Every New Year brings a chance at a new beginning and millions of people think about searching for a new job. Whether you are looking to move up with your current employer or thinking of undertaking a new job search, your success depends on where you start.
With the economic conditions we continue to struggle with as a country, you may be one of the millions of people who have been in the job market for weeks, months, and even years now or you may just be starting your search. You probably have anxiety; that’s ok. You probably own or have read many books on getting a job, that’s great. There are many good books on the market that are helpful and important.
No matter what you’d like to change or achieve in your career, the secrets to success are the same…
#1 – Get Clear. As specifically as possible, decide what you want. The more clear you are on what you want to have in your life, the more likely you are to achieve it.
#2 – Get Perspective. Most people don’t tell anyone what they want or what they are struggling with and because of that they don’t get an outside perspective.
#3 – Get Support. Very few people (if any) achieve anything great alone. Sports stars have teammates and coaches. Be willing to ask the people in your live to support you. If you want to speed up your success rate, then seek out a coach or mentor who will help you become more accountable in your purpose.
Most of the job search is about marketing and selling – the marketing and selling of yourself. Marketing and selling are business disciplines that many people haven’t learned. These people may be students, manufacturing experts, accountants, lawyers, research scientists, human resource professionals, meeting planners, moms and dads reentering the workforce, retired military personnel looking for a second career, fired CEOs, and even sales and marketing types.
Countless good people who are looking for a job – people who could make a positive contribution to any number of companies – are rejected daily by countless organizations. Why? One reason is that they look for a job the old-fashioned way. They rely on resumes and networking to land a job. They follow the “same old, same old” job-getting formula.
With some variation, the old formula is: Read books on how to get a job and how to write a resume and how to network, or get with an employment agency or outplacement firm. Talk to your college job placement department to get help with writing a brilliant template resume, write a compelling cover letter using generic templates from Microsoft Word, print everything on exquisite stationery, mail resume and cover letter to the human resources departments of the Fortune 1000 (or some other list), take advice from your friends on “how to interview”, and get ready for the ton of interviews. Finally, go to the mailbox, and from those companies that bothered to respond, read rejection form letters. If you incorporate social media (Facebook and LinkedIn) and Internet Job Boards in your search, 99.8% of the time you will never hear back from any company. You get the idea, right?
Every day, hirers in organizations – your customers, the buyers of you – see the same phrases in resume after resume. Every day, people on the network get replicated letters, ghostwritten by out placement firms, from job seekers they don’t know. Every day, potential hirers or influencers get resumes with cover letters that misspell their names. Every day, active hirers, or people with current hiring needs, get resumes and cover letters that contain nothing that is red-hot relevant to them. And every day, someone who is generous enough to meet a job seeker will hear that job seeker start the interview: “So what does your company do?”
You should to do the skills-listing and self-analysis exercises in the job-getting books. You should understand your inner self, your drives, and your good and bad karma – in short your purpose. Write down all your pros and cons.
The next article post will provide specific steps to do and not to do. If you are just reading future post, they may not cut the time of your job search, but they will definitely reduce time wasted.
Today is your day to be a champion!
