6 ‘Secrets’ leading to job search success

These six ‘secrets’ not only help you to achieve job search success but will help you attain the roles you want throughout your chosen career.

This is because they encourage you to take the driving seat and to use your initiative to power your progress to wherever you want it to take you.

These secrets do not make for an easy road but they do take you along the road to success. And while they may require hard work and sometimes a bit of risk taking and getting outside your comfort zone, they will provide a lot of satisfaction and perhaps some exhilaration – because it is you who is doing the driving.

1 Take control

Conventional job search is reactive; you react to the openings you find on the job board, you submit your application and you wait. And sometimes you never get a response. Does that make you feel in control? Answer, No.

Because you don’t feel in control you quickly start to feel powerless, helpless and then hopeless. Loss of confidence and loss of motivation follow and it’s a downward spiral from there on. You cannot feel confident if you don’t feel in control.

On the other hand, taking a proactive approach to job search does put you in control. Instead of looking at job boards to find what is available, you decide exactly on the sort of work you want to do and the sort of organizations you would like to work for.

To quote résumé expert, Jessica Holbrook:

“Being a proactive job seeker means you’re taking an active role in finding your next opportunity. Instead of sitting back and waiting for the perfect position to cross your path, you’re going out to find it. Not only can this be a more empowering and less frustrating position to be in, it also produces more interviews and offers in less time.”

Select two organizations which you would like to work for and then you’ll have the image of a possible future in front of you. This immediately boosts your morale and your confidence because you are taking decisive action. Your main task is to direct and manage your own proactive campaign. Don’t let yourself get distracted by spending time looking at job boards.

Who is in charge? You are. Think of yourself as the CEO of You & Co, a micro-business currently without clients, and then use proven small business marketing techniques to reach out and find those clients. You’ll find it an intensely satisfying experience and you’re also likely to find that you have a job of your choosing a lot sooner than if you stuck to the conventional approach.

2 Focus on just two prospects

Focus on just two possible employer organizations you would like to work for. Why two? The reason is that the successful applicant is not always the one best qualified for the job, but the candidate who put in the best overall application – résumé, cover letter, interview performance, research and networking. To do this takes a lot of time.

Suppose you are working at the job search as if it were a full-time job, putting in about 40 hours a week. If you are focusing on two applications, you can afford 20 hours a week on each. If instead you are working on ten applications, that allows you just four hours for each.

Thorough research and networking, or making yourself known, requires a lot of time to do properly. If one of the applicants is spending 20 hours an the application but you can’t spend that much time, who is more likely to have the better application?

If you are currently employed but planning to change jobs, you probably won’t be able to afford 20 hours a week for each prospective opening, except perhaps on your holidays. So just spend whatever time you can afford on each of the two prospective employer organizations and run the campaign over a longer period. Take three months or longer, whatever time you need, but set yourself a target date so that you are not tempted to procrastinate.

Okay, you may say, so why not just one application? The reason for two is that, no matter how good your overall application, you may not be successful every time. If you only have one application on the go, and it is turned down, you lose momentum because there is nothing else to work on. With a second prospect to carry on with, when the rejection comes, you can say to yourself, ‘That’s all right. I’ve still got organization B to work on’. And move onto it as soon as you can do nothing further for application A. Then select another target organization to replace A so that you once again have the two prospects to work on.

To help you continue to feel in control, and to keep you focused while you navigate the turbulent waters of the job search, write yourself a mission statement. This will define the end-goal of your campaign. Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People shows that a mission statement can make a big difference to the likelihood of your success. Don’t put it off; as well as improving the prospect of success, it will save you time because it can help to keep you on task.

Your mission statement might read like this: ‘I am passionate about thingamajigs and I want to make them more widely available through using my communication and interpersonal skills. My mission is to be employed in the marketing department of either Company A or Company B by (date six weeks from now)’. To read more about how to write a mission statement, click here.

3 Market research

As CEO of You & Co, a micro-business currently without clients, one essential task is undertaking detailed market research. You have selected two organizations to pitch your services to and, to do so effectively, you need to study them carefully. Don’t stint on your efforts. Businesses spend a lot of time and energy in market research because they know it works. It can work for you as well.

Start online, the organization’s website. The ‘About Us’ page will often give you a good understanding of their goals and values. Also read the pages containing their annual report and their press releases. Read the organization’s Facebook page and check its presence on other social media channels.

Look at the organization’s team page and note the names of key people; look them up and follow them on LinkedIn. Follow them on Twitter. Like their posts and tweets and, when you feel confident to do so, comment on them. If you find articles which you think would be of interest, share them. In this way, your name will start to get known within the organization.

4 Make yourself known

If you think that your application might have some weaknesses or if you fear you might be discriminated against for some reason, you need to make yourself known within the organization. If your name is familiar beforehand, your application is likely to be properly considered. Better still, if they like you, they will read your application hoping to find reasons to employ you.

Getting them to know you is effective marketing. It will have far more impact on their hiring decision than your résumé and written application because it gives them a chance to see your confidence and your attitude, your motivation and drive and energy – and these are the attributes that they are really looking for.

So, once you have started following key people on LinkedIn and Twitter, and liking their posts and tweets, invite them to connect with you. This can lead to email communication, then perhaps phone and face-to-face. (For more on face-to-face networking, click here and here and here.)

The important thing is to get them to like you and to respect your knowledge and abilities. If they like you, they may employ you; if they don’t, they won’t.

5 Your value proposition

And to get them to like and respect you, in all your communications convey your value proposition. In business terms, a value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered. It is the benefit you want to bring to the organization, how you want to help them achieve their corporate objectives in whatever way you can.

It doesn’t have to be a huge or prestigious benefit; it could be just in helping maintain accurate records or assisting with transport and logistics, whatever the role is that you are targeting. The important thing is that everybody you communicate with understands what you want to bring to the role.

This is one aspect of effective job search where care in selecting your career path can make a big difference to your future; if you are keen to do the work, they will want you and you are likely to be highly successful.

6 Succeed in the new job

Yes, getting the job is not the objective of your job search; it is making sure that you keep the job.

Surveys have shown us that 50% of new hires fail within the first 18 months and you certainly don’t want to be part of that 50%. Usually the reason for failure is that the new hires don’t fit the corporate culture, they don’t make good team members.

Therefore, you should focus on becoming a good team member. Through communicating with people working within the organization, you will have already discovered a lot about its culture and they will also have learnt about you and decided that you would be a good fit. This means that you probably don’t have much to prove.

But you still need to work in with your work colleagues; remember their names and build rapport with them. When they look as if they could do with some help, offer it quickly and willingly. They will then do the same for you when you face challenges as you learn more about the way the organization works.

The last word

Really being successful in the job search is all about demonstrating the right attitude: cheerful confidence, energy and drive, and a strong desire to be part of the organization’s team. The best way to demonstrate this attitude is through establishing rapport with people already in the organization. This can be achieved by networking, whether via social media, email, phone or face-to-face.

So why are these strategies ‘secret’ if they’re so important for job search success? Simply because they are not often sufficiently covered in job search training nor in books or articles. But they are important. So don’t hesitate; get into them!