How to make your job search more effective

Whether you want to change companies or start in a new field: If you decide to land a new career outside of your network, you are dependent on external sources. The plenty of ads in newspapers to the world-wide web, ranging from social media platforms to job boards and company pages, might prevent us from seeing the wood for the trees. Thus, making the job search quite overwhelming when we get lost in the flood of options.
Luckily, there exist some methods to help you find your way through.

Here’s our advice on making your job search more effective.

Narrow the job down as much as possible

No matter which task in your life you look at: You always need to start with a plan of what you want to achieve to be successful. In this case, the start is knowing

• what kind of job you are looking for
• which industry fits your lifestyle & interest
• where you want to work (anywhere / countrywide / region / city)
• what kind of company (enterprise / middle-class / small business / start-up / agency)

Knowing exactly which career suits your needs, helps you target the right job.

The easy way would be already working in a field that you like. Job changes here mostly result from unhappiness with the employer, moving to a new region, the desire for a new challenge or a better salary. To make long story short: If you already have work experience in a career that you like, you can look for a similar position in a different company.

If you actually don’t have a clue, focus on your skills, education and interest to narrow it down on a specific field, for example Marketing, Management or Engineering. Most online job boards allow you to filter for a department, so that’s a start.

Specify your search

If you are able to narrow your interest down on an industry, concentrate your search on a niche job-board. For example, if you are looking for an employment in the sports industry, it’ll be more effective looking at less ads at Sportyjob than looking at thousands of ads on general job boards. In the end, your employer is as important for a satisfying work life as the mission field itself.

Same goes for regional offers: If you’d like to work in your home town, you might want to browse your regional newspaper first. Especially traditional & small business tend to advertise there. Nowadays, most newspapers also publish their jobs in their own online portal, so you can easily take a look on your phone or computer.

Let automation do your work

Job Alerts

Have you heard of alerts? It helps you automate your search. Just like a notification of your favorite mobile apps, these alarm you when a new ad was published that suits your search.

Just take a look at our own job alert:
Since you have narrowed down the job profile in the beginning of your search, you can easily automate your search. You define the

• job description or field
• keywords (i.e. specific skills, tools, buzz words like „small team“)
• location
• frequency (when the job is published / a summary once per day, week, …)

Once set up you will receive an e-mail in your defined frequency which contains all fitting positions. Let us do the work for you!

Pre-sets: Preparation is key

Another automated process is the application itself. A good job board offers the setup of a digital CV or upload of a document which allows you to apply with just one click the moment you found a fitting ad.
Take your time in advance to create a well-formatted CV – it will save you the time later and actually increase your effectiveness the most.

An alternative would be an extensive LinkedIn profile. A lot of companies extended their recruitment to the social media platform where you can apply directly. Furthermore, LinkedIn has a feature to print your CV out of your online profile.

Need advice on the perfect CV? Here’s some thoughts for your CV of professional headhunter Andy Gugenheimer for help.

Looking manually

Make a schedule

Actively looking for a job is time-consuming and can be quite a pain-in-the-ass. It’s actually very similar to learning something new or growing a new habit. The key to being more effective is consistency. Scheduling a time slot for your job search daily or at least, regularly, increases your productivity and also makes the search itself less tiring. Create a weekly schedule which defines a time frame for your search. Also: If you decide on an hour daily, stick to it – but also don’t overrun.

Set goals: Job search +

The other half of actually making progress is defining goals that you want to achieve. Else, your job search will quickly turn intro scrolling through websites and wasting time. Define your task as „job search +“:
1 hour of job search = 30 minutes of research + filling out x application(s)

Activate your personal network

Let your friends and acquaintances know that you’re looking for a job. There’s a reason that collective intelligence exists – have it work for your advantage. They might have heard about an offer in their own company that suits your needs. Especially for jobs on the hidden labor market, this is absolute gold! Often, employer try to fill a position internally, so it won’t be published outside of the company. Knowing of one of those through a friend will enable you to send an unsolicited application.

Big plus: There won’t be many applicants and you will stand out as a proactive and motivated candidate.

We know the job search can be tough and the application and interview process afterwards entails another set of barriers to break down. But: With these hints, at least the first steps to achieve a new career, will be made a lot easier and more productive. We wish you good luck!