In addition to pursuing job openings, much of your job search should focus on finding companies that hire your skills.
Here are five things you can do to find companies that hire your skills.
- Make a list of the jobs you desire. Start by reviewing your skills and listing the jobs that you can do and then pick the top two or three that you would like to do.
- Make a list of the companies that hire your skills and have the top two or three jobs on your list, whether they have openings or not.
- Research each of those companies and choose the top five that you can pursue, then ask for information interviews with those companies as we reviewed last week.
- After you complete the information interviews, follow up and then stay in touch with those you interviewed with.
- Then go to the next five companies on your list and repeat the same process.
Your goal is to ultimately get job interviews, as many as possible. If you find yourself getting interviews but not getting the job, ask those with whom you interviewed what you can do to improve your interview skills and/or to better prepare yourself for the job that you interviewed for.
Lastly, get a job coach. A job coach is simply someone that you can report your progress to on a regular basis, at least weekly. A job coach should never be your spouse or anyone who is personally affected by your job status.
Here are four things that should be reported to your job coach every week:
- How many resumes you gave out that week.
- How many interviews you had that week, either information or job interviews.
- How many contacts you made that week.
- How many hours you spent on searching for a job that week.
These answers are more than just numbers. They are the essence of what needs to happen to find employers that hire your skills and to ultimately get job interviews. As you ask someone to be your job coach, make sure they understand how important it is for them to hold you accountable for how you spend your time.
The general rule is, if you are looking for full-time work, you should be working full time on your job search. While working 40 hours a week on job searching may seem unrealistic, when you consider all the research and networking that needs to be done, it is not all that unrealistic.
Keep track of how you spend your time and report that to your job coach.
In summary, in addition to pursuing job openings, make a list of jobs you desire and target companies that hire your skills. Get information interviews with those companies. Get a job coach. Keep track of your progress, then report that progress to your job coach at least once each week.
These efforts, even in this tough economy, will bring results.
Ron Campbell has worked extensively in the job preparation and job search industry. He can be reached at 801-386-1111 or campbellrv@gmail.com.
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