Job Hunting Or Hunted For Jobs?

Your job takes up a big part of your life so you want to put in a big effort to make sure you have a good one. However, job searches can be lengthy and depressing especially if you don’t have a job at all. Instead of job hunting for the position you want, it's much better to be hunted for jobs. In this post, we’ll discuss some tips you can use to flip your situation around and become the purple squirrel that all employers are looking for. 

Follow the trends 

First of all, you need to follow the trends in business and the job market. A recent study by Korn Ferry revealed the trends of the job market in 2016 and going towards 2025. You should take note of which fields will be hungry for candidates in 2016. On top of this Forbes recently published a list of which degrees (bachelors and masters) that are most in demand in 2016. Both Korn Ferry and Forbes points to STEM (Science Technology, Engineering & Math) based degrees and fields as the place to be whereas finance and accounting are also very much in demand. The devil can easily be hidden in the detail though and take accounting as an example. Many companies have moved to an outsourced/offshored model for transactional accounting hence, professionals in this field need to move up the value chain as I have also described in my series on finance transformation (accountants, analytics, and business partnering). So use these surveys and lists as a guide but study carefully any profession or industry you want to work in prior to making your choice on what to study or where to work. 

Commodity or purple squirrel? 

Now you have chosen the right profession and industry but that doesn’t mean that you will automatically have headhunters calling you every day for your next career move. You still need to make yourself more attractive than the competition or you will find yourself job hunting for your next opportunity. You need to become what is often referred to as a purple squirrel. If you don’t stand out from the crowd in any way you’re merely a commodity and they go for the lowest price. So what can you do to make yourself purple and develop a special taste for nuts? Well, first and foremost you need to be where headhunters and recruiters are. I know you already guessed the answer! 94% of all recruiters use LinkedIn to find and/or vet candidates which mean if you want to put your efforts in somewhere then LinkedIn is the place. Being on LinkedIn doesn’t make you a purple squirrel by any means nor do having a professional picture, a couple of positions and some education and skills to go with it. Yet, when you read the ton of posts available telling you how to optimize your LinkedIn profile this is always where it starts. By the mere fact that there are tons of posts available on the topic means that there’s probably also a ton of people that has read and followed it as well. So let’s take a look at and discuss some real differentiators. 

1. Recommendations: 90% of people applying for jobs via LinkedIn do not have any recommendations. This also means that most people on LinkedIn do not have any recommendations. So you need to start asking for them but be careful with recommending on quid pro quo basis i.e. I recommend you and you recommend me. One talent management professional I talked to said he would always downgrade recommendations from people you have recommended yourself. It doesn’t necessarily mean the recommendation is false but only that a recommendation from someone who got nothing in return goes a long way.
2. WIIFM or What’s In It For Me: Your profile shouldn't just display how good you are but also what can you do for a hiring manager? Hiring managers are people with business problems looking for people to help solve them. If you’re not marketing yourself as a problem solver then you’re not attractive to any hiring managers. 
3. Share your thoughts: Another thing that will make you stand out is sharing your thoughts or your products. That can be your recipe for “5 Ways How To Lead A Customer Service Team” or the fancy new Prezi presentation you prepared for your latest customer meeting. You need to associate these thoughts or products with your positions or summary. LinkedIn lets you do just that by allowing you to share presentations and links within your profile. 

If you get all of above right then you will be standing out from the crowd on LinkedIn. That doesn’t mean that these are the only things you should do but I think these are three of the most important ones. 

Purple squirrels get contacted for jobs 

By definition if you’re a purple squirrel you will get plenty of calls from recruiters and headhunters about interesting jobs. In short you should target in demand educations and industries and stand out from the crowd in these. This will get you off the job hunting trail and into the luxurious position of just waiting for the phone to ring. Then all that’s left to do is to keep doing well in your job and advertise your results. Soon you’ll be the talk of the job market and your career will take off like a SpaceX rocket! 

So are you job hunting or being hunted for jobs? It’s not easy going from being a hunter to being hunted but you can certainly help yourself move in the right direction. What do you think? Are these tips helpful or you’re getting along in your career just fine? As always let me know what you think by liking, commenting and sharing. You can also find more tips and tricks in the posts below. 

There Is No Chivalry In Recruiting

Why I Use A Disclaimer When Guiding Job Seekers

Why You Need To Land A Job Before You Graduate

Why LinkedIn Didn’t Disrupt Recruiting

Do This And Double Your Interview Invitations 

Everyone Needs Help In The Job Market

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Regional Finance Business Partner for Maersk Line North Europe and is working with the transformation of Finance and business on a daily basis. Anders has participated in several transformation processes amongst others helping Maersk Drilling to go Beyond Budgeting and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. He would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption. If you are looking for more advice on how to get the most of LinkedIn Anders also has a few tips to share as well as if you want help in your job search. Don’t be shy! Let’s get in touch and start helping each other.