Landing a job can be challenging, especially since the pandemic is not yet over. The traditional way of applying by going out in a business suit with your résumé in your hands, looking for a company with a job opening, and getting interviewed face-to-face, is almost gone.
According to the Tech Republic, 86% of companies are conducting interviews online to hire candidates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the hiring process has changed and made it seem easier than the traditional one, it’s still not easy landing one’s dream tech job.
But these 5 tips that work may help you land yours!
- Create or Update Your Resume
- Do Job Hunting — Search for job openings
- Use Your Network
- Prepare For Interviews
- Keep Learning and Add Skills
1) Create or Update Your Resume — Build or Polish Your Own Weapon
Creating or updating your resume is a typical first step, but one of the most important! It is crucial to have a resume that really sells yourself to potential employers.
Employers and recruiters take an average of six (6) seconds to scan a resume. So your resume should:
- Grab the attention of employers or recruiters
- Highlight your achievements and strongest skills
- Match you to the position you are applying
- Help employers’ hiring decisions — in your favor
- Lead you to interview requests
A well-constructed resume makes it effective, and an effective resume will surely help you land your dream job. After all, your resume is one of your weapons in the competition of applications.
In addition, creating or updating your LinkedIn profile can also make a big impact. We’ll discuss why soon.
2) Search For Your Dream Job — Time to Hunt!
Your weapon — resume — is all set and polished; now it’s time for the hunt.
As mentioned earlier, there’s a new and modernized hiring process now, and you should create or update your LinkedIn profile.
Apollo Technical research shows more than 90% of recruiters search for candidates on LinkedIn.This means that most employers and recruiters look for candidates online. And an Indeed stats report stated that in 2016, there were 16 million job postings on their platform alone. This means that most of the jobs are posted online, so you should start your hunt there.
Your dream tech job should be out there, just waiting for you to find it, apply for it, get interviewed, and be hired.
3) Use Your Network — Friends Play a Big Role During The Hunt
Of course, looking and applying for a job is gonna be challenging. Like the traditional application process, you will — I mean surely will — face many rejections. Your resume is awesome, you found your dream job, but you just can’t get hired. It happens! You should have a mindset that there’s always someone who is more qualified for the role than you in that certain company.
You just have to never stop trying. There are still more ways to hunt for jobs. And one of them is using your own network.
Jobvite studied job seekers’ employment rates, and they found that 60% of employees were referred by their acquaintances or friend to the company they currently work for.
So use your current network. If you know that your network can’t help you directly, use theirs to widen your own. Go out there, be bold and ask for job openings related to your dream job. If they don’t have it in their companies, ask if they know someone who can help you. Tell them they can refer you; if not, go to them yourself and be acquainted with them. It’s always a benefit to have a wide network.
4) Prepare For Interviews to Nail Them — The Hunt is Done, It’s War
So, you’ve found your dream job, you have applied for it, and you received an interview invite!
According to Apac Insider research, 60% of recruiters conduct interviews online. So 40% still conduct them personally or face-to-face.
No matter how your interview will be conducted, you should always be prepared for it.
How?
Here are some of the ways to prepare for an interview, whether it will be conducted online or face-to-face:
Research the company
Learn the company’s history or traditions. Learn small details that might help you during your interview. Compliment the company if possible and if the flow of your conversation allows you. This will show your deep interest in the company.
Search for the usual job interview questions for the job you are applying for
Look for possible questions you will be asked and prepare an answer to each.
Prepare questions for the interviewer
Asking questions to the interviewer shows interest and attentiveness to your interview. But remember not to ask questions that will turn them off, like out of the topic or too personal questions.
Create a script
Creating a script on what you should say or answering questions you’ve researched can help you practice and remember better what you will say. But remember not to read the script during the interview. Just be familiar with it to remember what you will say when you are asked questions you prepared for.
Highlight your selling points without bragging
Make sure your interviewers are aware of your strengths and skills that you know are useful to the job you are applying for. Be confident with it, but not to the point that you are bragging.
5) Keep Learning and add skills — Never stop sharpening your sword
Learning should never stop. While creating or updating your resume, you should ask yourself, what skills should be in your resume that isn’t here?
While you’re job hunting, you’d see skills and requirements, or maybe just the bonus skills they ask but do not require yet you currently don’t have.
While you’re trying to widen your network and realize people in the industry you are trying to go into have knowledge about the things you aren’t familiar with but should be.
While you are preparing for the interview, you might see possible questions that you think you can’t answer at that moment.
List them all down, and seek to study and learn them. Keep learning, add skills, and be more qualified. What knowledge and skills you will acquire will surely help you when you are hired. Or even if you are rejected, your added skills will help you in your next interview and, of course, your whole life.
Wrapping Up
These tips aren’t the assurance that you will SURELY be hired the first time you try applying. But these are what you SHOULD do to prepare yourself for your dream tech job.
After all, as Benjamin Franklin said: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
