Career Doctor: 19/02/2009
Thursday February 19 2009
If you have any job problems you would like answered by out panel of Career Doctors, please email: careerdoctor@whitespace.ie
Q. I am an Italian national and have been living in Ireland for almost four years. I have been looking for a new job since December 2008, but despite sending several applications I haven't had a single interview. I don’t believe that my CV is that bad. I was wondering if you have any suggestions on how to improve my chances of finding a decent job?
A. I regularly work with individuals suffering from either the frustration of multiple applications with low interview generation or the inability to find suitable job vacancies. There are a number of possible causes, but quite often the problem is a lack the qualifications, relevant experience or industry knowledge. If any of these are the case, a more creative approach is required.
You state that you meet the requirements and, although you may disagree, it is likely that your CV or application is the root cause. You should embrace the following three elements in your CV — content, information positioning and visual appearance. Quite simply, information that makes an impact, is positioned to help the reader find information easily and displayed so that it is visually pleasing on the eye. In addition, CVs that worked a year ago will not necessarily work in a more competitive market.
Aside from your CV, you should address how you search for jobs. Most jobseekers rely on recruitment agencies, newspapers and online job boards. These approaches can be very successful, but you do need a job to be created and advertised before you can take action. Broaden your approach by embracing valuable strategies such as networking and speculative applications.
When you consider that 50pc of jobs are never advertised it makes sense to proactively hunt in the hidden job market.
Paul Mullan is a career coach with Measurability.
www.measurability.ie
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