Your Job Search

One of the questions that clients frequently ask me is “how can I conduct an effective job search?”  While some of the tools used to conduct a job search today are the same or similar to those used decades ago, much has changed.

At one time, an effective job search entailed simply checking the employment classified section of the area’s Sunday newspapers and responding to advertised openings.  Today, such an approach seems parochial at best and patently ineffective at worst.

Today’s job search, if one is seeking the right position, is akin to a marketing campaign.  If you were planning a product marketing campaign, you would establish a budget and determine the allocation and mix of media you would employ to transmit your marketing message.  The exact nature and content of your message aside, you would consider all the media channels – print, broadcast, Web, outdoor, etc. – and determine how to structure your campaign to optimize its effectiveness within your budgetary constraints.

Planning a job search is similar.  You need to consider how much time and effort you have to devote to it.  If you are unemployed, seeking employment perhaps should be your full-time occupation.  If, however, you are working, you need to determine the time that you will allot to your search on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Having established a time-budget, you can now proceed to determine how you will tackle maximizing your exposure within the job market.  If this is beginning to sound like an involved process, consider that the quality of your plan and job search will, in most cases, define the quality of your results.

And so, you will need to establish a plan to uncover as many relevant job opportunities as possible.  This plan should take into account the fact that, in the typical calendar year, job openings are relatively evenly split between those that are posted or advertised and those that are not.

If you consider published openings, your resources include newspapers, trade publications, recruiters who advertise openings, and of course, Internet job boards.  Therefore, you will want to designate some of your time and efforts to uncovering openings via each of these sources.  You will need to plan to check newspaper employment classifieds as well as opportunities listed in applicable trade publications.  You can research and identify contingent fee recruiters who specialize in your employment category and contact them.  Ultimately, you will want to post your resume on major and specialty job boards and set up those email alerts that will notify you of new job listings that meet criteria that you will establish.

Now, consider those opportunities that are neither posted nor advertised.  These opportunities will be more difficult to uncover, but more potentially rewarding if identified since these opportunities will have far fewer applicants.  One way to find such opportunities is through networking.  You will need to contact people whom you know that may be of assistance in your job search, as well as establish contacts with others whom you may not know but with whom you may have some commonality (alumni of the college from which you graduated, membership in an organization, etc.).

Another way to identify unadvertised opportunities is via keeping abreast with business news.  Any business event, positive or negative, may result in the need for new personnel.  In such instances, you can research the company’s organization and select appropriate management personnel to whom you will draft and send a letter acknowledging the business event and suggesting your relevant qualifications and prospective benefits to their organization. 

A third approach to reaching the unadvertised job market is blasting or mass mailing your resume.  While this approach usually generates a very low return rate, it only takes one employer contact for you to secure rewarding employment.

Lastly, contingent fee recruiters – the true headhunters – may be researched and contacted in the hope that they may be currently seeking a candidate like yourself.  As in the case of resume blasting or mass mailing, expect a low rate of return for your efforts in this area.

As you can see, developing and conducting an effective job campaign in today’s market is both complicated and time-consuming.  If you utilize these techniques, however, you may be pleasantly surprised by the result.