Work Seeker, Part 4!

...And so, to the final entry: Getting that job!

In my experience, it can often happen that the exact job to match your skills, knowledge and abilities quite often won't be available at your precise time of need, whether that's when you want to move on, or during those agonising weeks after being told "Sorry - I have to let you go...." - and this yawning crevasse often strikes cold fear into the job-hunter's heart. It's a natural reaction if you've only ever worked in one or two specific fields - especially long-term - but it really pays to take a deep breath, sit back and start thinking at tangents; you might be amazed at the lines of enquiry that you might generate from a spot of trawling in the Local Services adverts in your regional weekly newspapers, as well as the Situations Vacant pages!

For a very simple example, if you have been working - say - as a clerk in an accountants office (or even training for that profession), some of the more profession-specific numerical knowledge can rub-off on you, as well as general office practices - so if you see a job advertised for a stock control clerk in a shop or factory, your enumeration and filing skills are easily adaptable to that role (or any similar post), thus opening the doors into other offices that you might not have previously considered; let's face it - every company needs "bean-counting" skills at one level or another, so there's a wide scope for alternative employment with very similar skill-set requirements.

The same can be said for anyone with - for second example - sound skills in engineering; if you can handle one bag of spanners, then generally-speaking, you should be able to use other toolkits - it's all a matter of parallel thinking (or oblique, if you really want to change fields altogether). My own engineering abilities have seen me working on a wide range of machinery, in assembly, manufacture, maintenance, re-manufacture, modification and repair - and even demolition - and over the past 15 years or so, my skills have "migrated" from working on Loading Bay machines and industrial doors, right through into the Elevator Industry, accumulating a lot of specialist knowledge along the way.

The trouble was, when I was suddenly made redundant just two weeks ago, there were no Elevator Engineer jobs available in reasonable reach of my home area! Moving home wasn't an option at all, so it was time to take full stock of the situation and to review my skill-sets, and to match potential target trades or posts...something that ALL job-hunters will need to do if the right openings aren't available at the right moment; in the words of BBC's Dad's Army character, Corporal Jones: "DON'T PANIC!"

There are literally THOUSANDS of work opportunities out there at any one time; many are often NOT advertised in the general media - quite often, specific fields advertise with particular agencies, in trade journals or on websites, etc; it's just a case of trawling for them in the right places. In the previous "Work Seeker" parts, I've skimmed-over newspaper adverts and word-of-mouth enquiries - even down to walking industrial and office parks with a handful of crisp, new CVs to distribute at possible target businesses (actually quite a good exercise in "Public Relations" and social skills, as well as potentially lucrative!) - but as worthwhile and productive as those efforts can be, the most powerful work-search 'tool' available today has to be the internet - and as just about everyone now has access to the World-Wide Web (either at home, or via phones, or even the local town libraries [it's free!]), then that's the last part that I'll include in this basic guide that should (hopefully) count toward securing YOUR next job or career-change!

It doesn't matter whether you're leaving a company by choice or force, there is a vast array of websites out there to help the job hunter, many of which are essentially just job-lists, and some others work like "social network" sites, allowing you to 'connect' with other people in business by using 'key-words' in the "Search" facilities  'boxes' to find the right fields of interest. Other websites offer a job-matching system, whereby the user registers on the website, creates a basic personal profile, uploads a CV, and (ostensibly) sits back to await the machinery to clunk, groan and spit out match-after-match of potential employers...or so it's sometimes promoted, anyway! Occasionally there can be a result, but sadly, rarely...

The good sites, though, are those that can be accessed by user-registered accounts, and allow the user to trawl (literally) hundreds of vacancies by (again) using key words in search facilities, then "Click" buttons to apply for the posts - and usually, the user can add or upload a CV to apply by this method. Some of these websites will allow the user to upload and store a CV for potential employers to access, although the choice of who can view the CV rests with the user, for security within the Data Protection Act (IE: you can usually tick boxes marked "Public" or "Private"). If you select "Private", then the only time that a target employer can see your CV is when you "Click" the "Apply For Post" button; otherwise, no-one can view the CV until you authorise it. Obviously, if you 'tick' the box marked "Public", then everyone visiting or using the website can take a peek at  your details - so now, there follows a few words of caution...

If you decide to upload a CV to a website (usually by a "Copy and Paste" system from your word processor), TAKE CARE to minimise your personal details! Given the unsettling but steady rise in identity theft (as previously mentioned), it makes sense to remove your full address from the CV, but leave in your home town/village/county to give an employer an indication of where you're located. Likewise, replace your date of birth with just your age, and only one telephone number - ideally, a 'pay-as-you-go' mobile/sim number that can be disposed of, in the most unlikely event of 'spam' calls, etc - although if you are successful with an application, then you can keep the number if desired. You should also remove dates of employment and substitute months and years, etc - likewise the same for your education details - to further protect against potential fraud by others, but ensure that you type in the phrase "Full detailed CV available upon Employer's request" as your very last comment on your CV. Other than those basic changes to protect your personal details from potential thieves, leave your CV largely intact.

...And so, to the websites, and their benefits (if you'll pardon the pun!). During my recent searches, I discovered a few useful websites within the specialist field of the Elevator Industry, and a few others by way of adverts embedded in those websites - but it wasn't until I attended my own Jobseekers' Benefit registration interview that I discovered just how many 'jobsearch' websites exist! Many of them are officially registered with HM Government's Jobcentres, and the best part is that the Jobseeker's Careers Advisor will provide a full list at the interview (see attached separate list on sidebar, "Work-Seeking Websites").

The Advisor will also take the time to talk you through other possibilities of employment. By doing so, he/she will help you to build up a 'plan-of-action' designed to help you find another job, either on your own, or by using the system that the Government has created - and as I discovered, it's a powerful "Search tool" that really does work; the best part though, is that you don't have to be registering to make a Jobseekers' Benefit Claim to qualify to use these websites, either!

The very first website on which I registered the next morning was the primary "Job-Match" website that the Benefits folks recommend enrolling to, partly because of its quality of content, and also because they can track your applications (but ONLY if you select that "tracking" option during site registration); enabling the "tracker" would be seen as an acceptance on the users' part toward the (required) job-search whilst on benefits, although it's site feature that many claimants seem to resent as a bit "Big Brother" in concept - but if you are claiming Benefit, then allowing them to track such efforts actually saves you the trouble of having to keep a 'log' of your efforts to find work, so it can have its beneficial uses.

This particular website (Universal Jobmatch) - www.gov.uk/jobsearch - will allow you to register under your own full name, giving you a "Gateway ID" that is unique to you; note it down, along with any password that you create to access your account, and keep that information very secure as it will be your PERMANENT identity, registered with the Government. From the resulting Profile Page, you can generate as many searches as you wish once you've filled-in your basic search parameters and your background information (essentially just for accurate work-searches, not for people to track you!), and again, you'll have the option to upload or "copy & paste" your (suitably-shortened) CV, also "screenable" for view to Public or Private status - and you can delete the CV at any time, usually as soon as you've found work. Some people will leave their CVs posted, though, in case of better offers coming along.

...And the best part of this particular website? It worked for me! Within just FIVE hours of registration, a quick trawl and one job application, I received a telephone call inviting me for an interview for that job; two days later, I attended an interview - and I landed the job, just fourteen days and one hour after being made redundant!! I really can't make a better endorsement than that - although it has to be stated that I was probably lucky in that the right (alternative-industry) job was listed at just the right time, and that other users may not have such a rapid and positive result - but this does prove that sometimes, 'miracles' can actually happen...

To be perfectly fair and honest, I had also tracked to the advertising company's own website and used the "Contact Us" e-mail address to back-up my "JobSearch" site application, by sending an e-mail with my FULL CV attached. This "doubling-up" job application trick can often give the "keen applicant" impression to the potential employer, and during my interview I asked which method had proved the most useful; the interviewer said that he believed that the Jobsearch website came through first, so in my own case the website connection worked best in my favour; it doesn't hurt to double-up, though, just in case the website applications disappear into the recipient's "Spam" Inbox!

So, all this has worked for me (I start the new job on Monday, just six days after registration!) so it could also easily work for anyone else; all it takes is a calm approach and sometimes a little bit of abstract thinking, with a healthy dose of patience and acceptance that the jobsearch might just take a little while longer than first anticipated. I hope that at least some of this Blog may prove useful to you in some way; for me, from redundancy to re-employment was a short (but long-overdue) "holiday", so it proves that it can be done...and if I can do it, then so can YOU! 

Losing (or just changing) a job need not be a colossal disaster - regaining work is so much easier today, so take heart, and above all KEEP TRYING, AND GOOD LUCK!!!