Career centre advice sheet - Job-Searching

Job-Searching Where to look Job adverts can be found in lots of places. Some good places to look are: 

UHI Career Centre jobs database: a very good place for details of graduate jobs, internships and placements and other work of interest to UHI students and graduates: http://unhi.prospects.ac.uk/

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Local Paper: a very good place to start if you are looking for a job in a particular geographical area.

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Jobs websites: some websites are more useful than others, UHI students may be interested in: o www.s1jobs.com – jobs database covering Scotland o www.jobs-north.co.uk – jobs database for Inverness and the North o www.myjobscotland.gov.uk – database of public sector jobs in Scotland o www.prospects.ac.uk – national jobs database of graduate jobs including internships

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Specialist press: if you are looking for work in a specialist area then jobs may be primarily be advertised on specialist websites, in specialist magazines and through professional associations.

Make sure you have researched the job you’re interested in to find details of specialist associations – the jobs database on www.prospects.ac.uk gives details of typical vacancy sources for different kinds of job.

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Job-centre: you can search at the job-points in jobcentre offices or online: www.jobseekers.direct.gov.uk Remember that the jobcentre only advertises a small proportion of jobs.

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Recruitment and Temping Agencies: these are organisations that act as intermediaries:

companies place jobs with these agencies, and the agencies source staff. To find work through an agency contact them directly to go ‘on their books’. To find a reputable agency in your area you can search the REC database on: www.rec.uk.com.

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Facebook and Twitter: increasing numbers of jobs are being advertised on social networking sites. ‘Follow’ or ‘Like’ your favourite organisations as they may well post information about jobs – the UHI Career Centre has a Facebook page where we make regular posts about job vacancies: www.facebook.com/uhicareercentre.

What about uploading my CV to a website?

Companies that offer to ‘find work for you’ if you upload your CV should be treated with caution.

First of all check whether the website is reputable, you don’t want to upload a great deal of personal information to a website that is not professional. Certainly consider the security of your information and think carefully about how much information you upload into a public domain.

Secondly the value of websites offering this service may be limited. Many employers do not actively search for potential employees, they place and advert and select from applicants. In addition employers who do headhunt employees are more likely to find an employee through word of mouth than from searching online.

Word of Mouth (also called ‘networking’) Every year UHI surveys its recent graduates to find out what they are doing. The survey also asks how they found their job. In the latest survey the top responses were: newspaper / magazine advertisement, 15%; already worked there, 16%; and personal contacts, including family & friends and networking, 22%.

That means that over a third of UHI graduates got jobs at previous employers or through contacts.

The role of personal contacts and networking in finding jobs shouldn’t be underestimated. Think about this: if you’re an employer and you want to take on a new member of staff, do you take on the person who is slightly less qualified but who you know, you trust and you believe will do a good job, or do you take on the person with better qualifications but who you don’t know and you’re not sure if you can trust?

Building a network ‘Networking’ can sound terribly formal, however, everyone ‘networks’ the whole time – think of your ‘network’ of friends, your family ‘network’, all the people you’ve met in social groups, sports clubs, workplaces etc.

When we think of building a network to improve chances of finding a job, we are thinking about the same thing – using your personal and social skills to make contacts – but with a specific aim: to make contacts

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in organisations, professions or with people who may be useful in your career.

Ways to build a network: 

Work experience: work experience is invaluable in terms of building contacts. Work experience allows you to get to know people and demonstrate how good you are in the workplace. Work experience may be something you do as part of your course, but you can also set it up yourself: simply contact a company, explain that you’re interested in what they do and you would like to get some experience as you’re thinking about looking for work in a similar area and could they offer you anything?

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Work shadowing: sometimes companies will not be able to offer you work experience as such, but they may be able to offer you a day or half a day’s ‘work shadowing’ where you shadow an experienced member of staff to get an idea of what they do on a day to day basis.

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Information interviews: an information interview is an interview with someone who works in a particular job or with a manager of a particular company. The aim is to find out more about a company or kind of work and build some contacts. Setting up an interview involves contacting a relevant person, explaining that you’re interested in their company or their line of work, and that you are thinking that you might like to look for work in a similar area, so you wondered if it would be possible to come in and talk to them about their work to get some more information about the job and some advice about how to get into it. As a general rule an information interview is quite different from a job application, and you shouldn’t ask for work as part of the interview, or expect to be offered a job. Your task is simply to make contact with someone in the field you’re interested in, find out about the work and get some ideas for how to improve your chances for finding work.

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Social groups, sports clubs, community organisations: taking part in community events, and even better, helping out with community events, sports clubs or social clubs, can be a good way of making contacts with people. The contacts you make are normally entirely social in nature, but particularly if you live in and are looking for work in a very small area these activities can be very good ways of ‘getting known’.

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Voluntary work: voluntary work can also be a very good way of building up contacts within the community. If you choose your voluntary work carefully then through volunteering you may start to work with useful organisations or individuals, for example, volunteering in an advocacy, mentoring, or youth work role may help you make contacts with similar organisations that offer paid work. Volunteering helps you build contacts, but also gives you useful experience and skills to go on a CV. Details of volunteer opportunities are available on: www.volunteerscotland.org.uk.

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Conferences and events: particularly if you are looking for work in a specialist area it may be a good idea to look out for specialist conferences and events related to your area of interest. These are often good places to meet people and make contacts.

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Social networking: if you’re on Facebook or Linkedin, your social networks may extend through hundreds of people, and much further when you consider friends of friends and contacts of contacts. This gives you access potentially to a lot of different people in a lot of different jobs.

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Professional communities: if you are looking for work in a specialist area you may find that there are professional communities that you can join: for example some professional areas have very active professional associations like the British Psychological Society that you can join as a student member. Also remember online communities, noticeboards and blogs, there are many professional interest groups out there on the internet, remember to do your research, choose your groups carefully, and when you are a member of a group remember that you actually have to post comments or contribute in other ways if you want to be ‘visible’ and build your contacts!

Taking a structured approach Job search requires time and effort. It is a good idea to take a structured approach to job-search including: 

Making sure you have a generic up-to-date CV to hand. This will list all your relevant experience and qualifications by date and can be very useful for job applications – please note however that you should never send a generic CV for a job, and you must target it. See our ‘CVs’ advice sheet for further help.

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Setting yourself a specific time each week to search the relevant jobs pages.

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Identifying ways of extending your network, arranging meetings with relevant people, joining groups, attending relevant events.

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Considering taking on additional voluntary work or work experience while you’re job searching so that you can build your networks and build up skills and experience in order to enhance your applications.

For Further Help Advice: the UHI Career Centre offers free personalised advice through email or over the telephone, contact us here: Information: some useful websites are: www.uhi.ac.uk/careercentre www.prospects.ac.uk/job_hunting.htm There are additional advice sheets in this series on CVs, Job Applications and Interviews which you may find useful.

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