With only a few months until university students are set to graduate; we’d like to share some tips to help you get your foot in the door and guide you towards greater success in your job search!
Update your digital presence
Has much changed for you since the start of the pandemic? When was the last time you updated your LinkedIn profile? Have you completed all sections of it? Do you have a professional email address? What are your privacy settings for Instagram and Facebook?
To ensure you make the ‘right’ impression with your digital presence, make sure that your profile photos, CV, LinkedIn bio and everything in-between reflects your current experience. Make sure that you’ve tailored your CV for each role too, so that it highlights how suitable you are to the employer.
72% of recruiters are active on LinkedIn, so merely having a solid profile could put you one step ahead of others looking for work. Spend some time exploring the ‘Jobs’ tab of LinkedIn and set up ‘Job Alerts’ for updates on new opportunities that match your experience.
Planning to apply for multiple jobs? Spend some time writing a cover letter template – read this article from HBR which highlights key elements to include in your cover letter.
Get connected
Getting your foot in the door can be more about who you know, rather than what you know. LinkedIn is a fantastic place to connect with thought leaders, gain visibility and create valuable discussions within your industry’s community.
Don’t know where to start? Begin by connecting with similar people on your course, your lecturers, speakers from events you attend and people that inspire you. Remember – your network is a reflection of your personal brand, so sometimes quality is better than quantity.
Are you eager to work for a specific company? Follow them on LinkedIn and try to connect with a few employees, working in roles related to the role you intend to apply for. By doing this, you’ll increase your chances of hearing about any relevant opportunities and be aware of important updates from the company. You may even learn a bit more about their company culture!
Be proactive, show off your skills
When viewing your profile, employers and recruiters will be looking for examples of your previous work. Help to focus their attention by using the ‘featured’ section of your profile to highlight blogs, posts and projects that you’re proud of. Start posting content that demonstrates what separates you from the crowd.
You need to prove to employers that you’re not only passionate about wanting a job, but that you’re committed and skilled.
Make the most of your other online platforms to showcase your ‘relevant skills’. Your twitter account, personal blogs or those lines of code you contributed to various GitHubs, can be an excellent way of demonstrating your experience to companies – so make sure you link to relevant accounts when applying for jobs.
Keep your ear to the ground by signing up for relevant newsletters, groups and events – you never know when opportunity will knock. At Silicon Brighton, we support a vast range of meetup groups to help develop your skillset (whether that’s in data science, marketing, golang, sales, coding, cyber security, product management – the list goes on)– follow us on LinkedIn to hear more about all of these groups. The best way to learn about most roles is to speak first-hand with passionate people already working in the sector.
Plan ahead
Got a dream job in mind? Look at the skills you need for the role – reflect on where you are now and plan out small steps you can take to gain the necessary experience you need. There’s an abundance of courses available online (that are quite often free) such as Google Digital Garage – The fundamentals of digital marketing, Learning Go for Web Development and Harvard’s course on Data Science to list a few.
Finally, get yourself ready for interviewing! When all of your hard work pays off and you get invited to interview for a job, it’s likely you’ll have to take part in at least one online interview. If you’ve not had much practice, this could be a bit daunting so I strongly recommend you read one of my previous articles on ‘How to ace a video interview’ here.