Career Advice for Job Seekers
5 Steps to Making a Fresh Start for Job Search
William Frierson“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” – Vince Lombardi
New Year, new start (right?)! Any resolutions? How many will you keep and how many will you break? If you are like most people, you will probably break some. If finding a new job was one of your resolutions, now is the time to get organized and set your plan in motion. One of the keys to success is to set goals that are realistic and tasks that can be reasonably accomplished.
How you approach your job search is driven by many factors:
- Whether or not you are currently working (or have you lost your job)
- Level of experience
- Industry and job function
- Geographic location
- Compensation requirements and expectations
Making a fresh start is not that difficult:
- Make a Plan – It may sound like overkill but it is not. Having a job search plan will keep you focused and help you achieve your goal more quickly. Speaking of goals, that is a good place to start.
- What is your goal? Do you want to change industries, cities or career? Start with your goal and work backwards from there (what needs to be done to achieve your goal?).
- Who do you know that can help in your search? Make a list of your job search network connections.
- Where do you want to work? Make a list of the locations/cities where you would like to work.
- Who do you want to work for? Make a list of he companies where you would like to work.
- Job Search Plan Links:
- How to Create a Job Search Action Plan
- Create a Winning Job-Search Game Plan
- Create a Five-step Plan for Job Search Success
- Research – Using the list of companies you made while making your plan, research the companies where you would like to work. What type of research? If they are a publicly held company, look up their financials (make sure they are a viable company). You can also look up how employees rate the company (you don’t want to work for a company that no one likes). What about other company rankings (best company to work for, etc.)?
- What You Will Need – Okay, you are ready to find your job, but do you have everything you need? Obviously you will need a crackerjack resume as well as a few different cover letters. What about your interview questions, elevator speech and a list of your references? Not sure that you have everything, take a look at the following links.
- Resume Examples, Samples, and Templates
- ELEMENTS OF A COVER LETTER
- Job Interview Questions and Answers
- Job Search Marketing Toolkit – Your Elevator Speech
- Resources for Job Search – You need select your resources for each “mode” of search. This includes your network, recruiters, job search sites and any other leads you may have. You should be selective, but each category should be representative of your search. You will also need to split your time (see the next topic) and spread your search across all of your resources.
- 5 Tips for Leveraging you Social Network in Your Job Search
- Recruit the Recruiter – Find Recruiters and Executive Search Firms with expertise
- Best Job Search Engine Sites
- Schedule Your Time – Whether you currently have a job or are out of work, job search is very time consuming. You need to schedule time to conduct your search and balance against your other time constraints. My rule of thumb is “one per day” as in, one recruiter, one person in your network, one company and one job search site. If you follow this, you will have contacted or leveraged at least 7 different resources by the end of each week (and they start to add up!).
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.
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