Developing a job search plan

Understand yourself and the graduate labour market

To identify your job search goals, you need to have a clear view of your values, interests, personality and skills.

You also need to research sectors of potential interest within the labour market and especially sectors whose growth and recruitment needs are such that they will be hiring many new graduates over the next several years.

Consider, for instance, these top hiring sectors and types of work: technology and cybersecurity, finance, healthcare, e-commerce, logistics, online education, communication and professional social media, advertising and marketing, and data analytics/risk analysts. There are very significant, global recruitment needs across all these areas.

Using many strategies

You only have so much time, but it is important to be proactive across a range of strategies.

Don’t limit yourself to responding to advertised vacancies. It is just one strategy. If it is your only approach to job search, it maximises the competition pitted against you.

Think multi-strategy and multi-channel as you devise and run with your job search plan.

Try to be proactive across:

  • Specialised graduate vacancy sources
  • Recruitment portals within organisations’ websites
  • Sending speculative applications
  • Networking
  • Recruitment agencies relevant to your sectors/job titles of interest
  • Developing your online profile

Stay connected as your job search moves forward

It is really important to keep your confidence level up in the face of any rejections. Create a support team of friends, colleagues and others who are informed enough about you and about the application and recruitment process to be of genuine help.

You need people around you who you can bounce ideas off, and who can help you constructively critique your approach. They can enable you to refine what you’re saying and how you are approaching the job search.

Include people who have strong networks themselves and who can connect you to individuals and organisations who can make a difference, shortening the timeline from where you are now to getting the right kind of job.