Find the perfect job

Is one of your New Years Resolutions for 2011 to find the perfect job? Last week we posted 10 top Careers if you are considering a career change and this week we want to help you with some strategies to find your PERFECT job!

What is the perfect job?

To start with, you need to know what you consider your perfect job, it is not enough to just want a change. Each person has different skills, abilities and needs, you need to define what it is that you want. We recommend a mudmap or a list - start with listing what you don't like about jobs you have had in the past and then list the things you did like. Finally list the things that are important to you in a new job, eg:

Dislikes

managers who yell

lack of direction

Likes

team building activities

Key Performance Indicators

Important

open door management policy

achievement recognition strategies

Be Prepared

It goes without saying that you need an up to date Resume. Many people procrastinate about updating their resume and therefore miss out on perfect opportunities when they come along. We recommend you ALWAYS keep your resume up to date, that way a new job or skill is just one item to add when the perfect opportunity comes along! If your resume is very out of date, consider the benefits of using a professional resume writer, all you have to do is give them notes and they will do the hard work for you!

Have you thought about your Interview skills? Once you have identified the job you want and provided your resume, you need to have polished interview skills! You can ask a trusted friend or family member to help you practice talking and answering questions. If you prefer you can also enlist the help of a professional, generally someone who specialises in teaching self confidence skills is a good place to start! It is most important that you know your experience and strengths and how to sell yourself. It is also important that you know about the company you wish to work at. Go online and research the company so that you can have some questions of your own to ask in the interview!

Finally, preparation should include appropriate follow up techniques. Once you have sent off your resume, you should be prepared to follow up your perfect job, because you can almost bet your favourite Aunt that there will be more than 1 suitable applicant, following up is a great way to stand out from the crowd. Again, enlist the help of a friend or family member to practice what you will say, or learn these skills from the person you hired to assist you with your interview techniques

Finally register with a job alert service! Most Australians are familiar with Seek, and this is a great place to start when you are researching the kind of job you are wanting and getting an understanding of what sort of pay you can expect. Once you are seriously looking for a job we highly recommend you register with SMStheJOB to increase your chances of being the stand out applicant for your dream job. The benefits of SMStheJOB alerts going straight to your mobile phone are that you are the first to hear of new opportunities and with our simple SMS to apply solution, you are the first to get your resume seen (interesting info - most successful applicants are those whose resume was seen by an employer on the first day of the ad going out!).

We hope the above tips will help you to land your dream job in 2011! We'd love to hear from you if you have any other tips that would be helpful for our readers!