How did you get your job?

YoureSoVain

It's not what you know, it's who you know.....sometimes

I know its really hard to find a job nowdays but just wondering do you all just look on the net, newspapers and adverts etc or do you actually go asking for jobs? I was just thinking of how I got work in the past. I got my first job by going into shops and asking the managers if they needed staff. Even though I had no experience I got a job on my first day of looking. It was for 3 hours a day to cover lunch breaks. There was no job advertised but when I asked one was created! A couple of years after I had left that job I needed work again and rang the shop owner and asked were there any hours available. He said to give him a couple of days and lo and behold a job was produced from thin air!

Another time I was in a job I really hated and at lunch time one day I told my boyfriend I had to get out of there soon. I finished work at 5:30 and my boyfriend met me and said that I had to go into a newsagents and say I was "Jimmys cousin". Jimmy was someone my boyfriend "kinda" knew, who "kinda" knew the manager of the shop. So I went in said I was Jimmys cousin and was asked when could I start....just like that! Later confessed I wasn't related to Jimmy!

I got another job from doing a few hours voluntary work there every week and a job came up and I was asked did I want it.

I know its different now but just goes to show that a few years ago there might not have been jobs advertised but if you asked...you got!

Rigsy

I would think a lot of people are going down the road of networking looking for work rather than just trawling through websites and ads these days.

leeroybrown

Some people seem to get their nose very out of joint about people getting their jobs through 'networking' but it's often a very good thing for employers. If there are two similarly good candidates in front of me and I know first hand or by strong recommendation that one of them is competent, reliable, etc then I'll almost certainly hire that person. In my workplace, the cost (both financial and non-financial) of hiring the wrong candidate who subsequently leaves quickly or worse stays when you don't want them to is so high that getting most recruitments right is critical. Having to recruit staff can be an expensive and disruptive business so getting it right is extremely important.

I was recommended to my current employer but I still had to interview properly and convince them that I was up to the job. The important bit is that people just don't blindly hire on recommendation either.

fguihen

1st job - recruiter, contracted into a larger company.
2nd job - larger company thought i done a good job and offered me a better job in a full time position.
3rd job - time will soon tell!!

Done a few interviews in the past few weeks, along with meeting up with recruiters and I can say the following, at least in relation to my experience:

1. Recruiters can come through for you, but more often than not they dont. I spent a lot of time meeting with recruiters, re formatting my cv at their request and nothing.

2. Applying directly to companies seems to be more fruitfull. In Irishjobs.ie, search based on employer only. Two interviews i got were obtained that way.

3. Network. wouldnt be in my current role if i wasnt on good terms with my now co-workers. They basically knew me and my abilities before i went in for the interview so networking is valuable.

professore

I can't think of one job I got through interviews. I got to the final rounds in two in the UK but didn't make it in the end (back in the early 90's). Actually I got offered one, but declined it as I was moving at that stage anyway. All the other jobs I got through networking of one sort or another. And no, my dad's not rich or well connected or any of my relations.

Chessala

Networking is most often a good way to get a job imo...unfortunately I do have to take the web/interview route as I have no contacts here yet in this regard.

Max Power1

All jobs of mine were via interviews.

The most recent one, in a large multinational, I got offered the position after 3 rounds of interviews, and after being on the dole for nearly a year.

imported_guy

its who you know 99.99% of the times, just got a co-op placement (paid) at a big biomed implant manufacturing company cause one of the ortho surgeons who buys implants off them is related to me lol, + know a few other ortho surgeons at the same hospital (the whole hospital is their client, probably one of the biggest clients in ireland) basically i've never had a job in my life, acedemically i might have been in the top 20% of the class but they didnt even check my grades so.... , there would have been better candidates probably, my interview was okay, nothing spectacular either

RedXIV

Most of mine I got through contacts, When I was in school, my three jobs came from people I knew, and the only job I blindly interviewed for and got was to work for Nintendo. Got my current job from a boardsie

helimachoptor

its all about networking at present.

sellerbarry

On dole for nearly a year until last week i applied for a job on gumtree. one hour later i had the job. Jammy or what?:D