With unemployment rates at their highest level in decades, it takes much more than just a decent resume, a strong connection with a bank manager, or even a general manager in a reputable company to land a job. While you quest after your dream job, HR managers spend an equivalent amount of time hunting for the best catch for their open vacancies. This is mainly due to the faulty Egyptian education system which produces a huge pool of unqualified candidates and applicants.
The two sides of the supply and demand process in this case are the candidate and the company. I asked myself several times, after taking into consideration unqualified applicants and shortages in vacancies, how can I be the employee of choice? Am I a good catch? And how can I find the most convenient and suitable job for me?
I figured out that everyone should have a job-searching strategy. And to build your own strategy, you have to go through and answer the questions below:
1. Identification
Who am I? What do I want and need? What am I looking for? The most common mistake the majority of fresh graduates do is say that they want to work anything. “Anything” is not a reachable point.
First, you have to identify what is unique about you, what sets you apart: your skills, competences, knowledge, experience, and achievements.
Second, identify your destination. Set a clear, identified target after determining what makes you special; no one can find an unidentified thing. One of the most important things that you have to do in setting your job searching strategy is knowing which kind of job you are looking for. It shouldn’t necessarily be related to your educational background, it could be related to a talent you have, a language you know or civil work experience you gained and decided to shift your career path towards.
2. Do Your Homework
After the identification step, you now know your current status and which destination you want to embark on, and it’s finally time to write everything you learned in a curriculum vitae (CV) or resume. CV is a summary of one’s education, career objective, professional history, and job qualifications, for a prospective employer.
Sadly, the Egyptian education system is so focused on your academic performance, or teaching students particular technical knowhow, that they forget to prepare you for the big world of practical work, and many students are unaware of how to write a CV. As a matter of fact, your CV will be, without a doubt, the single most important part of getting a job, so you have to start right now.
As recruiters in HR departments, we receive hundreds of CVs every day. This makes your homework a little bit harder, because your CV needs to be catchy, summarized and to the point, highlighting the qualifications and the work experience the job requires. You will figure out all of these points from the job post itself, which means your CV will be modified according to the vacant position you are applying for. Try to keep your CV informative and interesting to read, neither too long nor too short. Always remember to do a spell check; bad spelling is a complete ‘no-no’ and it’s easily avoidable.
3. Where to Start?
Okay, let me summarize the previous points: first you discover yourself and what is unique about you, then you determine your target job. Finally you need to have a CV ready to be sent and distributed.
Now you are ready to start job hunting. There are various ways to search for a job which can be differentiated in two categories:
A. Online:
Do you know that feeling of remembering one of your old friends and wanting to say hi? The first thing that comes to mind is Facebook! You didn’t have to scan through dozens of phone books, you just typed your friend’s name into the search box and immediately you were chatting with someone who had seemed like a distant dream only a few minutes before.
This is essentially how the online search for a job works. Job search engines and custom alerts do most of the boring legwork for you, leaving you to get down to business with potential employers whose job descriptions and salary offers line up with what you’re looking for. There are many channels for the online job searching:
- Recruitment Websites: They are a type of websites through which companies promote themselves and announce vacancies they have. You build you CV on the website and the companies use this database to search for suitable candidates. Moreover, you can customize the recruitment website search engine to search for the most suitable job for you.
- Companies’ Newsletters: If you are targeting a specific company in a particular industry, you can register on their website and subscribe to the newsletter allowing you to be regularly updated with the new vacancies they have.
- Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. From my point of view, social media is a key player in the job-search process today, which is probably why half of all job seekers are active on social networking sites on a daily basis. Employers use social networks to screen potential candidates, browse their social media profiles to evaluate their characters and personalities. Some even base their hiring decisions on their findings.
B. Offline:
Offline means that you are not electronically connected to the internet. It depends more on real interaction and your referrals and networks. It also includes many channels like:
- Acquaintances: Surely you know somebody who is working as an HR somewhere, let the people know that you are looking for a job, check with your old college friends, for sure some are working right now or know someone who can help. Try to expand your network as much as you can; it’s always better to know someone on the inside to give you all the updates.
- Recruitment Events: Maybe this method has become a little out-dated; however, companies still pay a lot of money to rent a table at such events. Moreover, as a candidate with a ready CV and good business card, you can build new connections with the company’s HR team, which will obviously be of great benefit to you. I know this has become less trusted because the majority of the companies participate just for branding purposes, but the new connections you will build are worth it.
- Knocking Doors: Collect the data of the companies you want to work with. First, try to contact them through the online methods discussed above or even call them. However, if they are still unreachable, you have to knock the door. Prepare your CV, take the initiative and visit them and ask about the new open vacancies that they have. From our HR perspective, we consider those candidates initiative characters which increases their credit.
In the end, it’s a win-win situation; you need the job and the company needs an employee. We spend a lot of time trying to find you: the qualified candidate for the position. So be ready, and start the job-searching game!
Mostafa Mohamedy
EDITOR: Nada Adel Sobhi