Job Hunt Archives - Sincera Consulting

Your Job Search Websites Checklist – Top Job Portals – Part II

Carrying on from where we left off [Part I], here is the second part to the top job hunt platforms in India. Here are some of the best job portals/platforms you should definitely check out when actively looking for a job. Not all jobs are posted on all sites. Companies and agencies have their own favourites. So, it definitely makes sense for you to have four or five platforms on your checklist for searching for the best jobs for you and for having your resume up there. Read on!

SimplyHired

This awesome job portal makes the excruciating process of hunting for and landing the dream job a breeze. It searches thousands of job sites and companies as per your listed preferences to give you relevant results. Additionally, it also connects your online social networks with your job search with its “Who do I Know” feature which helps you find friends and personal connections at each company apart from your job search results.

The interface does a broad search across the Web, including job boards, company career sites, newspapers, non-profit organizations, and even government sites to give you the a thorough results. Creating an account allows you to name, save, and manage searches; manage email alerts; revisit jobs you’ve already viewed; rate and save notes about jobs you’ve viewed; and block specific companies or sites from showing up in your searches. Also, Simply Hired has a blog which offers excellent advice for job seekers. Have a look here – http://www.simplyhired.com/blog/

Indeed.com

Indeed works as an aggregator of job listings. In this it tries to emulate Google, at least in look and feel. It allows you to put location and keywords related to the kind of job you are looking for. It then shows a list of results like a Google search result page, and clicking on a link takes you to the actual job listing, where you can apply for the job. Based on your searches, it also starts recommending jobs for you. You can also post your CV on this website so that recruiters can find you. This site is definitely worth a try to get an idea of relevant job listings without having to scour various job-hunt websites manually. A definite must-have on your list of job platforms to get an overview of what the market has to offer.

Quora

We are pretty sure many of you are already familiar with this platform and are wondering why is it listed here, in a post for job search platforms. While it may not be your conventional job hunt portal, Quora is an excellent informal environment to seek answers to anything regarding the company you are applying to, ask how referrals work, about your to-be boss, colleagues, even the lunch hours… Just about anything!

The best part is, you don’t have to worry about disclosing your identity since you can ask the questions anonymously. Oh wait, that is not the best part, the best part actually is all these answers are given by actual professionals who are in the game. Multiple answers often find their way into interesting (sometimes unpleasant) conversations. Go by the number of up-votes vs downvotes for the answer you are referring to and you shall have a fair idea.

Hirist.com

Hirist has a neat, no-frills, minimalist website with no advertisements on their homepage, which goes a long way in gaining the user’s trust because it gives the professional feel. The categorization of jobs is well thought out. In agreement with the overall minimalist theme, the job listings offer the most essential information like location, designation, etc., and one can view details by clicking on the links. One interesting feature is that you can tick multiple job listings that you are interested in and apply to all of them at once. Although not as big as some of its competitors, Hirist is neat and easy to use, and hence is worth a try.

Shine.com

In addition to job-listings, Shine provides the Shine CareerPlus service that aggregates various online and offline courses and certifications available to enhance your skills. These are meticulously categorized and hence it is easy to find what you are looking for. You can also find useful compilations of LinkedIn articles and blogs related to career advice, interview preparation tips, resume formats, resume review services, etc. to boost your chances of getting the job you are looking for.

Glassdoor

A free jobs and careers community, Glassdoor gives you a sneak peak into jobs and companies. The information on the site is employee generated which makes it genuine and dependable, well mostly. You get access to anonymous salaries, interview questions, work culture and ethics, reviews and more. This search engine might be comparatively new, but is surely worth giving a try – especially when all this useful information is available completely free!

Real-time Networking

All said and done, you should never fall out of touch with this one! Believe me, this is the foundation of all the wonderful platforms that have come up. If people did actually meet and talk and brainstorm and network, we really wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of building complex virtual systems of networking to make it easy for people to meet and interact. Make sure to make an effort to meet interesting people you connect with, once in a while. Who knows they might bring along someone really interesting you wouldn’t have otherwise met. Do not underestimate the power of virtual connectivity, and surely do not overestimate it, some very interesting and powerful people are still yet to be bitten by the virtual bug!

New job portals are coming almost every month. We and our readers need Your help to keep this post relevant and current. What have we missed? What other job portals or sites have you used that you think should be included in this checklist ? We would love to hear back from you.

Job Seekers: Inspiration Alert! 15 Job Hunting Quotes from The Best

by sincera | Career, Communication, Interview, Job Offers, Life, Managing Yourself, Motivation, Resume, World of Work

Being in a limbo in one’s career can be truly frustrating, specially when you’ve been hunting for the perfect job but still haven’t been able to bag it. Even the best of us can’t help feeling dejected at times, during the overwhelming process of searching for a job. Some of us have mentors and friends guiding us through the process, egging us on and motivating us to keep going, while some of us are more solitary during this trying phase. Either way, sometimes simple words or images of motivation we ‘stumble upon’ make a big difference. It feels as though the universe is signaling us to keep going, and that the perfect job is just round the corner. It could be some odd graffiti we read on the streets, or the day’s horoscope being conducive to job hunt for the day, or a beautiful Calvin and Hobbes comic strip speaking to you in today’s newspaper, or some beautiful job hunting quotes that give you your very own eureka moment. As Paulo Coelho says in the Alchemist – We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how. We hope this post has the intended effect of helping you believe that good things are coming your way, that if you are trying hard enough for the perfect job, you will get it!

Here are 15 job hunting quotes from the best – that will motivate you to keep calm and carry on with your job hunt! Buckle up for some inspiration!

1. “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.” –Andrew Carnegie

2. “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”–Norman Vincent Peale

3. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”–Wayne Gretzky

4. “Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.” –H. Stanley Judd

5. “If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well”. —Martin Luther King

6. “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” — Calvin Coolidge

7. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C. S. Lewis

8. “Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” — Unknown

9. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

10. “Successful business people don’t get ahead by wishing they had someone else’s job title, corner office, company car, or market share. They get ahead the mundane way, by doing more and doing it better. Envy is a monster with a gluttonous appetite. And it’s never satisfied. Pursue your goals, not someone else’s goals.” – James Dale

11. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, then build a door”. – Milton Berle

12. “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” –Alexander Graham Bell

13. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” –Maya Angelou

14. “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you too can become great.” – Mark Twain

15. “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” –Arthur Ashe

While we understand that it is always easier said than done, it is important to not let the pressure or anxiety get to you. The more anxious and nervous you become, the more hasty your decisions are. That’s one thing you don’t want to be while job hunting – ‘hasty’. The key to a successful job hunt is to never give up and to keep trying, because like Katharine Whitehorn says, “find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for it.” And until you’ve done that, don’t stop – just keep calm and keep job searching!

Did you enjoy reading our collection of job hunting quotes ? Which one reached out to you the most ? We would love to hear back from you. And don’t forget to like and share – as we keep saying, everybody needs a little inspiration now and then to keep going!

Beware: 5 Social Media Mistakes When Job Hunting

by sincera | Career, Communication, Infographics, Job Offers, Managing Yourself, Office Etiquette, World of Work

Did you know that 92% of recruiters and companies are using social media to search for or vet candidates for jobs? Social Media is a gold mine for recruiters. Online networks are chock-full of precious data, both personal and professional. And recruiters are digging deep to uncover more about job hunting candidates. (Source: Jobvite 2015 recruiter nation Survey)

Social Media has truly become a powerful tool in the process of recruitment. If you are job hunting (and even if you are not), you should be very careful about what you put out there, because EVERYTHING you ‘update’, ‘post’, ‘tweet’ or ‘Instagram’, is likely to be held for or against you when you are job hunting. Do an online search on yourself first and see what comes up. Do you want potential employers to see this information about you? Is your online presence a credible and reassuring one? Here are the five social media mistakes when job hunting, you definitely should be wary of:

1. Inappropriate Photographs

Curate your online profiles carefully for any inappropriate photographs that would not leave a positive impression for your potential employer. For example, you don’t want overly explicit photographs of the crazy bachelor’s party your friend recently had! Be sure to check the tags as well – a lot of times, you may not have uploaded photographs, but if your friends have tagged you on them, they will still show up on your profile. Tone down on the selfies too.

2. Dissing your old employer or colleagues in public

A strict no-no, and is also extremely unprofessional. Remember that it is a small world and ending things on a bad note can have consequences you didn’t even think of then. Besides, ranting away to glory in a public forum (and God forbid, with spelling and grammatical mistakes galore) reflects very poorly upon you, and your future or potential employer would definitely take a judgement call based on this one factor.

3. Bragging about illegal activity

Remember that you are not in high school anymore, and it is no longer ‘wicked’ to do this stuff. Speaking of ‘stuff’, it is completely unacceptable to put up information regarding your personal habits which are also borderline or completely illegal. No employer would ever let such information pass unnoticed, and with that, you can kiss your dream job goodbye.

4. Very frequent/very few updates

A constant social media presence would definitely bring to your potential employer’s mind “He/she is 24*7 on Facebook, Twitter, even at 12.30 pm on a weekday. Is he/she easily distracted? Will he/she able to focus on his/her work?”, and there goes your chance. Similarly, in today’s world, being completely absent on social media reflects a general lack of interest in current affairs and networking. Strike a balance between too much and too little time and presence on social media.

5. Not controlling/limiting privacy

When the likes of Zuckerberg and Hoffman have created options where we can control what we want to show to the world, and who we want to show it to, why not use it? Since you can’t really filter everything, you may consider restricting your privacy options to only your friends or people you can trust. Here is a great post that tells you exactly how to clean up your online profiles on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and more. But we would still ask you to cleanse whatever you can (and don’t forget to go back in time to delete/filter inappropriate postings – that trip to Goa/Las Vegas where your friends captured your “zombie” time? Hide for sure!). Because it does make an impression, and will probably have made the first impression before you even make it to the interview!

The presence and reach of social media in our lives – personal and professional, has become quite overwhelming, and increasingly so in the world of work. Being aware and conscious of how much and what you put out there, and what counts as social media mistakes when job hunting, will always work in your favor, regardless of whether or not you are job hunting actively.

Bonus Infographic: In case you need more motivation to proactively manage your social media presence to succeed in your job hunt, we have the facts and figures here from Jobvite on why Social Media matters: