Our Top Tips to Kick Off your Search for a New Job

The time has come to kick off your search for a new job. Great! There are a few things you need to do to get your ducks in a row to find a new job, so we’ve put together our top tips. Even if it’s still early stages, making sure everything is in order means when you start looking for your next career move, you are ready to go.

Know What you Want

While you might not know exactly what job you are after or what company you want to work for, it’s a good idea to know what you want and what is important to you. Is it the location, the hours, the culture, the industry? Perhaps it’s about the opportunities for career progression? While you can’t dictate every detail (you need to be a little flexible), know what is important to you in your next job is very important.

Tailor your Resume

Now that you know you want, you need to tailor your resume to those goals. Highlight and focus on what you want and how you’ve got experience to suit this. Is it about the industry, the role, or the skills? How can you tailor your past experience to demonstrate that you already have some of the required skills/experience? Make sure that you are not giving up too much space and time focusing on superfluous experiences and skills that won’t be relevant to what you want in your new job.

Take a new Profile Photo

A photograph on your resume is unnecessary and outdated. However, you do need to have an updated profile photo on your LinkedIn profile. This is one of the first places recruiters and line managers will go prior and post your job interview. Make sure you have a professional, up to date headshot.

Online Audit

While you are updating your LinkedIn headshot, take a moment to run a social media and online audit of yourself. What comes up when you google yourself? Don’t just look at the first page of results, jump onto the images tab too. What about on Facebook and other social media channels? Do you need to increase your privacy settings? Think like a prospective employer, if they Google you and see you online, will they still want to hire you?

Practice your Story

Parts of a job interview and recruitment process will be like a storytelling session that you have to say over and over again. You need to create a structured story that highlights your key experience, skills and attributes while making it exciting enough to retain a stranger's interest. Practice. Find a way to make your story appealing, engaging and that sells yourself.

Tap into your Network

When you are ready to start looking for your new job, you need to tap into your existing network. Let old colleagues and managers know that you are looking for a new job. Ask them to let you know of any opportunities they hear of. If you know someone who works in an organisation that you’d like to join, reach out and let your contact/network know.

If you have any other questions about preparing to look for your next job, please feel free to get in touch with our team of recruiters here at Talent Connect.