Today’s topic comes from someone who says, ‘I believe I am making these mistakes in my job search…’ Hopefully, after this post, you will know some mistakes not to make in your job search strategy.
Building Relationships
So, number one is relationship building with executive recruiters. You need to build, and this is just as important, retain those relationships with executive recruiters. Executive recruiters can bring you huge value, not just for today or tomorrow, but they can bring you value for next year and a dozen years down the road. Relationship building in your overall career management, not just job search, is critical to success.
Social Media
Number two is ignorance of social media. Social media, again, can play a huge role in your career management.
You need to embrace social media. Not just when you’re in job search, but for Joe general career management. Again, this, I cannot stress enough. So what platforms should you be on? Without doubt you need to be on LinkedIn and don’t be passive on LinkedIn. You need to be active, proactive.
Market yourself, sell yourself as an expert, as a candidate for particular jobs, particular functions, particular industries. There’s a whole wealth of information on the internet that you can share within your own environment that is going to help you market yourself as an expert. You can also create your own content and you can share other people’s content. So be proactive, not just when you’re in job search, but in general career management. While you embrace social media, you want to use it very prudently, very professionally. It’s your brand online to a global audience and many decision-makers.
Advertised Positions
Number three, focusing purely on replying to advertised jobs; pressing that reply button. Yes, there are jobs, viable jobs, real jobs on social media and the job boards, but they are only a small percentage of the available jobs. You need to expand your horizons and get out of just replying to adverts. They bring minimal return.
So, as part of your job search strategy, you need to build, as I said a minute ago, you need to build relationships and retain those relationships with executive recruiters. But you need to explore. You need to become a detective and explore the hidden job market, which is massive. It is huge, depending on where you are in the world, the percentile goes up or goes down, but it’s always the biggest percentile. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, hidden jobs are going to be like gold to you. Now that was going to while away hundreds of hours of your time, but you need to invest your time in exploring hidden jobs.
Put it this way if I was coaching you? I’d insist that you come forward to me with 35 different companies that you want to go and work for. You must have companies you want to go and work for you…you hold them in high esteem. Perhaps you like that culture. Or maybe you like that product. You liked that service, or they may be going IPO or there’s many other possible different reasons. So why don’t you market yourself towards them? They will probably have jobs available. And if they don’t have it right now, they’ll put you on file. But also you’ll networking with somebody who would be your boss or your boss’s boss. That’s going to add to your network and they could be a future decision maker in your career. So networking is going to bring you the biggest value.
Now, as I write this, we’re in COVID. So we’re quarantined. In-person networking meetings, where we used to shake hands are not available right now as part of a comprehensive job search strategy, but hopefully that will come back and you need to embrace in-person networking. And you need to network with people using virtual communications that are so readily available to us today. So hopefully you’ve got some ideas on how to optimize your job search and eliminate those mistakes.
If you are in career transition, I will be pleased to help you nurture and coach you through that difficult period of your life. I am passionate about helping you reach your career goals and so I have an offer for you, a free resume critique, and a LinkedIn audit. I will give you 30 minutes of my time, no obligation, no sales pitch, to go through your LinkedIn and your resume from top to bottom. Are you interested? If so, email me your resume on LinkedIn, or send it to me by clicking on the button below. I’d be happy to help you. Cheers!