The last thing a Recruiter or Hiring Manager wants to do on their weekend is post jobs on leading job sites. Like the rest of us, they want to enjoy their weekends and time off with their friends and family. Because of the lag in job postings over the weekend it could cause some stress for job seekers but there are things that you can do to prepare for next week’s job hunting.
Look up names and phone numbers of Hiring Managers.
If you keep track of the jobs you apply for, spend part of your weekend looking through Social Media sites for information on the people who currently work for that company. If you find the person who may be doing the hiring you can usually find out how to contact them and more importantly what interests they may have. By knowing their name, you can call the company’s phone number or look them up in the company’s phone directory and try contacting them to verify that they have received your resume. This could have a negative impact as well so be cautious if you do decide to call in–be polite and try not to take up too much of the Recruiter’s time.
By paying attention to their hobbies or tweets over the weekend you may discover that they enjoy football or cooking. This is invaluable because if the person starts a conversation with you during an interview and you have similar interests, you can casually bring up the subject in your conversation. This helps to build a bond with the Hiring Manager and helps to make you more memorable. Keep it casual though and don’t force it as a topic of conversation.
Research company websites.
If there is a particular job you are an excellent fit for or you may have an interview with, spend the weekend learning about that company. Find out who the executive team is and if the company sponsors any sort of charity. This could be something that the Hiring Manager brings up in your interview. Here is a post I wrote about things to research before an interview. You may also want to look for other job listings when searching the company’s website.
Not every company lists every job on job boards. Job boards can be expensive and time consuming so the Hiring Manager may use their own company site as a place for a larger list of job openings. It never hurts to try and find their career sections and see if they have anything else that may be a fit for you.
Practice Interviewing With Friends.
Something that can be a great help when interviewing is to practice answering questions with friends. If you have friends that have ever had to interview people or that work as Recruiters that is even better. You can find lists of practice interview questions all over the Internet. Some of these can be perfect for you and your friend to role play answering and interviewing.
Reread Your Resume.
It never hurts to take a second glance at your resume for spelling and grammar errors. The weekend is also a perfect time to look at different formats that might work better. You could always take a couple of hours to look through resume templates and see if you think it would help you get more responses when submitting them. You may also want to look at the wording to see if there is a better way to describe your skills that includes the keywords searched for by automatic screening tools.
Update Your Online Profiles.
It doesn’t hurt to keep your profiles up-to-date. Some job boards and many social media sites show when a profile or resume was last updated. If you appear to be fresh in the job market you may be able to get more calls than someone whose resume or profile hasn’t been updated in a month or two. You may also find things in your profile that could be phrased better. Use the weekend to work on these profiles so that when Hiring Managers and Recruiters go back to work on Monday they see a freshly updated profile that more appropriately represents you.
Just because there aren’t any new jobs published on a weekend doesn’t mean that you have to stop your search for a job. You can use your weekends to find information about Hiring Managers and their interests. You can clean your resume and update your profiles as well as practice interviewing with your friends for when Recruiters start to call you. The weekend is a great time to do prep work for your job hunt and something you should not waste thinking there is nothing you can do to help yourself find a job.