🎧 Smarter Career And Business Moves Podcast

It's Easier to Find a New Job When You Have a Plan

September 13, 2020 Season 1 Episode 17
🎧 Smarter Career And Business Moves Podcast
It's Easier to Find a New Job When You Have a Plan
Show Notes Transcript

There are a lot of reasons people change jobs. They want the opportunity for growth or more money or both. Some of them hate their boss. The common thread is that they all want a change.

 As with most things some are more successful than others. The successful ones are the ones who do the work. They don’t spend all day every day in front of the computer browsing job boards. (While that gives you a feeling of accomplishment, it’s not very effective.)

 Successful job seekers develop a multipronged job search plan and work it every day.

This video provides a basic job search plan that you can adapt to your needs. It’s broken down into job search PREP and ongoing activities for ACTIVE and PASSIVE job seekers. If you’re actively looking, as in you really want to find a job, follow Active suggestions. If you’re open or looking but not in any hurry Passive is for you. 

 #1 TARGET EMPLOYERS

Create a list of 10 or so Target Employers, these are the companies where you would love to work for whatever reason.  Monitor their open jobs A = 2-3X a week. P = 1X a week.

#2 JOB BOARDS

While job boards are not the most effective way to find a job, they should be part of every job search. Choose a few and work them weekly A = 1-2 hours a day. P = 1-2 hours a week.

#3 NETWORKING

Research and develop a list of networking opportunities near you. Industry associations, your college Alumni association, etc. Attend events A= 1X week. P = 1-2X month.

#4 LINKEDIN

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is recruiter ready.  Really anyone ready. People you meet at a networking event or any employer who likes your resume will be looking at it too. Stay top of mind with connections with status updates A = 2-3X week. P = 1X week.

 #5 INTERVIEW PRACTICE

Create a list of the most common interview questions: Why do you want to leave or why did you leave your current position? Why do you want to work here? Why should we hire you? Do you have any questions? (No, is not the right answer here.) Practice with a partner before job interviews. 

 Develop a multipronged job search plan that includes online and in person activities. Evaluate it periodically to see what’s working for you and what’s not. Keep the activities that are getting results, eliminate those that are not, and always stay open to trying new things.


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Annette (00:06):

[inaudible] hi. Welcome to the smarter career moves podcast. I'm Annette Richmond executive resume writer and principal of career intelligence resume writing and career services. Hi, I'm Annette Richmond. Thanks for joining me today. I want to talk to you about creating and working a job search plan. Over the years, I've talked to hundreds, maybe thousands of people who are looking for a new job. Some people want growth opportunity. Other people want more money. Some of them just hate their boss. The common thread is that they all want to change. As with most things, some people are more successful than others. The successful ones are the ones who do the work. They don't spend all day, every day sitting in front of the computer, browsing the job boards. While that does give you a feeling of accomplishment. It's really not very effective. Successful job seekers develop a multipronged job search plan and they work it every day.

Annette (01:21):

Today, I'm going to go through a basic job search plan that you can adapt to your needs. It's broken down into job search preparation and continuing activities. If you're actively looking as in, if you really want to find a job right now, then you need to follow the active activities. If you're passively looking, maybe you're open, but you're not in any big hurry to find a job. You can follow the passive activities. You start by creating a list of tasks followed by a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule. You set up your task, whether you're aggressively searching for a job or just passively open to new opportunities. Number one is creating a list of target employers. This is a list of 10 or so employers, or you would really like to work for whatever reason. Maybe their mission aligns with yours. Maybe they're a really forward thinking company, whatever your reason create the list.

Annette (02:22):

The first thing you should do is contact your friends, family, and colleagues, to see who might know someone who works with or for any of your target employers. You might be surprised to find that your cousin's spouse is head of HR at one of your target employers. Next, you need to set up Google alerts for each of them. So you'll know whenever they're in the news, just to keep track of them. If you're actively looking monitor the company's career section of their website, two or three times a week, I can tell you as a former recruiter, the jobs that we were working were all jobs that were posted on the company's website. I should say almost all jobs. Primarily the jobs that were not listed on the site were when people did not know that they were leaving. If you're passively looking, just interested in new opportunities, you might just want to check out the company sites of your target employers. Once a week. Number two is job boards. As I mentioned, job boards are not the most effective way to find a job, but they should be part of every job search plan.

Annette (03:32):

The prep is to choose a few job boards that you're going to work. One of those might be LinkedIn, although it's not technically a job board, it is a great place to find jobs. A lot of recruiters do put jobs on there, but you also want to find a couple of general job boards and a few niche job boards, ones that are particular to your industry. If you're actively looking, maybe you're out of work, you might want to spend one to two hours every day on the job boards, but you certainly don't want to sit there from nine in the morning until two or three in the afternoon every single day. As I mentioned, this will give you a sense of accomplishment, but you're really not actually doing much. If you're passively looking, you know, open to change, but you're not in any big rush you might want to spend an hour or two a week on the job boards just to kind of keep an eye on what's open.

Annette (04:30):

Number three is networking. Networking is the most effective yet underutilized job search tool. That's where the list of target employers comes in. Once you have that list, as I mentioned, you can find out who among your friends, family, and colleagues, etc, know someone who works at the target company. Then you can go about networking your way in. So if you do see an open position at one of those companies, you have someone to help get your resume in front of the hiring manager. So the prep work for networking is to research and develop a list of networking opportunities. These are industry associations, which often have local chapters that have monthly online or in person events also make a list of your alumni associations. They generally have events throughout the year as well. Meetups are another place where you can find networking opportunities. Many of those events have gone online as well.

Annette (05:30):

And don't ignore job seeker groups run by nonprofits and local libraries. Often people who are out of work discount these groups because they think meeting other people who are out of work also is a waste of time. But the truth is you may meet someone at a networking event. Who's just gotten a lead on a job. That's not right for them, but it might be perfect for you. In addition, many of these groups have career professionals who come in and speak to the group and give presentations on resume writing or how to have a successful job interview. So don't discount them. They're a great place to trade job leads and learn from area career experts. If you're aggressively looking, you want to attend one of these events every week. If you're just passively looking just to stay open to new opportunities, you still want to go to events like this

Annette (06:28):

once a month. I meet people all the time who are scrambling to try and build a network. They've just lost their jobs and they're out networking. Well, the truth is you need to be networking all the time so that you'll have connections to help you when you need them. Number four is LinkedIn. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is recruiter ready. Really, it should be anyone ready. Yes, recruiter are on LinkedIn sourcing candidates every day. But if someone gives your name to referral in reference to a job, that person is going to go to your LinkedIn profile to check you out. Any employer or HR person who likes your resume is going to go and check you out on LinkedIn as well. So you want to make sure you have a complete profile, upload a headshot and upload a background photo as well. Make sure you include your contact information in the about section.

Annette (07:29):

I always advise everyone that I work with and my friends and family to use Photofeeler to upload their photos, their headshot to Photofeeler to get objective opinions. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I do use Photofeeler myself. It's a fast, easy, inexpensive way to get objective opinions from people who don't know you. They can rate you on things like whether they think you look credible or influential. You can't just rely on the opinions of your friends and family. Because when they look at your photo, they see you, they see the person, you know. So objective opinions are the best thing to have. If you're actively looking, I suggest that you do a status update on your LinkedIn profile at least two to three times a week. That might be sharing articles that you found that are of interest to your connections. It might be you posting some thoughtful comments of your own, whatever you think is going to keep you top of mind with your connections.

Annette (08:33):

If you're passively looking, I still suggest that you do status updates at least once a week. One of the things posting status updates does is to keep your LinkedIn profile active. So anyone is checking it out. We'll see that it's not something that you just put up and haven't done anything to in months. The fifth thing is making sure that you're ready for your job interviews. You want to start by creating a list of the most common interview questions. Things like tell me about yourself and why do you want to work here? Then write out your responses and practice them. Many people think that they're going to sound like they're getting a canned response if they have practice. But the truth is the more you practice, the less you will sound like you're giving a canned response practice on your own in front of the mirror, but ideally practice with a partner.

Annette (09:27):

The whole purpose of having a multipronged job search plan is to keep you on track. You want to list your activities and then track everything that you're doing. And at the end of every month, at least you want to evaluate what's working for you and what's not working. You may go to a networking event with a group three or four times and find that you're not making the connections you were hoping for. You may be going to job interviews and find that you're not getting the call back. In that case. You may want to rework your answers and practice more. So track your activities, evaluate what's working, and then adapt your plan as needed created job search plan. That includes online and in person activities, whenever in person is available. And as I mentioned, evaluate the plan periodically to see what's working, keep what is eliminate. What's not, and always stay open to try new things as well. Thanks again for joining me today and good luck with your job search.

Speaker 2 (10:36):

Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the smarter career moves podcast. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe. Thank you. [inaudible].