For many, the search for a new opportunity can be somewhat daunting. Finding a job is now harder in many respects than 5-10 years ago. Social media and the internet can be a godsend, but for many job hunters it can be cumbersome and confusing.

Finding a new role used to primarily focus on using your network, working with several recruiters and keeping a close eye on a handful of the job sections in relevant publications. Today, in the drinks market, print advertising has been dwarfed by online advertising. Recruiters remain relevant, but the rise of specialists over generalists has seen many larger mainstream recruiters move out of the sector.  Drinks industry employers see more value in specialist recruiters who are entrenched in the their market.

However, the largest change to job searching has come with the sheer number of job sites to wade through.

While there is yet to be a true specialist job board for the drinks market there are plenty of platforms which carry drinks jobs, often mixed in with other FMCG or non-food consumer products. Many generalist job boards can be a sprawling mess to navigate. There are also now hundreds of drinks employer websites with their own job sections. Many of these are not user friendly and do not have the ability to setup job alerts. It can be very frustrating and time consuming to keep checking on these sites.

LinkedIn, twitter, Facebook etc. all allow for job postings and advertising. This coupled with all the employer sites and job boards make it incredibly tough to find the roles you want in a sea of vacancies.

So how can you cover all the bases? Here’s our top tips for searching for new roles in the drinks market;

• Be clear on what type of role you are looking for before you look. This will refine your search before you start and save you valuable time.
• Research and identify the job boards and other websites where you know the jobs exist, it is tempting to adopt a scatter gun approach but this can often waste time, keep it focused.
• Work with 2-3 recruiters who you know recruit in the market and can genuinely open doors for you. A good recruiter should be able to tell you about who they work with, where they have contacts together with insight into those companies who don’t use recruiters, such as Diageo, Coors and Carlsberg for example. Don’t be afraid to say no to interviews if the role is really not right for you. No point in wasting your time if your heart is not in it.
• Once you know what clients the recruiters can cover you can then build your own target list of the top businesses you are interested in. Let the recruiters handle those they work with leaving you to set up regular reviews of the companies they don’t work with.
• Once you have your top targets consider how best to approach them. Apply for a specific role? Craft a compelling covering letter and send to a key decision maker? Or consider if you actually know someone who works there and approach them directly? Networking is extremely powerful. LinkedIn can really help here.
• Apply for roles sparingly, in line with what you are looking for. Applying for multiple roles at different levels in the same client looks desperate.
• Ensure your LinkedIn profile is up to date, matches your CV and sells you sufficiently, it’s often the 1^st place a client will look! Ensure your photo is good quality and professional.
• Keep a diary of where you have applied, who your CV is with and what confirmations/rejections you have had.

Some of these may be obvious, but unless you approach a job search like a mini project you could lose endless hours chasing your tail and becoming very disheartened in the process.

Above all be patient.

There is a tendency to feel you are the only one looking and applying, but unfortunately you can be 1 of a 100 applicants and it can take time for the employer or recruiter to review them.