If you are looking for work, here are some things that you can do to minimize the stress and improve the success of your job search. The following tips will benefit you whether you are just starting out on your career path or if you are an experienced worker looking for alternative employment.
Know What You Want to Get
The first thing you need to have clear is who you are and the work you like doing. You must identify your strengths and weaknesses. Use those to identify employment opportunities that will provide you with greater satisfaction.
Write down the things about being employed you value the most. Do you want a good title, upward mobility, money, the right location, or a particular company culture? Once you have identified these things, you can continue with the job searching process.
Why Do You Want a New Career?
If you haven’t thought about the answer to this question, now is a good time to do so. Any future employer will want to know what moved you to want to start a new career. What you feel internally and what you tell them might be different. But it’s good for you to have it clear in your mind what your reasons are.
When an employer asks you this question, they are trying to determine if you are the right person for the job. When you ask yourself this question, you are trying to identify the job that is right for you.
Maybe when you finished college, you got a job with a startup. From the second you got on board, you had to wear many hats.
Now, you want to take the experience you garnered and use it in a senior role. This is a positive way to frame things because it shows that you worked hard where you were, you are willing to work hard where you are going, you have experience and skill, and you have a positive attitude that will allow you to be successful in your new role.
Do Research on Target Companies
In the job-hunting game, knowledge is power. The companies you will potentially work at know this, which is why they dedicate ungodly amounts of money to doing market research. Before contacting the company, do some “market research” of your own. If you have knowledge about a potential employer and about the industry you want to work in, you will have a competitive edge.
Before the initial contact with a prospective employer, basic research will suffice. What does the company do? Who are their primary competitors? Who are their major clients? Who are some of the higher-ups in the company?
Once you get the call for the interview, your research should go into overdrive. You should expect that the person interviewing you will ask you, “What do you already know about our company?”
Learning about a company before the interview makes it possible for you to ask smart questions if you are given the opportunity to do so. If you know your potential employer, you can tailor the way you present yourself to align with their vision.
If the interview went well, you will be presented with a job offer.
Your research should go into a different phase. It’s time to examine the financial standing of the company. If an organization is on unsteady financial ground, you must determine if you want to hitch yourself to their wagon. There are several business news outlets that can teach you about a company’s financial well-being.
Create a Resume That Will Grab an Employer’s Attention
Regardless of what some might say, your resume is the single most critical tool in a job search. A mistake seen on many resumes is that they are a laundry list of past responsibilities.
Employers are not as interested in titles as employees are. Employers want to see tangible results and achievements. For your resume to be powerful, it must show not only the jobs you have done but how well you did those jobs.
Your resume should be tailored to the job you are applying for. You want the quantifiable achievements that you discuss to apply to the industry or the job you are applying for. If you are applying for a managerial position in a pharmaceutical firm, they will probably not be impressed because you were an employee of the month at a fast-food chain.
You want to make it obvious to a potential employer that you are the right fit. Carefully examine the job description. What are the words and phrases that are commonly used? Include those in your resume.
When you are finished, your resume should have a style that carefully matches the style seen in copywriting done for the company you are applying to. The recruiter should be able to look at your resume and within a few seconds, it should be obvious to them that your skills are the perfect match for what they are looking for.
Create a Consistent Professional Online Narrative
How many years have you been in the job market? How many times have you heard of branding? You have likely noticed that branding is being used with greater frequency in conjunction with job searches.
If you have worked in marketing, branding yourself professionally online might seem second nature. However, if you do not come from this background, it might seem overwhelming. Truthfully, branding yourself as a professional online is a lot easier than you think, and it’s likely that over the course of your professional career you have already done some of it.
What is your brand? You are. From a marketing standpoint, you solve a challenge that a potential future employer is facing. Your job is to make them see that you are worth the money they will pay. This means making sure that a potential employer knows what you can do for them.
Your brand should point to you having a desired job target in mind, and all the marketing you do should display you in the same light. Your social media presence should be focused, consistent, and full of current references, referral networks, and career goals.
If you have already created a powerful resume, now is the time to bulk up your social media presence. LinkedIn is the social media site for careers. Your information on LinkedIn should be up-to-date and consistent.
Remember, you are selling yourself as a brand. If you are in any field that is conservative, your professional headshot for your social media profiles should be conservative. This is nonnegotiable. Nothing can be more off-putting to a potential employer as seeing a LinkedIn profile that doesn’t match the brand being offered in a resume.
Keep in contact with your references. They will be the ones talking to others about you, so you want them to transmit the same message about you that you are putting out. They should have copies of your most current resume and know the job you are looking for. You would never want to use someone as a reference or a referral without getting their permission first.
Online Applications Are Just Part of the Task
Everything is done online, so you might think that submitting online applications is the best way for you to reach out to as many companies as possible. However, if you solely rely on submitting online applications, you can find yourself looking for a job for months or years.
By the time you submit your application, the company might have already picked their prospective applicants and could be carrying out the final interview stage. Contact companies you are interested in directly. Get in touch with an internal recruiter or schedule interviews to learn information about potential job openings.
Getting hired is less about who you know and more about who knows you. Get known by the people who might influence you getting in the door.
There is some benefit in considering using a recruiter. When you use a recruiter, you are not alone in your job search. Recruiters know the people you want to know you. Recruiters can match you with the job that fits your experience and skill.
Recruiters can save you time. They already know the jobs that are out there, and their entire life revolves around making sure that those jobs are filled. Recruiters can help you take your network to the next level.
Simply put, they have connections you don’t have and will never get on your own. Remember, both you and your recruiter have the same incentive for getting you started on a new career path, which is money. You want a new career because you want to earn money. Your recruiter’s career is getting you hired, so they can make money.
Is Self-Employment Right for Me?
Like every other career, being self-employed has its positives and downsides. It’s common to hear self-employed individuals say, “There is no business like your own business.” However, before jumping with both feet into being a consultant, doing freelance work, or starting a new business, there are several factors you should consider.
First, what is self-employment? It’s when you work for yourself as opposed to for an employer. You could run or manage a business, you could be a trader, or you could sell products or services online. The key is that as a self-employed individual, your income comes through the profits made by your business and not from anyone else.
If you are considering making the career move to self-employment, you would do well to question whether you have the skills needed to become self-employed.
• Self-employed individuals must have phenomenal time management skills. There is no one telling you when to clock in or when to clock out. You must be the force that drives your own success.
• Realism and objectivity help self-employed individuals stick to a task that is not producing immediate results because they know it can have long-term results. That same realism and objectivity help self-employed individuals know when projects are consuming more time and resources than they are worth, and it gives them the courage to walk away if it means a loss.
• Creativity is a must for self-employed individuals. Your success or failure depends solely on you, so you need to find creative solutions to problems and creative ways to make the most out of limited resources as your business grows.
• Determination allows self-employed individuals to keep going when things get difficult. They have a grit about them that helps them see past obstacles to the reward.
If self-employment is your career path of choice, you will experience many advantages, including workplace flexibility, the ability to create your own success, the freedom of being your own boss, and the power to choose who you will work with.
Self-employment has its downsides, including an unpredictable income, longer working hours, increased responsibility, more tax responsibility, and the potential for loss of money.
Final Thoughts
When deciding whether you will change careers or when searching for the right career, you want to find one that aligns with who you are. The good thing is that humans are complex creatures, so we have many careers that can align with who we are.
A good career will work well with your inner personality, stimulate your interest, and cover your mental and emotional needs all while paying a salary that you can live with. What’s important is identifying qualities that are important to you and the qualities you want to avoid. This will allow you to find a career that meets enough of your needs to make you happy.
