I remembered when back in my younger days as I was about to complete my degree education, it had been quite an anxious and worrying situation for me. Suddenly, I felt like I have finally reached the stage where it is time for me to work for REAL. Not just any part time job that makes me some extra pocket money, but to build a career for me to make a serious living
A forest of questions kept popping in my head. Questions like:
“I want to pursue a career in marketing. I don’t how where to start.”
“I want to join Nike, Apple, Heineken, P&G, Unilever or whoever’s marketing team. HOW? Who can I speak to?”
“Will they hire me? Why will they hire me?”
Many of my classmates, school mates, friends around me were of the same age. Most of them were just as clueless as me. Some of them wish to wait till their exam or wait till they get their certificates before they make some time to think this through.
Some gave me the advice of looking through the newspaper for job openings (if Nike happens to be hiring, great), send in my resume and see what happens next.
Some asked me to pursue another education, so I can park this issue aside for another prolonged period of time.
Every advice makes sense but does not sound right to me. Maybe because I’ve quite disruptive characteristics which does not allow me to follow the crowd behaviour. Whenever people zip, I prefer to zap. I can image what most post graduates will be doing in their job seeking efforts. I decide to do this differently from the rest, perhaps, this will lead me to arrive at a different outcome, hopefully a better one (it did turns out to be a better career move). Here are some of the steps I took which you may wish to consider as well:
– Shortlist companies you want to work for, not companies that appear on the jobs classified section. When dream jobs at dream companies do not come to you, you go to them instead.
– Do some research to understand their issues and problems that your ideal companies might be facing. And understand how you might make a difference if they were to hire you. (ie: how you can increase revenue, or reduce expenses for them) If you don’t know how to value add or make a difference with you on board, your potential employer will not have compelling reasons why they should engage you.
– Draft your resume that presents yourself as the solution, illustrates what makes you special.
– Send out your resume to the ONE who will give a dame about your resume. If you send to the wrong personnel, they will simply disregard your resume, and all your chance and efforts will go to waste. Find out who are the relevant personnel who will probably be interest to know how your capabilities would affect them positively. It might be HR because they found a rare talent; might be the CEO/MD/GM/some directors who are looking for a worthy apprentice. Google for their names and use ways and means to get their contacts from twitter, facebook, linkedin, online business news and publications, company website, chatrooms, forum, blogs, etc. Get their email address. If you can’t get their email, send your resume directly to their office address, attention to their names.
Happy job hunting.
Refer to strongerhead before 30 for most postings on job hunting advice http://strongerhead.com/?cat=16
