Written and published by headspace.
Once you have your resume ready, you need to explore as many job opportunities as possible.
Finding work through job advertisements can be effective but limited, as only 20% of jobs are advertised. Most people find out about job opportunities by approaching and speaking to family members, friends, acquaintances, employers, recruiters and people working within the industry. These approaches include:
Networking
• Create A Spreadsheet by listing all the people you currently know in all the different areas of your life: family, friends, hobby and sports clubs, community or religious organisations, and anyone else you can think of who you have some kind of relationship with.
• Let People Know You're Looking. Tell them the type of work you want to do, what industry or even a specific company if you have selected one. Ask them if they know anyone in these areas and if they would be prepared to introduce you.
• Search Your Online Networks- Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. If you surf around in your connections at these enormous sites, you can often find they have connections that can be helpful to you.
• Attend the upcoming Speed Networking event! A networking event provides a professional and structured forum for you to meet and greet industry leaders who can provide insight into career pathways, industry knowledge and share personal and professional experiences. This is your opportunity to start building a network of industry professionals that you can access in the future. Meet up to 10 professionals related to your studies per night. Tickets are only $15 and can be purchased online.
- MAY 17 / MON FOODS & HOSPITALITY
- MAY 18 / TUES EVENTS & TOURISM
Time: 6pm – 8pm, registration desk opens at 5:30pm
Location: Angliss Restaurant
To find out more about the event and the full list of industry professionals visit our website.
Cold Calling
Cold calling is the process of directly approaching employers, by visiting, phone calls, or canvassing letters, and marketing yourself to them, regardless of a job being advertised. Job advertisements in newspapers and on the internet sometimes receive hundreds of applications. A cold call, a visit in person or a canvassing letter at the right time can tap into the hidden job market before a vacancy is advertised.
Cold calling can be a good way to find part-time work, particularly in small businesses, where employers don’t have the time to go through the full job advertising, interviewing process, but could use some help in their busy times.
- Choose a geographical area in which you would like to work and visit the organisations in that area that have work that will suit you;
- Be polite and don’t be too pushy;
- Be well presented, neat and clean;
- Offer to wait or come back later if they are busy;
- Explain as clearly and briefly as possible how you, with your skills, could benefit their organisation;
- Have a fresh, up to date copy of your resume with you to leave with them, which has all your contact details;
- If they invite you back again, make sure you go and are on time;
- If they don’t request another time to see you, call in again just to check if anything has come up (this also reminds them about you).
- Make a list of the organisations you want to work with and research the kind of work they do;
- Tailor your resume to suit each organisation;
- Write a practice phone script, highlighting your skills and reasons why you are the perfect employee for their organisation; see below for a sample cold calling script.
- Be polite;
- Receptionists can provide useful information about the company, before they put you through to someone, ask them for the name of that person;
- If you speak to the recruitment manager, ask for their full name, position title and a time to follow up the call;
- Follow up the call when you said you would.