The Connor Consultancy - Outplacement Services "We see things differently"
Outplacement Articles
Avoiding the Beauty Parade – The Smart Job Hunters Guide
Despite the end of the recession making the headlines and further, tentative signs of economic recovery being reported (recruitment agencies saw the strongest increase in role availability since June 2007), finding your next job remains a highly competitive and frequently frustrating experience. Even though the number of roles is increasing, the volume of people applying for these roles remains extremely high and is anticipated to remain so for at least 18 months. So what does the Smart Job hunter do to avoid this beauty parade?
Job vacancies typically fall into two camps; Reactive and Proactive. The Reactive routes include responding to adverts, on-line Job boards and recruitment agencies. These roles are highly visible which means you can see them, but so can all your competition! And so the beauty parade begins...
The Smart Job Hunter has another string to their bow, the Proactive method of finding ‘hidden jobs'. They understand that there is no-one better or more motivated to market them than themselves! As such they identify the types of companies who would be interested in hiring someone of their ilk and using the web and their network to identify who the decision makers are in those organisations. Rather than just writing a ‘give us a job' email they link their experience and skills to the challenges the target organisation are facing and suggest meeting for a coffee to explore the opportunity further.
This approach has a number of clear benefits:
- It cuts out the recruitment agency fees (typically 15-25%)
- It cuts out the competition and the beauty parade, as you are generating interest in yourself rather than ‘re-acting' to an advert.
- It allows you to demonstrate the competencies you say you have in your CV in the way you find your next role.
- It puts the Job hunter back in control of their Job Search.
It is funny that people regularly do things for their employers that they aren't prepared to do for themselves! For example any sales person complaining that the phone wasn't ringing with orders would be given short shrift and told to generate interest themselves. That is just what the Smart Job Hunter does!
