Exploring Effective Job Search Strategies
At present, in the increasingly competitive world, job searching is definitely not an easy task. One cannot proceed with job searching without having built effective strategies and gaining the skills demanded in the market. Primarily though effective communication, resumes and cover letters seem the most important things, researching for appropriate job finding strategies is equally important (Ragin 2014). Before making the strategies, there are certain questions that the job finders need to explore:
- One should determine what specific strategies will be effective for him that is to say whether he should concentrate on the employment agencies, networking or online
- One must learn the skills to market himself, both in verbal and written form.
- Acquiring skills to appear in the interviews is also necessary with learning skills to handle unwelcome job offers and issues with salary (Folkman 2013).
Answering these basic questions will prepare a person for making an effective job search stratagem that will fetch him a desirable job. Now, making of the strategies should proceed along the following outline.
- Approaching directly to the Employers
Although this strategy seems old-fashioned, this is effective indeed until today. This strategy is also referred to as “cold canvass” which means meeting the employers personally by approaching to their workplace and expressing willingness to work with them (Vick, Furlong and Lurie 2016). The advantage of this strategy is that even if the employer has not advertised any vacancy, the job applicant can approach the targeted employers, see the location of the workplace and consider whether his skill matches with the job he is applying for.
- Calling an Employer
“Cold calling” can be another way to look for jobs actively; this means to phone the business houses even if they have not advertised vacancies. On the call, information about the workplace and business should be gathered; the purpose of the call must be made clear in mind, getting the questions ready that the candidate seeks to ask and to note the personal skills and qualities to become a valuable employee for that particular business (Folkman 2013).
- Organizations for Group Training
These kinds of organizations appoint trainees and apprentices and employ them out to various other business houses for both long and short-term basis.
- Building up Professional Network
Building up professional networks is essentially important, as these networks can be useful when no other sources work (Ragin 2014). For this, an applicant has to accumulate business cards whenever he meets people and as of courtesy, the applicant should thank each of them personally by sending thanks giving letters.
- Presenting oneself in the Interview
To secure a job, an applicant has to prove himself as the best before the recruiters, leaving hundreds of others behind (Vick, Furlong and Lurie 2016). Hence, it is essentially important to prepare strategies for presenting oneself at his best in those 30 or 40 seconds to give the recruiters a strong reason for hiring him.
- Being Persistent
Lastly, being persistent in job search procedure is needed, as the candidates have to make effort on their own. It is advised to call the hiring managers outside the office hours, when they are most likely to answer their personal phones.
Three Key Skills and Personal Traits for Securing a Job
While hiring a person, the recruiters observe numerous things and look for some specific qualities in an applicant rather than just focusing on his or her academic qualification. Now, these qualities can be both professional skills and personal traits, as the employers know that a perfect combination of these two forms the best employee. This report will specifically analyze the key professional skills and personality traits required for the job position of a team leader. The three key skills and traits for this role are therefore, communication skills, leadership or management skills and Self-confidence (Northouse 2015). The importance of these skills has been discussed in the following section:
- Communication Skills:Communicating with the team members is the utmost necessary skill that a team leader must possess. If a team leader does not have the potential to initiate communication with the team members who might be lacking in skill set, he can never become a popular and successful team leader (Renee’Halasz et al. 2016). Besides, the communication skill of the team leaders motivates the members and inculcates skills in them. In addition, to communicate the team values and to share his experience with the members, a team leader will need communication skills. Team leaders who have strong communication power can easily incorporate the working principles within the team members and hence, while recruiting the team leaders now highly demand communication power for the leadership positions.
- Leadership or Management Skills:Undoubtedly, leadership skills are necessary for the applicants of team-leader position and there are various categories on which the leadership skills are judged at the time of recruitment (Hoch and Morgeson 2014). Now, leadership styles can be diverse; starting from goal-oriented leadership, situational leadership, directive leadership, employee-oriented leadership and so on. Among all these different styles, the recruiters are to choose the perfect style of leadership for the organization. Although leadership and management are two terns almost synonymous, there are a few differences. Management entails strategic planning, looking after the cultural and emotional needs of the members and the power of critical thinking. These skills, though not in great degree but to some extent are required for the position of team leader too (Goetsch and Davis 2014).
- Self-Confidence:It is a well-known fact that without possessing the trait of confidence, one cannot become a successful leader. In fact, self-confidence is the fundamental ground from where leadership grows. As a team leader, a person has to take decisions with confidence because lack of confidence in him cannot convince the team members to abide by those decisions (Northouse 2015). Besides, self-confidence also plays a great role in communication and empowerment for the leaders and that a confident leader becomes more reliable for the team members. The applicant needs to show that he or she has the right confidence to become an enthusing, encouraging and strong leader, able to overcome all situations with confidence and positive attitude (Hegarty et al. 2016).
- Interviewing successfully to get a Job
With the rapid change in the job markets, techniques of searching jobs have changed, required skills for jobs have revolutionized and so the interview decorum and styles have changed too (Barna 2013). For the job role of a team leader, the essentials for a successful interview are to be discussed.
- First Impressions:In any interview, the first impressions of the interviewee matters. The recruiters try to assess an applicant from the very first impression since they walk in the room. The first impressions for team leaders are built with eye contact, giving the impression of a confident interviewee (Hoch and Morgeson 2014).
- Prepared Image:To establish the sorted and prepared image is necessary in the interview by having the CV and other documents prepared professionally (Daft 2014). Besides, the applicants must do a thorough research about the company from the websites before appearing in the interview and that the salary related expectations should clearly be stated.
- Body Language:In any interview, maintaining proper body language is necessary. This means folding arms, leaning back or losing eye contact leave wrong impression on the HR managers (Skillings 2017).
- Confidence:Since the very entrance and in body language a team leader candidate must maintain carry confidence. In fact, replying confidently increases the credibility of a candidate and shows his depth of knowledge in the things being asked to him (White 2017).
- Duty Assigning:For the role of team leader, duty assigning is a part of its core job duties. Often the interviewers try to judge the power of duty assigning in the candidates by reviewing whether the candidate has the ability to choose the right people for the tasks, deliver them comprehensible instructions as well as take follow up from them to ensure the task is being done accurately.
- A Good Coach:It is the responsibility of the team leader to train the new-entrants even after their official primary training (Skillings 2017). In the interview for the position of a team leader, the interviewers often wish to see the qualities of an instructor or a trainer in the candidate. Besides, the recruiters also judge the personal traits of the applicant to retain the employees (White 2017). Here, the interviewers mainly want to hear how the candidate plans to prepare his team member for the promotion and how they will find out what support the members need in learning.
- Apt Reply to Behavioral Questions:In the job role of a team leader, it is obvious that the behavioral questions related to leadership skills will be asked. These questions mainly deal with the experience of leading a team earlier and the way candidates have resolved the difficulties faced. These daunting questions should be answered by preparing the interview story of leadership beforehand, however; the answers must sound convincing.
Thus, carefully noting these few things, if an applicant appears in the interview he or she is sure to secure the desired job.
References
Barna, G., 2013. The power of team leadership: Achieving success through shared responsibility. WaterBrook.
Daft, R.L., 2014. The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.
Folkman, S., 2013. Stress: appraisal and coping (pp. 1913-1915). Springer New York.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hegarty, C., Nelson, J., Barringer, K., Binstadt, E. and Wong, M., 2016. ABCs of Team Leadership: Using Shift Card Data to Guide Future Education. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 17(4.1).
Hoch, J.E. and Morgeson, F.P., 2014, January. Vertical and shared leadership processes: Exploring team leadership dynamics. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2014, No. 1, p. 16977). Academy of Management.
Northouse, P.G., 2015. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Ragin, C.C., 2014. The comparative method: Moving beyond qualitative and quantitative strategies. Univ of California Press.
Renee’Halasz, S., Ansari, M.H., Pawlina, W. and Lachman, N., 2016. Learning to Lead: Facilitating Leadership Skills through Peer and Faculty Feedback in a Team-Based Anatomy Course. The FASEB Journal, 30(1 Supplement), pp.566-3.
Skillings, P. 2017. How to Answer Leadership Interview Questions. [online] Big Interview – Job Interview Training. Available at: https://biginterview.com/blog/2014/01/leadership-interview-questions.html [Accessed 30 May 2017].
Vick, J.M., Furlong, J.S. and Lurie, R., 2016. The academic job search handbook. University of Pennsylvania Press.
White, A. 2017. How to nail a management interview | Snagajob. [online] Snagajob.com. Available at: https://www.snagajob.com/resources/management-job-interviews/ [Accessed 30 May 2017].
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