Starting Your Job Search at Square One
Over the last month, I have had conversations with a number of job seekers – ranging in age from the mid-20’s to mid 50’s – who asked me basically the same question, “Where do I go from here”.
Most of the individuals were in transition, with two in positions that they did not like and from which they were planning an exit strategy to some “greener grass”. To a person, these folks were having difficulty deciding just what they wanted to do in their next job/career.
I asked each of them to go through the following simple exercise to help determine a possible career direction:
• Create a list of “What you love to do/are passionate about doing” and “What you would rather not do”. Come back the next day and add to your list…Doing this over the course of three days should provide you with more than enough information about yourself to go to the next step.
• Determine which positions/job types would allow you to do as much of what you love and as little of what you don’t love as possible (if you struggle with this, use online job boards to research various position descriptions to learn about their respective "required duties & responsibilities"). Go through this list and cross out the job titles in which you definitely have no interest pursuing.
• Using online job boards, type in the job/position names as the keywords in a search and see which companies offer them. From this "database", create a list of desired employers that you wish to target.
• Share this information with your network. Find out which of these people may have direct or indirect connections with your targeted employers. You can also do an Advanced Search on LinkedIn and find employees in a particular company who have profiles. You might be surprised in regard to just how many of those employees are a second or third level connection to you.
At this point, you know What you love to do, Which jobs will allow you to do the things you love, Which companies offer those types of jobs and Who in your network knows someone at those organizations.
Now it is time to develop the cover letter and “killer resume” that stands out from the hundreds of others that may be sitting on the hiring manager’s desk. You cannot, I believe, develop a strong resume or network effectively without first starting at “square one”.
Most of the individuals were in transition, with two in positions that they did not like and from which they were planning an exit strategy to some “greener grass”. To a person, these folks were having difficulty deciding just what they wanted to do in their next job/career.
I asked each of them to go through the following simple exercise to help determine a possible career direction:
• Create a list of “What you love to do/are passionate about doing” and “What you would rather not do”. Come back the next day and add to your list…Doing this over the course of three days should provide you with more than enough information about yourself to go to the next step.
• Determine which positions/job types would allow you to do as much of what you love and as little of what you don’t love as possible (if you struggle with this, use online job boards to research various position descriptions to learn about their respective "required duties & responsibilities"). Go through this list and cross out the job titles in which you definitely have no interest pursuing.
• Using online job boards, type in the job/position names as the keywords in a search and see which companies offer them. From this "database", create a list of desired employers that you wish to target.
• Share this information with your network. Find out which of these people may have direct or indirect connections with your targeted employers. You can also do an Advanced Search on LinkedIn and find employees in a particular company who have profiles. You might be surprised in regard to just how many of those employees are a second or third level connection to you.
At this point, you know What you love to do, Which jobs will allow you to do the things you love, Which companies offer those types of jobs and Who in your network knows someone at those organizations.
Now it is time to develop the cover letter and “killer resume” that stands out from the hundreds of others that may be sitting on the hiring manager’s desk. You cannot, I believe, develop a strong resume or network effectively without first starting at “square one”.
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