Job Search Roadmap

I see a lot of people looking for jobs (for whatever reason) who don’t seem to either know what a job search roadmap *is*, don’t understand how to put one together, or just choose not to use it.?This article is aimed at the first two.

?There are four basic categories of job seekers out there?

1.?????New graduates?

2.?????Looking for a new job (same discipline/industry)

3.?????Career pivot

4.?????Returning to the workforce after an extended absence.?

?Before you start updating your resume and LinkedIn profile - it doesn’t matter what type of job seeker you are -develop a strategy.?

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• Take an INVENTORY of your functional skill set (quantifiable skills/experience), and?
• RESEARCH the industries that will be the best match for your skills and experience.?

?Once you have done both of these, if you are not sure what job title/s to look for, use one of the major job boards (I would recommend Indeed - more on that shortly) to type in your skills as keywords to see what job titles come up, then narrow in on the appropriate ones.?

Start aggregating the titles and see what they all have in common in other parts of the job descriptions so you can build out a picture of the overview of the job/s.?

?Next you should look at which EMPLOYERS have employees with the job title/s you are the best match for and how often they tend to hire for that role (it's rather pointless to target an employer that only has 2 employees with a specific title and no roles open). Your two main search tools for this will be Indeed (because they tend to have legacy titles remain on the site if you search by employer) and LinkedIn (because you can look for people that hold or have held that title.)?

?Some other tools you can use: industry associations/websites (member directories/sponsors), city Business Journals, builtin.com (for startups), Vault, Glassdoor.?

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Now that you have identified specific roles and employers, you should update your resume and LinkedIn profiles. That list of skills you developed, including related experience? That is where you are going to start for your updates. You should have a fairly robust set of skills (also known as KEYWORDS) to use to update your professional tools - including any sort of portfolio, especially if you are coming out of school or some sort of career transition program like a bootcamp or certificate achievement - with quantifiable results (work experience or projects).?

?Once your resume, portfolio and LinkedIn profile are all updated, it is time to start the actual job search. This is going to be a multi-pronged approach.?

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• APPLICATIONS: finding actual job openings and formally applying. For 99% of jobs you will need to fill out some sort of application, which is a LEGAL DOCUMENT/process. You are expressing an interest in a specific role.?
• ?NETWORKING: connecting with professionals that can help you in your search. This is where you are going to make use of Informational Interviews, use your branding efforts to connect with professionals in your field, reach out to hiring managers, sourcers/recruiters. *This can include the “Open To Work” functions on LinkedIn.??
• BRANDING: building out your EXPERTISE in your chosen area with participation/content creation on relevant social media channels. (this can include curating industry peers and experts - then commenting on relevant subjects on LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, Quora, Facebook groups etc and/or creating targeted content on those channels, TikTok and Instagram if applicable.) It could also be creating and maintaining a website, including a blog or podcast. Basically you want to show the DEPTH of your knowledge by sharing specific bites of subject expertise with your industry peers and hiring managers/recruiters.?

?My friend Bernadette Pawlik has great suggestions as well on this post.

Looking for a new job is a lot of work. Having an organized approach and timeline can help the process be more productive and decrease a lot of the stressors.?