University of Manchester Careers Blog

It seems like yesterday that we were talking about New Year Career Resolutions and although it may be snowing outside its March already which means that nearly a quarter of the year has already passed (I know I couldn’t believe it either!)

To help make sure the year doesn’t pass you by I thought I’d give you a few tips on optimising your time when job hunting.

Review what you have done so far – What have you done so far this year to achieve your goals? What’s worked or hasn’t worked?  If you’re not getting interviews it might be worth getting your application reviewed using the Quick Query Service. If you’re getting interviews but not job offers booking a mock interview might be appropriate.

Keep organised – From personal experience I know it’s very difficult to keep track on all the applications you might be working on. Why not keep on top of them by marking all applications deadlines in your calendar and ticking them off as you get them in. This way there is less chance  a deadline will slip by.

Plan each day or week – To help keep yourself on track it’s important to plan what tasks you want to achieve in a day or week, be that submitting that application form or practicing for that psychometric test. By doing this you’ll be able to prioritise your workload.

Don’t press delete – Although you might be glad to see the back of some of them I recommend saving every application that you make, along with the job descriptions.  If you get invited to an interview you’ll need to remind yourself of what you said on your application and what skills the employer is looking for. Having this information saved and to hand will mean you can spend more time preparing for the big day.

  Set up email alerts – Searching for opportunities can be time consuming if only there was a way of getting tailored vacancy alerts right to your email. Well there is- You can set up vacancy alerts through Careerslink! Watch the finding Vacancies in Careerslink video to discover how. Sites such as jobs.ac.uk and TARGET jobs also enable you to set up email alerts.