Increase Your Chances At Landing That Job

I’ve been a pretty lucky guy. All the jobs I’ve ever had, especially the one I hold now have for the most part been enjoyable experiences. The first job I landed was as an intern at City Hall, primarily working on the department’s intranet site. That set the bar pretty high since I was only a high school student at the time, and it also being my first job. After that, I slowly started venturing into the world of freelancing with the help of some people.

Upon entering University, I landed a job at the local IT Support Centre which was sometimes not so enjoyable, but an invaluable experience nonetheless. As time went on I ventured more into freelancing, landing more clients, and then came the web development position at Critical Mass.

If you’re a student, you might be saying that in order to land some of the jobs I’ve gotten would require loads of luck and possession of really good skills. However it’s not just luck (although a good skillset is important) — it also depends on how well you sell yourself (and not in this way).

One piece of advice that stuck with me from the counsellor who helped me create my resumé was, “You want to sell yourself as best as possible, and show why you are the right one for the job.”
In continuation, do your best to boast about your skills that are relevant to the job.

The landscape has changed with digital

Another important thing to do this day and age is controlling your online identity. With the advent of facebook and myspace, incriminating pictures of yourself doing some regrettable actions at your friend’s house party can easily become top search results for your name. Obviously it’s best to avoid getting yourself in those situations, but it is still important to have positive search results appear by doing some of the following:

• Creating a LinkedIn Profile

  LinkedIn is another type of social network much like facebook but has more of a professional environment. Here, you essentially create an online resumé which becomes more than just a resumé on the web. Since LinkedIn is a network, potential employers looking for candidates just might stumble upon your name and actually contact you for a job.

  Your LinkedIn profile is also crawlable by search engines so creating a LinkedIn profile can help push down negative search results if you have that problem.

• Maintain a Blog

  With tons of blogging services out there (ie. WordPress, Blogger, etc.), having an online blog can help establish your presence on the web. It’s best that you blog about topics which an employer might get a positive vibe by reading (so creating an entire blog which is purely ranting about how your favorite reality TV star and how they deserved to stay on the island longer is ill-advised…unless you’re taking a comical approach and you’re looking for a job in the entertainment biz). Writing about topics about “your field” will show employers that you have knowledge, and that’s a good thing. Contrary to what I mentioned, the occasional personal post is actually fine.

  It’s also important that you blog on a platform that is crawlable by search engines. Writing blog posts on facebook notes which are usually private within a network is sort of useless since you’re limiting your exposure by doing so.

• Create a Portfolio

  If applicable, creating an online portfolio which showcases your best work is a great idea. It’s important that you try to get as many inbound links as possible so that the chances of a potential employer stumbling upon it is increased.

• Do a Little SEO for yourself

  What is SEO? It is Search Engine Optimization. This is essentially doing what you can to push desired search results to the top of the list. The best thing to do is get as many inbound links (links from other sites to your site) as possible. Inbound links are like currency to search engines so the more links you have to your site, the better. There are a few ways you can get some free links to your site to get you started: creating a claimID account, making a Spock account and listing all relevant sites to your name, getting a Ziki account, and finally, getting friends with blogs to link to you.