5 JOB SEARCH TIPS by Olalekan Here are five tips for job search survival: 1. Prepare for an extended search. When the job market shrinks, it takes longer to land a job. Adjust your finances and your expectations now to extend your staying power. Like Investment Bankers would say, it’s advisable to plan with a worst case scenario. Stopping the search until the economy improves is like the farmer who will go hungry at harvest because they didn’t plant seeds during the raining season. Do not give up. Keep planting those seeds. Keep sending out your resumes. Make sure the resumes are tailored made though. Keep networking!!! 2. Don’t waste your time on long-shots. If you are only applying to posted jobs and those seem far and few between, your tendency is to cast a wider net by applying outside your geographic area or outside of your expertise. This is a dead-end strategy and you will only face more painful rejection and depressing stories. When it comes to job postings, three words: focus, focus, and focus!!! 3. The right job for you is out there – it just won’t be advertised. Employers cut recruiting budgets when times are tight. Instead, hiring managers use less expensive and informal word of mouth strategies. As a result a higher percentage of available positions are in the “hidden job market”. Job seekers must significantly expand the quality and quantity of their networking efforts to find unpublished jobs. The job wouldn’t fall on your laps. 4. Leave the resume at home and Network. The secret to good networking is to help your network help you. Instead of a resume, give people in your network (everyone you know) a list of 50-75 employers who you think would hire people with your type of skills. Do not ask if the companies are hiring. Instead ask if anyone knows people who work there – particularly managers who might hire and manage people with your skills. 5. Contact managers directly. Get their name, get an introduction and introduce yourself to them. Your introduction can be a simple, “I understand you have people with my kind of background and skills working for you. I don’t know if you have job openings but I would like to meet you and learn more about the type of people you like to have on your team and share with you a bit about my background.” They may say “sure”, they may say “send a resume” or they may say “no”, but now they know about you. Remember the ONLY thing managers can do to assure their success is to meet and hire great people so more often than not, they would want to have a 5 minutes chat with you
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 12:22:10 +0000
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