Career Zone EN

Step 4. Find a job

In the previous sections, you've carefully considered your personal profile, your labour market aspirations, and how best to present yourself. The next step toward entering the labour market and ultimately finding a job is actually searching for vacancies.

To approach this effectively, it's helpful to understand how the labour market, and especially recruitment, works. Therefore, read the information on the Career Zone under ‘How do I find a job?’

> How do I find a job?

There are several ways to ultimately find your first job. Through

a job vacancy
networking
an open application
job placement

To find out where you can find vacancies or opportunities to answer your initial question, it's helpful to include this in your research on what suits you, in your (career) profile. You can address this immediately in step 2, but it's not necessary.

Assignment

To ensure you don't end up looking in places where you'll never find a suitable vacancy, it's advisable to ask questions about recruitment within the organization and/or sector of your interest while networking.

Therefore, read the information on the Career Zone under 'How do I find a job?' to gain insight into different ways to find that job.
Ask your network contacts how they recruit new staff. Suppose you'd like to work there, ‘how do you get in?’
Also ask your network contacts how you can increase your chances of getting through the selection process. What knowledge and experience should you definitely bring? What is important to include in your resume and/or cover letter?
In addition to the information you receive from your network,
- research three job boards that offer vacancies that match what you're looking for. Research whether there's an organisation you'd like to submit an open application to.
- Research which employment agencies operate in the field you're interested in. Visit their websites, read about their practices, and check out their current vacancies.
Make a network schedule for yourself.
Fill in names, potential employers, field of work, etc. and keep track of the status of each network contact.
Who did you approach? With which question? Has the person been able to help you further? Do you have to give follow-up/back on this?