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Have you been looking for or starting to think about job hunting to a new role, seeking promotion – or even a complete career switch?
Denise Matthews is a Career and Personal Development Coach with over 20 years’ experience in recruitment, having run her own agency. To help you get started with finding your dream job, here are the top ten ways she believes you can secure it:
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. – Confucius
It can be an overwhelming feeling to try and work out what you want in a new job and how to get it – I always advise that you think about yourself the way you would manage a project at work or in your personal life; ‘PROJECT YOU’ Break it into bite sized steps, where you seek guidance and support from experts – do the research and make a plan with a clear end goal where you know what success is going to look like – after all we spend around 30% of our life working, so let’s make it the best it can be!
Take time to explore what kind of work you aspire to and ‘why’ you are unhappy or restless – no barriers to your thoughts and ideas, just stand back from the hubbub of daily life and take a good look at what your values are, what your purpose on earth is and what are your passions. Evaluate your strengths, achievements and skills. Start a list of all the ideas you come up with as to what you would love to do for a career or how you would like to change or progress where you are now.
Having identified what type of role or career is on your wish list – then seek out what knowledge or qualifications you need for that role, if you have them then great – if not work out how you can invest in yourself to add them to your skills portfolio.
Start to follow people in the areas you are interested in, comment on posts, attend networking events, connect; remember that at least 60% of all roles are never posted publicly, they are placed via recommendations and networking – hence the importance of starting this early in your ‘PROJECT YOU’. Linked In is a great place to network in this way – but make sure your profile is updated with the right message and information for anyone clicking through.
What does this mean? It doesn’t means having a saved CV on a job site and pressing send! You will need multiple current versions of your CV ;and you still need to edit it to make it totally relevant to the jobs you are applying for, as it is still the main document companies use when making candidate selection – and each application gets about 30 secs initial attention so it has to be attention grabbing. There is lot of advice available on writing your CV – please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, I can help you with.
Can you mirror those skills in your CV? Do you have experience you can positively share at interview with some great examples of situation, actions and results? If not, time for a re-think – how can you get that experience or is this really the ideal job? Mindfully apply for roles where you are a great fit.
Reach out to Recruiters who specialise in your chosen field and start to apply for roles they suggest may be a great fit for you and the employer; you need to start applying so that you get feedback and can act on it. Always get back to recruiters and head-hunters quickly – they work on tight timelines. Remember it is rare for direct applicants to get feedback, but Recruiters usually do which is very helpful in understanding what you need to work on or change.
When applying to organisations make sure you are bought in to their culture and values; do you know what they are? Never accept a job purely based on the line Manager – they may leave, and you are left there in the same business, so check it out to make sure it’s a fit!
Know what you have applied for, sounds simple but so often a recruiter or hiring manager will make a call or send an email and the candidate either cannot remember applying or the details of the role, as a recruiter I walk away from these calls because I want my client and candidate to be really well matched and excited to work together. There are lots of tools and simple systems you can use to track your applications and results and my advice is that this is a key part of your success in ‘PROJECT YOU’
After each interview revisit your planning, the CV you used, how the interviews were managed and how you felt about the role and organisation; record it and use it as you work towards that dream role. It is such valuable data that you collect and reflecting on how to improve even the smallest point can be the turning point for the next application being a job offer!
How you communicate to yourself will make a difference to your results; if you are struggling with something like self-esteem or confidence then your inner critic can be a negative influence. So, change your self-talk to always being in positive mode and start to acknowledge and recognise the great things you are learning and gaining from your job search. Plus keep in mind that rejection is part of the job-seekers journey – it’s not negative.
When your offer arrives, celebrate – then before accepting take a step back to make sure it is all the things you hoped for and worked for in seeking your dream job – is it achieving all the things on your wish list? Then accept, celebrate and enjoy the anticipation of no more miserable Sundays!
About the authorDenise Matthews is a Career and Personal Development Coach who runs Elevate Career Coaching – www. elevatecareerscoach.com. She has over 20 years’ experience in recruitment, having run her own agency. Her new planner – Your CV: Would You Put a Stamp on It? Plan Your Career Move with Purpose is out now on Amazon
This journal will support you in planning your job change or career move in a mindful way, giving you tools to support your job applications which make your search into ‘PROJECT YOU’.
As a Recruiter, I saw many random applications where people apply using a stored CV ‘to see what happens because it’s only a no-effort click – just think, if you had to wade through newspaper adverts, type a CV, and put a stamp on it would you have made the effort to go to a red post box? By making yourself a ‘project’ and consciously applying for the right roles with good research and planning your outcomes your career switch or career/job change will be so much more successful!
