If you are under 21, or have left full-time further education within the last two years, careers officers may be able to offer you advice. They will be able to suggest openings for people with your skills and qualifications. Careers officers are in constant touch with a wide range of employers so they are able to gain a good local view of employment trends. They will know which companies are growing and which are standing still. They should be able to tell you which kinds of jobs are regularly advertised and the areas of work which are shrinking. If you are over 21, Job centre staff should be able to offer a similar overview.
You could also carry out your own survey. Read the national press every day for a month to spot employment trends and, during the same period, check out the local press every evening. What kinds of job are advertised the most? What new developments have been reported locally? You could use the Yellow Pages to telephone companies which employ people with the skills you have, or hope to get, and ask whether they envisage taking on new staff within the foreseeable future. Who knows? One company may be just about to place an advertisement!
Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) and Local Enterprise Companies (LECs) in Scotland are responsible for putting money and resources into further education and training in each area. They also fund training schemes. The decision about how much to invest in training for different types of work is often based on forecasts about how many jobs there are likely to be in your area in the foreseeable future. Give your TEC or LEC a call; staff there may be able to give you a broad picture of future trends locally. Your local TEC may also be able to advise you of any special support it is able to arrange if you have been unemployed for a long time.
Large organizations
Large organizations usually have set procedures for most things. When it comes to recruiting staff they often have a team of trained personnel officers who handle the whole recruitment process on behalf of the various departments and sections.
If you are applying for a job in a large organization you will probably be expected to respond to an advertisement by telephoning and asking for further details and an application form. Usually you'll receive general information about the organization and more specific information about the job which is available. You are often given about two weeks to make your application.
If you are shortlisted you can be almost certain that references will be taken up and that you will be interviewed by more than one person. Applying for a job in a large organization can seem quite threatening. Letters sent to you will be formal and businesslike, you may be asked to undergo entrance examinations and health checks, and the whole process may seem impersonal and bound by procedure. But there is a positive side to the process - most of the books written about job hunting seem to be based on experience gained in large organizations. Their advice concerning letters of application, CVs and interview technique is particularly sound and relevant to the recruitment process you will encounter when you apply for such jobs. So the experience should be fairly predictable and there is a wealth of good advice available.
Late applications
When a vacancy is advertised, most companies give applicants about two weeks to complete and return their forms. Often the closing date for applications will be mentioned in the advertisement or in the further details sent to people who express an interest in the post.
When you apply for a job, you must do everything you can to ensure that your application arrives on time but, if you cannot meet the deadline, take a close look at the closing date. Friday is a popular day for closing recruitment to a job. It allows a manager to take applications home over the weekend so that he can study them in relative peace and quiet. It also allows for a few late applications to arrive over the weekend. So, if necessary, you can get a late application in without too much trouble. As long as you have the application forms by the end of the working day on the Friday deadline you can spend Saturday completing the forms and drop them into the company's letterbox by hand on the Sunday. Your application will be late but not late enough to ruin your chances.
Once a job has closed things begin to move apace and short listing takes place fairly quickly. If you suspect that your application may arrive after the deadline phone the company and warn staff that it is on its way. Make sure that you have a good reason for your application being late.
