Although the university degree looks good on the paper, it is often not enough to convince the employers, who are seeking more practical experience. While the freshly-baked academics often lack practical experience, the older generation often fails to keep its skills up to date. Once their contract expires, experienced academics often have problems finding the right job.

Academics and job seekers

Being an academician on job search is nothing unusual. It is precisely the Generation Y that conquers the labor market – a generation of young people, which for the most part – takes a higher education path. While the number of professionals is declining, the number of academics is on the rise. The fight for coveted positions is only getting tougher. Whoever is not well prepared has little chance against the competition. If you are an academic on the lookout, these tips would help you:

Reflect on your profile

Before you properly begin your job search, you should reflect where your strengths and weaknesses lie. An analysis of your skills and past experiences help to reflect and sharpen your own profile. This, in turn, is important for positioning yourself well in the labor market.

Present yourself

If you have clearly defined your profile, you should work on the presentation of your person. Do not just look at your hard and soft skills, but also try to justify all job changes and gaps in your CV in a plausible and convincing way. The goal should always be to present yourself professionally as to inspire confidence with your future employer. In this context it is also useful to work on an elevator pitch. This is a kind of short presentation, in which you introduce yourself with as few, well-chosen sentences as possible. Especially in networking, a good elevator pitch can give you a head start in landing a new job.

Create professional application documents

The Internet is full of application tips and finished documents, which are only waiting to be used by you. In principle, there is no reason not to be inspired by the enticing offers on the World Wide Web. However, academics on job searches should always refrain from accepting the offered templates as-is. Anyone who really wants to stand out from the crowd should work on building individual and personalized application documents, which reflect and present the best in you.

Be authentic

Just as in the dating game, during a job search, we quickly tend to put on a mask and conceal our true self because we think that we are not good enough or that the employer is looking for a completely different type of personality. The fact is your mask could be stripped off, latest during the interview, revealing your true self. Save yourself from this unpleasant moment by being your self from the very beginning and being authentic.

Do not focus too narrowly on your next job

Many academics, who are on job search, have precise ideas about their dream place – both in terms of work area, location, salary and other factors. Unfortunately, the more accurate your schema, the fewer chances you have on a job. If you are a university graduate, you should not exclude too much right from the beginning of your job search. Often, this results in steps and decisions that were not planned at all.