Now that the summer shutdown is well and truly behind us, IT job hunters are back on the prowl for their next big opportunity. But what are the in demand skills that will help land your next gig? Recruitment firm Hays has looked through their listings and pulled together a list of the skills that are being targeted by IT businesses looking for new personnel.

Australians are starting to change the way they describe themselves in their professional profiles. Analysis from LinkedIn shows that Australian professionals have shifted to highlighting skills and experience rather than personal strengths.

In some ways, clicking the "submit" button and applying for a job is cathartic. You've put in a lot of hard work to spruce up your resume and cover letter, and frankly, you're kind of over the whole thing. The problem is that for many people, only a few minutes go by before they start thinking about all the things they might've done wrong.

Getting a great job at a great company isn't easy, and that means their interview questions are going to be difficult. If you thought the usual interview fare like "tell me about yourself" is tough, wait til you see these.

Finding a new job can be a nerve-racking experience. From crafting your ideal resume to acing the interview, there are a lot of opportunities to screw things up.

To help you avoid letting bad habits shine through at the worst moments, we asked experts to highlight some of the least professional behaviour you could demonstrate that will almost certainly cost you a job. Here are 15 of their most illuminating answers that cover every step of the interview process - from resume creation to body language.

If you're a recent graduate, changing careers or just new to the workforce, using athletic experience can be a useful way to demonstrate your positive qualities when you don't have much on your resume. Here are some of the angles you can use to ace a job interview.

I have vivid memories from my hiring days of going through applications for various roles and finding that one person who decided to submit an application for every single one. It happened more than you'd think -- and honestly, it happened more than even I anticipated when I was new to recruiting. However, as I started reviewing more and more resumes, one thing became apparent: Somewhere out there is a person who is apparently telling people that the best way to get an employer's attention is to apply for as many of their openings as humanly possible.

How many times have you seen a job listing that's made you say, "Wow, that looks interesting, but I'm way too experienced?" This used to happen to me a lot -- especially as I started advancing through the ranks of a sales organisation.

There are a great many students who are enormously attracted by the idea of a diplomatic career. It's a job that takes you out and about internationally and gets you engaged with international and transnational policy issues -- from climate change to people trafficking to managing health pandemics.

These jobs sound inherently fascinating, and they are. To build a career as a diplomat you will need good grades, experience, social skills... and a little bit of luck.

We've interviewed hundreds of job applicants over the years. Usually we're very impressed with the calibre of candidates. But... young people are human, too. They make mistakes. And the following mistakes have cost them jobs that their CVs and resumes otherwise said they were good for...