Last Updated on Mar 26, 2020 by James W
When you’re fresh out of college, you will immediately join the hunt for a job. Ideally, you want to find your dream career as soon as you can and start making a living. That’s the idea situation. You want to be in a position at the end of the first year where you can buy a house and start to think about settling down in a comfortable life. Sounds about right doesn’t it? But you have to wonder whether this dream is possible or likely. Actually, on average after university, it takes someone approximately one year to find their first job. There are those lucky enough to find their dream career straight out of class. Others, it can take longer, or they might have to switch careers. But for the average Joe, it’s going to take at least one year to find a career. Even when you find it, it might not be all you had hoped it would be.
Many employers these days are taking on freelancers, rather than offering permanent contracts. They have good reason for this because they avoid two issues. Firstly, freelancers are cheaper to hire and secondly, the employer has less responsibility. A lot of the things that an employer would usually have to deal with such as pension schemes, transport and holiday pay is swept off the table. Instead, the employee receives the bare minimum. That’s not to say being a freelancer doesn’t have perks. But, you should know the state of the job market you’re about to enter into.
If you’re smart, you’ll do everything that you can to make yourself more hireable. Here are some of the tips that we recommend.
Learn Some New Skills
There are certain skills that are useful for if not all, then certainly most jobs. You will find that if you have these skills, you will almost certainly be hired for a job. It just might not be the exact one that you want. So, let’s look at a few that we recommend you pick up.
Firstly, you should be skilled at using Excel, Powerpoint and Word. You will find all if not some of these are used in most businesses on a daily basis. Excel is often used to log work or for accounts. If you’re working in a business, you might well find yourself using this to record the work you have completed throughout the week. If you read a brief history of Microsoft Excel, you’ll find that it started off as a very basic programme. But now, it has evolved, and it can be used to store almost any information that you can think of. Of course, when using Excel there are shortcuts that make operating it easier. That’s why you should learn a little bit about it. If you take a training course, you can put it on your CV, and it shows initiative.
Powerpoint is commonly used for presentations these days because it’s clear and easy to setup. But, you’ll still need to know your way around it in case you are ever asked to complete a presentation for work. You might have thought that once you finished your education, your time messing around with powerpoints was over. On the contrary, it’s not uncommon for an interviewee to be asked to prepare a powerpoint presentation for a job interview. Particularly, if they are taking on a role that is going to involve a lot of interaction with clients.
Word is of course quite a simple tool to use. You probably use it or a similar programme on a daily basis. But, you might want to think about practising to increase the speed at which you type. If you can put on your resume that you can type at near to one hundred words per minute, you will certainly find yourself more employable.
Develop Traits
But, it’s not just about what you know, it’s also about who you are. When you attend a job interview, they will be looking to see what type of person you are. They want to know whether or not you will fit in well with their business. If you want to make a good impression, you will certainly have to display a good level of confidence in who you are and what you are saying.
You will also have to be quite assertive. In an interview, it’s quite common for an employer to ask an interviewee how they could improve their business. Or, what would they bring to the department they would be entering. This is your chance to convey your ideas concisely while bringing the message home.
You will also have to demonstrate that you can work both independently and as a team. For some employers, one will be more important than the other but you will have to show both skills. This is usually the case of referencing another job position that you previously held. If you can do this, you should find that the employer is impressed by your previous experience. Try specifically to relate the example to an instance of problem-solving.
You may want to show some of these personality traits on your CV. Again, this is just a case of linking these points back to previous jobs you had or personal experience. Almost any experience in life can be used to show you would be an ideal candidate for a job. For instance, you might have been part of a team, rafting down a river. It’s important to work together in this instance otherwise the boat will hit a rock and capsize.
Our final recommendation is that you pick up any extra experience where you can. While looking for a job, you will get times when you have a chance to take a job that you don’t want. But you should accept this position while continuing to search for a better position. By doing this, you’ll gain some experience and automatically make yourself a better candidate for the next job that you do want.
