Standing out in the job market

Have you ever tried to find someone at the football match or on a London Underground train? Then you know how hard it is to find someone who is not standing out. This can be the same when job hunting, many fail to find a way to stand out among the crowds. Truly standing out is something that takes focus and practice  to achieve. For those wow factor jobs, you need your application to really stand out.

So, we devised this list of some tips to help you stand out in a growing applicant pool.

Linkedin

It may come as a surprise to a lot of us in the industry. But a lot of the modern working world is on Linkedin, with professionals from all around the world using Linkedin to share their professional success. Having a Linkedin account can be a major support for any prospective job seeker because more businesses are using this website actively for hiring! But to stand out, you’ll need to practice regular updates regarding your professional life, like what skills your building or insights into your industry. Alongside having a front facing, clean profile picture, and a copy of your CV built into your page. Now it may be clearer why so many professionals are using this website to build their connections and prospects in the job market.

CV

We’ve covered before how to build a CV, but we find that it’s the most important yet overlooked tool a job seeker can use. Your CV should be, ideally, re-done for each job interview that you really want, if you’re trying to go for that dream job, then the extra work isn’t going to hurt in the long run. Take some time, about 30 minutes to an hour to just go over it, see what you can tweak to better suit the role, spell check it too to make sure any escapee mistakes weren’t overseen. This little routine before each really desired role is in fact a huge factor in career success. You’re building analytical skills and communication skills, self awareness too and how to work to a businesses language.

CV covering letter

Seeing as this a tip collection of practices for getting a dream role, you’ll definitely want to include a covering letter. Be creative with your explanation for why you’ve got the skills, knowledge and track record right for this role. A cover letter is exactly for that purpose so use it, using language that’s right for that industry, you’ll want to build up an explanation of why your skills and career experience are ideally suited for that role. Having experience within that industry, at any level, be it being an awarded chef or just an apprentice sous chef, or having a renowned charity experience relating to that industry would also help support your cover letter. Essentially you’re building a persuasive argument for why your skills and experience have built you to be ideal for the role.

When making a call

We all make mistakes, like small oversights concerning our application, this can lead us to sometimes become restless and desperate for answers, like delays on the route to the interview and sometimes we just need to double check directions. However there are points of contact you can use that mean you don’t have to peck at the businesses hiring manager. Most roles are outsourced anyway and making a call to the recruiter over the hiring manager can help you to stand out, showing a passion for the role and therefore the industry itself, which only a professional would care about. So if it applies, contact the recruiter working on your role with any questions instead of the hiring manager of the business itself, it sounds counter intuitive, but there’s a reason a busy workplace comes to an agency for recruitment.

Portfolio

If your role can include practical examples, do a portfolio! It’s basically a collection of your work, it can be physical or a website, usually it will be pictures of your work or examples of your work, a Chef would have awards and pictures of food, a logistics manager would have statistics to show what benefits they brought a business and what increases they made for that business. So a portfolio can be a lot of different things, consider how yours would look if your dream role needed a portfolio, would you be able to make one? If not, build a mock portfolio to get an idea for how you’d ideally build one, this will benefit you in building the skills needed to create a real portfolio if needed.

Be creative

This has to be bespoke to you, that is to say, you need it to be as you as possible, your CV, your cover letter and portfolio all need to be uniquely you as it needs to stand out. Once you’ve built your CV and cover letter you need to ask yourself, is there anything I can do to stand out? In this job market, many are looking for someone who is creative in how they approach life and what that entails. It’s a huge boost to a role and a business to have someone whose visibly creative in all aspects they have, a good method of showing this is through things like their CV and cover letter, it’s a businesses first impression of you so by finding out what people in the industry are doing to be creative, you’ll have an idea of what elements you’ll need to portray in your CV as there’s a good chance you’re already that type of creative.

The team here at HtE Recruitment have 15 years experience in  helping candidates like you to stand out.

Once you have found that dream job, the next stage is to write a resignation letter, this helpful link will give you a template for a resignation letter

HtE Recruitment News & Insights

This news and insights page has been written by Josh our Recruitment & Marketing Coordinator.  HtE Recruitment take no responsibility for this post.