Job Search Tips

Finding a job can be a long and stressful experience, here are a few tips that can increase your chances of success.
The mind set needed for looking for a job or looking for and starting a work from home business, any business for that matter is that you need to look at it as if it was a full time job and you already have a job. Indeed, if you are in the UK and claiming Jobseekers allowance, the department of work and pensions makes it clear that the allowance is not intended to be enough to live on, but rather enough to just keep you from complete destitution while you look for a job. It is in fact a payment for you to look for a job, and meanwhile your job is to get a job.

If you did have a job, you would work certain hours on certain days of the week and have a routine for your work, when you are looking for work. Well, you need to take the same approach to looking for a job. This is especially true if you are claiming Job seekers allowance, the government expect you to be looking for a job 24/7!! Quite possibly, so does your bank manager. You cannot afford to treat job hunting or finding a way to make a living as if it is some kind of hobby, you have to instead concentrate on tasks that lead to a job. Set goals for yourself, if you have not been working for a while, you may mentally have got out of the habit of doing this, but if you are registered on a government job searchers programme you will have goals set for you that you legally have to comply with such as the number of job seeking activities you do each week.

if your CV/Resume is not at its current best or you don’t have one at all, then set aside time to do this and then upload the basic version to job boards i.e. Indeed, Total jobs, Monster, Reed, etc depending on your geographic area. If you have to go regularly to sign on at a job centre to get benefits, then remember to put the times that you spend uploading your CV/resume down on your job search record as it is also job hunting activity. Maybe you might go to a job fair or attend a job club, these activities count as job seeking activity

https://toughnickel.com/finding-job/do-you-know-what-qualifies-as-a-job-search
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sda56neqKOs



Monitor your progress by keeping a record of what you do, if you attend a job centre, you will be given a record to fill in your job search activities and it will be inspected each time you go for an interview. However, you may still like to keep your own record or just need a record for your own use. Here are some suggestions ~

http://www.careerchoiceguide.com/job-search-log.html
http://www.thecareercoach.co.uk/job-search-templates.php
http://www.onlinecollege.org/2013/05/03/essential-recordkeeping-for-job-seekers/
https://toughnickel.com/business/how-to-keep-good-job-search-records

Google Job search record sheet for some more resources.

If you are really struggling to keep up your job search targets and are threatened with or find your state benefits actually sanctioned, then you need to seriously look at what might be going wrong that you can do to get back on track. Maybe it’s just a case of managing your time better, but it may also be that you have responsibilities such as caring for someone, and if so try to access any help and support that may be out there for you in your situation. If you have health issues, see what if any help your local health authority offers such as health management programmes.

Looking for work or starting a business up and becoming self-employed is in itself a full time job, help yourself through it with a plan and organised record keeping.

I wish you the best of success.

Valerie Hedges