Introduction

When one is searching for a job, it is imperative that they prepare themselves psychologically and intellectually in order to appeal to the potential hirers. This paper is an account of the steps I took to market myself for the post of a Health Care administrator. I search for a vacancy online using monster.com, which is among the most popular job sites globally. A resume was a requirement for one to be able to apply for the job on the site, and it also offers resume writing services for the persons facing challenges in preparing one.

Job search

The term that was used in searching for a job at monster.com was Medical Manager. Numerous results came up, but none of them was an exact match. However, most of the results were in the medical profession and contained either of the term used in the search. I decided to settle for Nurse Practitioner Clinical Manager at United Health Group. Clicking on that link directed me to a job description of that post and the various aspects that it involved. The working terms and conditions plus the renumeration packages were all detailed in this section. There also was a section on the minimum requirements needed for the job in addition to stating the channels that should be used in applying for the job. In this case, the application was to be done online.

The Resume

Building the resume was a task I took upon myself, with guidance from the texts that I have learnt. It was an eye opening experience for me, as I had to take account of all the skills that I possess. I also had the opportunity to reflect on the activities that I like most, and base what I would have wanted my career to be on that.In the resume, the potential hirer needs to to know what type of a person he will be dealing with. This forced me to take personality tests that would reveal to me and in turn to my future employer how agreeable I am and the best way to deal with me.

Furthermore, the resume revealed to me that I had more experience and diverse talents than I had thought earlier on. This is because I had to recall all of my past professional activities and relate them to the job being applied for. This was a confidence boost and made me better acquainted with my abilities. This gave me courage in attending the interview and able to anticipate the questions that would be asked by the interviewers in the panel. To further prepare for the interview, I had 3 friends of mine act as the interviews and engage me in a mock interview. I tasked them in coming up with their own questions and gave them a copy of the resume to critique and come up with interview questions that were based on the information therein.

The lessons learnt from this experience that can be applied in real life is that the interviewer is likely to ask unexpected questions based on the resume. I also learnt that the resume should always be prepared afresh when applying for any new job in order to ensure that it reflects the requirements for that job. Another great lesson is that I should be ready to answer even the obvious questions, as they can prove very tricky in an actual interview. An example if such as question is “tell us about yourself.” It might seem easy, but it was difficult for me to answer objectively in the mock interview.