Job applicants for fresh graduates

You have just graduated, thinking that opportunities are limitless. You walk up the stage, shook hands with the school representative, collected the scroll thinking this is the start of something for you. However, when you are home applying for jobs, you see most of the jobs are requiring experience since we are in the knowledge based economy.

How are you going to get any job exposure if you are not able to attain the entry level positions? Who is going to give you the chance?

Here are some tips to get you started

JUST APPLY

Of course, this is not to apply for every job listed on the job portal. If you have seen any roles and responsibilities on job portals that you would be keen to explore the roles and responsibilities with, you should just apply. Do not be taken aback by the years of experience because you might just need the one chance of interview to impress the interviewers.

While reading the job description, tune the perspective towards instead of thinking of it as a requirement, but as a wish list of the hiring manager. The general rule of thumb is that if it is an 70% fit of requirement, you may proceed to go ahead and apply for the job.

INDICATE YOUR SKILL SET

You will need to upsell your resume by indicating your skill sets – especially if you are aware that the position would lead to many job applications with experience. This is fundamental for your employer to see your skill set and abilities, to understand how it will be able to complement the job requirements.

It is important to include your internships, or projects where you have worked with Companies as all these are included in your skills set. If you have a referral based on your past internship, do include in your resume as well.

SHOW YOUR SINCERITY

Throw in a cover letter, and not just uploading a resume. After submitting the application via the job portal, it would also be good to send a personalized email to the hiring manager to explain how you are keen on the job and how you are able to convince him that you are the best person for the job although you might not have experience. If you do, you might even stand a higher chance in comparison to someone who might have the experience.

PATIENCE IS KEY

Being in the highly competitive society, one would always stop and consider on whether is one doing well compared to other peers. You get competitive or would feel unjust when one person who have graduated with you has attained a higher position in her individual’s career. You start to wonder if your career progression is too slow.

At times, you wonder if what you are doing is enough or whether are you in the right company who recognizes your effort enough? Generally, the higher your expectations, the greater the fall when it is not met.

Generally, it is important you enjoy the journey and not the destination. We should all learn to appreciate the small progression and strides we make during the climb of the corporate ladder. Because no matter how fast your peer’s progression is, it takes time and it will consist of multiple attempts and failures.

PATIENCE IS GOOD WHEN YOU HELP IN PROCRESS IMPROVEMENTS

When you feel that the current system is too slow or too many steps, and you seek to create process improvement, this is good, and this can help you with your career progression. Let your impatience question process that are inefficient and ineffective, be it whether your direct change or you could engage a productive conversation with someone involved to make it more effective at work.

PATIENT IS BAD WHEN YOU ARE IMPATIENT WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES

Doing follow up to remind your colleagues on tasks they need to complete is good, if you are not a nag. People generally do not like working with people who are impatient and are constantly sending chasers for an update.

As much as you want to attain your deliverables, you should plan your deliverables where there is enough time for your co-workers to do something and communicate to them on when is the deadline. If there is no submission, then should proceed to enquire and follow up.

PATIENT IS GOOD WHEN IT MAKES YOU PROACTIVE

If your colleagues are not able to deliver what they are expected to, it will be good if you focus on what you can do and help in comparison to when you are waiting for the deliverables, which in turn affect your performance.

It is also good if you are eager to help another colleague out as well, when you know the other colleague has a lot of tasks assigned. Being proactive helps you to learn and progress as an individual. It makes you constantly challenge yourself, and eventually lead to a better you.

It really reflects well if you go ahead and ask your manager on whether are there anymore responsibilities you can take to learn and progress with the Company, instead of asking your manager on when would your next promotion be.

PATIENCE IS BAD WHEN YOU ARE PROGRESSING WHEN YOU ARE NOT READY

You must set reasonable targets, because there is no way of getting a progression when you are merely 6 months into the job, or getting a pay raise. You might have heard from your other peers that they have attained the progression, but you must remind yourself that you must EARN the progression by showing you are ready to progress into the new role.

It is most definitely better when you take on the role only when you are ready, if not you will just be taking the role with more responsibilities and not be able to deliver to your stakeholders.

Mistakes to avoid making on your first day of work

You have just recently changed your employment with another Company. The day before you commence your work, you would get the butterflies and anxiety wondering how your first day of work will be.

You ask yourself if you should just be yourself, or should you be friendly. You pause and then think to yourself what if they think I am overly-friendly? Would they have their own usual lunch gang? You start to worry.

Here are the following tips to making your first impression at work

ASK QUESTIONS

You’ll likely be asking your new colleagues about questions at work instead of their own personal life on your very first day. This would be the most interaction that you would have with your new colleagues. It is most definitely all right to ask questions as jargons could be overwhelming an intimidating. If you are concerned that it will make you look stupid, then you will really end up being stupid because even the most experienced people ask questions – which shows you are curious enough to learn.

Secondly, do not even apologize for asking questions. It will just appear very negative to your colleagues. Instead, you can thank them for their time. This will allow you to start on a good start with your new colleagues for appreciating them.

BEING SITUATIONALLY READY

If you feel you are still too shy to ask too much questions, or if you feel that your colleagues or managers are always unavailable because of their tight schedules, you can ask them to divert you to someone who is more readily available to share information with you, or resources. Therefore, onboarding process is crucial for new hires.

ATTENTION YOUR EMAILS ONLY TO THOSE WHO NEED THEM

One of the most annoying thing is clearing emails, obviously. One email do not have to be copied to everyone. Generally, your emails should only be send to someone who you are expecting a response from. The others in copy of the email are basically kept in the loop but need not respond.

If you are replying emails, keep it short but not too short. You do not need to type paragraphs to convey a message across, but it need not just be “noted” as well. Take your time to understand how your email can value add your colleague’s time.

FORGETTING PEOPLE’S NAME

It is perfectly all right if it’s your first day and you forget people’s name. It will not be all right if it is after a week. Secondly, if people correct you with regards how to address them – it will be good to have an apology although you might be embarrassed. People will appreciate that.

PRETENDING TO KNOW YOU KNOW A LOT AND PROVE YOUR OVER CAPABILITY

If you are tasked to do an assignment, it is all right to ask for guidance. What bothers is when you agree to complete to do the tasks, but has clearly taken the wrong direction to complete the tasks. That will be a waste of everyone’s time.

If you share that you are unsure of how to complete the tasks, it shows you are courageous, honest and able to identify your personal strengths. It is also important you understand your flow of work and understand how your work can affect your colleague’s deliverables as well. It is fundamental for you to understand the rationale and the roots of why you are doing what you are doing.

If you are overloaded, talk to your boss about it and assist them to help you prioritize what is more important to complete. Making mistakes and knowing your limitations will help your colleagues respect you better. If you have made a mistake, it is important you acknowledge it rather than hide from your mistakes. Acknowledge the mistake and keep moving forward.

It’s A Sign – For A New Job!

It is never easy or know to if it’s the right time to move on from your current job. What more if you’re already comfortable in the environment. There are many reasons why people want to stay in their job and probably just for one reason that might trigger the move.

No matter how atrocious the environment is, if your boss values your effort and results, you know you’re putting effort for the right reason. During hard time, human like us, always hope for recognitions and your boss telling you, good job!

What tells you to move on, read on:

Work has no happy moment but dominated by complaints

Every other moment of gathering and dinners (or suppers) if you work late, you just rant and pouring out negative comments about your work. The last thing you want is to complain on and on but to share and highlight about your professional’s lessons learnt and discussions, so that you know you’re gaining new experiences every day.

Bad health symptoms start showing

Your physical health is a good indicator of your mental health too. Bad health symptoms do not show up immediately. It is accumulative, and you do not want to continuous affect you. Keep the balance yourself. Your boss will never tell you to take a break because he might not know your health conditions as well as you do.

You feel you can do more

You have more than what your boss sees and give your stakeholders good advices and offers to contribute more, yet you have been passed over for a promotion. You want to attempt to take up more challenging tasks to prove your You try to find out why, but in turn got shot down by your boss. This might also show that no matter how you contribute, you’ll get null.

No good work-life balance

I’m sure you have bosses who will tell you that work is part of your life. But c’mon, we have our own personal life at home or even out with friends. Spending lesser time with your family and friends due to work is a no-no. Always remember that any organisation can get your replaced if you fall apart, but your family will always be there for you.

Getting abuses

If you are experiencing any sort of abuses, be it verbal, sexual or any illegal behaviour. Do not fall into any sort of such victims. You’re not out there to work to suffer such abuses or insults. Never try to do any preventive measures or corrections, you will eventually be worrying day in and out with any abuses coming along and it will have built on to your mental stress.

3 Workplace Traits That Pay Off In The Long Run

It is no secret that there are some common traits in valuable employees that managers and employers sift out. Putting aside education and experience, today's workforce forces us to concentrate on who exactly is working for the company. The personality of the employee becomes more important than their skills, as employees with key qualities will be able to lead, motivate and add value to the company as a whole.

Thus, it is not just important to invest in handy work skills, but also intangible attributes, or also known as “soft skills”. In order to elevate an individual’s worth to the companies and employers, here are some of the soft workplace traits that have become necessary to actively practice.

PATIENCE

Being patience without provocation will pay off, especially when displayed under the right conditions. It is a virtue that is linked to happiness and wisdom, as only with patience, can the other two be sustained and achieved. In order for success to happen, tasks and problems will have to be dealt with effectively and tolerantly, instead of rushing through them. Patience allows this as it encourages an individual to take time to consider the work, and complete them in a calm and logical manner. This is the difference between the employee who finishes fast, but badly, and one who finishes later, but correctly.

PERSEVERANCE

Another important trait is how determined the employee shows himself/herself to be when faced with challenges or tedious orders. Personal tenacity reveals how reliable and responsible the individual truly is, and gives the company a sense of the person’s overall staying power. Being fickle-minded rarely wins points. In order for upper management to consider assigning more duties or a higher position, first they have to be clear about the individual’s resolution to see the job through.

PROACTIVE

Having passion and enthusiasm for work is refreshing, especially if it benefits the company overall. Top employees show a dedicated nature towards their work, and this allows them to be extremely invested in the quality of their tasks. It means that they are not only happy to work, but also willing to go the extra mile to make sure the job is done right. It brings about job satisfaction and can boost the overall work morale, allowing them to be key candidates for leadership roles in the company.

What Do You Look For In A Job? Here’s 5.

As much as most candidates look for career growth, I always come across candidates who are not able to explain or understand the kind of ‘growth’ they are seeking. What is it that is important to each individual when you move on to the next role?

However, it is good to consider whole lot of aspects while you try to figure out whether to take on the role. What matters most is, you need to be sure of the job expectations before you move into the role. Else, you might fall into a pit hole and regret the move because you did not make it clear.

Advancement

Always look into the companies on what are the kind of roles they can offer you to advance in the next few years while you are with them. Is there possibility of getting horizontal or vertical move into the role?

Always look internal first, before you explore external opportunities. There are some unknown factors when you move into a new role in a new organisation. Yet, internal opportunities give assurance that you know the culture and people.

Satisfaction and Trust

You spend minimally eight hours at work and you just want to make sure that you enter office each day, feeling great. You do not want anyone to be looking over your shoulders day in, day out with the work that you’ve been assigned to. At the end of the day, if you face get fatigued easily, you will have the tenancy to look out for your next job.

Stability

This may not be the best thing that could happen in the recent years, companies themselves are not able to ensure its stability, this is by far one of the top choices of job seekers. You can only use the past year’s company performance as a guide to move forward because it cannot guarantee the similar performance in the next few years.

Environment

Observe the people who are walking past you or even at the reception, look out for a similar pattern in the workers. Do they give you a smile or even say ‘Hello!’. They might not know you but the interaction and image that are portrayed do say something about the company.

Benefits

You do not want to end up taking lesser than your current role by looking into your overall remuneration package. Some may be enticed by the amount that was given to you in your basic salary, yet when you look into the other benefits, you are getting so much lesser than what you have. For instance, if the company does not offer health insurance, you will realise that you will be spending more out of your pocket.