Thursday, January 20, 2011

Job Hunting: The Application, The Wait and The Call and/or Rejection

1st step once you graduate, other than partying till drop dead and play and play and play, is to go for job hunting! Contributing to the surplus number of the unemployed is not a pretty sight, I admit, but that is what every single graduate have to go through.

Nowadays we are blessed with the advancement of technology and telecommunication. We don't actually need to buy a newspaper and look at the classified section to find a job or pay for an employment agency to help find a suitable job for you. All you need is to hook up to the internet and register as a job seeker under major employment service websites such as JobStreet and Monster. From there, you can start searching for suitable jobs to suit your degree and your interest. Of course when you want to apply for a job you are interested in, you need to prepare your resume and relevant documents, and in some cases, you also need to prepare a cover letter, just as a formality and it will also show how interested you are to get the job. So, with the ease that technology had provided us, there is no reason to start firing up your resume and chocolate coat it with sweet stuff that employers would love to see and then start spamming those emails and online applications!

Of course, that's not all. The worse part is not the application, but the wait. Some employers are gracious enough to reject you outright if they think you are not suitable or they already found a suitable candidate for the job. Some thou, they left you hanging for months after sending you an email stating "under consideration". And if you successfully caught the attention of the employer, congratulations, you are invited to an interview!

I made around 30 applications on JobStreet and around 20 on Monster from July till August and the rate of incoming calls for interview is low. Got invitation to few face to face interviews and bunch of phone interviews which I accepted and also a few which I rejected due to low pay and other limitations like required to own a car and must be able to speak Cantonese (yes I don't speak Cantonese!), during that period of time. In the end thou, the few interviews i accepted, I had to reject due to family issues and I must emphasize here that if you can help it, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT cancel your interviews. The employer might not accept your reason for not attending the interview and put you under black list. That happened to me, but I had no choice. So, it turned out that I am still, unemployed =/

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