Strategies to Grab Your Dream Job.
“The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today”
In today’s fast-paced globalized world, new jobs and opportunities are being created every day. The development of science & technologies, digitization of all walks of life, and improved means of communication have created a new working environment. In today’s era, jobs put high requirements, demand new skillsets from the potential job seekers. It seems a big challenge for a fresh university graduate to live up to the expectations of these jobs and to win in a competitive environment. It is not possible to grab a job and get success in it without thorough preparation. In this article, I am going to discuss the basic strategies for preparing for a job.
Prerequisites for Job readiness
Job readiness covers a lot of factors, such as preparing for a good resume and online profiles, preparing for written/aptitude/reasoning tests, learning tips to successfully attend a job interview, etc. Professionally, job readiness includes:
Know YOURSELF
It is important that you know your skills, interests, and passion. Knowing what you want makes the job hunt a lot easier.
Identify possible JOBS of INTEREST:
Always be specific about the roles that interest you and the capacity to which you can optimally function on the role before applying to any opening.
Search for a job
Adopt various means like job sites, friend circle & seniors, employment news, social media platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, etc. to get awareness about the job opportunities.
Do your research
Before applying for a job, do a deep dive into the company’s history, mission, and current successes and challenges. Your potential employer wants to see how you’ll help the company, and the specific team you’re applying to, meet its objectives.
Don’t be afraid to sell yourself
Sell your strengths, and highlight any past experience that would be especially beneficial to the position at hand.
Have someone refer you
When you network, you can build strong connections and develop long-lasting relationships that can lead to referrals. If someone praises you as a professional, employers take notice.
Make sure your resume matches the job description
Your resume must adhere to the role you are pursuing. You should look at the qualifications and the duties in the job description, and tailor a specific resume to that.
Own your strengths but also your weaknesses
Lots of candidates provide the same answer when asked about their greatest weakness: They’re too much of a perfectionist. While it might be true, it won’t help you stand out. Instead, identify a weakness that actually works for the job.
Avoid only focusing on yourself
Do your best to keep the focus on what you can do for the company rather than what you can gain by working for the company.
Have an elevator pitch ready
“Tell us about yourself” is a routine question. Prepare and rehearse a good 60-90 second response. Research shows a well-developed, well-articulated, personal narrative that refers to previous learning and experience, and what you can bring to the team will ultimately set you apart.
Inculcate Job skills
Today, the jobs require a diverse set of skills that need to be inculcated in due course of time for getting success in it.
Essential Job skills
Each company looks for a different mix of skills and experience depending on the business it’s in. Yet it’s no longer enough to be a functional expert. To complement these unique core competencies, there are certain “soft skills” every company looks for in a potential hire.
Adaptability
An ability to accept and adapt to change is vital because, like it or not, the change will be a big part of the new era of work. Jobs are changing whether that’s organizational, technological, or skills-based, the jobs we do and the way we do them is changing, and will change, again and again.
A willingness to learn
A willingness to learn is high up in the list of soft skills sought in the next era of work.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is “the level of your ability to understand other people, what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them”. Your emotional intelligence skills help make stress more manageable by enabling you to spot and tackle tough situations before things escalate.
Interpersonal & Communication skills
Employers favor job seekers who possess exceptional communication skills and are comfortable speaking with people at all levels of an organization in a professional manner. They should also have good Interpersonal skills to fit in the team.
Problem-solving skills
With a rapidly changing world of work comes the demand for people who are quick to adapt and solve problems efficiently and effectively.
Time Management
Managing time is an exceptionally vital soft skill that candidates need to invariably possess for any job they wish to be hired for.
Confidence
Remember confidence is a choice and it may not be entirely based on truth. It is undeniably a trait that can be learned through practice and self-awareness.
Strong work ethics
Another pivotal soft skill required in employees is about having a strong work ethic while getting the job done.
Learning to take initiatives
Employers love working candidates who show exuberance and passion for ideas and innovation. It is a good idea to learn to develop an idea that benefits the company in building awareness or increasing sales.
Teamwork
Teamwork skills are essential to your success at work, no matter your industry or job title. Working well with clients, colleagues, managers and other people in your workplace can help you to complete tasks efficiently while creating an enjoyable environment both for yourself and others.
Leadership quality
Leadership qualities are essential for high profile jobs, one should have capabilities to lead the subordinates to achieve higher goals.
Hard skills are learned abilities acquired and enhanced through practice, repetition, and education. Hard skills are important because they increase employee productivity and efficiency and subsequently improve employee satisfaction. Hard skills are:
Technical skills
Technical skills include specialized knowledge and expertise in fields such as IT, engineering, or science. Typical technical skills are the ability to use specialized software or equipment.
Computer skills
Computer skills are your abilities to use software and hardware: from basic and general, to highly specialized.
Analytical skills
Analytical skills are the skills of gathering data, analyzing it, deciphering the meaning, and presenting it. No matter what job you’re pursuing, if you’re able to show that you’re good with data analysis, the recruiter will score you some bonus points.
Marketing skills
Marketing skills include the general knowledge of sales, advertising, and consumer research, as well as a plethora of highly technical, digital skills required for success in modern-day online marketing.
Presentation skills
To facilitate your presentation or report, you’ll need at least a few of these hard skills: Visual communication, Slideshows, Research, Data Analysis, Reporting, Persuasion Graphic design.
Management skills
To be a good manager, you also need some job-specific skills such as Business knowledge, Budgeting, Project management, Hiring, Finance, Office management skills, Logistics, Planning.
Project management skills
Project management skills guarantee that things get done. If you’re skilled in project management, it will be a plus for any sort of job where you need to coordinate processes or people’s work.
Writing skills
A solid grasp of writing techniques will give your career a boost if your job requires any sort of writing (think typing up quarterly reports, onboarding documents, presentations for clients, sales pitches, etc.).
Language skills
Knowing more than one language, especially a popular foreign language will set you apart from your competition for any job in a company that deals with international customers or stakeholders.
Design skills
The ability to create polished visual materials is a great asset in all work environments.
Research Skills
Research skills are helpful in solving various problems, gathering, and analyzing data. These skills also help to a new outlook towards the emerging problems.
Preparation of Resume
Preparing an effective resume is an important step in job readiness. Resume should include all important information about you like, name, contact details, educational qualification, work experience, awards, and other personal information. Resumes being tailored as per the job requirement.
Preparation for Job Interview
Preparing for a job interview primarily means taking time to thoughtfully consider your goals and qualifications relative to the position and employer. To accomplish this, you should perform research on the company and carefully review the job description to understand why you would be a good fit. Let’s look at the steps to preparing for an interview.
1. Carefully examine the job description
2. Consider why you are interviewing and your qualifications
3. Perform research on the company and role
4. Consider your answers to common interview questions
5. Practice your speaking voice and body language
6. Prepare several thoughtful questions for the interviewer(s)
7. Conduct mock interviews
8. Print hard copies of your resume
9. Prepare your travel arrangements
10. Sell yourself
11. Get ready to follow up after the interview
Additional Tips for Job readiness
- Focus on what you’ll gain — it will energize you
2. Have a professional photo taken
3. Get signed up for job boards
4. Pay special attention to your Personality development
5. Constantly update your general knowledge, current affairs, and recent development in your professional field.
6. Brush up your numerical and reasoning ability
7. Give time to improve your bearing and turnout
8. Learn social/official etiquettes and manners
9. Thorough preparation of core subjects for written test, if any
10. Prepare for medical fitness test and keep a medical fitness certificate from a registered practitioner ready.
11. Keep your documents like educational certificates, voter ID, Adhaar card, passport, Pan card, Bank details, domicile certificate, caste certificate, sufficient photos, and digital copies ready.
Conclusion
Getting ready for a job is significant for grabbing a dream job and realizing success in it. Inculcating necessary soft and hard skills, searching for the desired job, preparing an effective resume, preparing for a test, a job interview, researching the employer’s organization are some of the crucial steps for job preparation. Few institutes also conduct useful training to help the candidates in preparing for the job. Being aware of the above-mentioned facets of job preparation and constantly striving to prepare oneself for prospective jobs will definitely lead to success in getting a dream job.
