A few tips for job-hunting Grads

I thought I'd share a few thing for grads given that I have quite a few on my Twitter.

I hope you find it helpful

So now you’ve graduated and it’s time to hit the job market, here’s what I recommend you do first:

Career guidance.

Speak to your school’s career guidance counsellors, I know that many universities have relationships with HR personnel of various companies, popping into your counselling office might just land you your first interview- it did for me.

Your CV.

But before you go to your counsellors, have your CV in your hand (just so it looks like you’re serious; they probably won’t take it but that's okay) and get their email address then after speaking, offer to email them a copy of your CV. So clean up your CV.

Size.

“As a grad, there’s not much you can say on a CV that warrants more than a page”

Til this day, my CV is a one pager. I have had the privilege of flipping through a bank CEO’s CV and even with all of his accomplishments, his CV is just 2 pages.

But that’s just my preference: straight and to the point.

A cover letter.

Do have a cover letter. And don’t forget to attach your academic transcripts, ID is not necessary unless it's requested.

I also like seeing what else you did in varsity other than studying; societies you were in etc.. We enjoyed a certain beauty queen's CV the other day and the work she does with her title, this adds dimension to your application.

And please, make sure your PDF your CV! I have received numerous CV's in file formats that I cannot open, don’t be exotic; use what’s common. PDF. Please.

Now, you have to sit at your schools computer labs and apply! Do this as early as possible, and don’t apply for jobs that you can clearly see are not meant for you as a grad because, you can be blacklisted by the recruitment firm/ HR (usually recruiting firms do this). So try not to flood the same firm with your CV too much.

Firms in each industry have recruitment periods where postings for internships, grad programmes etc. are open. When I was still a grad I found that I’d have to apply early in the year for posts opening the following year, I don’t know if this timing has changed. So make sure you’re keeping abreast of your industry's movements, LinkedIn is a good way of keeping an eye on these things.

Don't rely on LinkedIn too much for this though as there are firms that don't post grad-related programmes or internships on LinkedIn- you have to go straight to their websites for information, so surf the net and diarising the dates. Very NB!

I’ll go into getting the most out of LinkedIn some other time.

Psychometrics

Often, well I know in Commerce, you’ll be asked to take Psychometric tests, practice! I’ll go into these some other time too lol but make sure you practice the numeric and the logic/ patterns ones before you go. I remember in one test I took, I had 5 seconds to read and answer a question. The questions aren’t hard, it’s about the time it takes you to answer. You can't practice for a cultural fit/ reasoning assessment but it's always good to read over the companies core values on their website before you take these tests.

Usually, when the email invite comes in to take these tests, the email also includes which provider/ platform the company uses for psychometrics, if not, you can find it on Google if you look well.

I have found that SHL is the most common (about 80% of the tests I've taken), then Cubiks and TalentQ.

There are many types of tests, all companies I have applied for have a Numeric Reasoning test. Again, the tests you take depend on the type of job you're applying for; you probably won't take numeric reasoning if you'll be capturing data for most of your day.

The interview

Be ready for weird interview questions, I would Google a couple interview questions and think about how I would answer those questions. I would arrive 45 minutes prior my interview time just to give myself enough time to calm my nerves. And clue up on interview etiquette.

Expect technical questions relating to what you studied, so, in a quant world, you'll probably be asked to write a formula on the board or prove a theory, so don't throw your text-books away, ever. I still refer back to my textbooks sometimes.

Anyway, I hope this has helped somewhat :-)

Tweet me: @VumileSithebe