How to find a Great Job

If you’ve been looking for advice on how to find a great job, get ready for some great tips!

I recently interviewed a career coach I follow on LinkedIn, Sarah Johnston (https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/sarahdjohnston/). We quickly discovered that we had both learned similar lessons along a sometimes bumpy career path. 

My first question for Sarah was, what career experiences most shaped her perspective as a career coach?

“I've had to launch three job searches in completely cold markets where I didn't know anyone at all. I had worked as a corporate recruiter so I had an insider’s view, but I learned very quickly that old school networking is so new school right now.”

Networking was how I found my best roles, so we dived right in.

Sarah recommends finding companies that you personally resonate with (I love this!) and asking for “informational interviews” with current employees (more on that later) around roles that interest you.

LinkedIn makes it easy to search for people working in roles. If you need some encouragement before reaching out to someone you’ve never met, read on.

First, if you are feeling the pressure to “get yourself out there” and feel like networking is a step back, I get it. Early in my career I applied for 100 jobs a day looking for work.

In working with clients Sarah has found that applying for a job via the career website is the worst possible first step in applying for a job.

To quote Sarah:

“Ask for a job, get advice. Ask for advice, get a job.”

Here’s the funny thing about asking for advice: when we are the ones asking for advice, we often worry about bothering people. If people ask us for advice? We worry we won’t actually be able to help them!

Sarah recommends making it really clear why you believe that person might be able to help you. Read their LinkedIn profile. Read what they’ve written online. Then reach out and express appreciation for something they said - post a comment or send InMail.

“If you reference something that I wrote or you make it personal to me, you immediately stand out. I get a lot of message requests because I'm active on LinkedIn and published a lot of content. I think people want to follow my content, so they connect with me. But so rarely do people personalize a message and say, 'Hey, I read this article and it really resonated with me and you know, it really affected my job search or I feel like I perform better in my interview because of it.'”

(If you need suggestions/examples on messages you can send to get you started, check out Sarah’s site: https://www.briefcasecoach.com/).

Taking the time to engage around shared interests will make you “one in a thousand” when you reach out. 

Of course to start a new potential relationship around shared interests you have some important questions to answer:

• What function/role would you want to work in? 
• What kind of industry do you want to work in? 
• Are there companies you’d want to work for?

If you aren’t sure where to begin, start with looking at companies you like and explore the roles that people do there. It can be eye opening to see how much variety there is!

With those questions answered and a few people to contact, you are ready to begin asking for informational interviews. Sarah shared a great story of a candidate who reached out to her for an informational interview - check out how the candidate approached it: 

“I was working at a hospital as a recruiter and somebody asked me for an informational interview. I felt like I had reached a level of my career where I could give back and it felt really nice to be asked, so I agreed. He was so prepared. He had an agenda, a list of questions and he was very thoughtful and made sure he stayed within the time parameters he set with me. Afterwards he sent a thank you note and a $5 Starbucks coupon (it wasn't a gift card). It wasn’t about the gift card, I can buy my own coffee, but it just really demonstrated that he valued my opinion. And so I sent him multiple followup emails with job leads and stayed in touch with him.”

What I love about this story is this candidate demonstrated his "soft skills" in how he conducted the interview. LinkedIn published a global study showing soft skills were the most important factor in a job search today. The more people who see your ability to listen, to collaborate, to be respectful of their time, to follow up - the greater your odds of success.

People love to give advice, especially when they believe that advice will actually help someone. This candidate made an effort to show he valued Sarah’s time. The result is that she felt confident that he’d make the most of any help she provided.

“I am in the work that I do because I want to make a difference and I want to feel like I'm helping people. And I think most people desire that.”

It only takes a few new friends to find a great job. Good luck and be sure to follow Sarah for more insights!