University of Chichester

Creative Job Hunting

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Conventional and creative job hunting

The principle behind creative job hunting is that not all job opportunities are advertised.

Conventional job-hunting usually includes:

  • Waiting for and then responding to adverts
  • Sending out duplicate speculative applications to large numbers of employers
  • Registering with one or more agencies and then waiting for opportunities

(Details about where to find advertised jobs can be found on the jobs after graduating page)

Creative job hunting incorporates parts of the conventional approach but is about being selective and targeted in the job hunt by:

  • Researching organisations that may offer the work you are interested in
  • Developing a network of contacts, possibly through work shadowing or experience
  • Making focussed speculative applications

Creative job hunting is about finding your own opportunities rather than waiting for things to happen, and so giving you access to the 'hidden job market'.

The 'Iceberg' Principle illustrates the hidden job market. The proportions will alter depending on the sector but the idea is the same - advertised vacancies make up a small proportion of opportunities and the boundaries of the hidden job market are indefinite:

Diagram showing the iceberg principle

Preparation

Creative job hunting requires preparation, such as:

  • Assessing yourself - your skills, weaknesses, motivations
  • Researching sectors, occupations and job titles. What are the requirements for jobs you are interested in?
  • Researching relevant companies or organisations in locations you can access


To start off creative job hunting, and to initiate a contacts list, you will need to have a certain amount of knowledge. A potential contact won't be impressed if it's clear you don't know the basics about their sector or organisation/company, or are contacting them because you have a vague idea that you might be interested in that sort of work. You'll need to be fairly confident that you would be motivated by the work and feel like you would be comfortable doing it. Your ideas may alter or be refined through the process of creative job hunting, but starting to approach people once you have assessed yourself and done some research will make it more beneficial.

Links within this website are a good place to start:

Decision making - some good starting points if you don't know what you want to do and can also help you to assess what is important for you in a job.

Personal Development Planning (PDP) - lots of information to assist you in assessing your strengths and weaknesses and to make the most of your past experiences. The sections on learning styles and personality assessment might be especially useful. Don't worry if you haven't used this from the start of your course, it is helpful at any stage.

Occupations - information about sectors and job titles. Titles might not match all jobs but will still give valuable information and an overview at the very least. Useful if you have a specific idea of what you are interested in or as a research tool if you are not sure.

Labour Market Information - gives you an overview of the contemporary labour market and the current trends (the section on SMEs may be particularly useful). Also highlights ways of reading the available research and data.

Approaches to creative job hunting

Once you have an idea of the sector or type of work you want to target then you can make enquiries. As well as contacting companies or organisations directly you could look at whether there's a way in via people you already know.

Anyone can be a potential contact: family; friends; friends' friends; work colleagues (past and present); neighbours; other students; contacts from school; university lecturers; people met through sport or voluntary work or cultural groups.

Whoever you decide to approach, your aims will probably be to:

  • Sound them out for information or an informal informational meeting
  • Find out more about what it's actually like to do that work there and ways in to it, as well as about current and future trends
  • Possibly ask about work shadowing or experience
  • Ask for other contacts or people you could speak to, or other suggestions of ways to find out more

...it is not to ask for a job!

From there you can approach the next person and so on, making any targeted, speculative applications where appropriate.

The point of all this is that you are confirming and refining your career ideas by finding out information from the people that do the jobs you are interested in. This is valuable because the knowledge and experiences you gain will strengthen any job applications you make. You may also eventually come across someone who knows of a vacancy or even someone whose company or organisation is recruiting. The recruitment process will be the same as for the other applicants, but it could be a vacancy you may not have heard about otherwise, and, if you use the knowledge you have gained from your research in the recruitment process, then you have the opportunity to impress the employer.

Finding companies, organisations and contacts

There are various ways to find particular types of employers or organisations:

Employer directories

Employer directories catalogue businesses and services. Some online examples are below. They hold vast amounts of information and it is worth spending a bit of time familiarising yourself with the different approaches so you can refine your searches appropriately.

www.kellysearch.co.uk - concentrates on industrial companies
www.yell.com - an online version of yellow pages
www.askalix.com/uk - limits to 50 results at a time, so searches need to be quite specific
www.thomsonlocal.com - online version of the Thomson directory
http://sussexwi.findlinks.com - local directory for Sussex
www.kentgrads.org.uk - a database of companies in Kent that employ graduates

Search engines

The other key site to research companies and organisations is www.google.co.uk. You'll need to be more creative and try a number of different search words and combinations. The 'pages from the UK' button allows you to narrow all the searches to the UK. You may prefer other search engines; a listing of some alternatives with a UK focus is provided courtesy of Zen.

Academic listings

These can be useful for researching organisations and employment trends:


Local authorities

Can be a good source of information on projects, services and opportunities. Most council homepages have an A to Z of services button as well as vacancy listings. These sites have links to all local authority websites: www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/uklocalgov/localgov.htm; www.tagish.co.uk/tagish/links/localgov.htm.

General recruitment sites for local government are included on the graduate jobs page.

Not for profit organisations

  • Charity Choice has a really good online directory: www.charitychoice.co.uk. Not all entries have web links listed but all have names and phone numbers
  • The Charity Commission is responsible for regulating and registering charities in Britain. The site includes a search facility to find registered charities: www.charity-commission.gov.uk
  • CAF Online has another good listing of not for profit organisations, the advanced search is more useful: www.cafonline.org
  • The National Council for Voluntary Organisations produce a printed directory (held in Careers, Bishop Otter Campus). Their website may also be useful: www.ncvo-vol.org.uk
  • Voluntary Resource www.volresource.org.uk has information for voluntary and community organisations and may be helpful for more general research


Recruitment agencies (temping)

Temping can be a way to find out what it is like to work at a particular company or organisation - even if you end up working in a different department to that you are aiming at, or doing a job that you wouldn't have otherwise considered. As well as giving you experience in the correct sector, it could give you the opportunity to form valuable contacts. For more details on recruitment agencies for temping work see the graduate jobs page.

Resources

Books

Some good resources for serious job hunting (available in the Careers Centre) include:

How to get a Job You'll Love - John Lees, McGraw Hill
What Color is Your Parachute? - Richard Bolles, Ten Speed Press
Job Seeking Strategies - AGCAS booklet

Useful links
www.jobhuntersbible.com - Richard Bolles' online accompaniment to What Color is your Parachute? It is an American site so some of the links aren't relevant but a lot of the advice certainly is and it can be applied to job hunting in Britain.

www.windmillsonline.co.uk/interactive/ - the Windmills approach is in three sections: where am I now?; what sort of life do I want?; and how can I start working towards my kind of life? There's also a virtual careers coach: www.windmillsprogramme.co.uk

www.grb.uk.com/networking.0.html; www.grb.uk.com/jobhunt_strategies.0.html - Graduate Recruitment Bureau's sections on networking and creative job hunting strategies

www.deed.state.mn.us/cjs/cjsbook/index.htm - another American site, this one from Minnesota Economic Development Agency. Again, much of the information can be applied to job hunting in Britain.

www.prospects.ac.uk/links/jobhunt - the job hunting section on Prospects. Pages on speculative applications and networking, reviewing your situation and enhancing your skills and experience are examples of those in this section that are relevant to creative job hunting.

It is worth remembering that creative job hunting is about maximising your opportunities and using all available methods in the job search. As such this page complements the graduate jobs page.