Effective Job Search Strategies: 6 Super Strategies to Find that Perfect Job
Why Students Need to Develop Effective Job Search Skills
As with most things in life, success is very rarely the result of an accident. A career is not something students want to leave to the mercy of chance.
Finding a rewarding job is an art form and we shouldn’t expect that our students will leave school and stumble effortlessly into their dream careers right off the bat.
It’s essential that we help them maximize their chances of finding the perfect fit job-wise by sharing with them the most effective job search strategies out there.
In this article, we’ll review six tried-and-tested job search strategies students can use to ensure a fruitful job search. Each of these job search strategies is supported by a practical activity you can use in class immediately.
Let’s get started.
The 6 Super Job Search Strategies
1. Get Organized
For students to maximize their chances of a successful job search, they’ll first need to get organized.
It might be helpful for students to think of this process as similar to online dating. However, finding a good job requires a more Match.com approach to the process than a Tinder one.
Setting goals and deadlines and tracking and recording efforts made will help the student develop a systematic approach to landing that dream job.
To do all of this effectively, students should:
- Set realistic goals and deadlines and stick to them
- Break big tasks down into several smaller ones
- Prioritize tasks and complete them in order of importance
- Review progress on a regular basis and adapt as necessary.
Having a clear record of the actions they’ve undertaken will help the student avoid needless replication of efforts.
Keeping a journal of these efforts is a useful investment of time. Students should record the actions they’ve undertaken and the result of those actions.
They should also keep track of dates and times too. This will help with follow-up later.
It’s also worthwhile to keep a note of contact names and other important details – there is nothing quite as sweet for an individual to hear as the sound of their own name.
Get Organized Activity
As students begin to get organized, they should keep a Job Search Record to keep track of actions, deadlines, completion dates, and outcomes.
Some possibilities of things to include on their Job Search Record might include:
- Checking job vacancies
- Applying for jobs
- Updating resume
- Writing cover letters
- Registering with agencies
Here’s a snippet of what a running record of tasks might look like:
| JOB SEARCH RUNNING RECORD | |||
| Action | Deadline | Completion Date | Outcome |
| Search for jobs on www.supergreatjobs.com | 19th June | 20th June | Applied for a job as a graphic designer with The Super Design Company |
| Contact Kate at Delightful Designs | 20th June | 21st June | No vacancies currently, but said to call back in about a month. |
2. Use Local Organizations
When students begin their job searching in earnest, they’ll discover that there are a wealth of governmental and non-governmental organizations dedicated to supporting them in their endeavors.
Most districts in most countries will have a local government job center. The job seeker can visit centers such as these to avail of free support. Not only will they find many local job vacancies, but they may also get the opportunity to speak to an advisor who will help guide them in their job-hunting efforts too. These kinds of services are usually free.
As well as job centers, recruitment agencies are often well-placed to help the job seeker find work.
Unlike government job centers, these agencies usually take a fee from the job seeker or the employer, or both. Therefore, the job seeker should be sure to check how things work with each agency before they register.
Local Organizations Activity
Doing a little online research, ask students to identify three local organizations that can help them find suitable employment.
They should find the location, opening hours, and what type of support they offer. Students should write these details down. They may also like to save the locations of each organization on their phones via Google Maps.
They should plan a visit to each organization as part of their job search. They should also plan follow-up visits as job vacancies change all the time.
Remember to remind the students to record everything on their Job Search Record.
3. Scour Local Newspapers
Local newspapers used to be the mainstay of the average job seeker. Now, most people’s go-to when looking for work is the Internet.
While there’s no doubt that the Internet is a very valuable tool, the worth of the local newspaper shouldn’t be overlooked. While the Internet is a vast, global entity, your local rag specializes in one thing only – your local area!
For this reason, the job vacancies in the classified section of a local paper are often a rich and under-utilized source of job openings. Don’t overlook it.
Local Newspaper Activity
Students go out and buy their local newspaper/s. They scour the job vacancies in the classifieds section, circling ones that interest them and recording their details.
Remind students that newspapers are periodicals. This means that they’ll need to check them regularly on a weekly or even daily basis for new job listings.
As always, students should record any activity on their Job Search Record.
4. Search Online
In this digital age, online job boards are often the first port of call on a hunt for the perfect position. And boy are there a lot of options out there!
While many of the big hitters such as Indeed and Monster offer positions globally, other websites have a more regional focus. Of course, the big sites also let you use filters to refine your search to restrict it to your local area.
Other sites such as FlexJobs focus primarily on remote work-from-home type jobs.
Online job seekers should pay attention to the dates when job posts they’re interested in were posted. Sometimes the perfect job may pop up, only for the seeker to discover it has long since been filled but the job poster has neglected to remove it. Good sites will, however, have procedures in place to ensure vacancies posted are valid.
Jobs boards aren’t the only online tool available to facilitate effective job searches. Websites such as Glassdoor are very useful for doing a little research on companies you’re interested in working for.
LinkedIn is also a great tool for building a network and for contacting recruiters directly. For those with a profile, there is a range of features available to help recruiters and job seekers to find each other.
Some other sites allow the job hunter to post their resume online for recruiters to contact them directly.
However, students should be very careful here. Posting personal details in an online public space can leave the poster open to people of poor character more interested in scamming, identity theft, harassment, etc. than they are in filling positions of employment.
Also, sometimes employers are reluctant to use online profile sites to contact potential recruits as, just like with the job boards above, frequently they will contact the resume owners only to discover they’ve long since found employment but have neglected to update their new employment status on the site.
If students do intend to use such sites, remind them of the importance of keeping things up to date.
Online Job Searching Activities
Challenge students to go online and find their Top 3 useful sites for online job searches. They make a note of these sites.
Students then use the various search filters to find jobs that interest them and choose their top 3, again, recording the details of these.
It’s then time to decide on subsequent actions to take, all of which can be recorded on their Job Search Record.
5. Widen Your Network
Networking is an extremely effective way to find a job, particularly for those who are already established in their chosen profession or trade.
Obviously, younger people such as students may not yet have established themselves in their employment areas of interest.
However, that doesn’t mean they can’t begin to practice their networking chops. Practice makes perfect, after all.
Networking helps connect the job seeker with potential employers in an organized manner. The idea is here is to connect with other people to uncover potential opportunities of mutual interest.
Essentially, there are two basic types of networking: face-to-face and online.
i. Face-to-Face Networking
The best place for the job seeker to begin their networking efforts is with the people they know best. This will help them to build the confidence they’ll need to venture outside their comfort zone.
The student informs family and friends they are looking for work, asking them to look out for suitable opportunities and spread the word within their own circle.
As confidence grows, students can then spread the word further afield by speaking to teachers, religious and community leaders, acquaintances, etc. Who knows quite where that perfect opportunity may lie?
Then, it’s time to widen the net beyond speaking with individuals by engaging with organizations such as volunteer groups, hobby clubs, and sporting organizations, for example.
ii. Online Networking
The Internet can be a powerful tool for networking. Essentially, there are two types of networking websites: social and professional.
Social Networking Websites
These are very popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. They can be a lot of fun as well as an effective tool for virtually meeting with others with a view to finding employment.
However, job seekers need to use their time wisely on these sites. They can become a counterproductive time-suck distracting the student from their job-searching efforts.
While we’re on the topic, students should also be careful what they post on social media platforms as potential employers may have access to those wild party pictures too!
As well as social media platforms, there are also all sorts of groups, special interest forums, and blogs where opportunities to engage with potential contacts exist. These are great ways to keep up to date with industry trends and they can provide openings to connect with people who work in these industries. Who knows where such interactions might lead.
Professional Networking Websites:
The best-known professional networking site is, of course, LinkedIn. This online social media platform for professionals is a veritable powerhouse of networking opportunities, but it will require a considerable upfront investment of time and effort on the part of the jobseeker to set up their profile (if they don’t already have one) and to learn the wide range of functionalities available on the platform.
Once they have a profile set up, the student can join lots of public and private groups based on common interests where job leads are often shared. Members can also send and accept connection requests from other members as well as set their profile to ‘Open to Work’ to make their availabiliy clear to potential employers.
LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for jobseekers to widen their network in a short period of time.
Networking Activity
If they don’t already have a LinkedIn profile, get your students to set one up by following the platform’s online instructions to complete their profile.
Once their profile is set up, it’s time to widen their network. A connection request can be automatically sent to anyone in the student’s email address book to get started by connecting accounts.
Students should then set themselves a target of getting to 100 connections in 1 month. That means adding approximately three people per day. To achieve this, and allowing for 2 requests getting rejected, they’ll need to send out about five or six requests per day to reach their target.
Encourage students to personalize their invitations to connect, where possible. This will ensure a much higher likelihood of the connection request being accepted.
6. Contact Potential Employers Directly
By now, you’ll have noticed after each of the strategies in this article there is an accompanying activity. That’s because job searching is an active process.
It’s important that we help our students to approach the act of finding a job with some aggression. There’s no point in them sitting back and waiting for their dream job to fall into their lap. No one is out there headhunting inexperienced school leavers for high-paying, rewarding jobs.
Instead, encourage your students to be proactive. One great way to do this is by contacting potential employees directly – even if they haven’t advertised a suitable vacancy.
This shows initiative and it might just secure the student a chance to get that all-important foot in the door.
Contact Employers Activity
Set the students the task of identifying a company they would like to work for. This may be a company they have already come across during their previous job search activities.
Once they’ve identified the company they’d like to work for, instruct them to do a little online research to find out more about the company and who is head of hiring.
Then, have students write a speculative email introducing themselves to the contact person and inquiring if there are any current vacancies.
As a class, take the time to share these emails with each other and critique them. What did each student do well and what could they do to improve their email.
Ultimately, students will need to invest the time required to create their own cover letter and resume as both are essential elements of any formal job application.
If you want to learn all you need to know about how to teach cover letter writing to your students, check out our complete guide on How to Write a Cover Letter right here.
You’ll also find our How to Write a Great Resume instructional article here.
The Tip of the Iceberg
These six job search strategies represent the tip of the job searching iceberg but, undoubtedly, they are all very effective strategies in their own right.
Don’t forget, if you want that free job search activity template, you can click here.
CREDITS:
Author: Shane Mac Donnchaidh
Images: Vectorjuice on Freepik.com, and Canva