How to Narrow Your Job Search and Find the Right Position for You
Are you looking for a job but you got lost in the sea of job ads? Don't you know where to start? We're here to help you!
Even if you're not an active job seeker, the best job for you may not be the one you are currently employed in. The market is constantly changing and it’s important to explore it from time to time.
Here is your manual:
1. Consider the best possible job for you, and some other options
What do you want? Change industries? A higher position? Higher salary? Similar position but with additional tasks? Move to another country? Or just change companies?
Let's imagine that you're David, a junior social media marketing manager in the hospitality industry. You're not satisfied with your salary, you've sat down with your manager several times to talk about it without any results. You've decided to look for another job. As a hobby, you love to do graphic design, so ideally your job would be a social media marketing manager (not junior anymore!) role where you can deal with the design as well. You're happy with your current location, but would prefer hybrid working.
We already have criteria:
- Marketing manager role, as it may pay better
- Non-hospitality industries
- Marketing manager roles with graphic design
- Hybrid jobs
2. Check companies 1.0
If there's a company you'd like to work at, check their career page. There are cases when companies are not advertising their jobs as they have enough candidates from their career page so you cannot find these roles on job portals. If they don't have open positions foryou at this time, just send your CV to give yourself a chance.
3. Explore the platforms
First of all, we'd recommend exploring job posting platforms to scan current jobs. LinkedIn is highly recommended as it offers you jobs according to your skills, experience, and current position.
Platforms we suggest you use:
Google Jobs
We could list many more sites, but we guarantee that all jobs are available on these sites. Even only on Google as it collects all of the job advertisements, but you should use them simultaneously as they have different filters.
Note: Google jobs is not a separated website but an extra tool for the search engine.
How to: write your desired role and the "jobs" after it. E.g. Google "social media manager jobs" and it collects all of these jobs in your area. If you click on it, you can change the location and filter the jobs.
What also could be useful is local Facebook groups for job seekers. Such as:
Or local job sites like:
Karriere for Austria
Profession for Hungary
job.cz for Czechia
4. Filter jobs
As you may realize, there are several filter options you can use. Are they needed? Absolutely! We show it how to use it.
- Firstly, just add at least one keyword to narrow the field (e.g. marketing, sales, finance)
- Add the preferred location
If you're interested only in remote jobs, tick this option and put "worldwide" to the location part if it's needed.
- Filter the job type
In case you'd like to avoid traineeship and part-time jobs, tick the "full-time" option.
- Choose the experience level
Most probably you can decide at what level you're, but if this filter doesn't really help you, use 2 options and widen the circle. Sometimes job posters can hardly define the level of the role so your dream job may have probably landed in the lower/higher experience level.
- Filter by date
You may have better chances with positions that have been posted in the past 1-2 weeks. At several companies the recruitment process is fast, so for the job they posted 30 days ago, they've probably already hired someone.
- Add preferred industries if you have
We'd encourage you to do it so if you're really determined into one specific industry as there are overlaps between industries, then this filter narrows down the search.
- Filter by salary carefully
We understand that salary is a crucial point, but as several companies don't publish salaries, you may lose some opportunities.
- Do not filter by position name
Companies are trying to be creative and unique, so with their position names. It can happen that your perfect social media manager role is published as a marketing wizard job.
You may find other filters, but as we don't find them helpful, we wouldn't waste your time wit
5. Master your filtering with boolean
Even if you have used all the filters, you probably have dozens of options looking at you. What if we say you can still filter them? Sounds intriguing, isn't it?
What we should use for it, is the so-called boolean method that's based on symbolic logic.
it's pure magic so if you're familiar with it, try it! But if you don't have any clue about it, stay tuned, because next week we'll teach you!
6. Check companies 2.0.
The reason we suggest Glassdoor is that there you can easily check reviews about companies. Importantly, these are not customer, but employee/candidate reviews, therefore you can get a better idea of what it's like to work there. More often than not, job ads are overbranded and when you actually have interviews with the company, you find the exact opposite. With Glassdoor, more or less you can avoid disappointments.
7. Tailor your resume
If you have already found at least 5 jobs that seem suitable, adjust your CV for them. Highlight the skills and experience they require for the job.
Do not forget the 80/20 rule! You don't have to match 100% the job description otherwise it will not offer you any development opportunities. Apply to jobs that offer some new things to learn.
Note: decorative CVs happen to be not the best as the ATS system cannot filter them.
Previously, we wrote an article on how to beat it.
8. Persevere and draw conclusions
Don't be discouraged by rejection e-mails, it's not about your incompetencies. They may have already hired someone, not opened the position, received someone from an internal recommendation, or there may simply have been a stronger candidate.
Nevertheless, be self-reflective and make sure that you are applying for a job that matches your skills and experience.
Good luck in your search and choose your future!
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