 |
|
|||||
Take aim and shoot for best job path
Do you have a focused job-search goal? You may be tempted to answer "yes" if you're focused on getting a job. But the question is not whether you are focused but whether your goal is. Misunderstanding the difference between these two concepts can extend your job search by months.
Here's an example. Sally and Bob both have customer service, computer programming and retail management experience. Both are unemployed and focused on getting new jobs.
Clipart.com
Sally has decided to combine her three skill areas into one focused job goal: She will apply to manage workers in some kind of call center. Bob, on the other hand, does not want to limit himself too quickly. Feeling he would be comfortable in almost any work situation, he asks friends to send him leads from any of his experience areas.
You might expect Bob to find work more quickly than Sally, given his willingness to try many options. But there are problems with his job-search strategy. First, because he is so broad in his choices, he finds himself reading nearly all the ads in the paper and on the job boards. He's not targeting any particular industries, so he can't easily choose companies to approach directly. And, because his areas of interest are so diverse, he needs more than one resume to use in different situations. All of this scattershot effort has cost him more time than he expected, with relatively little progress in return.
The worst part of Bob's dilemma is that his friends keep sending him leads that aren't at all what he wants. For instance, he's not interested in working on the sales floor in a retail setting, nor does he want to do programming in languages he hasn't learned yet. He's finding it more difficult than he expected to communicate these parameters to his well-meaning friends.
Meanwhile, Sally has been conducting research to discover what types of companies operate call centers. So far she's learned about collection agencies, catalog companies, charitable giving groups and polling companies.
Her next step is to learn more about these organizations and their structures through a mix of networking and informational interviewing. To do this, she will send an e-mail to all her acquaintances asking if anyone has a contact at any of the companies she's identified. While waiting to see if this bears fruit, she's putting together a resume targeted to the goal of being a call center manager.
Who will find a job first -- Bob or Sally?
While it's possible that Bob will find a job before Sally does, my experience says he probably won't. It's simply too difficult to keep up a good pace with his kind of "needle in a haystack" job search. And it's difficult to leverage the assistance of friends and networking acquaintances when you can't be specific in your request for help.
If you think your job-search goal could use some focus, try this process.
First, write down all the things you've done in past jobs, including your main areas of responsibilities and your specialized tasks.
Now put a 1 next to the parts of the jobs you want to do more of. Put a 2 next to the things you can do but feel neutral about. The 3 marks the things you really don't care to do anymore, regardless of the job title.
Now look at this shorter list. Do you see any patterns? Are all your favorite things related to conducting certain processes, to using equipment or to handling numbers, for example? What new job titles do these skill areas suggest?
This is essentially the method Sally used when she reviewed her three areas of experience and came up with a new job idea. If you come up with a couple of job titles this way, take some time to learn more about these areas of work.
Another way to focus your job-search goal is to talk with your friends and trusted advisers. What kinds of work have they thought you might do well? Have they ever pictured you in a particular career? Sometimes this feedback can open the door to an idea you hadn't considered.
Yet another practical way to focus your goal is simply to look for more of something you've already been doing. In Bob's case, that would have meant choosing one of his past areas, not all three.
Whatever your process, know that you almost certainly will find better work, more quickly, by ensuring that your job-search goal is as focused as you are.
- Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice. com or at 1071 W. Seventh St., St. Paul, MN 55102.
