How to get your dream job

Job hunting can be a stressful activity, filled with uncertainty - it's difficult to know where to start and what to do. At 11 Recruitment, we have put together some advice to help guide you to get your dream job.

Where to start

To land your dream job, first, you need to work out what you want. While you may have numerous transferable skills and preferred industries, it's important to narrow your search to the most relevant roles. List your skills and compare them to:

The types of positions that you believe you would be suited to
The companies/industries you want to work in
Your preferred working hours
The salary you expect
And your preferred working location/s

This will become your wish-list, acting as a reference point when applying for roles. As such, this will help ensure that you are not wasting your time by applying for unsuitable positions.

Going into job hunting knowing exactly what you want and what you bring will lead you to success and closer to finding your dream job.

Job hunting tips

Get your dream job - business woman thinking

A different approach to job hunting

Looking at job boards is the most popular method of job hunting. As such, it's highly competitive. Another method is contacting an employment agency directly by emailing them or submitting your CV to their online portal. However, competition here is also high.

We suggest you take a different approach.

LinkedIn is an extremely valuable platform that enables you to:

Widen your network by connecting with potential employers or recruiting professionals.
Be your own salesperson by promoting yourself and your services.
And be at the right place at the right time - when an employer or agency has a vacancy, but they have not yet advertised.

The layout of LinkedIn is not particularly useful for conducting a job search. You can post your profile for millions to see. You can also apply for jobs. While there is the potential for employers and employment agencies to find you, the odds are against you. So, what should you do to stand out?

How to use LinkedIn like a salesperson

To effectively use LinkedIn, you must learn to utilise it the same way a salesperson does. Recruiters at employment agencies are used to being approached and they accept connection requests from everyone. Once you have sent out requests, you should:

Thank each recruiter for connecting, and ask them to keep your CV should any vacancies arise that may suit your skills.
Follow up three weeks later to see if any opportunities have arisen.
Ask the recruiter if they could give you the names of two people who might be able to help you. Reach out with a connection request to each of the new people and repeat the process.

You can initially send out a maximum of 3,000 connection requests. I advise limiting your connections with people who work at an employment agency to not more than 10% of your total connections.

Now, let’s do the maths. You send out 1,000 LinkedIn connection requests. An average Manager directly manages six employees. That means your 1,000 connections supervise 6,000 staff. If an employee stays for three years on average, that means that 2,000 of these current employees will resign per year. In other words, there are 167 job opportunities per month!

The trick is to connect with people who employ staff with your background. Hence why it is so important to be selective when deciding who to connect with. If you you take these steps, then statistically, you will be in the right place at the right time!

If you want to start sending your CV out to potential employers but are finding it difficult to decide what you should and should not include, you may also be interested in our CV writing service. Click the button below to find out more.

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