Try these proven strategies to stand out in the current competitive job market.
It’s no secret that mass layoffs have occurred in various industries over the past few months, and if you’re one of the unfortunate ones who has been let go or fired, you’re not alone. The current economic climate has resulted in a highly competitive job market, making it even more challenging to find a new job. Nevertheless, this is a chance for you to demonstrate your skills and stand out among the other job seekers. Here are some tips on how to make yourself a standout candidate in a crowded job market:
1. Highlight your top employable skills
Do you have traits and abilities that an employer would value? You do, of course!
Now let’s spend some time thinking about these top traits and communicating your value to a potential employer. Consider all your key abilities, skills, and competencies you possess that can be transferable to new employment.
Spend some time jotting them down, asking friends, colleagues, managers, and acquaintances- how would they describe your strengths, how would they describe you in a few words?
Be open to hearing them all, but keep in mind, you will want to highlight only a few top most relevant skills to the roles you’re targeting. On your online portfolio, Linkedin, or on your CV, emphasise the experience and discuss how these acquired skills might be applicable to your new position.
This is the first step to building your personal brand as a candidate.
2. Create a thought leadership plan
What’s that, you say? Building your thought leadership goes hand in hand with owning and marketing your own personal brand. To start, you need to focus on your areas of greatest interest and potential contribution. Once you’ve figured out your top “topic pillars” of expertise, choose a medium to spread your message and knowledge. You can create your own website, utilise Medium or LinkedIn.
Use social media to interact with your desired audience and market your work. You may use the chance to display your thoughts, opinions, and abilities while creating and sharing material to attract the attention of recruiters.
3. Personalise your cover letter and resume
Don’t be hesitant to include some individuality, even if your resume and cover letter must certainly be professional. At the end of your resume, provide 1 or 2 lines of entertaining facts or personal information about yourself. Make sure your online profiles are updated accordingly.
You can even go the additional mile and create a video resume to catch the attention of a potential employer! If anything, you will certainly stand out to the hiring manager!
The bottom line is this: we read through an average of 300 CVs a day for 1 role at Polyglot Talent. The resumes that fail the “recruiter assessment test” of 5 seconds are always the ones that were generic and had not been personalised.
Don’t make that mistake yourself, spend the time to personalise your profile to each role.
When it comes to job applications, quality over quantity!
Did you know we’re offering free resume reviews? Yep. Sign up here
4. Connect with Other Experts
A large network is more essential than ever. If more people are willing to recommend you as a great employee, a prospective employer will be more likely to give you a chance.
Look for networking events in your region or online- talks, job fairs, and conferences.
Introduce yourself on LinkedIn to hiring managers or even those employed by the organisation you wish to work for. Get active on the appropriate social media networks and conduct yourself accordingly.
To make great new acquaintances, frequently browse your LinkedIn feed and offer your opinions or comments to posts. Look through your LinkedIn connections to see if anybody there can put you in touch with someone at the company you’re interested in.
There have been many instances when we have hired candidates through social referrals or found out about a candidate’s interest when they directly messaged one of our Recruiters.
5. To find employment opportunities, make sure to have a LinkedIn profile
In this day and age, when LinkedIn contains about 80% of the candidate pool, and where Recruiters spend half of their working day, you need to be on there and you need to be easily found!
- Build a basic profile from scratch, slowly build a relevant network, and continue growing and optimising your profile.
- You may search for job openings on LinkedIn, and having an online presence makes it easier for hiring managers to find you.
- Create job alerts to get notified of opportunities that match your experience.
- Observe the talents and education listed in industry employees’ profiles to learn more. You’ll learn from this what comparable employers would expect to see on your resume.
Suppose you already have a great LinkedIn profile, but you’re not receiving daily inmails and messages from Recruiters and Hiring Managers. In that case, an overall LinkedIn profile optimisation would be required.
We hope you find these tools helpful to start standing out in the job market. Even if it all feels overwhelming, try to implement one at a time, and you’ll soon start seeing results.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!
