Ideas on How to Find a Job?

[Juan Loco]

Been unemployed for a while now and finding it hard.
I'm experienced and highly skilled at what I do, but the market has really nosedived in WA.

I know I should be doing more, I just can't think what.
I apply for everything on SEEK, mostly I find that everything applicable is advertised on SEEK. Where else should I be looking?

I have milked my LinkedIn hard, but they have nothing going.

I have tried sending my resume and cover letter to every applicable employer I can find.

[Mont5.0]

Have you thought of Joining an Agency?

[creative]

Followup phone calls to all the places you have sent your CV to.
Send your CV again...

Simply make sure your name is first/remembered!

Thats what I did when I was out of work a few years ago.

[TheSneakiness]

Originally Posted by creative

Followup phone calls to all the places you have sent your CV to.
Send your CV again...

Simply make sure your name is first/remembered!

Thats what I did when I was out of work a few years ago.

This unfortunately. You just need to hammer into and not give up.

[pottery beige]

agree

get yo stalk on

give me a job and I will go away

[Itsme]

I have always found walking the streets door knocking at businesses, has worked for me, it shows you are sincere in wanting a job.

[EA2BA]

Originally Posted by trublu

I have always found walking the streets door knocking at businesses, has worked for me, it shows you are sincere in wanting a job.

Worst case they will refer you to the agency they deal with, which might get you in.

[mik]

its tuff out there , i remember some years ago , a friend of the family turned up with her friend who was an employment coordinator,
what little i remember of talking to the guy was , he said today if you want one single chance of being in the running for a job you will have one chance in every 100 applications because so many others are out after the same thing, so you have to keep plugging, the other thing he said was it most definitely pays to have your resume written up by a pro,
and i believe him ,
he wrote one up for me and all i can say "wow" , the way he set it all out and knowing how i had done my own resume in the past , mine was **** , and after looking at his i would have tossed mine straight in the waste basket,
the resume was comprehensive from employment history to hobbies, marital status, girlfriend, the whole bit.

i would pay someone 200 bucks to write one up for me and be happy to part with the money if i was looking for a job.............. and i would be happy to pay it because i think i`d have a ten times better chance of getting gainful employment.

[cs123]

What sort of work do you do Juan?

[Revolver]

Originally Posted by Mont5.0

Have you thought of Joining an Agency?

HA! I am registered with various recruiting agencies. I have had 2 call backs since January, one resulted in an interview, no Job. Which leads me to the question do they actually do anything?? And the Interview was the result of a recruiter that had me on his books for over 18 months.

Since January I have applied for (And I am not joking) In excess of 60 drafting jobs, (my profession) as well as other positions in motorcycle shops, other service stations, warehouse jobs, plus others. As I said above, I am registered with various recruiting agencies. I would be pushing close to 90 jobs in total. If not more. I have started lose track. But in circa 10 months, and all those applications, I've had 6 call backs, and 3 interviews. Which as you have guessed have led nowhere. Which is really weird for me because whenever I have had an interview, I get the job.

I kept wondering why there was no interview or job. Then I got an email from seek.com a few months ago outlining the Joblisting/application ratio. The email had this figure. 10-109. Next week was 8 for 88, 9 for 94, 10 for 102. You get the point.

That's a 10-1 ratio of applicants to to jobs available. No wondering I'm not finding work......

Its a seriously tough "employers market" out there at the moment. The only consolation I can give you is your not the only one.

Originally Posted by cs123

What sort of work do you do Juan?

Yes please, a little more info on what you do would be helpful in possibly pointing you in the right direction.

[jpblue1000]

Originally Posted by Revolver

Since January I have applied for (And I am not joking) In excess of 60 drafting jobs, (my profession)
That's a 10-1 ratio of applicants to to jobs available. No wondering I'm not finding work......

.

Id suggest going direct to the sort of place that employs Draughts-people. In my experience most of us wont pay agency fees to find someone to Draft for us.
The agency of course charges us money to find you so go direct and cut out the middle man.
What discipline do you draft for?

JP

[EA2BA]

Originally Posted by mik

he wrote one up for me and all i can say "wow" , the way he set it all out and knowing how i had done my own resume in the past , mine was **** , and after looking at his i would have tossed mine straight in the waste basket,
the resume was comprehensive from employment history to hobbies, marital status, girlfriend, the whole bit.

i would pay someone 200 bucks to write one up for me and be happy to part with the money if i was looking for a job.............. and i would be happy to pay it because i think i`d have a ten times better chance of getting gainful employment.

I had a bit of an inside advantage when I did mine, I got to be involved in hiring my replacement, so got to see the latest in resume writing style, and the ones that stood out, is the style I copied, and I have to say it worked.

Also upload your resume on seek, and upload it every week, alot of employers and agencies look all the time but only look at new uploads.

Another thing, write your resume to suit the job, dont just send the same everytime, look at what the employer wants and change your resume to reflect the key points they need, so you stand out more.

[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Originally Posted by Juan Loco

Been unemployed for a while now and finding it hard.
I'm experienced and highly skilled at what I do, but the market has really nosedived in WA.

I know I should be doing more, I just can't think what.
I apply for everything on SEEK, mostly I find that everything applicable is advertised on SEEK. Where else should I be looking?

I have milked my LinkedIn hard, but they have nothing going.

I have tried sending my resume and cover letter to every applicable employer I can find.

Saying the above without qualifying what work or industry you are talking about, is like asking how do I fix my car without mentioning what is wrong with it.

Makes it almost impossible to give relevant advice.

If you are looking for work on a farm as a farm hand the process would be very different to being a farm manager, or working in a fast food joint, or becoming an executive, or being a tradie etc etc.

May be mention what work you are looking for, there is plenty of work in most industries for those that are good at their job.

Good advise on the resume, however depends on what you do, I have worked for close to 30 years in various jobs and have never had a resume, and no one ever cared, work usually found me, as soon as I quit one job someone would get wind of it and call me to come and work for them, been like that since I got my first job at 15, never even had an interview.

I been out of the industry for 7 years now after a career change and I still get calls from past employers who want me to come back to them.

[GASWAGON]

I've been unemployed for more than 12 months and yes it is tough out there..... Afew interviews here and there but nothing solid.

I have been doing my own cover letters and resume's cos i cant afford to pay someone to do it for me.

[Juan Loco]

I didn't want to get bogged down in detail, because I'm not asking about specifics of where to find work but about what I could be doing better.

But here it is:
By qualification, I am an "Accountant." I'm still a CPA and did that for years, could still do any accounting job standing on my head.
By experience, I am a Project Engineer, working on Large Complex Construction Projects. (Desalination plants, Magnatite refineries, Mineral Processing complexes, Port & Rail handling facilities, large Civil pojects, etc.) Unfortunately its that industry that has died in the ****.

I'd be more than happy to go back to Accounting, but that market is flooded. During the boom times companies were importing bean-counters from Asia, India, and the UK, and now the market is saturated. I'm applying everywhere but in many ways I am now "over qualified."

I'm thinking of having my resume "professionally" rewritten. It couldn't hurt to have another version to at least look at and trial.

My biggest problem at the moment is that I am so sick of the rejection. It makes it difficult to push hard.

[Lotte]

Rewrite your resume for every job. I'm serious. Just do it.
I don't have a professionally written resume, and I personally don't believe in them (I do however have an established author and editor as a sister, so I cheat a bit and ask for advice on english usage).

My resume is set out to emphasise skills, rather than experience. So the first page is literally my five strongest skills that I can use across engineering, music admin roles or patent law (a field I'm interested in getting into), and then discussed those skills with some experience to back me up.
Even having someone you know who has some experience OR is really good with proposals etc to cast their eye over everything before you submit is really handy.

Are your cover letters covering ALL the criteria in the job listing? If they aren't, are the latter ones in the list covered by your resume? Can you combine some? (I was having a convo about this with a friend who had 33 criteria to cover, took an extra person to go "look here at this experience they want, it proves 7 of these criteria if you've done enough of it" etc etc.)

Before you send in your resume ring the place to ask for more info, have a few questions on hand. They'll then have your name in their head.
If you don't hear back within a week or two, ring up and ask them how the process is going, if they want anymore info etc.
Get a written reference. I have an old one from my time as a student member on uni council from the chancellor of my uni. Works a treat.

I feel your pain, as an early stage engineer, there is sfa out there for us right now, and everyone is applying. I'm lucky enough to have a job, but I enjoy throwing my hat in the ring when something potentially better comes up, and the competition is fierce.

Oh, and don't be afraid to just apply for every job under the sun you'd enjoy doing (or deal with doing). Shows your still employable.
Play down your qualifications for lesser roles, or word your cover letter so that you come across as wanting to step back a bit but stay in the field.

Could you do cost control/scheduling work at all? Depending on the state you're in, there's a few jobs in oil and gas kicking about every now and then.

That was probably all over the shop. Sorry about that.

[Juan Loco]

And whilst I'm venting my spleen, gees I hate dealing with the idiots in recruitment agencies. I spend so much time arguing with them. Their puff-piece ads tell you nothing about the job specifics, and they claim to have no more information, but magically they can tell that I "don't have the right skill-set for the job" even though they have no idea about the industry they are recruiting for.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by Juan Loco

But here it is:
By qualification, I am an "Accountant." I'm still a CPA and did that for years, could still do any accounting job standing on my head.
By experience, I am a Project Engineer, working on Large Complex Construction Projects. (Desalination plants, Magnatite refineries, Mineral Processing complexes, Port & Rail handling facilities, large Civil pojects, etc.) Unfortunately its that industry that has died in the ****.

There is the jig, no surprise you're doing it tough...

If I was an accounting firm, and your experience was as a Project Engineer, I would not hire you.

If I was a Manager in a Construction Company (which incidentally I am) and you applied as a Project Engineer I would not hire you as you are not qualified. We pay our PE around $140K, but would want qualifications.

So...

I'd recommend apply for a Contracts Administrator's / Commercial / QS role in a Construction environment. These roles would make great benefit of a finance qualification and construction experience. No brainer really...a CA will be on a $120K + salary, offer yourself at say 90K and someone will take a punt on you for sure....and once you have a project or two under your belt, you can ask for top dollar.

Try Parsons Brinckerhoff.... I had a mate in a CA role with them for a few years....he had lots of work getting paid more than Sydney guys.

How old are you?

[Phil67]

Yep classic line they feed you, not the right skill set even though I match exactly what they advertise for. I reckon a large % of jobs on seek don't exist, it's just agencies searching for candidates, filling their quota.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by Phil67

Yep classic line they feed you, not the right skill set even though I match exactly what they advertise for. I reckon a large % of jobs on seek don't exist, it's just agencies searching for candidates, filling their quota.

There is that to a degree but if I'm looking for a Project Engineer, and a recruiter rang me with a candidate that is a qualified Accountant I politely ask him if he had rocks in his head.

Project Engineers really need to be qualified engineers, if something goes wrong or someone is killed the project director will be bordering on criminal charges if they find out the supervising Engineer is an accountant.

[Brendo_GSUte]

Originally Posted by Stefan

There is that to a degree but if I'm looking for a Project Engineer, and a recruiter rang me with a candidate that is a qualified Accountant I politely ask him if he had rocks in his head.

Project Engineers really need to be qualified engineers, if something goes wrong or someone is killed the project director will be bordering on criminal charges if they find out the supervising Engineer is an accountant.

Not really, Ive been on a few projects where the PM was PRINCE2 certified and all that and it was a shambles run really poorly belw out etc.

Then other projects ive been on the PM is either a Mech engineer or some other qual thats no where near a project manager and they trump the guys with PRINCE quals...

So really its the skills of the individual, but the job market in WA is all money driven as in hire the guy with bear minimum quals or the overseas guy who doesnt know his basic rights and exploit him for the minimum wage.

If i was the OP ild start up my own business if youre a CPA and an aussie that gets you good returns in WA get your ad on Google first page you would go pretty good.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by Brendo_GSUte

Not really, Ive been on a few projects where the PM was PRINCE2 certified and all that and it was a shambles run really poorly belw out etc.

Then other projects ive been on the PM is either a Mech engineer or some other qual thats no where near a project manager and they trump the guys with PRINCE quals...

So really its the skills of the individual, but the job market in WA is all money driven as in hire the guy with bear minimum quals or the overseas guy who doesnt know his basic rights and exploit him for the minimum wage.

If i was the OP ild start up my own business if youre a CPA and an aussie that gets you good returns in WA get your ad on Google first page you would go pretty good.

That's not the point...there are good and bad in every trade, but you need to be qualified.

I'm pretty good at working on cars from experience but I can't open up a mechanical workshop if I don't have the qualifications.

[landau5.8]

Originally Posted by Mont5.0

Have you thought of Joining an Agency?

PPPFFFTTTTT, recruitment agencies are useless, time wasting, good for nothing
low life, rotten, scumbag so and so's. And yes, I ran out of things to say about recruitment agencies.

[pottery beige]

Originally Posted by landau5.8

PPPFFFTTTTT, recruitment agencies are useless, time wasting, good for nothing
low life, rotten, scumbag so and so's. And yes, I ran out of things to say about recruitment agencies.

i mustve scored a good one

very much a prove yourself with these mobs, few ****** assignments etc

you can end up with the cream

[Juan Loco]

And THAT is precisely why I didn't go into details.
Because people start shooting off on tangents about what type of job THEY think I should be doing based on two sentences they read here.
That's NOT what I asked.

But yes, projects are pretty much dead.
I can and have done QS and cost control (thats how I started in the industry) and would happily do it again. But again, not many roles in a shrinking industry and too many experienced people.

I need ideas on how to unearth opportunities that I'm not finding through SEEK.

Does anybody still advertise jobs in newspapers?

[Ford17]

Apart from seek.com.au & employment agencies, I don't think there's any more places where you can find a position; other than through word-of-mouth (i.e. contacting former colleagues & contacts).

The thing that might be most advantageous in your situation is accounting has become very diversified & complex, yet still falls under the single umbrella title. Your angle will be a niche that needs to be maximised and exploited, to give you an edge over other potential candidates.

Perhaps give some further thought into what your specific niche experience can bring to an employer, which offers not only completing the position but also improving specific areas of their business, and which no one else may readily be able to do.

But I feel for you - when the economy changes it makes things very difficult. You might have to hold out for some time for an ideal position to arise, or if there's urgency then be prepared to accept a lesser position which you can build up from. If they mention being "over qualified", that be be countered with you needing to consider your health and well-being (less hectic pace, work/life balance, etc).

As others have said, make sure your resume reads well, and have several versions tailored to certain industries and niches.
Also with the agencies, discuss with them your niche abilities, and see if they can assist with better lining you up in the right sub-section.

[Stefan]

Well reading your first post, looks like you've tried everything.

Apologies for trying to look deeper into your situation.

[Ford_The_Win]

One thing to keep in mind is that half of all new jobs are never listed. Networking plays a massive part in the job market.

[jpblue1000]

Have you a linked in account. Ive had several job opportunities come though mine with people contacting me. i have no doubt it can work the other way through building a network of prospective employers.

JP

[nuthin' fancy]

Juan,

Ignoring the specifics of your situation, you have to find a way to stand out.

If you are being told you are overqualified for a job, perhaps you need to make your application more suited to the job you are seeking. (i.e tone down your resume).

Whenever you are rejected, make a call to discuss why, make a contact.

Perhaps you need to look oveseas at this part of the infrastructure cycle.

Now, I am not in your situation but you can't waste energy on being disappointed, it serves no purpose and does you no good.

Best of luck.