My Job Hunting Is Over

After more than a month with last week I got my interview done, I have finally agreed to accept a job position offered to me last Tuesday. That's quite quick considering that it has just been only a week since I found the job. Answering Miss dAia's question, yes I am quitting my job. The reaction that I get from my boss when I send him my resignation notification letter was, he told me to do a better job in my new career or I'll get screwed. My boss is kind of hard to say 'thank you' to me or any other staff he had or has, so I don't really mind about it. Just to let you know, the job responsibility I was carrying was so big but the reward is puny. So I am very relieved to let go of the position I held for more than 2 years and move on to my next one.

There are two topics that I will write about based on my job hunting experience last week. First one is 'Tips on Job Hunting Online'. Second would be 'How To Make A Good Notice of Resignation Letter'. Hopefully by writing this 2 articles, it would be a great value to anyone who needs information regarding this two topics. I'll write for you all again very soon.

Trying My Luck Getting A Job As A Webmaster

I have always been interested in the web. Ever since my first encounter with the world wide web back when I was 13 years old, I've been hooked to online based activities. The habit that I've accustomed to in whatever I do is to figure out how everything works. So in order to understand how the web browser is displaying what you see, you can always go to the source code by looking what is behind the scene of the web browser. Anyway, HTML is the only computer programming that I am interested. Other programming languages such as Visual Basic or even QBasic doesn't appeal to my preferences.

Getting back to the topic, being a webmaster is the job position I was referring to in my previous post. I would suggest you read How To Get a Job in the Web Industry by Smiley Cat. The article is written from a perspective of a web team manager. I'll try and describe what I've done right and wrong according to the tips Smiley Cat has given.

1. Resume- In my resume that I sent to the potential employer, I've included all my small web projects. That is the most significant thing that I highlight since the job position is all about the web. However, my paper qualification doesn't reflect my hard earned self learned skill sets. I should have plan my career life earlier though.
   
2. Be Focused- My life has been a series of dabbling pursuits in different kind of thing. My diploma is in mechanical engineering. I have the ability to understand what happen under a hood of a car. I can draw technical drawing in AutoCAD although it is the thing that I hate doing. I was doing tele-sales for a month before getting fired. Now I'm doing administrative work in a small office. What I should have do is to focus on the thing I love the most which is to do stuff online and the most obvious thing is to build websites. That was the past but if I could turn the clock around, I would go for the right paper education and get an early exposure to what I really like doing. That would really appeal to any potential employer.
   
3. Use Lists- Some parts in my resume is not done in a form of list. However, making too many list can be overwhelming even for the job interviewer. I've selected the best work and my best skills set and relate it to the position I'm trying to get.
4. Sell Yourself!- Its been a while since I've done a sale job. For me to make a sale, I need to believe in what I want to sell and be comfortable about it. Being a skeptical person, it is not an easy task to sell myself. I wasn't able to sell the company I work at the moment to the job interviewer during the interview. Of course even as a normal employee, while not doing any hard selling it is crucial to build rapport with clients and sell your skill sets in doing the job.
5. Be Human- As human, we talk about the things around us. So, making the interviewer comfortable by asking them questions, getting to know them better is a good impression for yourself.
6. Be Concise- It is good to know that my job interviewer know the stuff that I read and deal with. Now, that simplifies thing as I'm not so good in describing details.
7. Provide URLs- I can give ample of my URLs. The only problem is to make the link as short and simple as possible can cost me a domain name and web hosting if I really want to make it good. Still, a link like www.geocities.com/ashrufzz is good enough in my opinion.
   

That was what I did during my last week's job hunting adventure. I'm looking forward to see what will the outcome will be for me. Wish me luck!

Alternative Job Hunting

Last month was my second anniversary of my employment in the company that I serve. So far, there is no hint of a career progress and therefore no pay raise for my income. Imagine for the last 2 years, I've only got 1 small bonus. I can't really blame the company because the company is not making money anyway. The problem is, I couldn't sell the product that the company is representing because it is too complex and I think a higher level of management planning plus some higher business connection is needed to get the company off the ground. That doesn't count the need of fundings. Either way, from what I heard if there is any increment in salary, my salary would just be raised 50% of what I'm earning now. Looking at the current situation, I doubt that my company will bring in any businesses and with the upcoming resignation of my fellow colleagues who are my dearest friends, it's making my motivation to go to work turned off.

Being in a low income category and with the rate of inflation which is rapidly increasing, a 50% raise would do no good for me. It is either I try find another job with a higher pay or I got to try and search for a job nearby my parent's house where I'm living to cut cost on my expenses. I don't have any funds yet to build up any small businesses, so entrepreneurship is out of the picture. It has been 2 weeks now I've been on a job hunt online. So far, no luck for me yet but I'm going to try applying to as many as I can and see what the outcome would be. However, I have come up with other alternatives to find a job without having to do what conventional job seekers do.

Here's a few of ideas that popped out from my head for alternative job hunting:

• Contact a job placement agency. They can match a job matching your preferences for you without having to flip to countless of job listing pages advertised in the newspaper. I just found out that there are literally a lot of these job agencies and they are making a lot of money just brokering for potential employees to be hired for the respected employers. Make sure that the job agency is registered to the governing body of the goverment.
  
• For sustainable income, make a preliminary research of the industry you want get involved with. Make sure the industry has growth and a lot of money trading around. Don't go for volatile industry such as the holiday package sales or very competitive ones like computer sales.
• Choose only companies that are listed on the main board or second board of the stock exchange listings. These companies have too much money and they often overpay their top management. Eventhough your pay as the lowest rank is crap, it is still more than what you get in a small and medium enterprises.

Well, that's about it. This is all what I've been researching, read and thought over the past few weeks. I'm not the type of person who loves risk. Not all of what I write is true. Well, at least with a few points I've highlighted can trigger some light for your brain's unorthodox ideas. Wish me luck in my job hunting adventure.

P/S: I'm also applying for an employment in the public sector. I'll update on my job hunting progress later.