How to land your next job (or internship)?

This is the question that most of us are trying to figure out at some point in our lives. However, not all of us land with a new job when we need one, do we?

(Before you read this article any further, I recommend you read this one first)

When I graduated from college, I had absolutely no idea about how job hunting works, but lucky for me that I got into the recruitment space. While I worked in the recruitment industry, I tried figuring out, why was it so difficult to land an interview? To be honest, the conclusions that I found were not at all surprising. They were there, hiding in plain sight. In this article, I’ve tried to summarize them into three points.

1. Referrals are a thing!

Chances of you landing a job is the most through a referral. The primary reason is referral adds credibility to your application. Companies trust their employees more than any other source of recruitment, be it a job board or a job consultant. This is also the reason why a lot of companies have a referral policy. (Companies reward referrers on their referral joining and this amount isn’t small. Just saying!) So go ahead, don’t shy away from asking your network for a referral. Who knows, it might be beneficial for them as well.

2. Think and apply!

Applications made on job boards will have the least probability of getting a reply. I am not saying that it is impossible, but it is definitely less. I know this is hard to digest, as this is the primary role of a job board, but this is a fact. Most of the job boards allow free job postings, which leads to recruiters posting their jobs on all of them (have you not seen the same job on different job board?). Once posted they check them at their will, sometimes never. After all, it was free anyway. They wouldn’t even take the pain of removing them from the job board once the position is filled. After all, you guessed it right, it was free anyway. To increase your chances, here is a hack: apply on job boards that charge for posting jobs. A good example is LinkedIn.

3. Make the most out of LinkedIn

LinkedIn, as we know, is not just a job board but also an excellent networking platform. You can follow industry leaders and updates. Start connecting with recruiters (aka HR) of companies you would like to work (or intern) with and ask them for any available opportunity. However, I would recommend going through a referral, if available.

Try to be precise with your requirement, if possible. For example, ask them if they have any vacancy available in the Operations team in Pune or a developer role with Golang as their stack. Do not spam each of them with the same message.

Recruiters usually know when you do so (there are thousands like you approaching them) and it really pisses them off. Personalize the message for them and multiply your chances of hearing back.

I hope these learnings help you in some way or other.

Till then, happy job hunting!