Job hunting. Not hunting some cute animals or living creatures. It is so difficult when the country, the location and everything else is like a different planet. This is only my second hunting season. The first is after I completed my studies and I managed to hunt down a position in a logistic company. I considered myself lucky as it’s a Singapore based company and pays a little bit more than local companies for a fresh graduate. Spent two good years there. Then I was hunted and never have I thought I would be hunting again.
Why is it so difficult? Well, I had to prepare a resume. Although it looks like a simple thing to do using the template from Microsoft Word, I had to think what to write in it. What is my position? What do I do in the company? What is my specialized field? I could not put into words what I do, what am I good at, what are my responsibilities, etc. It is so tough that I vow not to criticize those resumes I received from job applicants anymore. I’m sure they put in a lot of efforts to write a resume that could portray themselves in words.
When the resume is ready, the actual hunting process begins. Since the target location is so far away, the most effective method is searching through the web.
But the search resulted in too many hits. I cannot be clicking into all the results or I’ll still be doing it after three and a half years. Only the first few hits would be relevant, I tell myself. So off I go following the URLs given and a lot more links that follows. Lots of the sites are actually recruitment sites that require registration and filling in more forms and stuffs. Assuming one site takes 30 minutes to complete, four of these sites would take up 2 precious hours.
Once all the registrations are done, the search for a vacancy eventually begins. The search within the job recruitment sites also generated hundreds of hit. The hits are then narrowed down by defining the industry, job scope, place of work and so on. If the description of the vacancy is acceptable to my liking, it’ll be added to the shortlisted vacancy whereby I can officially submit my application. But after having gone through this process for almost a week now, there is only one vacancy that I am interested, but very unlikely to get it. I am still without a permit. The plan to obtain the permit is in the month of July so I can only assume that no company will be interested to consider my application without me providing them a proper permit.
The most I can do now is to keep on searching for a post that will interest me, and that the company is willing to wait for me until around October when I intend to start work. Otherwise, I’ll have to temporarily become the house-husband before I am successful in my hunting.
