How To Develop A Winning Job Search Strategy That Work

There’s more to a job search than simply applying for online postings, though the majority of job seekers confine their job search to exactly that.

It may sound crazy but job postings are not the number one method employers use to recruit. A good job search strategy includes a number of job search techniques and approaches, including utilizing your network — the number one source of productive job leads.

1. Career Brainstorming

It’s very important that you have a good understanding of what you’re looking for in your career before you launch your job search campaign. This doesn’t
mean you need to lock yourself into a lifelong career decision. On the contrary, you just need to determine your unique profile; for example, the type of work you enjoy, the cultural environment that best suits your work style, your key strengths, the industries that you have interest in and your geographical preferences. This will help you focus your time and energy on exploring the right companies and jobs to match your interests and aspirations.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself that can help you focus on the right job search criteria. I encourage you to take out a blank sheet of paper and
write these questions down. Under each question, write down the answers and rank them in order of best or most important to worst or least important. This information will be very helpful as you begin building out your job search strategy, and will help with formulating your target company list.
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What are your key strengths?
̥ What industries are you interested in?
̥ What size company and culture interest you the most?
̥ What are your geographical preferences?

2. Develop You Target Company Lists

There are several ways that can be used for developing companies. You should start by listing 30-50 companies that you feel you would like to work for. You can speak to friends as well as colleagues and see the companies that they recommend. LinkedIn also has a very strong feature of company job search which can help you in your job search.

For this, you need to go to LinkedIn, click on the menu button and then on the search bar. You then need to select the companies and start the search. The Advanced Job Search strategies options can also be used by you by clicking on Advanced, which is located adjacent to the search bar.

In case you come across a company that seems interesting to you, click on the profile of the company and find out if it is the company that is of interest to you. In case you like it, then you need to click on the Follow button so that the updates, as well as the messages of the company, are sent to you.

3. Develop An Effective Marketing Strategy

In today’s job market, your resume and LinkedIn profile are your two most important marketing tools. Cover letters are important too, and often can help separate your application from the pack. Before you kick off any major job search campaign, take the time to optimize these career marketing tools so you can hit the ground running.

The development of a professional resume (identifying your skills to solve employer problems), cover letter and other job search correspondence is essential. Often these “tools” are an employer’s first contact with you. If your “tools” are sloppy, chances are your work performance will be as well.

4. Reach Our To Hiring Managers

Once the companies that are of interest to you have been identified, you need to identify the people who are working in these companies. For this purpose also, LinkedIn is a great tool. You need to begin by identifying the hiring manager along with the staff in the area where you would like to join. You need to look for the people who will be your colleagues as well as their managers. Then you need to find out the LinkedIn groups that they have joined. This is significant as if you also join that group, you will be able to communicate with them free of cost, without having to update your LinkedIn account. 

You need to find out if they have taken part in any of the group discussions. It will be a great way of entering the conversation and begin to showcase your expertise. Remember that your comments need to be professional, positive and upbeat.

5. Dust Off Interview Skills

As job hunting isn’t usually an everyday task, even the most self-assured creative candidate can get a little rusty. Before an interview, consider what questions may be asked and prepare thoughtful responses. Practice the answers with a friend. This will build confidence, alleviate anxiety during the real interview and reveal opportunities to fine-tune your presentation.

After each job interview, jot down any questions that proved particularly difficult to answer, or moments that caused you to stumble. Self-awareness and continued practice are keys to being an adept and poised interviewee.

If you want to learn more go and Book a Free Call Here!

Hi, I am Ruth McCrackin!

 Your Career & Success Strategist Coach with well over 11 years of experience working hand in hand with Human Resources and Business Partners in achieving company goals and mission. It is my wish for high achievers to getting their high-end position in attracting their dreams and passion. Avoid the loop holes of missing great opportunities by applying job search strategies, LinkedIn Branding, storytelling, and much more to up level your career and lifestyle. Start Your Transformation Now!

4 Easy Steps In Creating A Career Development Plan

To create a career development plan, start by defining your results and motivation. Next, determine the required skills, perform a self-assessment and identify one area that needs attention. Finally, you can develop an action plan using the “SMART” goal-setting method.

A career development are seen as distinct avenues of self-improvement, but the two go hand in hand. If you’re interested in creating a personal and career development plan or working towards personal and career growth, you’re likely to experience a pleasant side effect of learning new skills or strengthening abilities you already have – achieving your personal goals for work.

It is important to focus on you, knowing your potential will accelerate your career growth. Having the initiative to be proactive and rising to a leadership position requires you as an employee to distinguish your blind spots and aspire to do better in order to continue your career rise.  Do not limit yourself and your ability. Knowing what works for you and what you want to achieve will allow a more natural career development prospect.

1. Identify your current position and career options

The first step in creating a career development plan is to assess your current position with regard to your past experiences, your strengths, specific skills, and values. Taking note of your success metrics will help you identify how the current projects and responsibilities map to your ultimate goal. 

Identifying your current job position also helps you to narrow your options so that you are not overwhelmed along the way. Take into consideration factors such as your current position in your field and academic ambitions, as they provide a basis for your potential. 

2. Identify your career destination 

The whole point of a career development plan is to design a strategy to help you reach your ultimate career objectives. Take time to understand where you want to be in, say, the next ten years, and compartmentalise your career within that timeline.

For example, if your dream is to be a senior project manager in a midsize energy company, be sure to incorporate it into your plan. 

Ideally, it is advisable to establish where you want to be in small increments; take into account where you are and what you want to do in the next two years. It is easier to visualise and achieve the ultimate goal if you work on it in smaller portions. 

3. Create your career development plan

Now that you have identified the skills and experiences you need to achieve your career goal, you can proceed to create a concrete plan on how to achieve it. Here is what you need to do:

Set small, task-oriented goals as part of your action plan — Create a set of tasks and identify means of accomplishing them. For instance, if one of the needed skills is to learn how to operate certain software, take a course to polish on it. 

Organise — Organise your goals around a reasonable timeline and start with short-term goals that you can achieve quickly before moving to long-term goals. It’s also important to track your progress as you go along.

Think SMART — The SMART goal template (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound) helps you to design your goals, ensuring they are tangible and realistic, and therefore achievable. 

Create task deadlines — Working with deadlines is a sure way to complete your tasks within the set timeline. 

4. Measure your progress and be ready to evaluate

Implementing your career goals and evaluating them along the way ensures you are on the right path from beginning to end. For guaranteed success, you need to keep track of every activity to make sure you are doing everything in the correct order. Equally important, consider milestones and update your goals as circumstances change and more opportunities present themselves. 

If you want to learn more go and Book a Free Call Here!

Hi, I am Ruth McCrackin!

 Your Career & Success Strategist Coach with well over 11 years of experience working hand in hand with Human Resources and Business Partners in achieving company goals and mission. It is my wish for high achievers to getting their high-end position in attracting their dreams and passion. Avoid the loop holes of missing great opportunities by applying job search strategies, LinkedIn Branding, storytelling, and much more to up level your career and lifestyle. Start Your Transformation Now!

Smart Goals to Enhance Your Personal Development At Work

Personal development plays a crucial role in one’s career growth. An individual who can contribute not only in his area of expertise but other domains as well are bound to get quick promotions and lucrative incentives and rewards. Trust me, personal development is imperative not only for career growth but also for mere survival in the organization. No organization would like to retain an individual who is resistant to changes and fails to perform in unpredictable and unforeseen situations.

Personal development helps you set goals and expectations for yourself. Any individual without a vision in life not only fails to deliver but also gets easily lost in the crowd.

It is important to set expectations for yourself. There is a scope of improvement always. Never ever feel that you are the best and you know everything. Believe me, that there are many things under the sky which we still do not know and need to find.

1. Build and Improve Professional Relationships

You spend a lot of time with your colleagues, so it is important to build good relationships with them. After all, team cohesion relies on mature working relationships, as people typically work better together if there’s a personal element to their relationship.

Having positive professional relationships can lay the foundation for your ultimate success. Because each person’s role in your organization either directly or indirectly affects your performance, it’s important for you to nourish these working relationships so you can work in harmony with others.

To improve your professional relationships, help other members of the team whenever you can, and engage in open and honest communication with your colleagues.

2. Improve Your Time Management Skills

Throughout your professional career, you’ll face deadlines and competing tasks that fight for your attention every day. As your workload increases, it may seem impossible to be able to get everything accomplished.

In these instances, your ability to manage your time will be tested. Having effective time management skills will help increase your productivity and efficiency, decrease your stress, and  allow you to have more time to dedicate to other endeavors.

Make sure that you’re keeping track of how you spend your time if you feel like time management is an issue for you. Schedule a specific amount of time for every item on your to-do list and don’t allow interruptions during these times. This will help you be more efficient, and once you get the hang of working this way, it will become second nature.

3. Define Your Own Success

You don’t have to abide by everyone else’s definition of success. You can define what being successful and happy mean to you, which will help you clarify what you need to do to achieve it.

Once you dig deep to uncover your values and purpose, you will recognize that if you try to chase everyone else’s idea of what success is, you won’t achieve it. In doing this, you have to make it a point to not compare yourself to other people. The things that you see other people have don’t define or impact your success. You’re the only one who can decide if you have achieved your goals thus far.

4. Grow Your Network

People do business with others whom they know and trust. And the truth is, “companies” don’t make business decisions, people do. Having a strong professional network can help you advance in your career in ways that you would not be able to do alone.

Not only can networking lead to connections with people who can help you enhance your expertise and knowledge, it can also help you stay on top of potential opportunities for advancement in your career.

5. Pursue Ongoing Professional Development

This is another personal development goal that will keep you on top of your game at work. Employers are often reluctant to invest the money in sending their employees to seminars or conferences, but engaging in professional development will help you maintain your competence in your field and excel when faced with the competition.

Ensuring that your professional skills remain up-to-date in our rapidly changing world is critical to your long-term success. Your education certainly doesn’t stop with your diploma, and staying abreast of changing trends in your industry will help you be an in-demand candidate for prospective future employers.

If you want to learn more go and Book a Free Call Here!

Hi, I am Ruth McCrackin!

 Your Career & Success Strategist Coach with well over 11 years of experience working hand in hand with Human Resources and Business Partners in achieving company goals and mission. It is my wish for high achievers to getting their high-end position in attracting their dreams and passion. Avoid the loop holes of missing great opportunities by applying job search strategies, LinkedIn Branding, storytelling, and much more to up level your career and lifestyle. Start Your Transformation Now!

Improve your Career and Personal Development

Are you working hard at your job? Yet promotions are eluding you? The fact is thousands of employees like you are working diligently and competently each day to get the next promotion. So what makes you stand out from the rest of the crowd to get that highly coveted promotion which you have been eyeing for a while? In this challenging and highly competitive global job market, it has become difficult to hold on to a job for a long time by simply doing what is expected from you. It is imperative that you go above and beyond the call of duty to climb the corporate ladder to success.

Once you start climbing the up ladder, you will find yourself getting promoted to higher designations, having additional responsibilities with increased salary, and managing teams as well. Hence you will need new skills to deal with the new responsibilities. 

Career and personal development goals naturally make their way into New Year’s resolutions because, let’s face it, if you work full-time, you spend a lot of time at your job. Being the ambitious woman that you are, you’re no stranger to thoughts like, “What do I want to do next in my career?”, “How can I advance within my job?”, or “How can I ready myself for a promotion this year?” The list goes on but the point is: You’re proactive about your career future.

Motivation is undoubtedly one of the key factors that will enable you to move forward in your career. However, you will also need to keep updating yourself and learn new skills for your career development. Improving your skills and knowledge will help you to become more productive at the workplace and improve your earnings potential.

Each type of job requires you to have some specific skills so that it can be performed with excellence. Upskilling allows you to gain additional skills through qualifications and training and thus enables you to become a more proficient and competent employee.

Given that I am a Career Coach, it seems only fitting that I should share my best tips for making the most of your career and personal development regardless of what state your career is currently in. The tips below will help us all stay on track this year and totally kill it.

1. Train for your promotion.

Here’s the thing about promotions and raises—they rarely just “happen.” Book a meeting with your boss to ask her what skills or experiences you need to develop to advance to the next level. Next, fill those skills gaps by taking online classes through a site.

2. Create your professional support team.

Develop relationships with people that will help you advance in your career by advocating for you, sending you a job referral, offering insight, etc. Start by finding people at your current company or at companies you’re interested in. If you’re not sure what companies interest you, consider the sites you visit daily, the products or services you’re a fan of, or a company you could see as a potential employer in the future. Don’t be afraid to reach out via LinkedIn to a company’s current employees with some questions about their own careers. Go to lunch, follow up, and build a genuine relationship before you need something from them.

3. Track your progress.

Keep a work journal to track your accomplishments, feedback, areas for improvement, and new ideas for your job to share with your boss. These days, companies want their employees to be in the driver’s seat of their own career growth, and a work journal will help you keep your big career picture in mind without losing yourself to daily to-do lists.

4. Update your LinkedIn profile.

When your parents told you that a job wouldn’t just land in your lap, they were…wrong. Sorta. 94% of recruiters use LinkedIn to help them source candidates for open roles. Optimize your LinkedIn profile and let the recruiters woo you into an awesome new job!

5. Find a job you love by trying a new job search strategy.

The secret to job search success is targeting a company first and then working your way into a job there rather than the usual approach (applying for countless jobs online, then crossing your fingers). Online job sites have a reputation as internet black holes for a reason.

6. Learn about leadership.

Leadership skills don’t only apply to managers and C-suite executives. Start learning and preparing yourself for leadership by reading some books or listening to a podcast. Because at a minimum, you’re the leader of your own life.

If you want to learn more go and Book a Free Call Here!

Hi, I am Ruth McCrackin!

 Your Career & Success Strategist Coach with well over 11 years of experience working hand in hand with Human Resources and Business Partners in achieving company goals and mission. It is my wish for high achievers to getting their high-end position in attracting their dreams and passion. Avoid the loop holes of missing great opportunities by applying job search strategies, LinkedIn Branding, storytelling, and much more to up level your career and lifestyle. Start Your Transformation Now!