Career Advice

January is the month that is traditionally the most active for job searching and recruitment.

Whether January will be the most active month for recruitment this year remains to be seen.

One thing that’s certain is that there is increased competition for most vacancies.

Many people are armed with New Year’s resolutions, which in addition to getting fit and giving something up, often include finding a great new job. With certain sectors shedding positions, January will be a very competitive month.

With increased competition for job vacancies, here are our top tips to help you to stand out and get interviews.

1. Consider using two (or more) CVs. As an example, if you have sales and marketing management experience and are using the same CV to apply to both sales management and marketing management positions, consider using one CV targeted towards sales management positions and another for marketing management vacancies.

Those looking to “catch all” with a single, broad CV can spread themselves too thinly and catch nothing.

An example from our own CV forwarding service illustrates this point. Those with a single CV aiming for both sales director and MD positions occasionally require a second send-out. Once we focus the CV (and profile) on the second send-out to just one position, we then usually get very positive results.

Precise targeting is more likely to reap interview rewards.

2.  As a percentage of total jobs, the size of the hidden (unadvertised) job market increases during downturns. The advertised job market decreases as recruiter’s advertising budgets are cut.

So now is a good time to re-connect with recruiters to see what they have for you, and to get your CV out to targeted recruiters and start making those connections as recruiters are the gatekeepers to the unadvertised jobs market.

3. January is a very competitive time to job search, so remember to keep going if necessary in February, which is a time when the competition traditionally levels off as people are less active.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Executive Job Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.