Your job search is a lot like a startup business, when you think about it.

For a startup to succeed, it must find a need in the marketplace, develop a solution, and then sell that solution.

For your search, the need you must find is a job opening, the solution is you (as an employee), and the actions you take to sell yourself (in this case, to employers) will determine whether you succeed or fail.

The good news is that there’s no need to fail in your job search. Because success leaves clues.

Here are three ways to get hired faster by modeling your job search on the startup efforts of companies like Medtronic, Ebay and Best Buy, who found needs, developed solutions and sold their way to billion-dollar successes …

1) Begin with a clear goal
No startup business owner would ever walk into a bank to apply for financing without having a clear set of goals on paper, in the form of a business plan.

What are your job search goals? What’s your business plan for employment?

Don’t have any? That’s OK. Here’s how to get clear, so you can get hired …

Simply ask yourself this question until you get an answer: “What job do I really want?” When you have the answer, in the form of a specific job title and salary, you will have your job search goal. And you will have taken the most important step toward achieving it.

2) Build and consult a board of experts
No startup ever reached its first $1 million in revenue without a board of directors -- expert advisors who counsel the company’s executive team.

Your job search will benefit from a board of directors, too.

To build your board, simply call 5-10 friends and ask, “Would you be willing to advise me for a few minutes each week during my job search?” All will be flattered and all should say “Yes.”

Whom do you recruit for your board of directors?

Seek out the most successful people you know, people who are stars at work (or were, before they retired). Also, go after experts from different fields, to expose yourself to a variety of ideas. Example: ask an attorney, a sales rep, a customer service manager, a CPA and a software developer.

And be sure to recruit people who aren’t afraid to disagree with you. (This means your spouse and siblings may not qualify.) You don’t want an echo chamber -- you want sound advice.

3) Analyze, adapt and improve
To succeed in your job search, you have to be flexible enough to change your approach. This is how Intel switched in the mid-eighties from manufacturing computer memory chips into the relatively new field of microprocessors. Many billions of dollars in sales resulted from this change.

So, be ready to make changes in your job search.

I suggest holding a weekly “management team meeting” every Friday or Monday with at least two members of your board of directors. Spend 30 minutes over coffee analyzing what you’re doing in your job search -- because you can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Here are two questions to ask yourself that will force you to analyze and improve your efforts:

1. What’s producing the most job leads and interviews? Plan your efforts so you can do more of whatever that is.

Example: If you went to two networking meetings with former co-workers last week and both produced solid job leads, you’re doing something right. So, find a way to meet four people next week!

2. What’s not producing results? Be flexible enough to change what you’re doing -- or stop doing it altogether.

Example: If you emailed 125 resumes to employers without getting any interviews, you either need to change your resume, change how you’re emailing it, or stop doing that altogether and focus on some other tactic.

For any goal you want to achieve, in your professional or personal life, there is a specific set of thoughts and behaviors you must engage that will produce your desired result. Your job is to find that way of thinking and acting. Then, be flexible enough to adopt it and motivated enough to see it through.

This is how successful startups achieve millions and billions of dollars in revenue. It’s also how successful people sail from one job to the other, almost as if by magic.

Now, go out and make your own luck!

copyright (c) by Kevin Donlin