How to land your dream job with Strategic Job Search Planning
Charlotte Brown
Certified Professional Resume Writer ● Career Coach ● Executive Resume Writer ● CPRW ● CPCC ● Top-10 Resume Writer on LinkedIn ● Professional C-suite Resume Writer ● Interview Coach
Did you know that having an effective job search plan can make things a whole lot easier for you? If you have ever found yourself struggling to find the right job opportunity, you might need to consider strategic job search planning. Many job seekers get frustrated when they are trying to find a new job. Most often that is because they fail to create and follow a strategic job search plan.
Today, we will discuss why it's important to have a strategic job search plan and how you can create a great job search plan that is personalized for your career goals.
What is a job search plan?
This is the easy part. A job search plan is just what it sounds like. It is a strategic plan that guides you during your job search efforts. Like any good plan, it contains your job search goals and a list of clear steps that you can take to achieve those objectives. Your strategic job search plan is like an action plan that you can take during your job hunt. Think of it as carefully planning your family vacation itinerary.
Why shouldn't you establish a strategic job search plan?
You will need a little bit of extra support to maintain the organization and schedule when you are knee-deep in a job search. Having a strategic job search plan will help you:
So, how do you create a strategic job search plan?
Now that you know how important having a strategic job search plan is, we can take a look at what you need to do to create one. Here's how it starts:
Make a written list of all your career goals
First things first. You need to sit down and create a list of all your career goals. This can include your long-term goals as well as your short-term plans. Writing this down will help you have a documented record of what you plan to achieve in your career within a set time frame.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses
Now that you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in your career, it's time for a little bit of self-assessment. Now, create a list of your known strengths and weaknesses. You can use your existing skill set and experiences to identify your strengths. You can read past performance reports and client feedback to support your weaknesses.
Decide your industry
Now, it is time to have a broad idea of where you want to take your career. Do you plan on being an accountant for the finance field or the healthcare field? The same job may differ mostly across different industries. Narrowing down your target industry will help you streamline your job search.
Find your ideal job title
There are millions of job titles in the world. But you need to find the job title that you are the most attracted to. Personal choice is not the only thing to consider when picking a target job title for your job search. You should also pay attention to everything that we discussed above when deciding your target job title.
Create a list of job search tasks
Now that we have narrowed down all the specifics of your job search, it is time to take a deep dive into the strategic planning aspect of it. Now, it is time for you to outline the key task elements of your strategic job search plan. Let's take a look at some examples of tasks that you can add to your plan:
There are many other tasks that you can add to your strategic job plan depending on your unique needs.
Create a strategy for your job applications
Now you can roll your sleeves up and plan out your strategy for each job application. Although you will need to tweak your strategy a little bit to match different employers’ needs, having a general strategy will help you greatly. Figure out how many job applications or resumes that you plan on submitting each week. Then, create a strategy to customize those documents. For example, you can set separate days to research jobs, customize your materials, and send out job applications.
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