It’s job hunting season again!

Posted at 2:48 pm March 29, 2010

Tags: Labor and Employment

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By Alexander Villafania

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MAKATI CITY, METRO MANILA – By the summer of this year, there will be 542,000 fresh college and university graduates according to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). Competition for a job would be fierce as graduates this year will have to join the job hunting group from previous years and according to IBON Foundation, this could add up to around 848,000 tertiary education graduates who remain unemployed.

Compound that to the fact that many graduates are not fully skilled to take on the available job openings. As such, many students are left to either take work that are not related to their course or to find employment elsewhere. Some even think of looking for jobs abroad, which explains an increase in migrant workers in the past years. There are about 2 million overseas Filipino workers now, remitting nearly US$18 billion dollars in 2009.

Still, the contention is lack of appropriate skills demanded by domestic and foreign workers. There are many college graduates who have been attending job market events. They have also been posting their resumes and cover letters in websites such as the Classified 1000 Jobs Forum. Many graduates also use social networking sites such as LinkedIn.com and even Facebook.

But most still use local job hunting sites such as JobStreet.com, JobsDB.com, and Trabaho.com. These job sites also include various articles on how fresh graduates can survive against the rest of the job hunting pack. The local site OJT Careers Blog also gives tips on finding employment for first-time job hunters. For those wanting some more tips, motivational speaker Lloyd Luna also gives coaching for people.

JobsDB has a simple yet effective article for job seekers who will be having job interviews. They only need to remember the word “PREP.” Below is JobsDB’s explanation of PREP:

P is for POINT : Your first sentence should include your point or answer. If you have several answers, enumerate them all here.For example: What are your strengths? My strengths include being hardworking, goal-oriented and a team player.
R is for REASON: State your point then briefly state your reason in 1-2 sentences.Example: I am a very hardworking person because I believe that I can achieve success through hard work and perseverance.
E is for EXPLAIN/ELABORATE: Here is the part where you can tell more about your reason. Tell an experience when you were able to demonstrate your skill or whatever answer you have.
P is for POINT (again). This concludes what you just said. When you answer questions, you can sometimes be put off by how you are going to conclude your statements. Usually, you end up with a pause, a smile then, “So there!”

There are more tips and job opportunities available on the web. Graduates can still find their dream jobs if only they have patience and perseverance.

It’s job hunting season again!

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