An earlier post about wasting time in a job search described how job seekers waste their time and energy applying for hundreds of jobs, under the delusion that applying for jobs via job boards is how people land job. For over 85% of job seekers, applying via job boards is NOT what works!
Rather than hundreds of fruitless applications, this is what does work:
1. Choose up to 3 job titles for jobs that you really want.
Why bother applying for jobs you don’t want? If you landed one, you’d be miserable, most likely, and you probably wouldn’t be a good perfomer, so you’d be job hunting again – way too soon in this economy - and probably with less than stellar recommendations.
Let’s be serious here. Don’t pick “network TV news anchor” or “dermatologist” unless you have the credentials required of a network TV news anchor or dermatologist, respectively, or unless you have a plan to get those credentials before you start your job search.
If you really don’t know what you want (other than a paycheck), buy or borrow a copy of Richard Bolles best-selling book, “What Color Is Your Parachute.” Read the whole book, and do ALL the exercises. This will be time very well spent!
Focusing on the few job titles for jobs you really want enables you to be more effective in your job search.
2. Choose up to 20 target employers.
Find employers who seem to be financially stable, relatively secure in their market niche, and in the right location for you:
- Check local Best Employer lists.
- Ask family, friends, neighbors, even employees of various local companies, for the names of local employers that are good places to work – good management, fair pay, good benefits, etc. – whatever is important to you.
- Go through the Yellow Pages of your phone book or search an online Yellow Pages for your location to find potential employers in the right kinds of businesses for you (e.g. food wholesalers, jewelry stores, IT consulting companies, etc. – whatever your target employers might be).
- Identify more potential employers by searching on job titles, type of business, or the industry/sector you want in one of the job aggregator sites, like Job-Hunt’s sponsors Indeed.com, JustJobs.com, and LinkUp.com.
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3. Thoroughly research those target employers.
Google/Bing them. Study their Websites and what other sites publish about them. What’s their latest news – new customers or large contracts might indicate a need for new hires. Look for product and service reviews – is there a problem you can help them solve?
- Do they post their job opportunities on their Website or Tweet about them? (See Job-Hunt’s list of over 400 employers recruiting directly on Twitter and Job-Hunt’s Employer Directory which links to the recruting pages of over 8,000 employers by state.)
- Does their Website list the managers and/or the organizational structure or publish a directory of employees?
- Do you know anyone who works there? (LinkedIn can help you with this.)
- Find the location(s) and contact information so you can contact them directly about job opportunities.
4. Don’t allow yourself to spend more than 30% of your job search time “cruising” the job boards.
Job boards are not where you will find the vast majority of jobs.
This doesn’t mean that the job boards are useless. You can find out about employers who may be hiring in your area, pick up job titles and keywords for your resume, get an indication of the state of the job market, and perhaps pick up some recruiter names.
But, if you are sending out more than 3 or 5 applications a day, you are probably using the “spray and pray” method of job application, which is NOT effective.
5. Leverage and expand your network.
Don’t look at networking as “using people,” a comment I often hear. Think of networking as getting reconnected with people you liked and respected in the past, and meeting new and interesting people. Then, don’t “use” them! Work with them. Help them as much, if not more, than they help you.
- LinkedIn is wonderful for raising your professional visibility and growing your reputation.
- Be sure your LinkedIn Profile reflects the job(s) you want, not the jobs you have had, and is 100% complete (according to LinkedIn).
- Find LinkedIn Groups where employees from your target employers regularly contribute.
- Find LinkedIn Groups for “alumni” of your former employers.
- Find LinkedIn Groups related to your field or target industry or profession, possibly even one of your target employers.
- PARTICIPATE in those LinkedIn Groups. Just joining them doesn’t do you any good unless you also participate to raise your visibility
- Attend local industry or professional group meetings to stay up to date in your field and also to meet new people.
- Join a local job search support group or job club.
- Find an “alumni” group of people who used to work for one of your previous employers – those groups are popping up all over, LinkedIn, Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, etc. Job-Hunt has a directory of employer alumni groups, too, with over 250 groups in it.
Ask your network for help connecting with your target employers.
6. Customize that resume for the employer and the job.
Yes, that takes time and effort, but the time and effort will show, and your results will improve. Dr. Kate Duttro wrote a great article, “Your Kitchen Sink Resume,” that describes how to create a customized resume more quickly and easily than starting from scratch creating a new resume for each job.
7. Customize that cover letter for the employer and the job.
This can be easier to do when you are focused on a few specific job titles and a “sector” of employers (e.g., telecommunications, retail, healthcare, etc.).
Create your own personal templates that go way beyond “Attached find my resume” by including the job title, the employer’s name, a short paragraph that describes why your background is a great fit for the position.
Then, close with a short paragraph about getting in touch with them on a specific date that is 5 to 7 days from the day you send it.
Using your own template, you can then plug in (VERY CAREFULLY!) the employer and their version of the job title you want and/or their job requisition number (if you are applying for a specific opportunity), adding other little bits of customization (names of their products/services/people) as appropriate.
8. Stay up to date in your field.
This means everything from attending national conferences, if you can, to reading relevant books and white papers (and then commenting or reviewing them on Amazon or your blog).
9. Raise your public profile.
A LinkedIn Profile is a must today, absolutely no question about it. And, Google Profiles have the advantage of being available to everyone who has access to the Internet as well having apparently unlimited space available for as much information and as many links as you want to include.
10. Monitor and manage your online reputation.
What Color Is Your Parachute author Dick Bolles has said, “Google is the new resume,” and he’s absolutely correct (as usual).
You need to know what Google is showing the world about you – AND about people who aren’t you but share the same name. Use Google Alerts to help you monitor your online reputation.
Your job search can be sabotaged by someone else with the same name who has gotten into trouble. Nearly 80% of employers do online searches before inviting an applicant in for an interview, and if you don’t know what they are finding or how to differentiate yourself from the person with the bad reputation, you will have a very hard time landing a job.
You can manage your online reputation to a certain degree, if you know what’s going on and if you have the tools.
Bottom Line
Take a bunch of that energy you’ve been wasting on spray-and-pray job applications, and focus your efforts on the job you really want. You’ll find you are a lot more successful.
Note: In case there is any doubt, answering “a paycheck,” “a salary,” or “to retire” is NOT a helpful response to the question, “What are you looking for,” regardless of whether it’s your neighbor, a new networking contact, or the person in HR who asks.
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About the author…
Online job search expert Susan P. Joyce has been observing the online job search world and teaching online job search skills since 1995. Susan is a two-time layoff “graduate” who has worked in human resources at Harvard University and in a compensation consulting firm. In 1998, her company, NETability, Inc. purchased Job-Hunt.org, and Susan has been editor and publisher of Job-Hunt since then. Follow Susan on Twitter at @jobhuntorg.
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Very good article. Thanks for the tips!
[...] 10 Steps to Job Search SUCCESS Job-Hunt’s editor, Online Job Search Expert Susan P. Joyce, offers a 10-step process for landing your next job. [...]
[...] 10 Steps to Job Search SUCCESS Job-Hunt’s editor, Online Job Search Expert Susan P. Joyce, offers a 10-step process for landing your next job. [...]