A proactive effort

Instead of just posting your resume in a job portal and sitting back in a relaxed mind why don’t you become little proactive and design a website or online portfolio blog of yours, where recruiters can come and take a look of your work, get an idea of your skills, goals and personal contact information.

Narrow your options of search

Make sure you upload resume and look for a job only in a website which has good narrowing options by criteria like – by region, by industry and experience, by job titles. You may super narrow your search by criteria like – salary expected, job designation, company names etc. Filtering and refining job search will help you to find better job offers.

Visit company websites directly

Instead of just applying to a given job opening and sending resume, get little proactive. Shortlist some best companies where you would love to work. Now visit that company’s website, target that company and check their career/job opening page. Check out the current vacancies. In case the company is hiring send your resume to the given address. Else, you may write to the human resource manager. Company pages may ask you to fill up a form, detailing your profile for their future reference. If the company is not hiring at present, keep coming back to it again and again to keep a watch.

Industry related websites

You may refine your job search by registering and following the desired industry related websites. You may find national or regional jobs posted in industry related websites, which you may not come to know otherwise. Individuals may post such jobs, hoping for getting response from a bigger pool of qualified applicants.

Job portals can be helpful

Online job portals can solve your problem by doing an extensive search. Recruiters will help you by matching your skills and experience with related jobs and bringing the same to you. You may refer to job portals like recruiterlink.com, onlinerecruitersdirectory.com, searchfirm.com and i-recruit.com.

Subscribe to job alerts

Most of the job portals have this feature of subscribing to their job alerts. You need to sign up in the site to receive email alerts about latest job openings. Or you may subscribe to RSS feeds. This way, even if you forget to visit the job portal regularly and look for relevant jobs, you will be reminded by frequent job alerts.

What are you waiting for? Get started, today!

Competency

Don’t forget quality can never be compromised in the long run. So to grab your dream job, you have to be competent enough to get it. How good are you for the dream job? Are you capable enough to do the job effectively? If you are applying for a graphic designer’s position, you should be skilled enough in graphic designing. You may be asked for a design portfolio besides creating an instant nice design on computer within the given time. Don’t forget, excellence can’t be ignored by anyone. So become competent enough to grab the dream job.

Do your research

It’s always advisable to do your research about the company before going for the interview. Go to its website, consult people. Know its mission, vision, clients, achievements, history, future plans etc. Your thorough knowledge about the company will impress the interviewer. It shows your interest and knowledge. Do your research about the industry and other competitors in the market too.

Stay honest

Integrity is very important. Maintain transparency. Don’t lie to the interviewer. Whether it’s regarding your age, educational qualification, job experience or reason for new job hunt – maintain transparency everywhere. Even if truth is not glorious at times, a good interviewer will definitely appreciate and value your honesty.

Don’t overcharge

Never quote a salary which is much ahead of standard fee. Definitely ask what you deserve, but not much ahead of standard salary. Don’t under price but don’t overprice either. Before quoting price know comparative prices in the industry. Even if you don’t get salary as per your own wishes, join. People will soon recognize your worth and provide what you deserve.

These few simple tips are highly effective. Targeting dream job is easy, but for acquiring the dream job one has to cultivate these good habits and evolve as a better professional. Start preparing yourself today; soon you will be ahead of others.

Question 1: How performance is measured

You need to ask your interviewer about the criteria on which you will be judged when taken for the job. It will give you a target to match in order to get promoted or rewarded. A good company will have a set practice for employee evaluation, and HR people will not shy away from telling you that.

Question 2: Why previous employee left the job

This is a tricky question, but you need to know why the place became vacant. There could be a genuine reason for the previous employee to leave, and office politics or unfair boos could also be a reason, which you can only find by asking about it. The answer to this question will give you good idea about the existence and complicacy if office politics.

Question 3: Remuneration

You need to know about your salary, perks, performance bonus, etc. After all, it is the money that you are working for. You also need to ask about the salary date, deductions, etc. You will not want surprises here, so do not hesitate in talking about your remuneration. If you find the package offered below your expectation then tell the interviewer what you were expecting. Interview is the best place to talk about your salary and other benefits.

Answers to these questions will help you understand whether your personal goals will be met in the company or not. This will help you weigh the job opportunity properly.

I had only this to say, what else do you think should one ask during an interview?

Do not whimper over pay cut

If the economy is down or there is too much supply than there is demand for qualified professions, which no longer is an exception, then you may not get the price you expect to get even if you get the job. Do not just leave the job on the table just because you are not offered the salary you deserve; a pay-cut is something expected for a person of your age. Get a job, get a pay cut, and wait for the right opportunity and switch when offered a better salary. Looking for a job when employed is by far much easier than searching for a job when out of job.

Agree to work odd hours

It indeed is too much to ask of a mid-aged man who has lost or are on the verge of losing physical vitality of youth, but there is no way out. The market forces do not take your age or your condition in consideration; it works on its own matrix taking supply and demand as a basis. Hence, you are required to adapt yourself to the situation. You have a family to keep and bills to pay, so I will suggest you to accept work that requires you to work odd hours.

Let go of benefit

I know it sounds crazy at first, but consider this: if you already have a solid pension plan and your wife already have family health insurance then why will you need another health benefit? Leaving benefits will put in advantageous position vis-à-vis other job seekers. You can ask for slightly higher pay check even.

I hope these tips will help you find a job easily. Will get back in the next installment, till then stay fit and keep looking.

Why?

Because you have not so degenerated to be sold in the mass market as commodity.

Why then there are job fairs?

Well job fairs are there to help companies fill their vacant positions by paying less salary to those who are able and unemployed. It has nothing to do with your welfare. A company who rent a booth in any career or job fair is the one that either do not have quality jobs to offer or they want really cheap employees for those jobs that is why they go to such fairs and purchase employees at a wholesale price.

In a job fair, a company is looking for someone who is qualified but not in job. These people come cheap and do a good work once hired. It’s cheap and best!

I am suggesting you against going to a job fair, unless you are too desperate to land up in any job in the world because you will never get what you deserve.

Job fair is a whole sale market organized for the benefit of the buyers, which in this case is a company. Do you know of any wholesale market where a seller gets the benefit (good price)? It is the buyer who benefits from purchasing in a wholesale market.

Will you like to be traded like a commodity in the wholesale market, or will you work as a brand that deserves special attention and special pricing? The decision is yours.

Well, realize that most people who feel underemployed are generally dissatisfied with their jobs.  Usually this stems from either a salary that is below your standards, the lack of opportunities to express your skills, or just not enough work for you to complete.  In any situation you can find yourself feeling unhappy at the workplace.  Which is exactly why you should take this opportunity to resolve that situation.

Try making yourself more of an asset to the company.  If you find yourself not getting enough work, try asking for more.  If you’re not happy with your salary, make yourself stand out so that the company has no choice but to recognize you for your accomplishments.  Try asking your boss for more assignments, or ways that you can help out by taking on workload from other sources.  Gives you something to do, and helps you become more of an asset.

If you’re unhappy with the position in general, you can use the extra time to network.  Hit the break room, or the cafeteria and make friends with the people around you from other departments, or other companies.  Find out what opportunities are around you that you didn’t know about.  You could end up finding the job of your dreams, you just have to put in the effort to search.  If the company you’re at now isn’t meeting your standards, networking can help you find a new opportunity that will.  Anything is better than staying underemployed and unhappy.

Look around you for starters.  Try to find helpful books at your local bookstore.  Even look to the colleges in the area and see if anybody teaches a course related to your field.  Anything that helps you become a better seller is a plus.  This career is dependant upon your ability, so it only makes sense that you would strive to have all the education that you can muster.

Of course a path such as college or career coaching will require an investment of money and time on your part, but having the info is much better than the alternative.  An education is never a bad thing.  The accolades might not guarantee a good job, but the knowledge will.  You’ll still have to work hard at what you do, but you’ll know where to put your efforts.  That information is invaluable.

Finally, try to find an entry level job that affords you the chance to work with a real industry professional.  Whether the job doesn’t pay well, or even just an unpaid internship, take advantage of either.  As long as there’s room for advancement, or a good training manager, either will be beneficial.  Remember, it’s okay to give a job a shot, if you aren’t offered the salary you want.  Take advantage of the quick experience, the knowledge you can gain, and the opportunity for advancement.  As long as you work hard to sell, you are guaranteed to be successful.

One sign that’s fairly easy to spot is if your company is in trouble.  Every company is in a relative amount of trouble, given the global recession that’s been battering the world for quite a while now, but if your company is in dire risk of bankruptcy, it’s a good time to think about abandoning ship.

If your company has just recently been turned over to a new CEO, or if you see new leaders at a lower level begin to be negotiated into the company, it’s a good time to think about leaving.  The problem with new faces, is that they bring in more new faces that they’ve been familiar working with in the past.  Chances are you don’t factor in to their plans, as they don’t know you, and most managers would prefer not to spend time learning how to work with new people, when they can let you go and hire a past employee at the new company.

You hit the plateau at any given company for your skill set.  If you’ve gone as high up the ladder as your education/skill set will provide for, it’s time to get looking for a new job.  Chances are, even if it’s the same level position with another corporation, you may be able to get a larger salary.  The chance to renegotiate pay with a well proven set of skills is always an opportunity you should take, and the new corporation will offer you new challenges and the ability to add a new credit to your resume.

Your boss or corporation fails to fulfill a promise that they had made to you during an interview, or early on in your hiring process.  These mean promises not put into writing as an actual contract, but something verbally promised to you.  Whether that means a certain amount of money you should be making over a set length of time, or a promotion you should receive within a set amount of time.  Whenever these promises are not met, they’re leading you on, and it’s time to find the exit as soon as possible to put your energy towards pursuing a more meaningful opportunity with a company that doesn’t lie to you.

Which is exactly why it’s much more proactive and you’ll net better results by finding jobs for yourself, instead of waiting for them to pop up on the job boards.  What you need to do is network yourself.  Find the companies you would like to work for, or the jobs that you want, and get connected to them.

First, search for the people you want to work for, whether they seem to have any job openings or not.  You might just have exactly what they didn’t even know they were looking for.  Next you want to get in touch with their human resources department, as in almost every case, HR handles employee hiring and terminations.  Although another common tactic, but one with a lower rate of success, is to contact management heads.  This can either pay off completely, or fail miserably, as managers usually have very busy schedules, and if you don’t impress almost immediately, you are doomed to be completely forgotten.

From here you basically want to send a friendlier variation on the sort of cover letter you would send with your resume.  Make your intentions clear, that you’re interested in a job, introduce yourself, and personalize everything to let them know your qualifications shortlist and why you want to work for that company.  Try that enough and you’re bound to find somebody that didn’t even know they needed you, thereby landing a much better job than you could have found searching Monster.com for the umpteenth time.