How many more
jobs and careers do you expect to hold until you retire? If you’re
like most people in the fast-forward, technology driven, highly
competitive global economy, the correct answer is “Quite a few!”
Job search savvy is critical in this age of rapidly shifting jobs.
Here are a few tips to help you effectively manage the inevitable.
Ready, Aim,
Focus!
When I see people
floundering in a job search, it’s because they aren’t focused. Failing
to commit to a readily understood job title, or two, or three is
a big mistake. If you actually do have three distinct, viable career
options, then you’ll need to have three targeted resumes. Each one
should focus on the marketable skills, experience, and credentials
that support the requirements of the desired position.
Why is focus
so important? In the clogged communications of corporate America,
you must have a tightly focused approach to cut through the clutter.
No one has the time to read an objective statement like this: “to
acquire a position that utilizes my experience and education, that
offers opportunity for advancement, yada, yada, yada.” How about
“A mid-level marketing position” or “a telecommunications sales
position” or whatever your objective du jour might be. Recruiters
and hiring managers are begging, “Just be specific!” Don’t worry,
you won’t “limit yourself” to anything other than the type of position
you really want. And you’re only committing to this title for the
moment, not for the rest of your career.
Draft
a Plan:
Once you’ve
figured out what you want to do, you have to figure out your plan
of attack. How long is your job search going to take? A conservative
estimate is one month of full-time searching for each $10,000 in
salary you’re seeking. How much activity constitutes a full-time
job search? For most people, it’s contacting 30-40 companies per
week, as well as following up with everyone you’ve spoken to the
week before. Contacting large numbers of people is the best way
I know to generate sufficient momentum in your job search. The idea
is to have 5-8 “irons in the fire,” actively interviewing with several
companies so that you’ll be more likely to have two or three offers
on the table at any given time.
A
few do’s and don’ts about finding leads:
Newspaper Classified
Ads: Everyone knows (or should know) that the classified ads, as
a whole, represent the bottom 10% of the employment barrel, and
what’s worse, the competition for these low-end jobs is high. Then
there’s the psychological effect of believing everything you read:
the job descriptions and salaries quoted can lead to a really negatively
skewed impression of what’s available to you. If you let it become
your reality, you’re doomed to a lifetime of underemployment. The
truth is, no one can say with any degree of certainty
Internet-based Job Searches:
Rest assured
that the factors of competition and clogged communications are even
greater in cyberspace than they are in the world of snail mail.
The average Fortune 1000 firm gets thousands of electronically submitted
resumes a day. Do they read each one? Ha! Do they put them in a
database? Maybe. Do electronically submitted resumes and letters
eventually reach the consciousness and consideration of a human
being? Highly unlikely. Yet many job seekers spend an inordinate
amount of their precious job search time and energy in an Internet-based
job search. Then they get depressed because they get little to no
response.
The
Shotgun Approach:
Another type
of job search that simply isn’t worth the money and effort is sending
out thousands of resumes by mail or even by e-mail. Think of how
watered down your resume and cover letter will have to be for this
type of search. .This is at best, a passive approach - distributing
resumes and letters into the universe is simply not enough. Unless
you are talking to people before, during, and after getting your
credentials across in writing, you’re wasting your time.
Recruiters:
Recruiters (don’t
refer to them as headhunters unless they’re calling you while you’re
innocently working away at your job) get paid by employers to find
them decent people to interview. I repeat, they are paid by employers.
Sometimes they are paid whether they find the right person or not.
Most times, they get paid only if they make the connection, which
means competition among recruiters is fierce. This means that they’re
busy, and you’re not paying them for their services. This means
that they’re a hit-or-miss proposition, for the most part, so don’t
think they’re going to do your job search for you.
So what to do, what to do?
Target a job,
target an industry, and get the word out. Go to the library and
find the business resources that identify ALL the companies in that
industry. Get involved in professional organizations as applicable.
Call your leads, write to them, and follow up politely and professionally
until you receive a job offer or a restraining order.
Network: In
other words, run your mouth about the type of work you’d like to
do to everyone who will listen. Make sure all of your colleagues,
friends, and family members have a copy of your resume. Go to job
fairs, tell them you forgot your resume, and collect business cards
so that you can follow up with promising contacts. Don’t discount
anyone in your search – you’d be surprised at how many people in
the workforce your elderly neighbor knows.
A little of
this, a little of that. Sure, talk to a few dozen recruiters, skim
the classifieds for a few minutes on Sunday, and post your resume
to a few major Web employment sites. But don’t spend too much time
with these job-search approaches. Remember that it takes real, live,
talking human beings to give you the information you need (assuming
you know how to ask for it) and who can give you feedback, ideas,
resources, support, and encouragement when you need it most. It’s
the human beings who can be influenced, who ultimately make the
decisions on whom to hire.
Tracy Laswell, www.career-magic.com
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