In Australia, anyone looking for a job or taking that next step in their career will discover that it can be one of the hardest things you can endure.

The job process – the preparation, the anticipation, the frustration – is a difficult experience. Add on top of that the hundreds of people aiming for the same role as you and it can be easy to feel depressed about the whole thing.

But, if you prepare well and make sure your Cover Letter, interview skills, LinkedIn profile and Resume are on point, your dream job in Australia will be much easier to reach.

At Career Success Australia, a lot of the people that we talk to have been looking for work for a long time. They’re exhausted, having spent day after day scrolling through job sites with no success. We work with a lot of these people and are incredibly happy when we can help our clients find work in their fields.

All you need to begin is a clear understanding of what hiring managers are looking for in a candidate.

A lot of the battle is knowing how and where to look, so here are eleven key quick tips to help you.

Step 1: Customise your Resume and Cover Letter

Recruiters and hiring managers have to handle large numbers of applications in a short time. So, if your Cover Letter and Resume don’t immediately fit the job advertisement or the role, they’ll forget you and move on.

To stop this from happening, you need to customise your Resume and Cover Letter for every application that you send out. No two job advertisements are the same, so you need to make sure that you’re showing exactly why you’d be the perfect candidate.

Identify the key points about the role in the advertisement and make sure that both your Cover Letter and your Resume show that you can do what it asks for. It’s also worthwhile reading up on the company and using some of the information they give about themselves to show how well you’d fit into their workforce.

Make sure your Resume is not a list of every job you’ve ever done in your life.

Tailor your Resume to the job you want. The one dream job you will jump over the moon for. You can do this but researching the LinkedIn profiles of other people who work in the company you want to apply at.

Remember you are one of hundreds of others competing for the same role. So try your hardest to make sure you are number one in that competition. This could mean you will need multiple versions of your Resume, each tailored to a specific company. Around 5 different versions of a Resume is standard.

Step 2: Pitch Like a Hollywood Pro!

Once your Resume is ready, write a summary of who you are and what makes you so important to the role.

The hiring manager knows your objective already ­– to get hired! – so keep this out of your summary. Instead, write three to four sentences of what you have accomplished in your work and why you think this shows you’re right for the job you want.

On LinkedIn and in the job ad, you can discover insights into what a company wants from its employees and what you need to do to land the role. So, a summary is where you can pepper in any key words you pick up from your research.

Step 3: Keywords Matter

You are applying for your dream job in Australia. You need your Resume, Cover Letter and LinkedIn profile to shine with specific words that relate to the company you’re applying at.

You want to use keywords from the job ad, from the LinkedIn profiles of other employees at that company, and from the company website.

What are keywords? They’re any words you notice that repeat or seem significant to the role and company.

Many companies use tracking software to read the hundreds of Resumes they receive. This type of software searches for keywords that relate to the job. When a Resume shows perhaps half or more of those keywords, the software will pick out that Resume and send it to the hiring manager to review.

This can be a difficult part of your preparation. Companies like JobScan can compare your Resume against the job ad to see if your Resume has the right amount of key words. If it doesn’t, you will be sent a list of keywords to add in to your Resume – which will help during the hiring process.

Step 4: Action Verbs

Avoid any past-tense verbs like “helped” or “worked with”. They’re weak and boring to the reader.

You want to show you’re a team player as well as an asset. Use phrases like “collaborated with” or “was integral in” when describing your tasks, achievements and projects.

Also, there are certain buzzwords or nouns you should avoid unless it is integral to your work.

“Innovation” is one, so an alternative verb to use here is “innovate”. “Leadership” or “Management” are other nouns to avoid. Instead use verbs like “lead” and “manage”. It will make you sound more competent in your work.

Step 5: Show Me The Numbers!

Without a doubt, always end any point you make about your tasks, achievements and projects with the numbers! Hiring managers want to know how you helped the company financially or improved things qualitatively.

So, use those stats! It will increase your chance to land your dream job in Australia by 68%. If you don’t, there will be other job seekers who could take your place.

And if you don’t have any numbers to put down, explain how you improved the quality of something. This may mean inserting a quote from a past manager who was impressed by your work ethic.

“Yes, quotes from others are acceptable in Resumes – and will also make you stand out,” says Naren, Career Coach and Director of CSA.

Step 6: Show Your Personality

It can be boring reading Resumes. It’s not like sitting down and reading Game of Thrones.

Resumes are guide to show someone who you are as employee. But they can also show who you are personally as well.

There are thousands of templates available for Resumes online. Some are free and some you need to pay for. Either way, make sure you research the templates out there on the internet and select one that works best for you.

No need to add a photo of yourself, but definitely add in some different font colours to help yourself stand out from the crowd. Just don’t over do it and make sure the colours match!

Step 7: Never Go Over Two Pages

Most job seekers will have Resumes that span 3-4 pages. The worst ones are anything more than that. But even 3-4 pages is too much!

Save the details for LinkedIn and keep only the best stuff for your Resume.

You want your Resume to be no more than two pages. Therefore, finding a good template is important. And why making sure you write down your accomplishments succinctly.

And NEVER, EVER, EVER change the spacing between lines to fit more words on a page. It is the worst thing you can do. People need enough white space between lines so they can read clearly.

Again, never do that!

Make sure your Resume is well-spaced, shows who you are, what you can do and how much that offers – financially or qualitatively – to an employer.

Step 8: Networking 

Put simply, networking is all about making connections. If an employer is faced with two job applicants and one comes with a strong recommendation, this candidate is going to have a definite advantage, and will often get the job.

LinkedIn is incredibly useful for this, as many professionals can be found here and are often looking to make more connections themselves.

Step 9: The Hidden Job Market 

Okay, so this one’s a little bit of a spin-off from the previous point – connections play a huge part. There are a large number of jobs that never make it onto job sites . This is because the employer or someone close to them already knows someone who can fill the role.

Here’s where networking comes in again! Making and maintaining connections with people in the companies that you’re interested in – even if they’re not currently hiring – will help them remember you when a job comes up that suits your skillset.

LinkedIn can help you again here, but also useful is simply getting to know the people in your professional community. Not only will this help you to gain friends and acquaintances, but also these people may know people with openings, or be advertising for someone like you themselves.

Step 10: Internships/Volunteering 

While paid employment is definitely the goal, taking on some unpaid work can be beneficial. This can be through a connection, or even just as something on your Resume . An internship gives you experience working in Australia which recruiters and hiring managers like to see. It also shows your passion for working in the industry –a great trait to show!

Volunteering is a good start in this; however, an internship is a more formal arrangement that presents a stronger image to employers interested in hiring you. Career Success Australia offers an internship program for this purpose.

Step 11: Go to Companies Directly

Not all companies advertise their openings on job sites – some prefer to use their own Careers system. Others might be having an opening advertised internally that they’d be willing to consider you for, and others still might not have thought about it until now, but realise that they definitely could use another engineer, etc.

This is where we overlap with networking again – to make this happen, identify some companies that interest you. Then find the right people to contact. LinkedIn is an invaluable tool to help you find key people within the companies you want to target.

Learn more

At CSA, we offer several different options tailored to help you find your dream job in Australia.

Whether it’s through one of our Masterclasses, our 6 Week Career Coaching Program or our 12 Week Internship Program, you can be sure that with our help, you will find yourself much closer to your dream job.

Contact us today – and start preparing for a career in Australia.

We wish you all the best in your job search!

Careers Team @ CSA!