Career changers and job seekers are swamped with information and advice on the ‘right’ way to go about finding a new role. Much of this is anecdotal, or based on out-of-date research more relevant to graduate entry jobs. It’s a bit of a minefield and somehow common-sense (and helpful intuition) seems to be suspended, particularly when people are dealing with the emotional aspects of being made redundant. I have picked the brains of ex-clients to find out the process that has worked best for them and combined this with some of my own observations.
First, let’s define a successful job seeker as someone who achieves their objective of finding their desired role within a realistic time scale (I think this is usually between four and six months for mid-career professionals and would welcome other opinions on this).
Here are six things successful job seekers don’t do:
- They don’t have multiple CVs.They have one well-written, evidence-based CV which they rigorously tailor towards each role they are applying for (that means adjusting the personal statement, the order of achievements in their career history and some of the content of the career history). They are very clear on what they can offer a potential employer, they understand what they do well and they have a focused approach to get this message out. It is only possible to have one LinkedIn profile, so it is not good practice to have a CV with a different message. Your message, to be clear, is ‘this is what I do, this is my unique blend of skills, knowledge and experience and this is what I want to do next.’
- They don’t waste time responding to lots of job alerts from job boards. It is very tempting to spend hours at the computer sending off applications for roles suggested to you. First, these are only as good as the filtering criteria you have used. Second, it is only a small segment of the market. And third, candidates rarely get feedback these days on whether their application was successful – or why it wasn’t. This is demoralising and knocks confidence. In turn, this stops job seekers from picking up the phone and speaking to their network – proven to be the most effective way of finding a new position.
- They don’t rely on advertised positions to find a role. It has been quoted to me that only about 20% of positions are advertised these days (this obviously varies across sector and function). Just because an organisation doesn’t have an advertised role it doesn’t follow that they won’t be interested in your unique skills and experience. They might not be interested of course – but don’t make assumptions. Find out what is going on in their business, work out how you can contribute and make direct contact – through resourcing departments, HR, the person you would work for – whichever way you can.
- They don’t rely on recruitment agencies or head-hunters. They make contact with the specialist providers in their sector and build a relationship with them, if possible (ideally they should have maintained this throughout their earlier career). However, they don’t wait for the phone to ring, but take control by making their own direct approaches also.
- They don’t worry about having too many irons in the fire. With a lot of activity at the beginning of the process, sometimes job seekers can worry that they can have too many interviews or job offers to choose from. I haven’t seen this happen yet! It is necessary to have many options and I use Career Coaching expert John Lees’s figure of needing at least 60 different activities (applications, CV send-outs, networking meetings, interviews, random encounters etc) in order to land the right job offer. This is double the activity than people expect to have to do. We aim for quality but not at the expense of quantity.
- They don’t make the process too prescriptive. Job seekers tend to approach looking for a new role in the same way that they approach their day job. If this is process-orientated and quite linear, this can be the way they look for work. It is fine to feel in control by applying a structure, but sometimes opportunities can be right under your nose without trying too hard – going back to previous employers, contracting back to the company that has just made you redundant, networking through suppliers, or working for an ex-colleague for example. If job-seekers are on a rigid ‘filling out lots of applications at the moment’ stage (often because that’s what they have been told they ‘should’ be doing) they can miss this low-hanging fruit. Don’t over-complicate the process.
So, the themes are: be very clear on what you are brilliant at and the problems you can solve. Don’t be frightened to pick a pigeon-hole. Do a great CV but don’t rely on sending this out into cyberspace – get out there and talk to people. Avoid the swamp of job applications where you are up against other candidates. The lowest risk candidate is always hired at the moment (i.e. the person getting the same results in a similar context). Either prove you are that person or get out there and create your own opportunities.
Needless to say, if you want help in digging deep into what you can offer, and a focused developmental approach to finding your new role, please get in touch. I hope you like the new brand and website too – I realised that most of my clients want to be even more expert at what they do now, so trading as Second Careers wasn’t always appropriate. And I now have a strengthened Associate team to really get outstanding outcomes for all our outplacement and career coaching clients.
Enjoy the summer.