How to Supercharge Your Job Hunting Process

Cliche: Getting a job is a job in itself

Fact: This is true.

This is because a successful career does not happen by accident. Most of the great and successful careers that you see are well planned and not an afterthought.

Therefore it is important that you learn how to not only get a job fast but how to get a good job fast while still building the type of career you want.

In a recent survey we conducted, we discovered that it takes an average job seeker around 6-9 months to land their first job. This is a long time to wait to start your first job.

My intention today is to share some tips on how you can jump start this process so you can gain a competitive advantage in your job hunting and career.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

1. Be Clear on a Career Path

The first most important thing you need to know if you really want to get a job fast is to ensure that you are able to answer the question “What job would I love to do “.

This can seem like a tough question, especially in an ever changing and dynamic world like we currently find out self but that is why it is critical that you answer the question.

Most people gamble with their career by taking up any job role that comes their way. They apply for jobs that they have no idea about and are not passionate about.

This is a real recipe for disaster.

Imagine that you apply for a catering job and you really want to be a CMO. 2 years into the job, you finally got a job as a marketer executive. That means you have spent 2 years of your life chasing a job that you totally do not want.

What you could have done is spend those two years honing your skills for the job you really want. The secret of job hunting is not applying for every single job advert but applying for a job that brings you closer to your dream company or dream role.

So let’s assume you want to be a CMO. You could start as a marketing executive and then gradually build your way up the ladder to finally become the CMO in your dream company.

2. Take up an internship Position

One way to really cut down the period you spend job hunting is to take up an internship position. Internship is described as the process of work experience offered by a company for a limited amount of time.

Internship is usually a two way street which gives it a lot of advantages for both the company and the job seeker. Internship allows company to get people to work for them in exchange for experience exposure and “compensation”.

For any job seeker, the internship period is the time to really find out if the career path they chose is actually what they want to do. For example, let’s say you want to build a career as an HR expert, you could intern in an HR company to see what the career is all about, learn about what HRs do every day, and finally be able to make up your mind is that is the career path you really want to pursue. But do you know the most interesting thing about interning is that most half of the time, the interns are usually offered a permanent placement at the company they interned with.

3. Build relevant skills

What skills do you need for your dream job? As a recruiter, some of the major challenges I face every day is interviewing people for the role they are not qualified for.

Yes as a young graduate, you may not have all the experience required for the job you want but what about the most possible little skills that are required. How many of them do you have?

And in this age and time where the competition is still, you need to be very good in simple skills that are needed in almost every company. Simple skills you can pick up include knowing how to use excel or knowing how to use the tools of the trade in your desired industry.

How can you get started learning such skills?

Go to LinkedIn ( and if you do not have a LinkedIn Profile account then you need to get one urgently)
Input your profession in the search box
Click on three of the profiles LinkedIn is showing you.
Go through the experience section of each of the profile
Note down “tools”, “skills” and task they perform every day.

These skills and tools are things you need to learn and know in order to perform well at your job role. Not surprising, these same characteristics is what a potential employer is looking for. Learn and master them

4. Dust your CV

Are CV’s overrated in a technology age? No, not yet.

However a bad CV will not get you an interview opportunity and sometimes that is all you need. You see it is well established that recruiters spend less than 6seconds looking at your CV before deciding if you are a good fit for the job. This is because recruiters are trained to look for certain things on your cv.

The major challenge is that most CVs are not designed to attract the attention of the recruiter and therefore even a qualified or “good” candidate can get passed over if they have a bad cv. There are tons of things you can do to improve your CV. Here is how to write a good cv including samples you can get started with.

5. LinkedIn is your friend, not your enemy

Is LinkedIn a necessary job hunting tool or just a waste of time?

Absolutely not, while job board exists and can be a good source of latest job openings, LinkedIn is also serving the same goal.

But as LinkedIn gets more popular, a lot of recruiters are shifting their attention to it. In fact, recruiters are using LinkedIn to source for both passive and active job seekers and this trend is likely to increase in the future as more recruiters learn how to use the platform better.

If you want to reduce your job hunting period, and then you need to setup a professional looking LinkedIn profile and get active on it.

Getting a job does not have to be hard. You just need to know exactly what you are doing and where you are going. Which step are you going to take today to get the job of your dreams?