After a great day of hunting, spent in meeting companies, chatting with recruiters and discussing with nice employees, I was hit by this high energy beam of inspiration to share this wonderful experience of chasing jobs.

So, here we go…! 😊

Prepare for the hunt

Before starting the hunt, we have to decide what kind of animals will be our victims. In the terms of job hunting this means “What kind of job are we looking for?”. We should have pretty clear idea about that in order to be sure that we are not going hunting for lions with a fishing rod.

Choose a terrain

We need to choose the right terrain for hunting. This is very important, because if we are looking for penguins in Africa, the only way to return with a prey is to end up chasing penguins in some local zoo (what a pitiful sight, huh? 😊). In today’s modern world the wild territories are quickly disappearing and many hunting places from the past are already gone so looking for a good victim in the yellow pages is probably a bad idea.

Happily, thanks to the modern technologies, a whole new world full of various job animals appeared in the virtual space. This is the WORLD WIDE WEB, called just Web by most of the geeks. In this world there are plenty of sites where we can find exactly the species we are looking for. Sites like Monster, JobTiger, TalentEgg and many others could be reached using special, high-tech navigation systems like Google, , Bing, Yahoo, Baidu etc. The old and experienced hunters recommend trying multiple sites and choosing these ones with the biggest herds.

Prepare your weapons

Once we have chosen the place, we are ready to prepare our weapons. The main weapon used in job hunting is the CURRICULUM VITAE, called CV by the experts. Unfortunately, there is no universal CV, suitable for everyone so every single hunter should devise its own CV.

Your success as a hunter depends on your CV. It will either bring you a great trophy or will turn you into victim, so make sure it is well crafted! There are some simple rules you can follow:

• It should not be too heavy. Make it 1, maximum 2 pages long.
• Make it easy to use. The construction should be clear and coherent (short phrases, neutral vocabulary).
• Be sober about layout.
• If you are sticking your logo (some call it photo), choose one that is recent and looks professional. This will be your brand for the world, so please do not download from Facebook this cool picture of you from the Bahamas with the fancy sunglasses and big palm trees behind you.
• Check it before starting shooting with it. Check for spelling and syntax errors. Ask a friend to take a look.
• Adapt it so it fits you well, emphasize your strength and is proper for the kind of job animal you are hunting for.

Use additional weaponry

Every time you shoot with the CV, you can use additional weapon to increase the power of impact. It is called COVER LETTER (and hey, the experts don’t call it CL 😊). This is the link between your experience and the target animal, so it serves like a guidance system for your bullet.

You should build or at least modify it for every single target, but if used properly it could lead to very successful hunt. In general, this weapon should be direct, dynamic and clear and it should demonstrate your professionalism.

Tune your weapons

Yes, I know that it is hard to build the perfect job hunting weapons, but fortunately there are plenty of parchments around the world that explain how to create and tune them. You can find them using the same navigation systems that you used for finding hunting locations (look above). Good advices are often available in agencies’ sites like Manpower. These are agencies that profit from organizing hunting, so they will often help and support you.

Start hunting

When we are ready with the equipment, we can start hunting. As expected, the first action is to locate a target animal, so we go to the selected site, look carefully and once we find the job animal, we use our weapons against it.

With a bit of luck, we will have a good hit. Usually these hits don’t kill the job animal but rather slower it down so it is up to us to catch it and secure our position.

Catching the animal

The process of catching the job animal is called INTERVIEW and as in previous steps there are some simple tricks that we can use to increase our chances for success.

First of all, we should be there at the right moment, so try to be there on time. Don’t make the job animal wait for you half an hour because you can lose your chance.

Prepare in advance to present yourself well. One additional weapon is found pretty useful in this situation and it is called GOOD IMPRESSION. It consists of different components that include neat personal appearance, good clothes, compliance with the hunter’s dress code, good outfit etc.

When facing the target, be honest and in the same time diplomatic to make sure no one get scared and turns against you. I will recommend using one SECRET SUPER WEAPON during the interview – YOUR SMILE, accompanied by positive attitude. Of course, remain professional and you will probably succeed.

Hunting in foreign countries

If you are hunting in foreign country, and you are not a citizen there, you should consider in mind that for having the animal after the hunt, you may need a hunting ticked that they call WORK PERMIT.

For some nationalities is quite hard to obtain a hunting ticked, and without it, the animal is practically bullet proof (something like Sylvester Stallone in the Rambo movies). In case you catch it, but you don’t obtain the hunting ticket after that, it will revive and run away in the forest. If you are from such nationality, many companies will keep their job animals far away from you (This looks like hunting discrimination, doesn’t it? 😉).

This is not a reason to quit hunting, but rather makes it more challenging (enjoy 😊). You can use a small trick and hunt on the territory of big and/or international companies, since they have better chance to provide you a hunting ticket and thus, they are not keeping their animals away. Just continue trying.

What if you don’t catch anything?

In case it does not work, you can try improving your skills because they are key component for a successful hunt.

If it does not work again, inspect carefully your weapons and revise your hunting strategy. Make necessary corrections to ensure that the next hunt will succeed.

If it still does not work, but you are sure that everything is perfectly done and the only reason could be the lack of hunting ticket (work permit), just follow the next advice given by an experienced recruiter:

GET MARIED!!!

Cheers 😊

Remarks: Actually, there are penguins in Africa 😊 Find more about the African penguin in Wikipedia.