Simply Hired Blog

4 Ways to Get Noticed by Graduate Employers

Today the job market for recent graduates is extremely competitive.

Here are some tips from Graduate Recruitment Bureau on how to best get noticed by graduate employers and land a job after college.

 

Network-

Social media is second nature to current graduates, and this should be used to your advantage. Use your twitter account to follow relevant companies and angle your tweets so that they get noticed by employers. Sign up for LinkedIn and start building your profile; add your qualifications, experience, achievements and a professional looking photo. Then, start being active; connect with people, join groups, share content and like updates to get noticed. Make sure you set your Facebook profile to private, especially if there are photos or comments that shouldn’t really be seen by potential employers. Make a professional Facebook account to add and link companies, so you can keep your work and private life separate.  Start a blog as a place to showcase your thoughts and work. It acts a something to show at interviews as a portfolio of the type of things you can do and is a great way to get noticed. Once you’ve got your own personal ad campaign down to a T…

Develop your personal brand-

There’s no point creating exposure for yourself and potentially getting noticed by many companies if you aren’t someone that they would be interested in. All that work that you’ve put into social networking will go to waste if they look at your profile but aren’t impressed by what they see.  You need to find out exactly what skills, achievements, qualifications and experience that people in your industry are looking for in their ideal candidate and then make sure you tick every box on their list. Then, when they stumble across you on twitter or LinkedIn they can see that you and they will be a match made in heaven. If they still haven’t noticed you on social media…

Approach them-

How are they going to know you exist if you don’t tell them you do? Social media isn’t the only way to get in touch with companies. You can try the old fashioned method of, shock horror, picking up the phone. Giving them a call, or an email, introducing yourself and that you’d like to get some experience at their company has the advantage of the personal touch. They can get a sense of who you are and if you include your links to your social media at the end (if you have sent an email) then they can have a look on those too. They will appreciate the effort, but they are busy people, so if at first you don’t succeed…

Be persistent and professional-

Expect to make more than one point of contact before you get a response. Make sure you don’t call or email too close together; there is a fine line between being keen and harassing them. Keep your messages at least a week apart and attach your CV and tell them your contact details in each one. No one gets their dream job land straight in their lap and it will take a good few attempts before they begin to acknowledge you. As long as you are professional and polite then they should notice you eventually.

Basically, follow the AIDA marketing technique- get the attention of the target audience; interest them; create desire for your product (in this case you) and follow it up with action.

Anna Pitts, a Marketing Assistant and Online Researcher at the Graduate Recruitment Bureau. Her work involves PR and outreach and writing informative, interesting advice based articles for graduates and students.

8 Things to Consider When Relocating For a Job

Often, people tend to move permanently either to a different city or even to a different country. The reasons are different. Sometimes it is for love, other times it is because of the so called 'traveler's itch'. However, a lot of folks relocate because of certain job opportunities.

If you are considering a move, there are a few things to think about before jumping at the opportunity. Even if the job offer is a good one, one you believe you shouldn't miss, there are still some factors that can affect your move and require some considering.

1. Friends and family

Think about how your closest people will react to the news that you are moving. Both your immediate and extended family. And don't forget the friends as well. Remember that money isn't everything. A good relationship is worth more than anything else.

2. The cost of living

Never forget to consider this. Even if the job opportunity sounds really appealing to you, contemplate on the other factors, mainly on your new place of residence. There usually is a vast difference between living in a city/country where the cost of living is way cheaper and living somewhere you need more money to make end meet. In other words, the salary you are about to receive needs to be relevant to the money you need for your everyday expenses and bills. Even if your future salary would be more than enough for you at your current city/country of residence, it could be barely enough to make ends meet in your future home city/country.

3. Taxes of property

This pretty much files under the 'cost of living' category. If you reside in the States and think about moving to a different state, you need to know that many states have different property taxes. The differences between them might range from as little as 10% to as much as 50%. So, it could be considered either as an advantage or a disadvantage.

4. Climate

You know how climate changes a person's mood. So, it might not be the best choice to move from a   sunny place to go somewhere cold and gloomy. However, the opposite is still not the smartest move, relocating to a year-round hot location. This, again, is deeply intertwined with the money issue, as your electricity bill might go through the roof due to the extensive cooling or heating you will have to do in order to maintain your new home's temperature

5. Surroundings

Once you move, your life is not going to be all about your job, right? There is plenty to do outside working. Familiarize with the place you will be moving to, in order to see if it basically appeals to you. Do some research whether there are enough things happening there in a social aspect – if there are spots where you can meet new people and make friends – bars, discos, concert venues, hobby clubs, etc.

6. Job security

Is your future employer reliable? Are you sure that you will still be at your workplace a couple of months after you move? After all, a job is a crucial element of your life and if you lose your job, you will be bound to go back, which is an additional hassle. Do not even think of permanently moving for a seasonal job. What you need is assurance. Undertake a moving only for a reliable and trustworthy job, one you have signed a contract for.

7. Settling

In case your job is not too far away from your current home, consider commuting for a while before you actually move. This is done as a sort of a precaution. In order to give your job something like a 'test period'. What if things don't work out? Either for you or for your employer? You will be left at a new place without a job. A not very nice situation to be in.

8. Legal matters

If your job offers comes from abroad, bear in mind that things are a bit more different when it comes to working in a foreign country. Different countries have different laws according to this matter. In most cases, a work visa is required. So, if your future employer can provide you with one, you will be at ease that everything is going to be OK. Do not even think of trying to fool the foreign country's laws. 

Amber Collins is a professional content writer, blogger and specializes in everything related to house removals and relocations in Clapham. Housewife and dedicated mother, she is passionate about everything related to home improvement and organization and believes that her home is her sanctuary.

8 Inspiring Ways to Salvage a Negative First Impression on Your Job Interview

Let’s face it. The process of proving your worth against a pool of other candidates is an overwhelming task. While you know you have enormous potential and would be a great fit for the position, you don’t know what your competition is saying or doing to get their foot in the door.

You prepare, buy a new outfit so you can feel your best and walk into the room to face your potential future bosses with confidence. Suddenly, you freeze and everything you remembered about being on top of your game goes out the window. Now, you are left with the sad realization that your first impression in the interview for the job of your dreams was less than fantastic.

Many people struggle with the first few minutes of an interview. The nerves you experience alone are enough to throw off your natural talent and ability to present yourself well.

Fortunately, not all hope is lost. Here are eight ways you can redeem yourself from a negative first impression on your job interview. This can well be applied on face-to-face interviews as well as phone or Skype interviews.

1. Admit you misspoke – The first moment you realize that the answer you just gave to a question came out wrong and left your interviewer raising their eyebrows, stop in your tracks, take a breath and ask to start over. The people interviewing you got to their position by going through the same process you face. They understand that nerves can make things sound differently than intended and will more than likely welcome a second attempt when you are calm.
2. Start a conversation – If you notice that your interviewers are yawning and trying to wrap up the interview as quickly as possible, start your own conversation with them. Ask questions to get them engaged. This will help your interview to flow more naturally and show them that you are genuinely interested in the company.
3. Avoid the words ‘I Don’t Know’ – Although you have prepared, it is not uncommon for an interviewer to throw in a curveball question to see how you react under pressure. Before answering this type of question take a breath and pause for a moment. Then, even if you are unsure of how you should respond or what you want to say, work through your response openly so that the interviewer can see your masterful problem solving skills and thought.
4. Embrace your weaknesses – Maybe your weakness is the job interview. Embrace this and when asked, let your job interviewer know that you are feeling more nervous than usual in the situation. Once you’ve stated you are uncomfortable, follow it up with why it makes you nervous and how you have worked to overcome your fears. This will end the question on a high note and let the interviewer know that you are aware of your shortcomings.
5. Be human – If you have made it half way through the interview and do not feel like you are acting like yourself, take a mental step back and reevaluate how you are answering questions. Then, focus the rest of the interview on being natural with how you answer. Often times when job seekers get so overwhelmed with how to answer specific questions, they end up sounding rehearsed which turns interviewers off. If you get this impression, take a moment to readjust your style and focus on just being you.
6. Send a thank you note – Once you leave, the negative first impression has been made and now you must work to recover from your poor showing. One of the first things you should do is send a thank you note to the people you interviewed with. If you have their email addresses, sending a quick email to say thank you will show your appreciation and keep you at the forefront of their minds without having to wait a few days for the mail to arrive at the office. Be genuine in your appreciation for their time and put your best foot forward in writing.
7. Ask for another chance – Take the opportunity to ask for the chance to meet with the interviewers again. Be honest about your shortcomings and let them know that you want another shot at the position, and why. Expressing your desire to work with the company of your dreams will show your determination and will likely get you another opportunity to make a second impression.
8. Take a lesson learned from your fumble – Mistakes happen to everyone. It is those who can learn from their mistakes, pick up their pride and move forward onto another dream job that ultimately lands the position they hope for. If you cannot recover from one bad impression in a job interview, simply take it as a life experience and do your best to move forward quickly from the negative experience. Then, apply your lesson learned to your next job interview for better success.

Negative interviews are not the end of the world. While in the job interview and after, you have plenty of chances to recover from a poor start. Use these tips to help you land the job of your dreams.

Tess Pajaron is part of the team behind Open Colleges. Her desire to consistently improve her life led her down the road of psychology. When not working, she loves to travel and discover new places and cultures, having a fancy for modern minimalist architecture and interior design. She can also be found on InformEd, where she regularly contributes about eLearning and education.

Returning to School for a Second Career: What to Consider & How to Make It Work

Making the Decision: What to Consider

Jobs remain very competitive, companies continue to shut down their operations and the salaries involved in most careers require a two-earner household to raise families or reach the so-called American Dream. Some vocational rehabilitation specialists recommend changing careers and, if necessary, returning to a college or university to earn the necessary degree to do so. Yet the decision is often not that easily made by prospective adult students.

College and university classes are expensive and few adults can afford to quit their current jobs to attend college classes full-time. Adult students—as opposed to older adolescents with parents to foot the bill—must plan on what funds will be used to pay for tuition, books and other expenses before beginning their studies. If loans are involved, it's a good idea to sit down with a financial aid analyst at the school or a loan officer at your bank to determine exactly how much money you'll need to borrow, when you'll be required to begin the repayment process, how much the loan repayment will cost each month and if this new expense will outweigh the higher income you anticipate with your new career. Apply for scholarships and financial aid as early as possible.

Finally, if a partner and children are part of the household, their cooperation will be required for you to be a successful adult student. College classes paired with a job leaves little time for leisure; taking on such a challenge likely means your partner and children will need to be willing to take on more responsibilities during the time you'll be attending school.

Returning to School: Making it Work

Once you've chosen a career with a positive job outlook and a projected income that exceeds your current earnings, you'll need to find a school nearby that offers a degree in the program. (As most adult students' available time to attend school is limited, it's often recommended that they first earn an associate degree in their chosen field and return to work with plans to study part-time for a bachelor's degree). Medical assistant training programs, for example, are ideal for many adults who seek a well-paid career with significant job growth anticipated over the next decade in the field. Completion of the program provides the graduate a variety of positions from which to choose as well as an associate degree in the field. With degree in hand, a medical assistant can enter the field to gain experience, and then go on to study almost any subject—nursing, radiological technician or nursing—on a part-time basis.

Tips for Success

The keys to success as an adult student are threefold: hard work, frugality and time management skills. Even as you have less time to fix a family dinner, the old standby of ordering pizza for delivery might be prohibited due to your reduced income. These are situations in which your family's cooperation and assistance are indispensable. Time management skills might require that you tape lectures to listen to during times when you can't read, cook in large batches once a week for the next six dinners or enlist the help of a classmate to study.

Seek Advice From Graduates

Finally, seek advice from graduates who've successfully graduated and gone on to enter new careers. They'll be happy to share what worked and what didn't during their endeavors. Good luck and study hard! 

Lindsey is a professional writer living in the Indianapolis area. She specializes in writing guest posts on social media and education, specifically medical assistant training programs. Currently, Lindsey is completing work on her master’s degree.

What Is a Digital Resume—and Do You Need One?

A statistic came out a few years ago about how the first thing 70 percent of people do when looking for local businesses is fire up their browsers and head online to do a search. Pretty amazing, right? Not too long ago, Googling something was called “using the Yellow pages,” but now you’re lucky if you can find someone under 30 who knows what the Yellow Pages are.

How does this relate to you, your job search, and digital resumes? It’s pretty simple, really: every single day, more and more of the world is online, and as that trend continues the internet is becoming our de facto first choice of where to go to find things, whether that means the closest deli to our apartment, a quality used car, or someone to fill the position that just opened up at our company.

If you want to make sure that companies can find you quickly and easily, it’s vital that you create a digital resume for yourself. But what does “digital resume” mean, exactly? Here’s where it gets interesting.

The Digital Resume

Because it’s a relatively new creation, there are few strict definitions of what a digital resume has to be. Some people make talking head videos of themselves and post this as their “resume” on YouTube. Others create ambitious, fully-featured websites where they post their work and include gorgeous designs and animations. When it comes to creating a digital resume, the only real limits are your imagination and skillset.

But don’t lose heart if those descriptions make you feel inadequate and unprepared. All “digital resume” really means is that your resume is available online. Employers want to see that you’re web savvy enough to at least put your resume on the internet, because using a computer is pretty much essential in most companies these days. Here are several simple ways to set yourself up with a digital resume just in case a prospective employer asks to see it.

• Use LinkedIn. Probably the easiest way to get your resume online if you’re not particularly comfortable messing around on the internet, LinkedIn doesn’t require and special knowledge of things like graphic design or web design. It’s also a good choice because LinkedIn is well-respected within the business community, and it allows you to network with past and current colleagues. Their straightforward system provides a form where you can input all of the information that you would use on a traditional resume, including education, work history, and other important facts. The downside is that a lot of people use LinkedIn as their online resume home, so you’re not going to stand out as much.
• Try an online resume builder. A great way to stand out more without putting in a lot of extra work is to use a free online resume builder, like Career Igniter or Resume Builder Online, that allows you to host your resume on their site. These sites are not only incredibly easy to use, with dropdown menus leading you through each step of the resume-creation process and making sure you don’t forget any important information, they often help with the design of your resume by outputting it to a variety of templates and letting you choose the one you like best. And, of course, when it’s done, most let you both download a copy of your resume and host a copy of it on your own private resume web page. All you have to do is give companies a link and you’re set.
• Put it on your site. If you already have your own website, hosting it there is a great way to go because employers will automatically see you as someone who knows what they are doing on the web. Meanwhile, all that you really have to do is take five minutes to create the new page and copy or upload your already-finished resume file to it. Just make sure to do a quick test before sending the link out to any potential employers, because you don’t want to direct them to a link that doesn’t work or a resume where the formatting got screwed up. For most people, this is only worth it if you already have a site; there’s no point in spending a ridiculous amount of time building yourself a webpage just to get a receptionist gig.

Ultimately, the main reason that digital resumes are valuable is because companies want you to have one, but they can be helpful in other ways as well. Unlike paper resumes and even digital files, once a resume is online, there’s no real way for you to, um, misplace it, and having one can be quite helpful in a pinch if you have to provide someone with your resume quickly or lose out on a job.

Josh Weiss-Roessler is a professional resume writer and also co-owner of Weiss-Roessler Writing, which helps individuals and small businesses market their products and services online through blogs, website copy, social media, search engine optimization, and other content marketing strategies.