Use the New Year’s Energy to Fuel your Job Search Strategy

New Year, new search (and new possibilities). If you’re continuing your job search from 2023, you’re in a great position to revamp your job search with lessons learned from last year, plus these refreshed strategies.

What’s a Job Search Strategy? Why is it Important? 

Creating a job search strategy is all about focusing on quality over quantity. A strategic job search helps you focus on finding opportunities that are the best fit for you, using the most impactful techniques. Your job search strategy should be tailored to your unique job and industry, in order to market yourself to employers who see your value, which will eventually lead to the fulfilling career that you deserve. And it works! My client Melanie and I created a job search strategy that landed her a job in less than 60 days. Wondering how this can help you? Here are a few tips on how to create and implement a strategic job search.

Understand Your Unique Skills, Strengths, Values and Appeal

From the beginning, it’s important to understand your own skills and what you bring to the table for employers. Spend 10-15 minutes considering your unique professional skills and strengths, and how they’ve led to accomplishments over your career. Do you have a niche skill set that pairs well with one particular field? Are you a Jill or Jack of all trades that has many strengths across broad industries? Now take your skills and strengths to brainstorm which companies and industries where you have demonstrated and will provide the most value add. This will help you market yourself and your appeal to companies when you start applying and interviewing.

Customize Your Resume (and Cover Letter) for each application

Your resume is the first introduction that employers have of you and we know how important first impressions are! First you want to create a well written and professional resume that highlights your accomplishments. Once you have your “master” resume copy, you’ll want to use this as a template to customize for future applications. You will then highlight the most relevant experiences based on the job description in order to customize your resume specific to the role.

Take a mental note on the jobs you’re applying to and any trends you see in the roles across many job postings. Ideally, after you start applying you will then be able to have 3-5 standard resumes that you can send out quickly. For example if 50% of the jobs emphasize customer experience, you can send your resume that highlights this experience and skillset to those related roles. Tracking trends like this can help you build efficiencies in your job search.

Be Selective with Applications

While it’s tempting to apply to every position in hopes (fingers crossed) that you’ll get a call back, it’s much more efficient to focus on opportunities where you meet most qualifications. Focusing on the roles that you’re the most qualified for (and that align with your values) will present a stronger application to the recruiter and hiring team, as they will quickly see and value the connection between your experience and their hiring needs. 

Alternatively, adopting a “spray & pray” technique might make you feel productive because you’re sending out applications. However, this approach will result in fewer responses and more rejections, which could be mentally demoralizing and draining during the job search. Think of it like this, job postings are receiving 100s and sometimes 1000s of applications. Out of those, maybe 5-10% of candidates are truly qualified. Focus on quality over quantity, and you will stand out to recruiters and hiring managers as the top 5% of qualified applicants.

Develop a Strong Online Presence

Most employers search for social proof using your online presence on professional and networking sites. It’s important to develop a strong online presence to create a cohesive story of who you are professionally across all channels including your LinkedIn profile, and for some professions a personal website or blog related to your field. 

The first step is building out your LinkedIn profile to attract the positions that you’re looking for. Maximize your profile by liking and interacting with companies. Create posts that are relevant to your field or insights that might be interesting to you. These interactions will be viewable to hiring companies and will show your expertise and passion. 

Build & Engage Your Network

The best jobs available are rarely publicized and instead are found through professional networks. To tap into your network, first, let them know that you’re looking for your next opportunity through a public post and directly ask for connections to like or share to support you. The beginning of the year is the perfect time to get top of mind with your network by telling them the challenges you’re excited about tackling with your future position in 2024. 

Now it’s time to build new connections. Reach out to 10 people in your field or a company you would like to work for and create a direct and simple ask. This could be “Chat for 20 minutes to learn more about Google’s product”. Make networking with you easy and get ready to build new connections to help your job search. Explore more strategies for building and engaging with your network.

Prepare for Interviews with Research and Practice

As your job search progresses and you start landing interviews, it’s important to put your best foot forward with thorough research and interview practice. Ahead of each interview, research the company’s website, blog, and published articles to learn more about their business and specific challenges. You’ll also want to research who you’re interviewing with in order to understand their perspective and how you will potentially work together. 

Practice common interview questions and use tools like ChatGPT to create tailored interview questions based on the role and even the interviewer. Write down and rehearse your answers so that you can communicate your value and experiences efficiently. 

Reflect on Your Job Search Process

Regularly reflecting on your job search process can help you celebrate the wins, assess patterns, and build efficiencies. Check in with yourself to understand: What’s working well? What’s not working? Where do you need help? 

If something is not working or not yielding strong results, be flexible to adapt your strategy or put your efforts where they are the most impactful. Keep an open mind and consider things like changing your search criteria or seeking coaching and professional training. 

If you’re curious about building a successful job search strategy, reach out to me for a free-consultation and explore job search coaching at hello@lisharriscoaching.com.