What can you do now to prepare for your New Year’s job hunt?

In this blog, Andy Teare, Head of Recruitment at Exemplar Health Care, shares his top five tips to help you prepare for the New Year's job hunt

As we reach the end of the year, it’s not uncommon to think about changing careers.

Come the first of January, competition is fierce as the job market is flooded with candidates looking for new roles.

At Exemplar Health Care, we’re opening a number of care homes in 2024, bringing hundreds of care, nursing and support jobs to new locations across England.

If you’re thinking about a new role, here are five steps you can take to get a head start and increase your chances of landing your dream job.

Think about why you’re leaving

Do you know why you want to leave your current job?

As they say, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. So, make sure that leaving is the right decision.

Once you’re confident that leaving is the right choice, make sure your new employer suits you.

If you’re leaving because there’s no opportunity for progression, check out our learning and development opportunities to see how you could develop with us.

Or if you’re looking for a new challenge, visit our YouTube channel to hear from others who’ve made the change to social care and never looked back.

Keep an open mind

Many people find rewarding and exciting careers in industry’s they’ve never considered.

Unfortunately, for many people, their only experience of social care is based on the common stereotypes they see in the media, such as care homes are only for older people and it’s all personal care.

However, if you look closer, you’ll see that it’s so much more than this.

Our holistic approach to care focuses on maximising independence, building everyday living skills and empowering people to live their best lives. The average age of the people we support is around 45 years.

If you’ve never thought about working in care before, please take two minutes to check out our Facebook or TikTok profiles and see if we can change your mind.

Do your research

Most recruiters want to see that candidates are passionate about working for their company.

If you’re interested in applying for a role with a specific company (hopefully us 😊), it may be useful to research:

• the company mission, vision and values
• about the company
• the team you’ll be working in.

We don’t want to give too much away, but the number one thing we look for in our people is that they match our values.

This applies to everyone who works with Exemplar Health Care, including our Central Support Services colleagues.

This might give you a hint as to what our interview questions are based on.

If you score an interview, we suggest reading about our values and thinking of a couple of examples/scenarios to show how you match them.

Update your social media profiles

It’s not uncommon for employers to check an applicant’s social media profiles, especially LinkedIn.

Finding something that doesn’t match the company values or could be deemed inappropriate behaviour, could impact the decision to progress your application. 

Make sure your social media is job search ready.

We recruit for many of our roles on LinkedIn. Having an up-to-date profile can help you show up in more job searches and increase your chances of landing the job! 

Consider your long-term career goals

Use the new year to reflect on your career and what you want to achieve over the next few years.

Any job move will shape your longer-term career goals, so it’s important to make the right choice.

Exemplar Health Care is a growing company, which brings exciting new roles and lots of training – that’s what attracted me to working here.

For Registered Nurses, we have roles from preceptorship right through to Home Manager, Regional Director and Managing Director.

For Health Care Assistants, we offer senior roles as well as opportunities to develop clinical skills as a Care Practitioner or Nursing Associate.

Achieving success in the new year job hunt depends on the preparation you put in. Take time to run through these simple tips, and you’ll already be ahead of many other candidates.

If you’re interested in working with Exemplar Health Care, visit our online job search.