You found a posting for THE perfect job. After painstakingly completing your online resume and creating the most eloquent KSA responses ever, you wait. Why apply for anything else? Why even look; No other job will be as good as this one. The problem is that job searching is not a linear activity. If you apply one job at a time, you are wasting valuable time. In the public sector some postings make have a two or three-month hiring cycle. Can you afford to limit your job search to less than six opportunities per year? No, not if you really want a new job. It can be tough to keep your job search alive. Here are some tips to keep things moving.
Get a Job Search Buddy
Find a fellow job-seeker. The person does not need to be searching in your same field. Connect with this person weekly to encourage each other and share ideas. This can be a virtual job search buddy or your next door neighbor. The secret is to find an upbeat, motivated person so this does not turn into a weekly time to commiserate. Instead this weekly communication should invigorate you for the coming week.
Create a Job Search Plan
The job search plan will be your daily guide. Part one of your plan details the activities you will complete on a daily and weekly basis to connect with those organizations and to identify job opportunities. Your activities will include goal setting, online networking, real world networking, research, searching online job boards, résumé modification, interview practice, and follow-up. Part two of your plan is the tracking of your job search activities. Make note of networking contacts made, responses to your résumé, and job interviews. Evaluate your activities and determine which activities, networking forums, job boards are most fruitful.
Continuously Assess your Career Goal
If you have been searching for a risk analyst position with the USPS for eight months and have not had a single response, you must assess your career goal. Review the job requirements carefully. Perhaps you are shy of the requisite experience, job knowledge, or soft skills. This analysis will lead you to set a new plan that may include additional education, changing your primary career goal, adding secondary goals, or sticking to your original goal. To avoid a job search stall, assess your career goal every six weeks.
Stay Active
Woody Allen once said. “Eighty percent of success in life is just showing up.” That is so true in job searching. Staying active is eighty percent of success in job searching. Fight inertia! Each day, review your plan and complete your daily activities. Take advantage of online technologies to make your search easier. For example, set up and save job posting search criteria to reduce the amount of time scrolling through pages of postings. Be smart and use your smart phone to network via LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
If you feel like you are gathering moss, energize your job search. Find a job search buddy, create a strategy for success, measure your results, and continuously assess your career goal. Don’t wait to get a job offer from THE perfect job. Keep moving, networking, searching, and marketing yourself until you have actually landed your perfect job.
