Finding A New Job Quickly
By Arthur Cooper
Today’s working environment is unpredictable. Economic downturns can arrive at any moment. Redundancy can swiftly follow. No-one is fully immune, and severance payoffs do not last for ever.
If you found yourself in that situation tomorrow could you cope? If you had to find yourself another job quickly in order to pay the bills, could you do it?
Here are the steps to follow.
1. Identify Your Skills
2. Analyse Your List
3. Identify The Job Sources
4. Take Action
1. Identify Your Skills
Think hard about what you are good at, and about what you enjoy. Since you usually enjoy what you do well, the two are often the same. Think back over your career to date and dig deep into the experiences you have had and the skills you have acquired.
List them all on paper. Leave nothing out. Be as objective and honest as you can. Don’t put something down just because you think it is what you need in today’s employment market place. Only put it down if it is a skill that you have here and now. Don’t forget, you are looking here at how to get a job quickly. You are not planning your long term training needs.
Think in terms of three main divisions of skill and divide up your list accordingly.
Firstly there are physical skills.
These are skills of aptitude, of working with your hands, manipulative skills, mechanical skills. These are skills required in a wide range of manual and hands-on jobs. Sometimes these skills have been acquired by way of a hobby rather than paid employment, but a hobby that can at some stage become the grounding for a new career doing something that you really enjoy. Don’t ignore these leisure-acquired skills.
Secondly there are knowledge based skills.
These are academic skills gained by formal study. These are skills gained as a result of book learning and training courses. These are specific technical skills related to a particular function. This is specialist knowledge absorbed as a result of working in a particular industry.
Thirdly there are people skills.
These are the team skills, the relational skills, the ability to get on with and work with other people. These are the skills of management. The skills of leading a team, the skills of winning arguments and convincing others.
2. Analyse Your List.
Now look at your list. See where you strengths lie. Think what you would like to do using those strengths. Decide on the job you would like using those strengths.
Be honest. Once again you must remember that your objective is to get another job in the shortest possible delay. Don’t base your hopes on skills you would like to have. Plan on using what you already have.
If your main skills are manual, base your plans on this. If you are more suited to a technical analytical job, go in this direction. If your aptitudes lie towards managing people and getting the best from a team, steer yourself that way. Play to your strengths.
3. Identify the sources
The easiest way to find jobs these days is on the internet. Just enter ‘job site’ or ‘employment agency’ or ‘job search’ into your search engine and see what you get. Your problem will be restricting the results to a manageable size. Limit your research by country or city or industry as appropriate in order to cut it down.
If you have a particular company in mind look on its web site if it has one. Companies often advertise vacancies there.
Look too at the principal newspapers of the geographic region in which you are looking. Again this could be country or it could be city. They can be a good source.
Finally there are your local agencies at which you can enrol.
4. Take Action.
This is when it all comes together.
Put your CV onto as many online jobsites as you can. It will be found by potential employers who will then come to you. This puts your name and qualifications up before a large number of employers quickly and easily.
Search the sites and newspapers and apply to as many job offers as meet your criteria. Adapt your CV to suit each application emphasising the particular skills and experience requested. Play the numbers game. If it looks suitable – apply. (But don’t waste your time on jobs that don’t fit your qualities).
Don’t be afraid to send out speculative letters to companies you like. You can often strike lucky, and your application is more likely to be seen when writing in this way.
Above all, keep going. Don’t give up. By knowing exactly what you are looking for and targeting your applications you stand a good chance of success.
In conclusion.
If you have not yet been forced to look for a new job it would not do you any harm to carry out the exercise of examining your skills. You will at least be forearmed should the need arise.
If you have lost your previous job, try to look on your situation as an opportunity rather than a disaster. This could be your chance to set out again in the direction you really want to go instead of carrying on indefinitely stuck in the rut into which you previously fell more by accident than design.
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