5 Ways To Refresh Your Job Search

5 Ways To Refresh Your Job Search Picture the scene; youve reworked your CV to within an inch of its life, nailed your cover letter and been applying for jobs left, right and centre but unfortunately nothings happening. Youre not really hearing back from many companies and the scarce few who have  replied are hardly forthcoming with any information regarding why they dont want to take your application further. At a time like this,  its easy to doubt yourself and feel like youll never get a new job but in reality thats probably not the case and in fact all you really need to do is to take a step back and reevaluate your strategy. You never know, you could end up changing your fortunes just 1. Reevaluate Your Job Sources: When it comes to trying to find a new job, there are literally hundreds of places that relevant jobs could be hiding and its pretty likely that youre only looking at a few. If youre struggling to find the right job, it might be worth having a think about which job boards and platforms youre using and seeing if there are any more that might be relevant. Remember, while generalist boards eg. Total Jobs are great for quite common vacancies, its niche boards (like Bubble Jobs!) that tend to have the more specialist vacancies for each sector so its definitely worth doing a bit of digging to see which job boards and platforms have the most relevant vacancies in your sector right now and signing up for any which look interesting. 2. Refresh Job Alerts: Weve said it before and Im sure well say it again before too long but setting up job alerts on job boards is one of the most effective ways of staying on top of new vacancies but sometimes there comes a point when the job alerts youve set up just dont seem to be working so its definitely worth having another look at them. If youve set up job alerts for keywords eg. PPC, its worth doing a bit of research to see how common this phrase actually is in the jobs youre looking for for example, with PPC jobs, a lot of companies might choose the job title Paid Search Manager instead so its definitely a good idea to set up job alerts for all variations of the phrase. Similarly, a lot of jobs dont actually get advertised with a salary, so if youve chosen job alerts with the salary £20,000 £29,999, it might be a good idea to alter this to ensure youre not missing out on the ideal vacancies which might just have a Highly Competitive salary. 3. Re-upload Your CV/Make Your CV Searchable On Job Boards: If you uploaded your CV to a job board a while ago, its highly  likely that its ended up in its CV database so its definitely worth logging into any old accounts and uploading your new, most up-to-date CV. Why? Because employers love searching CV databases to find relevant candidates and That said; not every job board will automatically add your CV to their CV database so its definitely a good idea to log into your account and ensure your CV is searchable for potential employers. 4. Consider Who You Actually Want To Work For: Its all very well and good applying for any job that comes along which meets a set of criteria but so far, that tactic hasnt worked out too well for you. With that in mind; it can definitely be a good idea to take a bit of time to consider which type of companies you actually want to work for and why. Once youve got your list together, follow  these companies on key networks like LinkedIn and Twitter (particularly if they have dedicated Careers accounts) and make a point to check the careers section on their website once a week. Similarly, if youre not sure of exactly who you want to work for but know what type of company you want to work for eg. charities or universities, its definitely worth signing up for job boards who are dedicated to advertising these specific kinds of jobs eg. Charity Jobs or jobs.ac.uk. 5. Consider New Networking Opportunities: The old  Its not what you know, its who you know phrase is definitely a bit of a cliche but in some situations, its true and the only way to increase who you know is to increase your professional network. In addition to trying to make new connections on LinkedIn, its a good idea to look at what other networking opportunities are available in your local area or within your niche. Do a bit of research to see if there are any job fairs within your sector coming up or whether there are any breakfast clubs or Meet-ups scheduled which might be attended