Friday, February 10, 2012

How to Make Your Job Search More Successful by Improving Your Hire-Ability

Regardless of how long you've looked for a job (or how many jobs you've looked for), it's always important to do whatever you can to make yourself more hire-able. This is something you can do even if you don't have a lot of experience. So if you're ready to kick your job search into high gear, here are some tips to consider...

Start Your Own Blog

One way to make yourself hire-able in the eyes of recruiters is to start your own blog. This improves your ability to find a career in several ways. For one, your presence on the Internet will be improved, which is very important in the modern job market. Second, it helps show employers that you have knowledge in the field you're attempting to make ground in (even if you don't have experience). And third, it gives a ton of resources to offer prospective employers in the event that they ask for details about your background.

A blog is the perfect way to not only showcase your knowledge, but build knowledge as well. It's the perfect transition for those trying to switch careers, or those entering the professional world for the first time. The best part is that blogs are free to own and start through websites like Blogger, so you don't have to make an investment (other than the time you'll spend writing a few entries).

Get a LinkedIn Page

Another great way to make yourself stand out among your competition is by signing up for a LinkedIn profile. You've probably heard of this great site for professionals, but if you haven't, you're really missing out. You can create a virtual resume quite easily, giving your potential employers a quick way to find you via search engines. But you can connect with other professionals for networking purposes and have those you've worked with before give you recommendations.

Hiring managers and job recruiters will consider you a much more credible candidate if you've got a well set up LinkedIn page. If you decided to set up a blog, you can amplify this effect by linking directly to your blog from your LinkedIn page.

Obtain a Professional Email Address

If you don't already have a professional email address, now is the time to get yours. While sourapplebubblegum(at)unprofessionalemails.com might have been fine at a certain point of your life, but you need your email address to show a decent level of professionalism.

The standard route to take when choosing your professional email address is to use some variation of your name like johndoe(at)yahoo.com, jdoe(at)gmail.com or johnd(at)hotmail.com. But if you really want to look impressive, you could register a domain under your name then sign up for an email address through your own account (ex. john(at)johndoe.com). This way, you could post a quick resume on your site, point to your LinkedIn page and blog, and have the ultimate professional email address.

Sometimes it's not easy to think of ways to get your foot in the door when you don't have a great deal of experience in the field you're pursuing. But taking free or low-cost steps to build your experience beforehand could make you more hire-able then you could ever imagine.

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