7 Tips on How to secure your next role

You have received a phone call from your recruiter or from the company that you were interviewed for and your completely devastated. “Thank you for your time, it was really good to meet you. I am sorry but we have decided to go with someone else.”  It’s not the news you were hoping for. 

Preparation is key they say, you researched for hours, days. Got advice from friends and family and then even got them to do mock interviews with you and it still didn’t help. Now what, “what do I do?”. Those horrible feelings of not being good enough come into your mind and you start to doubt your ability to offer anything to a potential prospective employer and you get what is these days called “The Imposter syndrome” (look it up, it’s a real thing). All the questions. “Where did it go wrong? Why did I not get offered the position? What else could I have done to improve my chances?”

For me, this is the hardest thing to share with anyone that doesn’t get offered the position because I can hear how much they really wanted the role and were hoping this would be the one. The one piece of advice I give that I have learnt over the years when I really, really wanted something was that…

‘What’s for you, won’t pass you’.

Well that’s not going to pay the bills is it? There have been a few times in my life where I have really wanted something so badly, invested the time in it, visualised what it would feel like and how it would be the day I got it. One day, you will look back and it will make sense why those things didn’t work out. However, right now, when you are going through it, it’s the last thing you want to hear about. You don’t want know about any of those things you just need a job. Full stop.

1. So first things first - You need to dust yourself off and accept that you did everything you could do to make a great impression and congratulate yourself that you got as far as you did. If you can get feedback, its worth asking, if you don’t, then just try to move on. I know that one of the most unhelpful response’s people give is ‘there was nothing more you could have done, the other person just pipped you to the post’. However, sometimes that really is true. There is no point beating yourself up as it won’t help you get to the next opportunity.

2. Connect with others - You need to get back onto that application process, relook at roles, speak to people, connect with people you have met or worked with on LinkedIn and make sure that you utilise that platform. Ask people that have worked with you to add a recommendation as that is a great way to start building credibility of what you can offer prospective employers.  If you’re not sure how to use it then do yourself a favour and do some research as there are many people doing webinars on how to get the most out of it. Businesses use this platform daily as a tool to identify key skills into their business and if you are not visible you won’t be seen. If you need any support or would like some feedback feel free to ask me, I’m happy to do what I can to help.

3. Mix up your day - The temptation will be to sit at the computer all day just trying to apply for as many jobs as you can. Don’t do that to yourself as you will really feel despondent and doing the same thing every day whilst receiving no feedback or interaction with others could drive you up the wall. What you need to do is to try and split your day and break it up into different activities so that you are doing a variety of activities and will help to avoid sitting at the computer all day receiving no feedback.

4. Webinars - There are amazing digital webinars to attend depending on your interests where you can sit and listen or partake in and here are a few: www.risingnetwork.com (check out the events page), https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/o2h-group/events/ or you could try https://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/ for some interesting content. On seminars like these you can learn, listen and connect and feel like you are part of something. Search for some topics that interest you and you will be amazed at how many people you can meet and connect with on these virtual platforms and the insight you can gain from listening and observing or partaking in them.  I’m happy to help search a few more for you if you think it would help you. Or if you know of any other platforms that offer great webinars and resources that could be of interest to others, please share with us.

5. Do some training – Let’s start with mental training. There are lots of resources out there (free or paid) that offer excellent training to make sure that you update your skills and keep you feeling confident. For instance if you want to learn more about the digital world, Check out www.hubspotacademy.com or www.udemy.com (there are many more) these are just a few examples of recognised platforms doing their thing and producing bitesized contents for us all out there that is digestible and won’t break the bank.  Please share what you know, it could help someone else.

6. Physical training – Walking, jogging, running, weights, any form of physical exercise is the best way to get you feeling more positive about yourself. Again there are free online apps, people that offer yoga for beginners or those that have advanced (I’ve been recommended Youtube’s ‘Yoga with Adriene’ and for a full body workout there are people like ‘Joe Wickes’ that do varied forms of exercises you can do at home with limited space. There are probably loads more that I haven’t mentioned but these are some I’ve tried and enjoyed. Feel free to recommend any others.

7. Buddies – Buddy up with someone, could be a friend, family member or colleague and see if you can do a few things together to help support each other albeit from different places. If you don’t have anyone around you to do this with then hopefully by reaching out you will find that there are a few people that would really love to feel as though they have been asked to support or be supported. As soon as we start to think of others and how we can support them, you will find this little bit of light that comes in to help. I know it sounds weird, trust me, just try it.

The thing to remember is that many of you are going to be tested right now and it would be easy to just throw in the towel, go into hibernation and hope this all goes away. The reality is that doing that is going to make you feel worse. Hopefully by following these few steps you are going to get the feeling that you are taking a little bit more control of your situation. You will see, through some positive activity you will soon start to see opportunities will start to present themselves.

You have got this!