1.2 Job vacancy sites
The following activities will help you find your way around the multiple job options that are online. You may wish to revisit these activities over a period of several days to see if anything has changed or whether new opportunities have arisen.
Your first task will be to subscribe to two job search agencies or email lists.
Below, and in the Further reading section, there are a number of links to websites where jobs are advertised. Look at those briefly, and explore at least three of them in more depth. Bookmark those that you think will be useful.
Activity 1 Subscribing to job vacancy sites
Find two websites that you think would be useful and likely to provide you with relevant job vacancies. By subscribing to an email service, you will receive emails that alert you to new job vacancies as they arise, so it’s highly recommended that you subscribe. Often, you can tailor these alerts to your particular requirements (for example, location, salary, job role).
The Open University Careers Service [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] has a list of useful websites to look for jobs in your local region or nation. There are also some resources linked in this week’s Further reading section.
Tip: Avoiding spam in your personal email account
Once you start seriously job seeking online and registering with online jobsites, you are likely to start to get a lot of additional emails and possibly even spam. For this reason, it is a good idea to set up a new email account specifically for your job search activities.
Your second task is to identify possible jobs.
Activity 2 Getting further information
Look through your selected websites and identify a job that you might consider applying for, either now or in the future.
Request further details – this might include an application form or job description, as well as information about the employer.
Look through the job description and further particulars and tick or make notes on which of the skills and requirements you can easily meet, those that are a bit of a stretch and those you simply don’t have (yet).
If you see a few vacancies that look useful to you then start to compile a folder or list of possible jobs, both those that you are interested in, and those that you think you could do.
Discussion
Tip: Remember, you don’t need to tick all the boxes – they are there to guide recruiters but are not always necessary! You’ve probably heard the following statistic: Men apply for a job when they meet only 60 per cent of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100 per cent of them (Mohr, 2014).