How To Jump Start Your Jobsearch
How to Kick Start your Jobsearch this New Year
Is this a good time of year to begin your jobsearch? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” For employers there’s a sense of starting with a clean slate. You should make the most of the vim and enthusiasm that comes with a fresh spreadsheet of targets!
The Iron is Hot, so Strike!
If you think about it, businesses will have just set their objectives for the year and they’ll have worked out whether they need more staff to reach those targets. They may have won an important tender which necessitates the hiring of skills or expertise they don’t currently have. Recruitment budgets will have been approved. There will still be a sense of new beginnings and the enthusiasm and momentum that goes with them, making it much more likely that the recruitment will take place and quickly. So be ready.Take it a step further and emulate employers by making your own plan for the year ahead. Having a new plan is a really great way to re-energise your search.Where recruiting someone is part of the business plan, the job will probably be advertised in the press or on a jobs aggregator site. But of course a very significant proportion of posts never make it into a job ad – over three-quarters in fact.People are taken on because of a strong recommendation from a recruitment consultant, a trusted associate or employee. Sometimes a position is created for someone who comes across the boss’s radar. Is now a good to time to go looking for below-the-line jobs? Once again, of course it is!
Network
The start of the year is a really great time to get out networking. Your professional organisation or local chamber has probably just announced a busy programme of free events, maybe even some training courses. So get yourself along to as many events as you can and put the feelers out. And don’t just talk to the people you already know; force yourself to meet new contacts.Meeting someone well connected for a coffee could yield some useful insider knowledge and perhaps a critical introduction. Make use of all your networks; professional and personal.If you’re out of work, you may have plenty of time on your hands so consider volunteering for a role on the organising committee or sub-committee. Influential people will see your skills in action, which can only be a good thing.Make sure you use social occasions too. Ask new people you meet what they do. Ireland is such a small country. You just never know who knows whom.
Horses for Courses
You don’t have to wait for an advert to appear to register with a recruitment agency. Be proactive – do some research on the right agency for your geographic location or sector and go ahead and register. A chat with the recruitment consultant could result in a whole new approach or target market for your skills. Remember, you are the expert at what you do; the recruitment consultant is the expert at placing you in the right job.Think about it, a recruitment agency is just like any other business. It will have set its own targets and the consultants will be out there trying to generate business, so the start of a new year is a really great time to introduce an expert recruiter.On that note, you can register with Celtic Careers right here on our website!Good luck. May 2018 be the year of your new job.