How to Get the Job You Want

Truly Ask Yourself

You should know yourself reasonably well before you search for any job. If you don’t do it. You can easily find yourself having a job that you don’t like, no matter how good it is. Of course, the more you know yourself the better. For a start you can take the following questions as an inspiration.

Personality

• Who I am?
• What type of job I want to do?
• What makes me happy?
• What I can tolerate?
• What I can not stand?

Abilities

• What I can do?
• What I want to learn?
• What are my strengths and weaknesses?

Environment

• Where I want to work?
• What company size fits me?
• In the office / open-space / outside / traveling?
• Individual tasks / teamwork?

Money

• What is the least salary I can accept?
• How much money is appropriate?
• What salary I want to have in the future?

Find the Job

Actively search for jobs / companies that you like.

• Search for them on the internet on job offering sites, LinkedIn…
• Look at the individual people on social media.
• Talk about jobs with your friends.
• Look at the place you came from such as school, previous job place…
• Have your eyes wide open also when walking in the city.
• Just observe all the possibilities you can.

Get Your Foot In

The prerequisites are to know who you are, what you want, what you can do and which job connects the dots. Knowing this, you need to reverse the perspective and see why should the company for the job hire you? Once you figure it out, it’s time to get in touch with the employer.

And there are multiple ways to do it:

• Apply for an open position on the internet.
• Sent an email regarding an open position from the company’s career pages.
• Contact the individual person you find approachable.
• In case your position is not open, but you are really interested, contact them anyway.
• Or contact them in person on some workshop or public show they may do.

Elevator Pitch

One technique that may help you is called the Elevator pitch. In short it’s about clearly presenting your proposal in a short amount of time. When you meet the right guy in person he is usually willing to give you just some of his time. If you are not prepared, the chance you blew it is high.

In the simplest form it’s just three sentence piece where you say:

(1.) Who you are. (2.) What you can do. And (3.) what you want.

Curriculum Vitae

One way or the other You will be asked to send them your CV. There are some general recommendations however don’t take them too seriously.

• The most important points must be clear in a glance (under 30 seconds).
• You want your CV to truly represent you.
• Don’t put old things there (>5 years) unless you have a good reason to do it.
• Pay attention to the aesthetics but not at the cost of clarity.
  • This regards the usage of fonts/ bold, italic / images / symbols…
• Picture of your face is debatable, safer it is to not have it there.
• All the keywords should be present there.
  • For automation reasons you can also insert them while being invisible with plain sight.

Motivation Letter

Sometimes you are asked to also send a motivation letter. This letter can be very simple, however it is leaver you can pull. It must contain:

• Whom
• Subject: Like elevator pitch but shorter.
• Body 3-4 sentences of my motivation …

Call Trick

• You may put a call announcement at the bottom of the motivation letter.
• Then at the announced date you can start the call like: “I am calling you as announced in the motivational letter, as I would really like to know such and such…”.
• This technique is questionable and it can definitely backfire at you.
• However it is a better reason to call than without it.

The Interview

This part may be the most crucial one.

• Research the company in advance to the extent you care about the job.
  • Write down the most interesting things for you and also any question you have.
  • In case your interest is mediocre, still do it for an hour, it may give a nice edge.
• Be there on time at all costs.
  • In case a delay on your side is possible, give them a call about it in advance.
    • e.g. “Good morning, …, the metro is stopped, I’ll do my best, but it can happen I will be 10 minutes late, I’m very sorry.”
• Remember the names at instant and use them during the interview.
  • If you know you have trouble with remembering names, train this elsewhere.
  • Calling a person his/her name improves your position more than you can imagine.
• During the interview write notes to the same notebook you made the research with.
• Ask them a lot of questions about what they said, and also about what you want to know i.e. what they didn’t say.
• Negotiate a lot.
  • For most companies this is the time for most if not all the negotiations.
  • If you don’t negotiate it here you might wait a lot or don’t get it at all.
• Be sure to get their emails.
• Connect with them on LinkedIn right after the meeting.
• If you care about it, send them a thank you message after the interview either on LinkedIn or via email.

Employability Skills

No matter if we are talking about the elevator pitch, the CV, motivation letter or an interview. You want to make them feel you have the skills to be a good employee. Of course you don’t need to have them all, or you can find jobs where some of them are less important. However these skills are usually really appreciated. It may serve you well to keep them in mind throughout the stages.

• Business Awareness
• Communication
• Creativity
• Initiative
  • This skill is best shown through your approach to the hiring process.
  • Are you active? Do you ask questions? Do you do more than it’s necessary?
• Leadership
• Planning
• Self efficiency
• Team play

Unemployment

There are several things you can do during the times you are not employed. Probably the most important is to acquire skills that help you to get the job you want. You can learn on your own. Also you can enroll into a course. In the case of Czechia, its Labor Office can also give you some money to do it. LinkedIn can also help you. Be there “open to work” , keep the information up to date, and connect with people. It’s not a guarantee of anything, but it can provide you the opportunity you want.