I managed to get my first job in the UK just under two weeks of being here. If you want to know how I did it, please keep on watching. Now, today we are going to talk career. Before we start, I just want to give you a background about myself for context. I’m originally from Thailand, and within the first two weeks of moving to the UK, I managed to get my very first job. I’ve been changing a fair few jobs after since, and I’ve been living in London for about three years now. I also managed to land my very first job in London just under three weeks as well. So, the tips I am sharing with you today are the ones that I have always been using and give me a good result in terms of searching for a job in the UK.
1. Polish Your CV
First and foremost, when looking for a job, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to have a polished CV. I mean, your CV is the first thing that the recruiters or the hiring manager will see, so in a way, you want your CV to be as professional as possible. As a non-native English speaker myself, having a perfect CV or all the grammar perfected was rather difficult. So my first advice to you is to have your CV reviewed and re-written by a native English speaker.
Now, this tip might be a bit controversial, and I know there might be people out there who might not agree with this, but if you’re looking for a job in a very competitive environment in such a big city as London, you want to be putting your A-game out there. Some of the websites that you can use to find an independent contractor to review and rewrite your CVs are PeoplePerHour.com, which is the one I have actually used, or there’s another one called Fiverr.com. I’ll put all the links down below so that you can click on them when you choose the one to review your CV. Just look at the reviews that they have, choose the one with decent reviews, good reviews, and the one that can offer the price that will fit your budget.
Now, I understand that in this economic downturn, you might not want to spend a hundred pounds on someone to rewrite your CV. If that is the case, then the next best thing you can do is probably have your CV reviewed by someone who is a native English speaker and preferably British, because you’ll be looking for a job in the UK.
2. Job-Seeking Websites
Now that you have your perfect CV, the next thing to do is look for a place to apply for a job. I’ll break this down into three different websites or categories where you can look for a job. The first one is job-seeking websites. So, there are loads out there, but in the UK, the most popular ones would be Monster, Reed.co.uk, and CV Library. So these are the ones that people normally use. On these websites, for my observation, the majority of the job postings will be from recruiters, but from time to time, the company’s hiring managers or HR directors are posting the available vacancies on there as well. Just make sure that you upload your CV and mark yourself as looking for opportunities.
3. LinkedIn
Now, the second one, which I find recently has been very helpful, is LinkedIn. I think now LinkedIn has LinkedIn Jobs as well, specifically for people who are looking for work. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is as polished as possible so that when the recruiters look at your profile, they think, “This is a good candidate.” Two advantages of using LinkedIn are that with LinkedIn itself, the recruiters or hiring managers can send you an InMail, so I feel like that’s quicker than having the recruiters find your CV on job-searching websites, look at your CV, find the telephone number, and give you a call. It’s just much easier for them to reach out to you.
Secondly, most companies, recruiters, and hiring managers are already going to be on LinkedIn, and if you register on LinkedIn as well, once there is any vacancy available that might suit your past experience, LinkedIn will be sending that notification into your email. So, in a way, it helps you to be informed about job openings more quickly, and then it helps you to be one of the first applicants to apply for that job.
4. Contact the Company Directly
Now, the third way that you can try, this one I haven’t tried myself but I know someone who has tried and had success in it, is contacting the company directly. If you know the kind of company that you want to be working for, for example, big companies like Google, Facebook, or some big tech firms, if you know you want to be working for these people, just go on their website, look for their career page, and see if there is any job opening.
5. Tailor Your Cover Letter
Now that you’ve got your CV ready and know where to apply for the job, here comes my personal preference, something I’ve been doing since day one of looking for a job in the UK, and it’s worked for me: tailor your cover letter. I know that there are a lot of people who don’t do it, but the thing is recruiters and hiring managers do get loads and loads of applications in one day. What you want to be doing is stand out and focus on the quality and focus on the response rate.
Now, how to do this: first, read through the job descriptions very carefully, and in the job description yourself, pick out some keywords that are contained in that particular job description. What you want to be doing is include some of those keywords into your cover letter because we have to admit it, when these recruiters get loads of applications, what they do is they just skim through applications and next applications, and what are they looking for? Some keywords. So make sure that you include those keywords in your cover letter so that it will make you stand out even more.
Secondly, what you can also do is, in the job description, look for a contact person, look for the name of the contact person, and address them properly in your cover letter. That shows effort, and they would like that.
Now, some of you might be saying, “But Poppy, that is time-wasting. I’m applying for loads of jobs; I don’t have time to do that.” Fine, I understand. Pick out some of the jobs that you really, really want to get. Let’s say if you apply for 50, pick out about 15 or 20 that you really want to get the job for and just tailor your cover letter for those ones. The ones that you kind of think “maybe yes, maybe no,” just send out the generic cover letter.
6. Follow-Up After Applying
Okay, so what I mentioned so far is the process where you look for the job and apply for the job, but what about after applying for the job? What happens after that? Personally, if there is a job that I really want to get an interview for, I would do a follow-up. So, my follow-up would be a couple of days after; I wouldn’t even wait for a week after. Why? Because you just don’t know, some application processes actually do have a quick turnaround, so after a couple of days after applying for the job, you want to be reaching out to the person that you applied for a job to.
Now, guys, that’s all I have for you today. I hope these tips are helpful. If you find this article helpful, please give me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you haven’t. I’ll see you next time.
