Ready, Set — Let’s Find Work

In the conclusion of our three-part career survival guide, we offer advice on how to conduct an effective job search.

Finding a job requires many of the same approaches it takes to manage your career: strategy, focus, clarity, insight, and networking. You’ve probably sent out dozens of résumés and created career profiles on Monster, CareerBuilder, and every employment Website in between. You’ve asked friends to be on the lookout for job openings and have even begun buying newspapers from other cities to look at their classifieds, too. You’ve done all there is to do, right? Not quite.

“It is imperative in the current global economy that you are known and recognized for something specific. Now more than ever, with more educated workers and a service-centered economy, without a brand, you could just as easily join the faceless millions posting their résumés on career sites,” says Veronica Conway, founder and president of Black Professional Coaches Alliance. “Focusing on your strengths is not a luxury. Get with the program and do what you are brilliant at. You will ultimately have the competitive advantage.”

The following is a checklist of strategies to amp up your search for the perfect job despite a tough market.

Determine what you’d like to do before you decide where you’d like to work. Most people panic at the idea of not being able to find work, so they focus on what jobs are available. “Most of us start our job search in exactly the wrong way by asking what’s available and not what our contribution is,” says Bob Rosner of Workplace911.com. Identifying your interests is much more closely aligned with your skills and talents and will help you focus on opportunities that suit them.

Conway suggests that her clients write down their ideal job description based on their innate strengths. “What would your new role look like and what would you be doing every day?

For one of my clients, this meant writing proposals, business networking, negotiating contracts, and leading, not doing operations,” she says. “Focus on the 20% of what you do that creates 80% of the results. In a business, there are only two or three things that yield the best results. And as people in careers, we don’t focus on the critical few.”

Kill the career history résumés. “Describe the results of your activities. That’s what employers are paying for,” Conway says. Instead of chronological résumés that list job titles and tasks, functional résumés describe the impact of each activity, says Joe Watson, author of Without Excuses (Macmillan; $24.95) and CEO of Strategic Hire, a Reston, Virginia-based executive search firm. He explains, “Quantify your work: I led the team that delivered this many days ahead of schedule, this much under budget.”

Get ready to sell. After you’ve successfully outlined your skills and talents on paper, you have to be confident in

delivering your story–liken it to a sales pitch for a great product, Watson says. “Some tend to be reluctant to do this because they don’t want to be seen as bragging,” he says. “But telling people that you took a business from zero to 15% is not bragging. It is giving them information to make an educated decision about you.”

Build your network. “Networking is a big part of how people get jobs,” Rosner offers. “I’ve had a recruiter say to me, ‘When I post a job on a Website or [in a] newspaper, it means I’ve failed. I should have been able to fill that position through my network.’”

A great way to develop your list of contacts is to conduct informational interviews. These are face-to-face meetings, usually 15 to 30 minutes long, with senior level executives in a particular industry solely for the purpose of gaining industry insight and gathering information on trends. “It’s a non-threatening, non-needy

way to get on people’s radar,” Conway says. “I’ve had several clients that have gotten jobs through doing informational interviews. If you don’t leave with a job, you leave with five more contacts.”

Additional Resources to Equip You for the Job Hunt

Click: Ten Truths For Building Extraordinary Relationships By George C. Fraser (Amazon; $16.47).
For building a networking game plan.

What Color Is Your Parachute? 2009 By Richard Nelson Bolles (Ten Speed Press; $18.95).
Offers guidance on how to change your career and/or industry.

The Power To Get In By Michael A. Boylan (Macmillan; $14.95).
Offers guidance on how to land and prepare for informational interviews.

The Employment & Career Channel
A clearing house for job hunt advice from recruiters and coaches, cover letter and resume writing tools, and insights on career management.

Previously in the series: Advice on Remaining Relevant | Identifying Your Skill Set

Originally published in the November 2008 issue.