Professionals & Freshers: 5 Highly Effective Job-hunting Techniques

Today's market is such that there are a number of job opportunities for people. At the same time, there is enough scope of changing careers or jobs. In fact, going by the current scenario, if a person has to make it big in their life, it is expected that they will have to go through a couple of job changes in between. This obviously means that at the beginning of your career (and a couple of times in the middle of your career), you will have to go about searching for a job.

It is while making these job changes that a person meets the dilemma of how to go about selecting a job. Indeed, that is nothing simple and having a greater number of options only makes matters worse. This is because, by increasing the number of options, it becomes all the way more difficult to identify which of the options will be more effective than the other.

This is the exact confusion that exists in today's digital work where networking can take place at the click of a button. Today, most people use the Internet for their job-hunting needs. In such a situation, this article talks about 5 most effective ways to go about with your job-searching activities. The tips that are discussed in this section are applicable to both freshers as well as professionals.

1. Modify Your Resume And LinkedIn Profile

These days, the job scenario is all about dynamics and companies look for candidates who are tailor-made for the profile that they are advertising for. Thus, giving out a standard resume to every organisation will not lead you anywhere. Try to personalise your resume based on the company and position that you are applying for.

Similarly, update your LinkedIn profile. Understand that most recruiters will go through your LinkedIn profile and if the same does not match with that of your resume, chances of you bagging the job are minimal.

Another point to note here is that while making such frequent changes to your LinkedIn profile, it is a good idea to consider changing the settings of your activity broadcast so that your current employers, if they are a part of your LinkedIn connections, won't be intimated of your job search.

2. Target Companies

While it is a good idea to keep your mind open, the same cannot be said while you're applying for jobs. It is always better to have a clear focus here. Identify the companies where you would like to work. Once that is done, follow those two or three companies in LinkedIn, Glassdoor and all other places.

This will help you to keep yourself informed of any vacancies that may arrive in these places. This type of early awareness will then pave the way for you to apply for the said posts and land yourself responsible positions. If you just apply to companies randomly, you will not be able to keep a track of the new vacancies that are coming up in the company of your choice.

3. Go Beyond Digital Job Hunting

We are not asking you to give up on digital job hunting altogether. Go by your usual means, wherein you apply for a job from the online portal. Many companies, in fact, give you the option of directly applying from their website. However, the trick here is not to stop after the application.

Go ahead and find out if there is someone in your peer circle who works in that particular organisation. Try to talk about this to them. In the world of job searching, networking is what will take you places.

Once that is done, the next thing would be to try to find out if there is some internal recruiter you can get in touch with. By getting on the radar of the few people who can influence your job you will actually be increasing your chances of getting one.

4. Be Clear

The initial stages of any recruitment process involve resume selection. This is usually done by a computer-aided process. Some companies have lower level HR staff to do the same. In either case, you cannot expect the system or the staff to be familiar with the technical jargons and the finer intricacies of the post that you are applying for.

So, try to keep it simple and appealing. This will ensure that you make your way past the first screening. Understand that once you are past that, you can work your charm on the people looking to hire you.

5. Say 'Thank You'

Needless to say, how you behave during the interview will determine your chances of getting a job. What is equally important is how you behave after the interview. By sending genuine thank you letters to the people interviewing you, you will actually be increasing your chances of bagging a job.

There are two things that must be borne in mind here. Firstly, the speed at which you send the thank you note. The faster you are at this, the higher will be your chances of getting the job. The second thing that you must consider here is how personal is the note that you are sending out.

By writing a general robotic thank you, you will actually be doing yourself more harm than good. Make sure that each interviewer gets a different note and that you mean what you are sending them.