Job hunting can sometimes be a hectic mission. Getting caught in between a variety of confusing career paths, a web of recruitment platforms, and an increasingly competitive market can be incredibly frustrating, not to mention exhausting. Your application on WUZZUF can sometimes get lost in the process.
Many different, interconnected factors affect the job-hunting process. Understanding them is necessary for you to be an informed and empowered actor in the job-hunting process, not a victim of it.
Your WUZZUF profile
The information you provide in your profile on WUZZUF is your first step towards finding the right job that fits your skills and work experience.
The first and most important piece of the job-hunting puzzle is you, the job hunter. Your profile on WUZZUF is the one element that is entirely in your hands, which makes its importance quite significant and at the same time advantageous to you.
Your WUZZUF profile is the way you choose to introduce yourself to the employer. It’s important to note that the employer sees your profile first when they open your application. They get access to your uploaded CV at a much later stage in the process.
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Therefore, your CV is the last thing you should think about. Keep your WUZZUF profile the utmost priority, and when it comes to your profile, what you say, how much you say, and how you say it are crucial.
The first thing you need to be aware of is your Profile Meter. It’s the feature that indicates how much progress you’ve made in completing the information in your profile. The more the information you fill out in your profile, the higher your Profile Meter, and the higher your Profile Meter, the more chance your profile has of being viewed by employers. It’s helpful to think of your WUZZUF profile in the same way you’d think of your favorite houseplant. You have to keep taking care of it for it to develop and grow. If you neglect it, it’ll wither and die.
Updating your profile with relevant information increases the strength of your Profile Meter.
In your profile, there are Career Interests. That’s where you tell the employers about what kind of opportunities you’re looking for. It’s where you fill in details about the industry you’d like to work in, the level of experience you’re most comfortable with, and the position you want to have.
When you fill out your career interests, skills and experiences accurately, you make it easier for us to bring you more personalized Career Opportunities on Explore.
Regularly and accurately updating your Job Preferences helps us find you the best Job Recommendations.
These are job vacancies and opportunities (like meetups, career coaching, internship opportunities & WUZZUF blog) that we recommend to you based on your skills, expertise, and career goals. Your career opportunities appear on your Explore feed and are also regularly sent to you via email alerts. That’s why if you want to get the best and most tailored opportunities, you have to make sure your Career Interests accurately represent what you truly want.
[clickToTweet tweet=”To get the best career opportunities, your Career Interests should accurately represent what you want.” quote=”To get the best Career Opportunities, your Career Interests should accurately represent what you want.” theme=”style3″]
You can specify the qualities of the job you’re looking for in your Job Preferences.
However, it’s not just about how much you say on your profile. Exactly what you say matters more, which brings us to the next piece of the puzzle.
Your job application
When it comes to the jobs you apply for on WUZZUF, relevance is critical. You have to make sure you apply for jobs you know you’re qualified for. If your skills and experience don’t match the position you’re applying for, chances are your application won’t be viewed by the employer.
Moreover, you have to make sure you apply for jobs that you genuinely want. This brings us back to the Job Preferences in your profile. A simple way to figure this out is to ask yourself these questions: What career level am I at right now? What salary would I like to earn? Do I want to work full-time or part-time? What industry do I want to work in? Which job title do I want? Do I want to be a UI designer or a UX designer?
When it comes to your job applications, answering Screening Questions also matters. These are the questions the employer requests in your application to assess whether you’re the right fit for the job or not.
Screening questions help the employer make quick, easy, and right decisions and they pose an opportunity for you to stand out.
They matter not only because they’re the first thing employers see when they open your application, but also because if the employer chose to include a particular set of questions, it means they care a lot about the kind of answers they’ll get. So pay attention to them and make sure your answers are nothing short of excellent.
The employer’s side of the story
The next big piece of the job-hunting puzzle is the employer, whose side of the story is a mystery to many. But don’t worry. We wrote an article about how employers pick candidates on WUZZUF.
The job market
Employers take more actions in industries that have a low number of applications per job. Source: WUZZUF.
Now that we’ve discussed your part, our part, and the employer’s part in the job-hunting process, it’s time to talk about the missing piece of the puzzle: the context in which they operate.
The job market is incredibly competitive. It’s comforting to believe that each employer lovingly caters to your application, but the truth is there are hundreds of candidates applying for the same job as you. Also, let’s face it: The employer doesn’t have the time, space, or energy to look at all candidates.
The average number of applications per job on WUZZUF is 98, and it can go up to 200 in the most competitive job roles like accounting and finance. Think about it. That’s a lot of candidates applying for a job for which the employer will only pick one.
Moreover, our data show that the higher the average number of applications per job is, the less likely the employer is to view and take actions on an application. This gets even more intense in competitive industries, such as banking and human resources.
Besides, there’s a significant imbalance in the job market because there is a massive gap between undervalued and overvalued industries. For example, the average number of applications per job in the sales industry on WUZZUF is 43, which is striking when compared to accounting’s 200.
Like sales, journalism, marketing, software development, and design are also undervalued industries. Source: WUZZUF.
Employers react much more positively to applications in these undervalued industries because it’s much easier for them to navigate the list of candidates.
Not only is the job market competitive, but it’s also getting more and more crowded. In 2015, the average number of public university graduates entering the job market in Egypt each year was more than 300,000. This number is consistently increasing in a country where the unemployment rate is currently at 12%.
None of these are reasons to give up. They’re all reasons to be more proactive. How? You can start by trying some of these options:
- Apply for jobs that are relevant to your skills and experience because employers are unlikely to pay attention to your application if it’s not related to the job requirements, to begin with.
- Apply for more than just one job. In a competitive market, you cannot depend on getting that “one job you really want.” You have to work your way up the ladder so that you can get to your ideal job.
- Keep your mind open when it comes to choosing a career path. Consider getting into an undervalued industry such as sales, in which there are plenty of opportunities and little competition.
- Understand that rejection is an inevitable part of professional life. It’s not personal. Overcoming your fear of being rejected will allow you to keep applying for more and more jobs without a loss of enthusiasm or persistence.
The complexity of the job-hunting process doesn’t leave room for one simple solution. However, that’s how life works, and it’s no reason to despair.
So don’t have expectations that are too high, but don’t lose all hope either. We’re doing our part by making sure our product is the best version of itself. You do your part and do it to the best of your ability.
Remember to keep your spirits up and don’t worry about it too much. The right job will come at the right time.
What are your thoughts on the job-hunting puzzle? Share your experiences with us in the comments below.
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[…] There is no shame in having a job that – in the end, doesn’t have a broad social impact. If you feel like you need to find a social-impact job or shift your career to a more socially attending fields, you can follow Non-Profit Organization job posts on WUZZUF. Just make sure you update your profile, so your application can get a higher chance. […]