Literacy and essential skills help job seekers network

Finding a new job is always a challenge. The search stress ignores age, sex, ethnicity, location, education and social profiles. With the focus on literacy and essential skills in the workplace, what essential skills can help a job seeker achieve success?

Networking is seen to be the most effective - and that requires strong literacy in aural, written and inter-personal skills. What Colour is Your Parachute?, the popular job finders guide, was recently assessed by journalist David McFadden, Alberni Valley Times. The book is has become a top job seekers' toolkit because it is written in common language, and an 'accessible style'. It also has a section on the three truths to job hunting. If what you are doing isn't working, then you need to change it. And, networking has proven to be the most popular way to find a new job.

McFadeen's article highligths these key points from the book:

'Best Bets: Asking everyone you know for job leads (a.k.a. "networking" — 33 per cent); visiting employers of interest to you, whether or not they have an advertised vacancy (47 per cent); researching employers in your fields of interest in the Yellow Pages, on your own (69 per cent) or in a job-search support group (84 per cent); and using the Creative Approach (86 per cent).

Job seekers will need strong communications skills to implement the recommended networking strategy to finding new work. Literacy, job seekers, professional association and volunteer opportunities can all open doors. 

Links

What Colour is My Parachute App 

PEI Literacy Video: You Have More Essential Skills than you Think