With 2013 literally just around the corner, it’s a pretty good time to sit back and take stock of how things have gone this year. For the job-seekers amongst us, whether we’re recent graduates or newly redundant, it has no doubt been tough at times. With an ever challenging jobs market and no real signs of economic improvement, the new year may not be necessarily welcomed with the open arms that it should. Rather than dwell on the negatives, and ponder over what might be, why not instead take back a little control and do what you can to make next year a better one. How? Well, for starters, here are 5 Ways to Become More employable in 2013.

Improve Your Skills
You may feel that you already have excellent skills, suitable for any job you might apply for. The reality is that so do many other people. This is not the time to sit back and be complacent. A candidate who remains proactive and seeks to continue develop themselves is deemed much more appealing and hence employable by employers or recruiters. Whether you choose to learn a language, improve your I.T. skills or enhance your communication skills, it will all be beneficial and to your advantage. Also, if you are currently in receipt of benefits, remember you may be entitled to undertake courses for free or even at preferential or discounted rates.

Get more Experience
This is particularly relevant if you are a tad limited on the practical work experience front. It’s that whole vicious circle – can’t get a job without experience; can’t get experience without a job. Well, there are ways you can. Internships may have had some bad press but many of them are now paid and do provide a good way of gaining experience and improving employability. Also, consider Volunteering – as well as providing the benefits of practical work experience, it can also have a real ‘feel-good’ factor about it, particularly if you work for a charity or organisation with a real social mission.

Think Positive
Admittedly, this isn’t always easy, particularly if things haven’t been going too well. However, it is pretty much essential to think positive and to try and keep one’s spirits up as this can have a real knock on effect on both your mindset and your employability. It’s important to believe in yourself – be aware of your skills, your experience and what you can offer an employer and when you are invited for interview, ensure that you convey this to them. If you have a downbeat and defeatist attitude, an employer can spot this and whilst they may empathise, they will not necessarily feel that you will be a great asset to their team. Get a knockback or rejection for a job? Consider it as their loss that they didn’t hire you. Stay active, get outdoors, do some exercise, surround yourself with positive people – it all helps. Leave the doom and gloom merchants alone!

Consider all routes
Sometimes it’s easy to have a pretty blinkered approach when job searching – to consider one type of role only. If you are a little guilty of that, why not open your eyes to see what else is out there. Are there other routes into your chosen career? Could you consider working for a startup rather than only looking at the big corporates or the household names? If you widen your job search like this, you are potentially opening yourself up to a whole host of opportunities and consequently may be much more employable as a result. One type of organisation may not want to hire you right now, but many others may.

Learn what Employers Want
Rather than simply waiting to see what jobs are advertised and then applying accordingly, start doing some research now about what particular employers look for when recruiting. Perhaps look at old job advertisements to review criteria, follow their Social Media accounts to see what you can pick up. If they blog, why not subscribe to it? By increasing your overall knowledge of a company like this, you are in turn providing yourself with really valuable information which you can in turn use to improve your employability. Whether it’s skills they look for or particular personality traits, find out what you can and then do something about it!

We hope that these tips help you become more employable and that next year transpires to be a good one!