The Job Hunting Book

The Job Hunting Book

IAN ALLAN

Published by IAN ALLAN, 2022.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

THE JOB HUNTING BOOK

First edition. November 12, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 IAN ALLAN.

ISBN: 978-0645446531

Written by IAN ALLAN.

THE

JOB HUNTING BOOK

Career mentoring

and

job seeking tips

(graduate edition)

IAN ALLAN

For intern, new graduate and early career job seekers. Includes worked examples of résumés for an…

Copyright statement:

First published in 2022 by Geocode Mapping and Analysis Pty Ltd, Melbourne. Australia

Copyright Geocode Mapping and Analysis Pty Ltd, 2022

Illustrations Nitty Gritty Graphics 2022

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Creator:      Allan. Ian. 1963 – author.

Title: The Job Hunting Book

Subtitle: Career mentoring and job seeking tips - graduate edition

ISBN (epub): 978-0-6454465-3-1

Notes:      Includes table of contents.

Subjects: Career, Career guidance, Job hunting, Job hunting book, Job interview, Resume, Cover letter, Self help

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries via [email protected].

Graphic design by Sandy Coventry, Nitty Gritty Graphics, nittygrittygraphics.com.au

Disclaimer

The material in this publication is general in nature only. It does not represent professional advice. Everybody’s circumstances are different. If expert assistance is required, the service of an appropriate professional should be sought. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from them taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

Ian Allan is not affiliated with and does not endorse any of the corporate entities mentioned in or involved in the distribution of this work, or any third party entities whose trademarks and logos may appear on this work.

Quantity sales

Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. Special print runs that include with compliments from [your business] can also be arranged. For details, contact me at [email protected]

Table of Contents

About the Author – Ian Allan

Preface

Idea 1: You need to create a presence for yourself

Idea 2: The focus of a job application should always be on the employer

Idea 3: Technology has changed the way the job market works

A note on the FREE companion website

Some useful terms

Introduction

This book has four parts

PART 1: Context for the 2020’s job market

PART 2: Laying the foundation for getting a job

PART 3: Applying for a job

PART 4: Examples of job applications

PART ONE – Context for the 2020’s jobs market

Employers looked at résumés differently after the GFC

Job growth mirrors population growth so there are always new jobs

The job market changed after the 2008 GFC

Make the new job market work for you

The workplace will change post covid

Imagine you’re the person evaluating your job application

Why employing someone is a risk for small business

Four reasons why an employer would regret employing you

PART TWO – How to lay the foundation for getting a job

PRESENCE PYRAMID LEVEL 1 – Four ways to research your job

Do work experience that’s relevant to the job you want

Avatars: A tool to understand an employer’s problems, hopes and dreams 25

PRESENCE PYRAMID LEVEL 2: Craft your LinkedIn profile to target a job

PRESENCE PYRAMID LEVEL 3: Networking and building relationships

PART THREE – How to apply for a job

PRESENCE PYRAMID LEVEL 4: How to research a workplace

PRESENCE PYRAMID LEVEL 5: How to write a job application

My thoughts on interviews

My thoughts on wage negotiations

PART FOUR – Examples of job applications

Read this and then skip to the example that’s relevant to you.

Notes on using photos of your Avatar

Please leave a review

Job application example 1: Marketing Graduate

Job application example 2: IT Support Engineer

Job application example 3: Accounting graduate

Appendix - List of web pages on the companion website

References

About the Author – Ian Allan

Life has a way of throwing up challenges. Mine happened in my late teens. In the final year of my apprenticeship a nasty workplace accident forced me to rethink my career.

Fast forward to my early 30s, I’d been a furniture restorer, a furniture removalist, a bingo caller, a pedestrian accident researcher, a condom tycoon (for some reason that failed to impress my girlfriend’s mother), a software engineer, and a lecturer and researcher in mapping science. I won jobs, sometimes due to my tenacity, but looking back, mostly through word of mouth.

In the 90s I started a consultancy and did map modelling for universities, the water industry, all levels of the Australian government and the UN. Magically, consulting work and now my employees came via word of mouth.

So, after 40 years as an employee and as a consultant, I’ve learnt that the secret sauce for getting work is relationships, especially professional relationships. These need not be insincere or manipulative. Opportunities naturally arise if you make the effort. The trick to giving relationships their best chance of yielding work is to put yourself in the other person’s boots and empathize with their problems, their hopes and their dreams. Getting work becomes a simpler exercise when you’ve customized your offering to meet someone’s needs. And that, in a nutshell, is what this book is about.

I’m a teacher at heart. Now, in my 50’s, I can look back on my career as an employee looking for work, as a consultant winning work, and as an employer hiring and firing. When I started out, the guidance I give you in the following pages was not around for me. In the absence of a mentor, I had to work it out for myself. And so here it is for you. For all you early career job seekers, I hope The Job Hunting Book makes your job seeking journey an easier one.

Preface

PARALLEL UNIVERSE #1 – ALEX HASN’T READ THIS BOOK YET.

Job hunting is frustrating. This must be Alex’ one hundredth job application. Alex has downloaded a résumé template from the web, filled it in, and by changing the job and employers details, has been very efficient and emailed it to five employers just today

Lou is overworked and understaffed. The right employee would take the pressure off. The responses from last week’s ad keep coming in. Over two hundred already. Evaluating them is another job on top of everything else. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were all killer candidates, but so far, they all seem hell-bent on sabotaging their chances. None have made the effort to address Lou’s carefully crafted job description, so only a few have made it into the maybe pile

Returning from a break, Lou sits down to check more emails. Spam, spam, spam, spam. Oh. Here’s one. My new employee perhaps? Bla, bla, bla...promising...résumé attached...hmmm...

I bet they emailed this to 20 employers just today...Lets give them the benefit of doubt...Check them out on LinkedIn. Ahhhhh! Just as I thought. Alex is a student at a university. Nothing more. Why bother? There’s time I’ll never get back!

Even good people have bad days, and it’s one of those days for Lou.

https://bit.ly/wsjsd-0-1 (9 minutes)

People talking about job seeking are like teenagers talking about sex. Most proclaim to be experts. Some have success stories to tell. Others, failure stories. Others are conspicuously quiet. There’s lots of talk. Lots of experts. But usually little actual experience.

Likewise, job seekers trade stories about a killer résumé or interview trick that landed a friend their dream job. Inevitably though, few have any strategic understanding of the job market. To be fair, few people do.

The key to getting a job is simple. You need to put yourself in the boots of your employer. The odds are, they just want to employ the most personable, most professional, most qualified person for the job, and with the least amount of effort on their part. I want this person to be you! That’s why this book focusses on three ideas that many job seeking books do not.

Idea 1: You need to create a presence for yourself

Your presence will allow you to tap into jobs more easily. Marketers call this a personal brand. The Kardashians and Oprah are two extreme examples. Your presence need only be a micro-brand. One that will make you just famous enough to turn an otherwise cold-call on an employer (think telemarketers at mealtime) into a warm-call (think coffee with a new friend).

Whether they like the idea or not, everybody has a personal brand. Lazy, party-animal, angry, spiteful... are not desirable ones to an employer. Better ones might be intelligent, hard working, professional, personable...

Your presence that we’ll build together is everything about yourself that will make you the ideal candidate for your new job. It’s what will give an employer the confidence to employ you. It’s the research that you’ve done to understand your new job. It’s your LinkedIn profile, informed by your research, that an employer can discreetly look at to find out more about you. It’s the professionalism and confidence, underpinned by your job research, that you radiate when you’re networking.

Idea 2: The focus of a job application should always be on the employer

A résumé is not all about you! The key is to understand that a résumé is a personal marketing document that’s all about making the job of employing you an easy one. When you think of your résumé in those terms it becomes obvious what should go in, what should stay out, and what should be emphasized.

By the time the foundations of your presence are in place, it’s possible that you will have already met the person who will employ you. That will allow you to write a laser focused job application to someone you already have a relationship with...a friendly, personable, professional résumé and cover letter that address all of a job’s selection criteria, and conveys your confidence that you’re qualified for the job you’re applying for.

Idea 3: Technology has changed the way the job market works

Some aspects of job seeking haven’t changed. Others have, even compared to a decade ago.

Networks have always been important, as have résumés and cover letters. However, to the inexperienced job seeker, the emphasis on résumés and cover letters is greater than ever. That’s because the recruitment industry’s tool kit has changed. It’s now common for recruiters to use Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) to compare hundreds of applications to a job description, automatically rank them, and so help to quickly create a shortlist of applicants to interview. This new efficiency is why recruiting sites are always saying send your résumé or apply online.

Résumés are tangible, so the media, family and friends, and the education system focus on them. This leaves many graduates with the false impression that getting a job is solely reliant on having a perfect résumé. That in turn leads to the silver bullet approach to job seeking – submitting the same carefully constructed résumé to every job they see advertised. It’s a trap that’s less likely to be successful because a résumé needs to be tailored for each job, and because of the 80/20 rule of job seeking (four in five jobs are not advertised).

Too many graduates ignore the 80/20 rule and spend too much effort competing for the 20% pool of jobs. Sure, there’ll always be advertised jobs that are worth applying for, but wouldn’t it be more sensible to spend 20% of your effort on the 20% of the jobs that are advertised, and 80% of your effort on the 80% of jobs that aren’t?

Here’s the bit that’s changed in the job seeker’s favor. Although you still access unadvertised jobs through networking just like old-timers did, there’s a new generation of tools at your disposal to find and research those jobs – Google, LinkedIn and jobscan. They’re what I teach you to harness in this book. If you use them properly, you’ll have a better chance of creating laser focused job applications, often for hiring managers you already know.

Throughout this book I deliberately use the pronouns you and your. That’s because you need to take responsibility for your job research, for your LinkedIn profile, for your networking, and for your job applications.

If you don’t tell people what you can do, how on earth are they meant to find out!

Expect my approach to presence building and job application writing to be challenging. Embracing challenges is one way we grow both personally and professionally. The research, preparation and practice you’ll be doing will help you to move beyond the fear of, and reluctance to, talk about yourself. It will give you the confidence to talk to people about yourself in a way that’s meaningful to them, and natural to you. It’s important to be able to talk about yourself because if you don’t tell other people what you can do, how on earth are they meant to find out!

My approach is not just challenging. It also involves work. But, in contrast to the soul-destroying technique of applying unsuccessfully for sometimes hundreds of jobs, it is empowering because it also sets a foundation for maintaining and building your career once it’s under way.

It is about understanding that your résumé needs to be tailored to the job that you’re