u/RegisterEffective412

A few years ago, I was working in a small company in a position that was stagnant, unsure what my future will be and desperately looking for a new position so I can have a decent career track. I have since got hired and now have a few recruiters contacting me almost every month or so to refer a job. It may not be something impressive, but for someone whose dream was to land an interview, this situation for me is unreal.

I'm sharing this as maybe my experience might be helpful to get opportunities that hopefully won't be a ghosting situation at least.

My background:

• Local uni graduate
• 2 years experience in a company so small no one would know the name of, as a personal assistant.
• More or less 1 year experience in marketing, but always jumping between companies and never stayed for more than 6 months. All start ups.
• Currently working in IT services/consulting in administration and sales

Skills I have:

• Basic microsoft office skills (word, excel, ppt)
• Japanese (now N2 certified but only N3 certified when I got hired)
• Korean (not certified)
• English (not certified)
• Data science (bootcamp certification)

What I have noticed worked in my case:

Getting a relatively niche but in demand skill and getting certifications
I started by applying to anything that I thought might work, and it never worked. Admittedly, I didn't have any stand out skills that might work for normal Indonesian companies, and my data science certification seemed to not stand out enough for me to find employment for it.

Eventually, however, I tried taking advantage of my language skills and started to largely focus on Japanese and Korean companies while practicing enough to survive an interview. By applying this filter, I chose job openings where I'd either have that one stand out quality in a sea of applicants or only need to compete with a low volume of application due to existing language requirements.

Result:

Korean, not certified> only got one interview callback which eventually led to an offer.
Japanese, N3> got interview callback for all applications, ended up taking the fastest offer.
Japanese worked for me, but it doesn't have to be Japanese for you too. My impression is that it would help to identify what would differentiate you from the average applicant, whether it's being insanely good at your field, or having other plus points that companies might want.

Getting headhunter agents to help
I sent my CV to headhunter agencies and while browsing all the job listings they have, also personally asked the agents to help match me to jobs they think I would qualify for as well.
I know not all agents are good/care much, but it's worth taking the initiative to ask for help. Much like you are looking for a job, they're looking to fulfill targets and get commission from giving you a job. Most of the job offers I get now are also from headhunter agents.

My experience with headhunter agents is fairly positive since they're pretty open about their terms and do not charge candidates for a fee at all. Many Japanese companies also do not hire directly either so the only way to get in is through headhunter agents. I'm not super sure about the case with non Japanese companies, but it is worth a shot.

Posting on LinkedIn
Told this story when I commented on a post in this sub, but I started regularly posting on LinkedIn when I was doing the data science bootcamp. All I posted was the material we learned every week with a low effort caption I wrote by prompting GPT bcs I was lazy and just looking to fufill the bare minimum to graduate lol. This turned out to be great for recruiters to find my profile, even if what I posted was not at all related to my current position in administration/sales which they more often recruit me for.

Feel free to ask me anything!