Reinvent Your Career and Job Search – Part 2

“A great wind is blowing and that gives you either imagination or a headache” – Catherine the Great

In Part 1 of this article, we covered reinventing your career (Reinvent Your Career and Job Search – Part 1). Today’s post focuses on reinventing your job search. Similar reinventing your career, there countless reasons why you would (and should) reinvent your job search. Maybe you’ve been our of the job search market for a few years (or longer) and need to adjust to the ever changing online job search process. Or maybe your current job search is not yielding results. Possibly you don’t need to totally reinvent your search, maybe just tweak it. Whatever the reason, today’s post will provide some advice and links to the “how” part. Research – Where do you want to work? – First thing you should do is decide where you want to work (as in the company). You should make a list of the companies where you would love to work. This is, of course, the end result of lots of research. While you probably have an idea of your short list, you will (and should) need to do additional research to build out your list. There are tons of resources for your research. Following are a few links.

• Company Research – How, what and where all in one link.
• Fins from the Wall Street Journal – Provides links to a number of company research resources
• Vault’s Company Research – Company and employer research

Know What You’re Worth– Job search is all about moving to the next best thing. You should not be focused on a “lateral” move. Nor should you settle for less than you’re worth (absent stressful financial considerations). If you are staying in your current profession/industry, your next job, ideally, should be the next level up for you. If you are changing careers or industries, the “worth” proposition becomes more difficult (but not impossible). So, what are you worth and how do you approach the “compensation” question? Take a look at the following links.

• Salary.com – Name sounds right, great place to start.
• Bureau of Labor of Statistics – A government site, but worth a look.
• Compensation – How Much Are You Worth? – Great article and links from Alison Doyle.

Read it on the Web– I’m talking about you. Unless your web profile is all about all positive “normal” stuff, you may have a problem. Said another way, if there is anything about you on the web that would embarrass your mother, then you have a problem. Most (if not all) companies will check your web profile if they are interested in hiring you. You need to be proactive in terms of what you do/write or post on the Web (including pictures posted by others). So, don’t wait until you get the bad news, review your web presence to ensure as a regular part of your job search process.

• How to Google Yourself Effectively and What to Do About It – A good article to get you started.
• Google Alerts – You can set-up an alert for your name and Google will send an email when it finds a match.
• Bad Reputation: Doing Damage Control on Your Internet Profile – If you’ve got bad news on your search, take a look at this.

Good luck in your search.

By CareerAlley

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.