We didn’t see the recession coming, but here it is, and we’re well involved in an economic slowdown. You may even be recently unemployed. You can turn off the radio, but you can’t get away from the fact of life that Europe is in a recession and it’s not going away anytime soon.

Yet, there are always means to help get yourself get a job. The established means of searching for work are not so effective when you have 120 other people applying for the same job position. Picking up the local newspaper, browsing the unemployment office, etc – you’re just part of the masses looking for a job in this uninventive way.

You should search for a job placement in ways your competition are fewer in numbers. Nowadays many companies publish job vacancies on their website, so go to your search engine and type in keywords to identify local firms. Vary your key words between locale only e.g. Tamworth UK jobs, and locale and profession e.g. cleaner jobs in Tamworth.

One more alternative is to go it alone – become self-employed. What we’ve learnt over the last year is that large firms can go bankrupt very quickly. Self-employment means you control your own destiny, which is something no employee of a company can ever say they have. An important point is that you pick the kind of career you enjoy since you must motivate yourself everyday.