The Martlet

Finding a summer job this late in the season can be one daunting task. Not only are you scavenging for the opportunities left after keeners began picking out jobs last winter, but now high schoolers are in on the hunt as well.

While competition might make the task seem useless, the harsh realities of tuition costs, loan repayments and the steady creep of jaundice from a diet primarily consisting of Kraft Dinner makes the search imperative.

All hope is not lost — there are resources abound to help you woo someone into paying you for your precious summer time.

According to Linda Dragert, Recruitment Coordinator at UVic Career Services, it’s never too late to start looking for summer work.

“They say that only 10 to 20 per cent of jobs are advertised,” she said. And because the competition and screening processes for online postings is intense, “networking with friends and family is a great way to connect to the hidden job market.”

But not all of us have the connections to score an easy interview. That’s when enlisting some professional help makes sense.

UVic Career Services offers individual consultations with career educators, access to online job search tools and helpful workshops among other services.

If you’re not a student, Spectrum Job Search (on the corner of Douglas and Johnson) can offer you many of the same services for free.

There you can use computers, printers, photocopiers and fax machines to spread the good word about your credentials while you’re pounding the pavement downtown. They’ve also got a variety of postings on constantly updated job boards and binders for your seeking purposes.

When your résumé seems solid, prospecting through the online postings can be a great way to start, including traditional headhunting websites like monster.ca, workopolis.com and working.com.

The post-and-wait approach isn’t very proactive, though, so be sure to check out the classifieds on craigslist.ca, kijiji.ca, salescene.com and usedvictoria.com.

For those who want to work in the political heartbeat of B.C.’s capital, civicjobs.ca, employment.gov.bc.ca and jobbank.gc.ca list many government opportunities.

Mining the careerservices.uvic.ca and spectrumjobsearch.com links sections will get you aggregate caches of the best search tools, and postings you wouldn’t stumble upon out on the streets.

If you’ve been searching for weeks with no results, it’s probably not them; it’s you.

While you could be supremely qualified for a sweet gig, you might not be selling yourself effectively. That solid résumé and stunning cover letter you put together could be leaving employers wondering what makes you special.

“Employers want to know: can you do the job, and what are you like to work with?” said Dragert, stressing that the answers to these questions come first and foremost from your résumé. “The key is to link who you are to what the employer wants and needs.”

The moral of the story: applying to various jobs without tailoring your résumé to each specific company won’t get you very far.

It’s easy to assume your cover letter and résumé is fabulous, especially when it got you your last job. But your last job isn’t your next, so become open to handcrafting it for each new position you set your sights on.

While there is no one “correct” way to put together a résumé, when in doubt, seek assistance — it could mean the difference in scoring that interview or not.

If you are getting the interviews but never the calls back, you might want to tune up your interviewing skills.

Research some common questions and memorize killer answers. Ask a friend to help you out so that you know you won’t mumble and stumble your way through the tough ones.

You can also attend workshops at UVic Career Services or Spectrum Job Search to practice your interviewing techniques. It might pay dividends — after all, isn’t that what the whole process is all about?

Happy hunting.

PREP WORK

Here are a few common interview questions to help you prepare, courtesy of UVic Career Services.

1. Why did you apply here?

2. What do you know about us?

3. Have you ever done this kind of work before?

4. What are your greatest strengths?

5. What are your weaknesses?

6. If you had to choose three words to describe your supervisory style, what words would you choose?

7. Tell us about a time when you experienced conflict with a co-worker. How did you handle it?

8. Tell us about a time when you had to use good judgement under pressure. How did you handle the situation?