Why you need a job search strategy
Let’s dive into why you need a job search strategy and what is the basic outline of one. Your job search strategy is your roadmap and your guiding force for the next steps that you need to take in your career. We know that it’s critically important to have success from your job search and without having a job search strategy in place it is like having a rudderless ship out in the ocean – you are not headed in any one direction
The basic steps you need to take
So to get started you will want to update your professional branding to ensure it’s keyword rich and all your information is current. You need to update your resume, your cover letter template and LinkedIn profile as a part of your professional branding.
Next you’re going to conduct research on the current job market to help fine tune your job search strategy. You want to go out and look at the overall market for the number of job opportunities so you can cast a wide search net. If you’re open to relocation there’s different factors to your research, but having knowledge on the number of organizations looking for people to fill specific positions is important and will allow you to determine when and if you need to start searching for another role.
The third step in your job search strategy is to focus on building up your network. You will do this by sending out invitations to connect on LinkedIn and going to networking events – like local meetups. On LinkedIn, you will want to search for those individuals that are a level above where you are currently at – in terms of their ranking and profile because they will be the ones with job opportunities you are seeking.
Why you need to create a list of must-haves and deal-breakers
The next step in your job search strategy is to write down what you ideally want in your next job and what you don’t want – these are the deal-breakers of a job offer. You want to do this in order to preserve your career goals and to ensure the job aligns with your career plan.
Preparing to interview
While you are searching for a job, you should also be practicing your interviewing skills on a daily basis. These interviewing skills include giving your elevator background pitch and sharing your career story. I highly recommend that you consistently practice both of these and to ensure you are… add a daily task reminder to your calendar.
Building awareness of your job search
Make sure you are letting people in your network know that you are looking for a new position. If you are currently unemployed and seeking a job, then let people know and let them know specifically how they can help you. If you are currently employed and need to keep your job search confidential, you can confidently indicate this to individuals and say you are looking for your next opportunity. Just remember to be specific about your needs and how they can assist you.
Measuring your results
So I can not stress enough that you need to measure the results of your job search. You need to take the time to see what tasks are getting you interviews and what tasks are not. Keep track on a weekly or monthly basis of what got you interviews and what got you second-round interviews. When you track these results, you can then start to look at those measurements and to understand how you can make adjustments for the future. You might say… ok, I got four interviews from my networking so I’m going to invest more time in my networking versus sending out resumes which only produced two interviews. The goal here is to make adjustments to your job search strategy based on the results you are getting.
To your career success!
