Are you currently looking for exciting opportunities at the biggest companies, and want to make the cut?
Are you wondering what it’s going to take in order to emerge on top?
The job climate has undergone significant change in recent times, and employers are actively looking for distinct skill and substance in candidates.
If you want to land coveted offers from the biggest companies, this article is for you.
We explore the most sought after job-hunting tips - tips that are proven to help you hit a home run!
Let’s jump straight to it!
Top 12 Job Hunting Tips to Land Your Dream Job
Here are 12 job hunting tips that will help you land an interview with your favorite companies.
1. Get help with your resume
If you already know how to concoct the ideal resume, great! If you have doubts however, especially those relating to what to include/exclude, what information to highlight, etc., getting help with creating the ideal resume that’s both appealing and has the right substance is a good option.
A lot of candidates ignore this element and often present either long-winded resumes containing superfluous information, or disorderly resumes that fail to highlight key achievements.
There are many credible Interview prep courses and trainings that help you create the ideal resume capable of landing you your dream interview. You might want to check them out if you feel you need help.
2. Optimize your LinkedIn profile
The emergence of LinkedIn as a professional platform to hire great talent is striking. Employers have been using LinkedIn’s Bullion Algorithms to zero-in on the right profiles with great success, and the popularity of LinkedIn has never been like it is today.
As somebody who’s actively seeking enriching professional opportunities, it’s time for you to up your LinkedIn game. The idea is to infuse your profile with the right keywords in the right areas, highlighting the right skill-sets and achievements to improve your visibility and land interviews with the biggest firms.
If your profile isn’t optimized enough, bullion algorithms will fail to locate you, causing you to miss-out on lucrative interviews.
Signing-up for a technical interview preparation course addresses this element. Interview Kickstart helps you leverage LinkedIn by creating a robust profile and unlocking interviews at FAANG and other Tier-1 companies.
3. Plan ahead - you cannot land your dream offer if you don’t plan
Landing your dream job, or even your dream interview for that matter, will require significant hours of effort gone into preparing.
If you take technical interviews for instance, professionals often advise you to prepare for at least 2-3 months before giving your interview, especially if you’re interviewing at a FAANG company. Even postponing your interview if you aren’t prepared enough is welcome, and hiring managers encourage this as well.
No matter what role or position you’re applying to - plan in advance. Make a checklist of all the things you want to get done, starting from preparing topics to fine-tuning your resume and LinkedIn profile. Give yourself enough time to prepare, and only then give it your best shot.
4. Be prolific at your current job
Being great at your current job will give you the required mileage and stand you in good stead when you take-on a new role.
A key reason why potential employers interact with “references” is to know how good you’ve been at executing your roles and responsibilities in previous organizations. While employers don’t specifically look at every organization you’ve worked with in the past, your most recent stint greatly influences their hiring decisions.
So no matter what your past has been, make sure you’re great at your current job.
5. Keep exploring and researching opportunities
Regardless of encountering failure or success in a recent interview, unless you’re satisfied and convinced that you’ve landed your dream job, don’t stop.
Keep exploring and looking-out for opportunities by way of networking/doing diligent research.
While you do so, make sure to constantly prepare yourself for upcoming opportunities, lest you find yourself unprepared when the right opportunity knocks.
6. Identify and highlight personal experiences of success
Your personal experiences of success will make you stand out amongst peers. Spend some time reviewing successful projects, especially those that have been challenging. Highlight incidents where you took calculated risks in a past project and failed, but ended up taking in invaluable learnings, to come out on top later.
While being involved with successful projects often paints a rosy picture, hiring managers are keen to know key learnings from projects that turned turtle, and how learnings were employed to concoct success.
7. Adopt a dedicated prep approach, especially if you’re prepping for technical interviews
If you decide to give it your best shot, make sure you go with it in full swing. Getting professional help isn’t ill-advised, as preparing for interviews at FAANG companies requires knowing the hacks of cracking technical interviews.
Large companies that actively hire excellent engineering talent to advance their visions for the world, usually ask candidates questions around data structures, algorithms and systems design. These companies actively look for expert problem solvers who can handle new problems and find effective solutions to them.
To answer tough questions on algorithms and systems design requires dedicated preparation and practice, often encompassing the majority of your time for at least 3 months.
Once you decide to appear for an interview with a tier-1 company, make sure to measure your preparation and rope-in the experts to guide you through your journey.
8. Don’t miss out on upskilling yourself
Upskilling has come to be supremely valued in recent times, especially against the backdrop of stiff and unrelenting competition amplified by the ongoing pandemic.
Companies are looking for candidates who have far greater qualifications/achievements than their peers, and often have high interview standards that churns out only the best of talent.
9. Network with peers and ex co-workers
Networking is an important skill to navigate the corporate world and land desirable opportunities. Actively networking intimates you about opportunities that are around the corner, setting you off on the right foot in landing your dream job.
As such, go the extra mile to network with ex-colleagues, peers and superiors. You never know when the right opportunity will knock at your door.
10. Practice mock interviews with professionals
Practicing mock interviews is super-essential, especially if you wish to crack tough technical interviews at the biggest companies.
Mock interviews help highlight weaknesses that might do you in while appearing for interviews.
Technical interviews are a completely different ball-game - they’re tough nuts to crack, and a lot of parameters are considered while making a hiring decision.
Mock interviews bring out subtle attributes that might influence hiring decisions, especially in behavioral interviews. If you’re getting ready to prepare for your next big interview, make sure to practice mock interviews with experts who’ll give you professional feedback, help you introspect, make rectifications and adjustments, and cross the line.
11. Follow-up with the employer
If you haven’t heard back from the employer after a week following the interview, get in touch with them via email or phone call. Sending a follow-up mail usually works best in this regard. While you’re at it, make sure to evince keen interest and excitement in taking up the position and role at the company.
Also, after sending your first follow-up mail, exercise due patience while you wait. Many companies, especially large firms that hire for multiple positions, often have an elongated hiring process that onboards candidates in a phased and staggered manner. You can expect an immediate response at times, but in the event that you don’t, be patient and continue to apply to jobs of interest and relevance.
Additional Resources
1. Nail the Google Interview with this comprehensive Google interview questions
2. These 9 reasons might be causing you to get rejected in technical interviews
3. Here’s the perfect handbook to conquer Interview Anxiety at big interviews
