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Where to find a job?

In the moment of searching work by foreign account, it is important to know where to search and which are the resources and the more usual ways of search.

WHERE TO FIND A JOB?

This document refers to the labour market intermediaries and channels that can be used to gain access to job vacancies. It is adequate to use several different employment access channels, but above all it is necessary to use the most appropriate one for the type of job we wish to achieve.

Recent statistics prove that the channel that the largest amount of people get a job is by means of the information provided by the people that surround them, in other works, their own network of contacts.

The telephone is an information technology at everyone's reach and on many occasions it can help us to find a job.

This document includes some pieces of advice to make sure that the phone call is as efficient as possible, regardless of its target (reply to an advertisement, self-candidacy or following up a selection process).

When you search for a job by yourself it is important to know where to search and which are the most usual search resources and channels. There are different intermediaries that receive job vacancies from companies and make them available for the applicants:

Work Offices. They depend on the Servei d'Ocupació de Catalunya (SOC) and are in charge of relating persons who are searching for a job with companies seeking employees, and managing the job vacancies (intermediating). They offer a comprehensive service for those persons who are searching for a job or wish to change their current one; these agencies organise professional training courses and professional counselling services.

Job banks. Databases, generally classified by professional sectors or professions, which are offered to companies with the need to cover jobs. These banks can be found at:

• Professional associations
• Vocational training centres or universities
• Business associations
• Labour unions
• Local employment services

Temporary employment agencies. Private companies whose activity consists in providing temporary workers to other companies. The companies need versatile workers, with great capacity to adapt to different situations and immediate availability.

Staff recruitment companies. Companies that carry out the process of recruitment, assessment and selection of candidates based on the needs and profiles requested by the customer company.

INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE

Searching for employment is an activity that requires full dedication on behalf of the interested person. During this process it is recommendable for this person to use all the resources that he or she has available.

The network of contacts is made up by all the people with whom he or she has had relation throughout his or her entire professional or private life. The majority of labour vacancies are managed by means of personal contacts. If you are looking for a job, tell all those people that may be able to help you, from family to former workmates or fellow students.

Self-candidacy or un-solicited application. If you become aware of a possible job vacancy you can get in touch with the company in question. Offering your services, knowledge and experience to companies, requesting a job interview without there being a specific offer is known as self-candidacy.

You can get in touch with the companies via phone, mail or by going directly to the company itself.

To use this channel, you must clearly aware of the professional aim you wish to achieve and gather the maximum amount of information possible about the company that you wish to address.

MEDIA

Companies that wish to approach a larger amount of candidates are becoming accustomed to using the media to make their job vacancies known. Use both general information newspapers, specialised press and websites.

Websites. Nowadays they have become a new tool to search for employment. You have to be careful and know how to choose the websites or the information that may really interest you. We recommend you to:

• Register on the most interesting employment sites. You will need to insert your CV on the different websites. Usually, each website uses its own CV format, therefore it is convenient to have a basic curriculum that can be easily adapted to the particular formats.
• Keep a classification of all the job vacancies that you request.
• Try to get to know the company that offers the job better (this will increase your possibilities of being selected).

Nowadays, there is a great variety of websites that will give you access to multiple job opportunities. Some of these websites are:

• Feina Activa: El portal de la Generalitat de Catalunya, gestionat pel Servei d'Ocupació de Catalunya
• Yaencontre: Ofertes i demandes per a tot l'estat.
• Infofeina: Ofertes de treball a tot Catalunya.
• Infoempleo: Ofertes de feina, beques, premis, formació i oferta pública.
• Monster: Ofertes de feina a tot l’estat i consells pràctics per buscar feina.
• Treball fàcil: Borsa de treball i consulta d'ofertes públiques i privades.
• Infojobs: Dóna servei a persones demandants de feina i a empreses.

Print media. Newspapers specialise in offers in their geographical area of influence. Some examples of press specialised in job vacancies are:

• Laboris
• Primera Mà - Segona mà
• Cinco Días
• La Gaceta de los Negocios
• Expansión y Empleo

NETWORK OF CONTACTS

It is the most used method to access a job, only between 20% and 30% of the labour market has achieved a job by means of the press, magazines, Internet, employment services, etc.; the rest (70%) have achieved their job thanks to their contacts.

It is the most efficient tool to the occupation opportunities related with our professional aim. This method for job seeking is also known as networking because it consists in weaving a network so that certain persons will tell others about your search and therefore the possibilities that your CV is in the right place at the right time increase considerably. This method does not usually work immediately but it does on the medium term.

The target we are pursuing with the network of contacts it to access information on companies in which we may have possibilities to find a job or to access persons that can provide us with up-to-date information on the profession, the tasks, the instruments and the techniques used. Information, the possibility to access certain people and/or companies and a reference about ourselves is what we achieve when we operate correctly with our network of contacts.

One of the advantages of networking is that other that providing us with information on the labour market, we can turn our contacts in to persons that give references about us, especially those persons with whom we have a special relation of confidence and mutual knowledge. The use of this system also allows us to strength our personal relations, it leads us to new relations, new opportunities and more possibilities of success in the process of searching for a job.

How to build it up? The network of contacts will be based on:

• Persons in your relational field that know your really well (family, friends, neighbours, your partner's contacts, persons known through your sporting activities or hobbies).
• Persons in your professional area that you may have known during your professional-educational career (former workmates, suppliers and customers of former jobs, former teachers ...).

When you drawing up your contact book you have to take into account who must be in it and who not, depending on the help that they may provide you. The most useful contacts are those that will allow us to know other people or those that can provide us more information.

In order to be able to weave this network systematically, we recommend to create a file with the details of the persons of contact, taking note of the results and the possibilities of each one of them so that we can concentrate on the most feasible ones. In any case we must be grateful for the help and information that they may provide us with.

The contact list must be updated as the people on the initial list provide us new contacts. Therefore, the list will grow around the job that we wish to apply for.

Once we have identified the people who are going to be part of our network of contacts and as long as we are fully aware of our professional aim, we need to generate a message, which has to be easy to understand for the members of our network and transmit it systematically. Other than the message, we also have to transmit our wish to work and our confidence in being able to carry out the job's tasks efficiently.

An easy and rapid way of approaching the persons in our network is the telephone. Although most of the times we will end up speaking to an automatic answer machine, we must not become discouraged, we must have already prepared the possible message to be left and therefore avoid our mind from going blank. We can answer with something similar to: " Good morning, I am so and so and we met in such circumstance or through such person...".

Another way of establishing contact is via email and above all through personal contact.

In order for the search of employment to be more efficient through this system we must always have a CV close at hand, this does not means that we should give one to everybody and especially not during the first contact, and also visiting cards. Regarding the visiting card, we can design one that not only includes our name, surnames and phone number, but also our profession and profile.

Example: Joan Riera Casanova - Graduate in Marketing - Expert in the development of new products and design of direct marketing strategies. On the back of the card we could even describe what we know how to do better (generation of new businesses, capture of customers, etc.). This will allow us to transform the card in a mini CV.

An address book with the most important information on the people that are part of our network of contacts and a control sheet where we will reflect the situation of each contact made. It may be all put together in a one and only book.

Aspects to be taken into account. We should never do the following actions when we use this system to search for a job:

• Inspire pity
• Pressure others with our insistence
• Pass on our responsibilities to out contacts
• Be embarrassed about stating out situation

TELEPHONE CONTACT WITH A COMPANY

The telephone is an important tool in the selection process which help us to:

• Gather information about companies and professional contacts.
• Arrange an interview.
• Monitor the situation after having sent a CV or after having taken an interview.

Take into account that telephone contacts are not improvised. For this reason we are going to give you a brief guide on how to prepare each telephone call.

Before calling:

• Get information about the name of the company and the person with who we wish to speak.
• Prepare the reason for calling and what we will say. The introduction should be brief, never longer than 30 seconds.

During the call:

• Introduce ourselves and ask who we are speaking to.
• Do not speak about matters other than those relative to our aims.
• Speak clearly with a high pitch, vocalising the words properly.
• Use an appropriate speed.
• Use a positive style.
• Mind our vocabulary.
• Don't be too familiar in the way you speak; it's better to show deference.

If the person we wish to speak with is occupied:

• We will try to get to know at what time he or she will be available.
• We must never say that it is a personal or very important matter.

If we wish to take an interview:

• We should only provide the information necessary, trying to arouse the interest of the other party.
• We should have our CV in front of us just in case we are asked any questions relative to the latter.

End of the call:

• We must be prepared to receive usual replies such as: "we are not looking for anyone", "call another department".
• We must try to achieve as much information as possible.
• We must say goodbye in a pleasant manner.
• We must take note of the interesting issues mentioned during the telephone conversation and of the next appointments.