Job hunting in today’s job market is not what it used to be a decade ago, when you used to send your resume via mail or respond to advertisement in the newspaper. Having said that skills critical for getting a job is still the same provided you embrace what technology in today’s time offers. So how do you approach job hunting? Do you register on various job boards & start sending your resumes blindly?
That’s definitely a wrong approach. Job hunting in itself is a scientific process & involves 4 critical activities:
- Searching for corporations where you wish to apply based upon role, industry/interest for a particular sector, geography. Lot of us also prefer to be part of fortune 500 companies.
- Networking with professionals/individuals.
- Making your career documents ready.
- Job boards.
The question arises how do you organize & spend time on each of these activities? Let us discuss this in detail:
- Targeting companies: You should strive to devote 30%( a third of daily/weekly job hunt hours) of time in researching about the companies based on your three dimensional job search model: Role-Industry-Geography(RIG). You can start with any parameter based on what you wish to target. For instance if you are looking for role in financial services sector, you may narrow down your search to London, Dubai, Singapore & Mumbai. Then you may look at reputed organizations/dream companies which you wish to target. So what are ways you can research about these target companies? Local business journals, LinkedIn, Xing( LinkedIn for Germans), Glassdoor, Indeed & various other online headhunting portals/online directories & website offers information on corporations globally. Lists of Best Companies to Work For, Most Innovative Companies, Best Companies for Women, etc.are great sources for identifying the kinds of companies that interests you.
- Connecting & Networking with professionals– Devote 30% of your job hunt hours on networking with professionals since this process is time consuming. Once you have identified target companies & roles where you wish to apply, look out for folks who can help. Start connecting with people on LinkedIn who are working or have worked in companies you have identified as your potential employers. Dig into network of your first connections on LinkedIn & ask for an introduction If you could find someone in their network that can be of help to you.
- Make your career documents ready: Put your best foot forward when it comes to reaching out to companies & individuals/professionals. Best way is to have a carefully crafted & written resume & LinkedIn profile that allow readers to grasp quickly how you could be a great asset. You can hire a professional to write these for you.
- Job boards: Job boarding submission yield just 3% to 5% investment when resume has optimal keywords & hence I do not recommend spending more than 10% of total job hunt hours on job boards. Given that networking with professionals & researching about companies yield better result~30% to 35% return on investment. Spend time on job boards to get a sense of who is hiring & in what capacities. Best bet for a true shot is to apply within 72 hours to a posting.
