You may have read a lot of advice on how to get good paying jobs. Or you may have not.
This is not your usual advice. It is core practical advice on how you can move from not having a good enough job to getting a job that makes you happy.
We try to keep it simple and easy.
1. Find Your Selling Point
Everybody has a few strong points, qualities and abilities. Find what yours is. That way you can leverage it into an advantage. Do you know how to make people feel at ease? Know how to talk to strangers? Are you very good with analysing data? Are you very creative?
Whatever it is you have as qualities, those can be tied to a particular type of job. You just need to list your selling points and find the jobs they are relevant to.
2. Find What Interests You?
To get a fulfilling job it has to be related to something you would enjoy doing. For some who love to relate with people, or handle people related issues, Human Resources might be a good outlet.
So find your interests and you’ll be closer to defining the kind of jobs you will perform well at.
3. Create a Compelling CV
The thing with CVs is that it basically represents you in front of the hiring employers/recruiters. You have to create the absolute best CV you can.
You can check out this guide on How to create CV for inexperienced graduates or go straight ahead and use our CV Builder to create your CV in 5 minutes.
4. Research the Industries You Want to Work in
To get a fulfilling job you have to be clear on which areas you want to work in as well as which types of companies you want to work for. Is it HR you are interested in? Or Sales? Product Management?
What kind of companies are you looking to work in HR for? Make a list of (a) all the job types you’d like based on your interests, qualities as explained in the beginning of this post (b) Make a list of all the types of companies you’ll like to work for.
These will help you start putting together a list of companies to target with your job application
5. Gather Information about Opportunities in your Target Industries and Companies
Now you have a Spreadsheet of the industries and companies you’d like to work for. You can start researching whether there are openings in these companies. You can look at previous job posts from these companies to see what they usually require for those types of jobs.
You need this information to then improve your chances of meeting the requirements.
6. Take Action to Acquire or Improve on Any Requirements You Don’t Have
If you have an idea of what Company XYZ looks for in a HR Intern or Product Manager etc then it helps for you to acquire those requirements.
Ways you can improve on the requirements you don’t have include; taking courses, taking volunteer jobs to acquire real life skills, reading/learning what you can, trying out stuff especially for skills where you can learn and demonstrate by yourself.
7. When You are Ready to Start Applying
Now one thing you should know is that you don’t have to only apply for advertised jobs. You can find out all you need about requirements for the type of jobs you want, acquire the skills and then start looking for ways to let the hiring managers in these companies know that you are willing and ready to work for them.
There are several ways to do this.
- Find key persons in those companies, follow them on social media. Don’t bug them or beg them, that turns off a lot of people. Find ways to engage meaningfully with them when they post things you are familiar with. Reach out with very brief messages, direct to the point. Point out how you have improved yourself and how much you’d love to work with them should any opportunity in so and so area come up. If the opportunity presents itself you can send across your CV
- Find the emails of HR managers or department heads (for the specific type of job you are interested in) and send in your brief unsolicited application. I assure you if your application is concise and your CV very interesting you will stand a chance when the opportunity/vacancy in that department comes up.
Unsolicited applications can be a wonderfully underrated thing. In another post we will talk extensively about how you can use unsolicited applications to get good job offers.
Lots of companies are looking for good talent. If you position yourself and make yourself seen you will be surprised how easily you may get a good offer.
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