Job Seekers: do THIS before you even start your Job Search.

Happy Monday and here's wishing you a great week ahead! On this week's segment of my weekly Newsletters:

• What Job Seekers MUST do before commencing their Job Search
• Poll Results: Corporate or Agency Recruiters - who do you reach out to mostly?

Job Seekers: Do THIS before you even start Job Searching

About a month or two ago I was I was speaking at a Virtual event where I got to speak to a group of very talented IT Professionals about how to map out a Job Search strategy for themselves from start to finish.

Now, while I covered various avenues of formulating a good Job Search strategy on this talk, something key I spoke about was the importance of this:

Know what you want.

Yes, I know this sounds simple and obvious, but keep reading.

If there's one pet-peeve every single Recruiter has about candidates they've come into contact with or that they've represented is: people not knowing what they want.

Recruiters can't help you figure that out. Hiring Managers can't help you figure that out.

Too many Job Seekers falter in their Job Search, pre-screens, interviews, negotiations, and even making the right selection of which Job offer to accept - as a result of not getting REALLY clear on this one simple thing.

Now when I say, get clear on what you want or know what you want - I'm talking everything from the "big picture" stuff, to the small, somewhat insignificant details. Everything. The clearer your idea of what you want in your career and in the ideal opportunity, the more clarity you have as a Job Seeker. And the more clarity you have, the more confidence you have in yourself, what you want, and what you deserve.

So, if you haven't done so already, here are some questions you need to be asking yourself BEFORE you even start job searching - don't worry if you do not know the answers to some of these; the point is, you need to start asking yourself these questions:

• What are my long-term career goals? Where do I see myself in the future?
• What are the short-term goals which will help me achieve my long-term goals? What do I need to do today to help get me there?
• Given my long-term and short-term goals, what is the ideal position-type I should be aiming for in my Job Search?
• What certifications, qualifications, training do I need to get there?
• Can I leverage any current experience I have at my current employer? Can I ask my current employer about getting projects more related to the area I want to get into?
• What would my dream employer look for in their dream employee? What can I do to make myself that person so I can really stand out?

Now there are probably hundreds of other questions you can ask yourself to get clarity on what you want - but these questions should serve as a good starting point.

I'll end by saying this: figure out your own agenda, and get VERY clear on it. If not, you'll simply be a part of someone else's (i.e. an employer's) agenda.

And that wouldn't be their fault - that would be YOUR fault.

The ideal situation is: two parties with their own agenda's meet, look for overlap, and decide to form a "partnership" if there is such an overlap where both get something out of the alliance. The partnership continues until either or both parties no longer see an overlap and decide to part ways - hopefully on good terms. Neither party is bitter, upset, or taking this parting of ways personally, because they were involved as the interaction served their own, respective agenda.

See how this serves you as a Job Seeker?

When you aren't clear on this as a potential employee - that's when you'll get disappointed or make the wrong decisions in your Job Search.

So, figure out your own agenda folks.

LinkedIn Poll Results: which category of Recruiters are Job Seekers reaching out to?

I asked you all last week, when you are reaching out to Recruiters, which category of Recruiter are you most likely to reach out to? I wanted to find out if there was a clear or significant difference in preference between the two. Here are the results and it looks like its almost 50/50:

Of the 227 of you who voted, 52% voted that in most cases they reach out to Corporate Recruiters and 48% of you voted Recruitment Agency Recruiters.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote!

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Want more tips? Mark your calendars and tune into my Live Streams every week on Wednesdays @ 11AM ET and ask me your Job Search questions LIVE!

That's all for this week; if there are any topics you'd like me to cover in a future edition, let me know in the comments - see you next time and forget to Like + Subscribe!

Dean Kulaweera - IT Recruiter | Director, Recruitment & Sales |?Tech Recruiters 360

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