If you’re currently looking to find a new career path, you’re probably spending quite a bit of time on your search. To help maximize your time and become more efficient at finding and applying for jobs, here are a few tactics to try for speeding up the process and landing the career you’re hunting for.
Find Positions You Are Excited About
When you’re exploring career options that fit your education, personality, and experience, you’ll want to identify positions you feel excited about and have the skill level to obtain. After you’ve done this, start a search online at some of the top job websites, like monster.com, workopolis.com, and indeed.ca.
Make a list of job titles that match the career you are looking for, based on the requirements or qualifications. Some companies or industries slightly change the name of position titles, but their job descriptions are more telling whether a position will suit your skills.
Be prepared for the search
As a Brighton student, you have the opportunity to work with our career development services staff in refining your job search strategies and using our network of employers to find potential careers. You can get help updating your cover letter and resume as well as updating your interviewing or networking skills in order to find a new career path.
Target Your Resumes:
To get the best results when on your job search, don’t send out the same resume to each employer. Customize each resume to match their job posting. This can be as simple as matching their qualifications with yours or ensuring your objective outlines a similar position description.
Customizing your resume to the job posting can be one of the more time-consuming tasks when looking for a career, but it also differentiates between effective and non-effective job searchers.
Read the job posting carefully and ensure that your work experience section in your resume emphasizes the points mentioned in the job posting. This can help the employer quickly see that your experience and skills fit the job description, which is the first step to being invited for an interview.
Aim High but Within Reach:
There can be a wide range of positions that you find during your search; some of them may require more experience and others more education, though neither reason should prevent you from applying to them. There can be times where employers put their ideal requirements as part of the job posting, but there have been many cases where similar or equivalent qualifications have also been acceptable variables for a position type.
They might be trying to fill an open position and combine it with another desired position, creating a unicorn persona that they are unlikely to find. It’s the HR or hiring person’s way of seeing who they can find to fill the shoes in that department and possibly any missing gaps they feel they have at the same time.
It Never hurts to apply
Another great rule to follow: it never hurts to apply. Interviewing for these positions can be healthy professional development and, in cases where your skills are limited, an opportunity to prove your value may present itself.
Try to keep things in perspective, as applying to many jobs where the qualifications are exceeding your own, is probably not the most efficient way to land a career. Apply for jobs that you find interesting and that you have more than 65% of the qualifications or requirements they are looking for. And don’t be shy if you don’t meet the years of experience requirement, as its a general guess time. You never know where that application will take you. Use these tips to help you find a new career path.
Need the skills required for your new career? We can help. Talk to an educational advisor today, and get the help you need to start a new career. Call 604-430-5608 or fill out the form below to request more information.
