Classified Adverstisements

The employment sections of newspapers represent only a small fraction of the available job market.

Nevertheless, newspapers can provide you with a valuable insight into the current job market, as well as the types of organisations that are actively recruiting staff.

Exploring employment sections also helps you to familiarise yourself with how job descriptions and duty statements are constructed, as well as the qualifications and experience that various positions require.

Scanning the employment sections of newspapers and cutting out job ads that are of interest to you is important because it gives you a sense of the challenges, opportunities and salaries that are associated with those positions.

Having this information will allow you to narrow down the types of positions that are of interest to you.

Activity Activity

Read the employment section of the Saturday edition of The Age (or any other major daily newspaper) for several weeks.

Cut out all of the employment ads that interest you and that seem to be seeking someone with a similar level of education, skills and experience as you. When looking through the job ads, don’t just glance at the job titles - read each ad in full. The job description and list of skills required often give you a better feel than just the job title of what the role involves and hence, whether it would be of interest to you.

Paste the ads into an exercise book. Remember that job ads are written from the perspective of what the organisation ideally hopes to find; however, you don’t have to meet every criterion or all criteria fully for you to be successful in obtaining a position. On the other hand, if you can’t meet those criteria that are listed as “essential”, it’s probably best not to waste your or the employer’s time by applying for that position.