The Competitive Job Search

I consider myself an expert in the competitive job search. And I totally get that many, many people aren't really engaged in a competitive job search. In fact, for most of my career, I wasn't either. It was fairly easy to get an interview and not that incredibly hard to get an offer in my teens, 20's 30's, and 40's. But at some point, when I was out there seeking a top role in a very specific industry, that situation changed completely. Whereas most of my career had the odds were stacked for me, now the odds were against me. And, that's true, for many professionals out there. And could be true for you.

Another way to think of it is that your prior experience of job searching could be very much like getting into community college. Not very competitive at all. And, now, because the circumstances have changed, it's much more like applying to Harvard Medical School. Extremely competitive.

I think the first step in really understanding a competitive job search is to understand why it is so much harder for you to land an interview and an offer. You might be like my friend, Anne, where there might be only one role at an organization that truly interests her AND she's not that interested in all organizations; there's sectors and even industries that are more appealing to her. So, now, in this particular time of her life, it is harder to get interviews and it is harder to get offers. In a way, to level up her career, she needs to level up her job searching skills. Or it could be you are more like Tim, who is targeting the top companies in the world. Earlier in his career, the list of where he wanted to land included thousands of organizations. Now, it's got 20 organizations on it. So, now, in this particular time of his life, it is harder to get interviews and it is harder to get offers. In a way, to level up his career, he needs to level up his job searching skills. Or you could be like Jay, where the market changed on him with tens of thousands laid off, suddenly it's no longer easy to land interviews and offers -- the competition is just stiffer.

The next step is to level up those skills. And there are three essentials that really drive whether you get an interview, get an offer, and are successfully able to negotiate a package that works for you.

Essenital #1

You have to be able to present in writing your accomplishments. This is not easy for most professionals to do. It requires often the support of a career coach and an expert resume writer to help you identify, articulate, and select the greatest accomplishments of your career to highlight in your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile. I find that most people need that support because their writing skills are not that strong AND because it is very difficult to write about yourself. Helping our clients identify the right accomplishments to feature, partnering them with a certified resume writer, and supporting them through that process where they have documents that truly show the best of their career, on paper, is a key step in the JobMorph Career Coaching Pass and the Elite Career Coaching Pass. It's the foundation on which everything else is going to be built and unless that is strong, you just won't get the interviews you want OR the job offers you desire. Shortcuts here don't make sense and that's why we partner with the best resume company in the US, TopResume .

Essential #2

In a highly competitive job search, you not only have to write the thesis; you have to defend it, verbally, in front of a tough crowd. This means that that you must be able to talk about those accomplishments; to tell each story in a cogent, exciting way. And that is not easy for most professionals. Truth is, we hardly every do that in the course of our day-to-day lives. We have had zero practice and some of us are introverted; some of us are modest; some of us have been brainwashed that our accomplishments are not really our accomplishments -- that they are the accomplishments of the leadership, or the organization. So it can take practice to just be able to tell these stories of our own accomplishments with confidence and clarity. Helping our clients practice interviewing is a key component of the programs at JobMorph . And we've seen, with our approach, clients move forward 80% of the time. Fundamentally, practice requires three things:

1. Knowing what to say. Look there's always a not so great way to say something, a better way, and the best way. And a key component of our program is talk to help clients understand the options available those common interview questions and walk them through what might be, for them, in their particular situation, the best way to answer.
2. Getting into "interview mode." We want to give our clients the opporunity to practice as much as they possibly can -- as often as they can so that is why we partnered with Big Interview and give each of our clients an AI powered platform to practice interviewing that's open to them 24/7. It's the tool that enables each client to achieve what the founder of this tool calls, "interview mode" where the answers come out confidently and the stories are truly compelling.
3. Honest feedback from a recruiting professional. You truly cannot get better at something without honest, clear feedback. It's not enough to know what to say, be good at saying it; you have to be able to know where you might be falling short so you can correct that, and improve. For most of our clients in a competitive job search, the challenge is not with the hiring manager interviews; those interviews, generally collegial in nature, are ones they usually ace. The challenge often comes in more formal interviews that might happen with recruiters who are the gateway, after all, to the interview with the hiring manager. At JobMorph , our coach was a recruiter, for many years.

Essential #3

In a highly competitive job search, you have to network. And it could be, up until now, you just didn't need to include this in your job search. It really could be that you got this far in your career without ever reaching out to your connections, building relationships in organizations you want to join, or following up on applications, networking, and interviews. That's often the case in our clients. This search, today, right now, is the very first time where they truly needed to network. And they just don't know how and need support and guidance in networking.

You can understand how that can happen if you were working in a most strong economy. With the wind at your back, the interviews just came in. And it's also possible, at that level in your career, there were just many openings and you were often getting tapped by recruiters trolling the internet for talent. It's even possible that you were truly less selective about industry and sector, but now, at this stage you are extremely selective about what the next right step would be. Helping our clients network is a key component of the programs at JobMorph . And we've seen that everyone can become a better networker with coaching. In fact, many clients have landed their next role and the one after that leveraging those newly found networking skills acquired through our program.

If there is one thing I want to stress, after 30 years of helping over 42k people land their dream jobs, its that it can be done. It may seem impossible right now but what you desire is out there and with some improvement in your skill set, it will happen for everyone. I believe that so strongly that it will happen for every person who works with us, that my approach with all our JobMorph clients is to "be there until they land." I know that is is very unusual to offer support until the result is achieved. But we aren't a service or a product company. We are a result company.