Job Search Guide
Five stages that keep a job search structured and honest, whether you are looking quietly or moving fast.
Write down the two or three role titles you are genuinely aiming for, the seniority you can evidence, and the working arrangement you need. Everything downstream gets easier once that is fixed.
If you cannot name the target, every listing looks equally plausible and none get your best effort.
The first third of the page should answer what you do, at what level, and what you have delivered recently. Detail belongs below that, not above it.
Use outcomes rather than duties. One clear result beats three lines of responsibilities.
Keep a shortlist you can justify role by role. A list of eight considered roles produces more interviews than forty rushed applications.
Reviewing and applying are different tasks. Separating them protects the quality of both.
Match the emphasis of your CV to the outcomes the listing cares about. Reorder and sharpen; do not fabricate.
A cover letter earns its place when it explains a decision — a move, a gap, a change of direction — that the CV cannot.
Log what you sent and when. A short, polite follow-up after a week is normal and often works.
Track outcomes so you can see which kinds of roles respond to you, then move your effort there.
Working from a shortlist is the stage that decides how the other four go, and it is the one with the most craft in it. The longer treatment starts with how to decide which jobs are worth applying for, which sets out the three outcomes every listing should end in.
Underneath it, how to read a job description separates what a role is accountable for from what a screener can actually check, and must-have versus nice-to-have job requirements covers the words employers use to signal which lines are gates.
Then how to check your CV against a job description is the ten-minute comparison to run before you tailor anything, and how to prioritise job applications when your time is short is what to do with the roles that survive it.
Scams cluster around people in a hurry. Before sharing documents or details with an employer you have not verified, read Fraud & Safety. Next, the Interview Guide covers what happens once replies start arriving.
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