By Deirdre May, Career Coach, Sli Nua Careers (Limerick)

“Things are looking up on the jobs front”, the lady behind me in the queue piped up.

We hear about the ‘green shoots’ of our economy and it is sometimes difficult to recognise the signs. However, in our business, we notice when those shoots start to take hold.  Every week, we read about job announcements for different parts of the country.  Existing companies are now expanding their operations – Viagogo with 100 jobs, Voxpro in Cork (43 jobs), Amax in Shannon with 100 jobs and Northern Trust creating 300 jobs. Even Eircom and the ESB are starting to recruit nationally.

But how and where to start chasing those jobs? How to make it to the interview stage? How to even get your head in ‘the right place’?

Arguably the most important question above is how to get your head in ‘the right place’ – the right attitude is the most powerful thing we can equip ourselves with when starting the job hunting process.  All too often we see people scratching their heads, defeated before they even put their hands on that keyboard. Two simple suggestions for job-hunters:

1. Tell your friends, family and former colleagues that you’re job hunting and ask them to keep an eye out for you. People really want to help. The problem often is that we don’t like to ask.
2. Write down your skills, experience, expertise and strengths – great with people, good negotiator, meticulous, ideas person, and so on. Whatever they are, acknowledge your abilities and believe in them.

At Sli Nua Careers, we work with people at all stages of the career cycle – students coming out of college, unemployed people hoping to get back the workforce, people looking for promotion in their current work places and those chasing jobs in organisations where they are not currently employed.

Deirdre May is a Career Coach with Sli Nua Careers in Limerick.

Make a booking HERE for CV Preparation, Interview Training and Mock Interviews.

More articles from her blog can be accessed HERE