters to hire, but an ATS does more than just track applications—it can also act as a filter, parsing every resume submitted and forwarding only the most relevant, qualified job seekers to a hiring manager or recruiter. That’s the resume-scanning technology you’ve probably heard about.
How you can you adapt to ATS?
· First and foremost, make sure you’re applying for roles that you’re qualified for. If you are applying everywhere you’re going to end nowhere.
· Include Right keywords, one of the ways the ATS narrows an applicant pool is by searching for specific keywords. It’s like a Google search on a much smaller scale.
· Don’t try to trick ATS, don’t overuse keywords in a resume.
· Easy to Read resume, fortunately, ATS-friendly resume formatting is very similar to recruiter-friendly formatting.
· Avoid fancy Formatting, like tables, graphics, images, hyperlinks, uncommon fonts, logos.
The Bottom line
Looking for a dream job is a process in today’s job market, you can’t expect recruiters to find you if you don’t showcase your work. Just keep in mind that there are lots of ways that you can set yourself apart and get ahead of the pack. Be active, open-minded, and adaptive to market, upgrade yourself constantly, and use every resource available to find the best opportunity.
