Alumni Professional Development Series: Planning and Attacking the Hidden Job Market

Following the successful professional development on Career Transition in March, we welcomed back Lim Yue-Wen, Founder of LifeWork Consulting for another session on ‘Planning and Attacking the Hidden Job Market’ on 27th July. Yue-Wen boasts over two decades of senior corporate experience in large multinationals, local public service organisations, SMEs and business start-ups.  His management experience has spanned across IT, FMCG, Consumer Electronics, HR Consulting, Hotel and Leisure, and Higher Education Management.

To start off the robust session, the thirty participants discussed current economic conditions, hiring preferences and trends and its impact on themselves personally. Central to the topic, and stressed during the session, is the importance of knowing oneself, with Yue-Wen summing it up nicely “it’s not about you, it’s about how you can help them.” With that, Yue-Wen brought the participants through the elements of the ‘9 step Personal Branding workflow’ eventually culminating with the all-important Pitch.

Strategies of job hunting were deliberated over group discussions. While networking is commonly known as the Number.1 way to find a job, it can be viewed as unauthentic. On the same note, Yue-Wen underlined the need to connect socially and take the initiative to set-up ‘Informational Interviews’ so as to create awareness for oneself. That would be, to put oneself in the driver’s seat, but take on the position as an interested person willing to be mentored.

Alumni responded positively to the session, with general requests for more sessions on career development and personal branding; as well as deep dive sessions on interview techniques and resume writing. One satisfied alumni, Shireen Wong (BSocSc 2016) had this to say “This session is engaging and relatable to many people. Keep up the good job of finding great and motivational speakers!”