Lost in the crowd during your job search?

crowd

When you graduate and are entering the job market for the first time, all graduates will look the same. You have your degree or diploma, your resumé but little or no practical experience in the worlds you are entering.

It is important to know that you represent ‘potential’ to an employer. Your education says you have worked hard and can learn – but it is your behaviour during your job search that will show the employer you have the maturity and desire to be a good employee.

Therefore; your performance and everything you do during your job search must make you stand out from your competition and make you memorable to the employer.

At the end of the hiring process the person who gets the job is the person the hiring manager remembers. The person they remember for the behaviours that show he or she is worthy of being given a chance and being hired. Polite, courteous, respectful, organized, enthusiastic…these are the traits every employer wants in a new employee. An employer can teach you skills but cannot teach attitude. It is attitude you must demonstrate and bring to the employer.

Looking for a job will be your first job when you graduate.

markewicken: Mark Wicken is a marketing professional with over 30 years of advertising, communications and strategic planning experience within the retail and packaged goods industries. He has been a senior member of agency management teams with both account and brand management responsibilities. His strengths have always been on innovative thinking, solid organization and strong interpersonal skills. Starting in the advertising agency industry, Mark held senior account management positions at several multinational agencies including Leo Burnett, Foster, Caledon, Vickers & Benson and Saffer Advertising, and has been responsible for the management of accounts like IBM, McDonald’s, Esso and General Motors. Mark moved from his agency roles to the Client side and held the position of Divisional Vice President of Marketing for Domino’s Pizza International and Director of Marketing for KFC, Hardee’s and Sbarro restaurants in the Middle East. In 2002 he established The Mark Wicken Group, a business specializing in executive search, training and consulting within the marketing, advertising and communications industries. In addition to executive search, Mark has devoted much of his lifetime to teaching, education and youth development. He is President of MusicFest Canada ‘The Largest Annual Music Festival in North America’ and has been an instructor at the International Academy of Design and The Toronto Film School since 1998. Mark graduated from The University of Toronto, took post-graduate studies at Northwestern University, and is married with two sons.