Job hunting is just like dating. I was on this site during the financial meltdown trying to get a job with a irrelevant degree and horrible grades but i managed to make it through. Hard work, perseverance, and the ability to adapt to your environment will get you anywhere you need to go.
I will list out all the facts about job searching as i applied to close to 1000 jobs and managed to break into New York City from a crappy school and an unrelated degree to finance.
in no particular order
1.) Job hunting is a numbers game. Apply to as many as you can.
2.) Although it is a numbers game and you want to keep the applications to as many as possible, remember where you want your career to be. I did not get to New York right away. I took a temp job that got me really good experience and a good name. This temp job was relevant to the job i got in New York so i was able to twist it to get the interview and ultimately get the job. Do not apply to irrelevant jobs. If you want a job in finance, etc. do Accounting, book keeping, analyst jobs and apply to those but keep the range broad as you want to have your options open. Each one deals with numbers and can get you back into finance. You want marketing? do sales, tele sales, door to door, e-sales, start your own business, all of these are relevant to marketing as you are marketing products.
3.) Always improve yourself. You are selling yourself as a potential asset to the company. Each and every day that passes, unless you do something about it, your value will not increase. If anything, your value decreases as you are staying stagnant while you age/get older. So, even if you don't have a job, work on relevant independent projects, enter into competitions, volunteer, build a house, DO SOMETHING TO STAY BUSY AND DEVELOP A SKILL, CREDENTIALS, or ANYTHING TO MAKE YOU STAND OUT.
4.) Always improve/adapt your methods of applying to jobs/interviewing etc. Your cover letter might have been great yesterday but if it didn't get you the interview then apparently you need to tweak it some more, reword things, add some flare, inspiration to it, etc. The same goes for your resume. Maybe you get the interview but you can tell they think your credentials are lacking, so that means you have to reword your resume better, perhaps see if #3 that you've been working on for yourself can add to it, or maybe you just need to prepare better on answering questions. Your resume, cover letter, etc. should always be better than the day before, whether its a single word or if you have to rewrite the whole damn letter.
5.) Practice, practice, practice, and practice some more. I used to prepare the night before the interview but it was never enough. I never really knew what the company did, just what wikipedia or what the website said. I was able to regurgitate it but i had no clue what i was saying. In one night you can never really cover all the questions and then you end up half assing all the questions and even missing a bunch.
I prepare for an interview as far in advance as i can. I research the company and for anything i don't know, that they do, i read up on that until i fully comprehend what the company does. I ask my friends and family about what they do and i take in everything that i've missed that would be useful. I do mock interview with myself. List out all the questions they can ask me, then i answer them to myself over and over again until it sounds correct. By then answering the questions becomes second nature.
Most important part of an interview isn't answering what they throw at you, but having great questions to ask back that distinguish you from everyone else.
I worked at one of the companies that is owned by one of the major newspapers and i asked "Now that everything is shifting to more digital/web based and print is becoming more obsolete, Do you find this as a serious concern for a company whose backbone is built ontop of printing newspapers?"
Or something like "I took a look through the company's last 5 annual reports and i can see that pre financial crisis, the firms debt was pretty stagnant and low but ever since the crisis the debt has increased almost 10x's and has been increasing each year since. Do you expect this debt to be a burden on the company's growth?"
6.) If your really having trouble getting a job i would recommend keeping a journal and log all your interview and calls. This way afterwards you can pick at what you did wrong and fix it, or improve what you're already good at to mask your weaknesses.
7.) If you are playing the numbers game for job hunting, create a generic cover letter but tailor it over and over again until you can basically remove a few lines and it will look personal. Cover letters are the most important part of the application, as it can get an unqualified person an interview if written correctly. I've asked a few managers personally.
Hope this is helpful.
---AAA
