8 Rules to Win The Job Hunt Game
Job hunting is a game with an obvious goal. You want to find a job.
Over the past 1.5 years, I have seen job hunters playing the game in many ways. During that time, I have learned quite a bit about what seems to work and what does not. What makes some job hunters win the game while other’s struggle.
Here are eight rules for winning the job hunt game.
1. Understand The Game
The first step to winning any game is to understand how it works. You won’t beat a grandmaster in chess by sheer luck. To win any game, you need to understand how it works. Some key things you need to understand about the job market:
- 60 % of the companies are using informal connections to find a new employee.
- 68 % of the companies are NOT using job ads.
- 58 % of the companies looked for someone to hire in the past 6 months.
These three posts that will help you understand the game:
9 Ways Companies Find Employees
7 Facts That Will Help You Understand the Swedish Job Market
2. Learning Swedish is a Superpower
When I started out, I didn’t know that Swedish was so important to have a job in Sweden. After all, most Swedes speak very good English. In the Swedish job market, learning the language is a superpower. Why?
Research of a million job ads shows one thing, communication skills are the most sought after skill for any position. In only two jobs, communication skills are on the 2nd place of most important skills that employers mention in job ads.
Being able to understand what people say and also say things to them is essential. Please do yourself a favor and work on the language.
- Doing all the steps in Swedish For Immigrants (introductory Swedish courses) will increase your success rate of finding a job in Sweden by 86 %.
- Only 1/4 actually finish all the SFI levels according to a study.
- You only need to know 1 000 words to understand 74.85 % of the most commonly used words in the Swedish language.
More about this superpower and how to improve it:
Increase Your Chances of Finding a Job by 86 %
7 Facts That Will Help You How to Easily Add 1077 Hours of Language Training This Year
3. Focus is Your Second Superpower
- 1.5 million jobs are posted every year in Sweden.
- 157.7 million hours of Youtube content are posted every year.
- 400 million people are connected on LinkedIn, the biggest network for professionals.
- You can take thousands of online courses from Harvard, Stanford, and tons of other amazing educational institutions.
You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.
To decide and act on what you want,
sign up for this five-day quest
.
4. Always Develop Your Skills
“Give me any job and I will learn how to do it – I am a quick learner”
This statement won’t work. Companies are looking for people that solve specific problems. Being a fast learner is a great skill, but it cannot alone help you find a job.
Skill development is not something you only do at work. It is a constant process.
You own your skills. They are your tools. Tools that you are a part of you. They are something that an employer can never take away. You have to take care of your tools and make sure you don’t lose them.
The only thing that will make you lose your skills is to stop using them. In a world that is changing faster for every day, taking time off will make your skills obsolete.
Work on your skills every day.
If you want to be in Sales, sell.
If you want to be a designer, design.
If you want to be an engineer, build stuff.
If you want to be an accountant, account.
If you want to be a writer, write.
If you want to be a programmer, program.
To understand your specific skillset, read these three posts:
4 Fun Tests That Will Help You Understand Yourself
7 Ways To Validate Your Skills
The #1 Skill and How To Improve It
5. Find and Research Opportunities
This is the part most people start with. They write their CV and Cover Letter once. Then they distribute it to companies. All companies they see have openings.
You need to understand that it is about finding the right opportunities. Opportunities that you think there is a match between your previously mentioned skillset and the company’s business.
You need to do research of the employers so that you know what they are doing.
You need to understand one thing about this step:
- Only 32 % of all opportunities are seen on job boards.
- 68 % of all jobs are never seen on job boards.
- DON’T JUST APPLY FOR JOBS ON JOB BOARDS (sorry for the caps lock)
I know that it is easy to mistake the visible job market for being all there is. But there are so much more.
Read these three posts to expose yourself to more than 32 % of the job market:
Eight Steps to Finding Hidden Jobs
7 Commonly Used Job Boards in Sweden
6. Connect with Employers Effectively
This is game day. You are prepared. You understand the game, you have superpowers and skills. You know that there will be some rejection. But, a lot less so than if you wouldn’t have prepared.
Whenever you have found some opportunities, you cannot just send the SAME CV, Cover Letter and email to every employer.
I have talked with people that get invited to interviews on their applications, they spend an hour on their applications. Making high quality and well-targeted application. They also connect to the employer. It is about quality, not quantity. 59 % of the recruiters will throw away a CV with a spelling error.
These 5 posts will help you connect with employers:
4 Rules For Higher Email Responses
How to Get a Yes On Your LinkedIn Connection Request
4 Steps To Make Hiring Robots Love You
How To Growth Hack Your LinkedIn
3 Things To Include in a Spontaneous Application
7. Ace the Interview and Negotiate
When you have received some positive responses on your connections, it is time for interview and negotiation. Key to a successful interview? Research and prepare!
To ace the interview and negotiate salary, read these 3 posts:
The 5 Essential Interview Questions
Common Interview Questions Recruiters Always Ask
8. Stay sane in the process
Job hunting is very tough. It is a process that contains a lot of rejection and it is important that you stay motivated. Every single day where you lack motivation and don’t move towards your goal is a lost day.
There’s nothing you can’t do.
There’s no such thing as permanent failure.
New doors will always open.
How to handle the shitty parts:
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Great article and plenty of resources, Many thanks
Thank you for your kind words!
Very straightforward!!! Just the right words to remind me to never give up in my search… tusen tack Andreas!
Thank you so much, Grace! So happy to hear that you will never give up. Good luck! Thanks for reading and the positive feedback. Means a lot.
l learn thing l didnt even think about,thank you