Get Your Job Search Edge!

 

For those of you looking for the next job opportunity, here are a few questions, thoughts and tips to help you get your job search edge:

Get clear on what you are looking for and what energizes you.

Discover your “highest and best” use for companies alike.

What are you interested in doing?

What are you “great” at doing? (If you don’t feel like you know this one, think back on what everyone has always said you are great at, what have others come to you for to get mentoring or guidance…?)

Most importantly, what do you not want to do—and under what parameters do you not want to work?

Make a simple grid of these things and prioritize them. Use this as a tool to compare and contrast each opportunity that presents itself.

Set targets for how many people you want to connect to each week. Try to make at least half of them new connections and half of them re-connections.

Update your resumé and ask for ongoing feedback from others on both your resumé and your approach.

Have inexpensive personal business cards printed up with your contact information on the front and key bullet points on the back highlighting your expertise.

Register on Linkedin and Plaxo. Be sure to join groups that make sense for what you are looking for (alumni associations, professional and industry groups in your area of expertise, etc.).

Find out what local events are going on with professional associations, industry councils, local chambers of commerce, etc., and attend them.

Register on subscription job posting sites. (WARNING: Avoid wasting too much time looking at the candy through the windows. This activity can create false hope and it’s not a productive use of your valuable time.)

Get organized and track your progress—keep copious notes on conversations and meetings you have with others so that when you have the opportunity to speak with them again you can refer back to something that you talked about in your previous conversation/meeting. This will help you build rapport faster and likely make the second or third meeting more effective.

Send thank you notes—both electronic and handwritten!

Keep an open mind to opportunities that may be different to what you had in mind initially.

Don’t think finding a new role will happen without persistence and focus. That is why goal-setting is so critical.

Don’t bad mouth your previous employer or anyone you have interviewed with or worked with before.

Don’t sit at home thinking it is all going to happen through social media on your computer. Face-to-face/personal communication is needed to balance out the process.

Don’t be a whiner! Everyone goes through tough times and many of us end up better than we were before. Remember, we all like to be around winners, so act like one even when you aren’t feeling quite like one.

Take a day off every now and then to do something you have always wanted to do—it will refresh you.

Good Hunting!