When a Fresh Gradute starts looking for a job, the first place anyone would go to is an online job portal such as jobstreet or LinkedIn.
Recent statistics have shown (Figure 1.) that the amount of graduates from Universities in Singapore has been increasing every year. The competition in finding a job gets tougher as each year passes.
Figure 1.
With job portals or recommendations being the only way one can find a job, it makes job hunting even tougher for a fresh graduate. Standing out from a bunch of resumes online would be a challenge as recruiters usually use a Application Tracking System (ATS) to filter out suitable candidates that matches their requirements. The system rates each applicant and only sieves out the most qualified application or the applicant that applies the earliest to the recruiter. Therefore, out of a hundred applications a recruiter might only see a few candidates resume.
Job hunting can be a long and tiring process, therefore, it is important that you do not give up on job searching and be persistent in applying. However, be careful not to be a desperate applicant in applying for jobs. Here are various different applicants behaviour which I feel every job seeker would eventually experience: (Cause it happened to me as well)
The Desperate
When I first graduated, I had already sent out 10 job applications, and guess what? NONE of them replied. I got worried and I started sending more resumes out, applying for jobs that I don’t even understand. I got calls from recruiters where I forgot the company that I applied for.
Please. Don’t be like me. I soon realize that the problem wasn’t the number of jobs I applied but to cater my resume to what the company is looking for and the job role.
Other than the employees’ difficulty in screening through hundreds of resumes, applicants also run into issues where they get desperate in job hunting and would just apply to every job they see. Sending hundreds of resumes to different jobs in different industries. This makes job hunting inefficient as it would be just the quantity of jobs but not quality job hunting, thus, they might miss an opportunity for a suitable job for them.
Tip #1: Cater your Resumes to the job role you are applying for.
The Lost
For many others like myself, I had no idea what job I wanted or what I am interested in. The process of finding a job after graduation seems like a process needed to be done regardless.
Finding a job related to your degree seems to be the most appropriate thing to do, however, if your degree is a general one such a business degree, what other jobs could you be applying for? Sales and marketing seem like the most suitable job role that you can do.
Therefore, looking through job portals would be like walking in a desert, not knowing what job to find. Just browsing through jobs seeing if the location is near or they are able to pay you your desired amount.
If you’re really not sure what jobs to apply for and are afraid to commit to a full-time job, I would recommend getting an internship to get a glimpse into what the job role would be like. (This applies also to those that don’t have job experience and are looking to get into certain specific industries)
Tip #2: Focus on what job role & scope you are looking for. This will make job searching a much easier process.
The Picky
With so many different job portals to search from and the various number of jobs available on each platform, sometimes applicants would feel like they are overqualified for the job and would not want to apply for it.
Having paid so much for a degree and studying for a number of years, some would think that getting a job paying less than the market rate would be an insult to them. Therefore, they would only be applying for higher-paying jobs which would be highly competitive due to the attractiveness of the job.
With the introduction of LinkedIn, using it as a social media site as well as connecting employers to employees has become a trend. Job portals similar to LinkedIn such as Wantedly and Glint has also been a platform for fresh graduates to look for jobs.
Although it makes it harder to get a job using a job portal, it has also made job hunting much easier and accessible to everyone compared to the older days of finding advertisements on the newspaper or flyers. Job portals still have a long way to go in improving their system and it would not go out of trend anytime soon. One aspect which I feel job portals could have on their website would be a job matching based on a questionnaire for the applicant.
By getting the applicant to fill out a questionnaire, which would include an interest of the applicant, their field of study, and hobbies. Through these questions, the system would have an algorithm in place to better match the applicant to a suitable job for them.
This would take away the trouble of sieving through hundreds of resumes for employers as well as the trouble of applicants not knowing what job they would want or what to apply for. This would help narrow down every applicant’s search and better match the applicants’ skills and interest to a suitable job for them.
With this additional function to the job portal, it would greatly benefit job seekers in finding a suitable job, and hopefully, that will be the only job you will be seeking. 😉
