Prepare For Success - Final Formatted Copy
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<strong>Prepare</strong> <strong>For</strong> <strong>Success</strong><br />
You should also look at your interview activity target. Is it realistic based on the number of job<br />
applications you are making? <strong>For</strong> our example above, we suggest that you might need to make<br />
10 good quality job applications before getting one interview. However, there is no standard<br />
here and this can vary depending on the quantity and quality of competition, your own skills<br />
and experience and the quality of each application. In order to get a realistic view of how many<br />
applications it takes to get to interview, gather information and opinions from as many sources<br />
as possible, e.g., career blogs, job boards, recruitment agencies, friends and colleagues.<br />
The other important area to look at are your Career/Job Placement goals and expectations.<br />
Are these realistic?<br />
<strong>For</strong> example, in the goals that we presented above, we suggested that the job seeker would be<br />
looking for a minimum salary of £23,000 or $35,000.<br />
Is this realistic? Are office manager roles in your local area currently paying this level of salary?<br />
If they are not, then these career and job placement goals are unrealistic. To check market<br />
salary levels for roles, job seekers can talk to recruitment agencies or consult many of the free<br />
‘salary checkers’ that are online. Alternatively, you can just search the job boards themselves<br />
and see for yourself the salaries that have been offered for office manager roles over the last<br />
month. If you find that your salary expectations are too high, then your goals are not realistic<br />
and you may have to lower your sights; or you may need to broaden your search area and be<br />
prepared to work further afield in order to secure the salary that you want.<br />
Having set realistic goals, you are now free to focus on your<br />
job search activities.<br />
It is likely that things may not go entirely to plan. <strong>For</strong><br />
example you may manage to make double the amount<br />
of applications, yet fail to secure any interviews. This<br />
is the time that you need to stay focused. It may not be<br />
that you have failed and it is more likely that you were not<br />
realistic in the first place. You simply expected to get too highpaying<br />
a job in too short a time, based on what the market is currently offering in the way of<br />
job opportunities.<br />
In which case, it is important that you readjust and update your plan to make it more realistic<br />
and therefore far more useful to you as a motivational tool to drive and guide your job search<br />
activity. This could include extending the time scale for finding a job or widening the search<br />
area.<br />
©TRCC 2015 www.ighpro.net www.igothired.net 66
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