How To Get Your Stuck Job Search Moving Again
Published: Jul 30, 2009
You feel like you are working very hard on your job search but nothing is happening. Networking? Yes, you are. Resume in order? You’ve done countless revisions. Putting yourself out there? You faithfully check the job postings every day. Yet, your leads are trickling in slowly, and first interviews if they even materialize don’t lead anywhere. How can you get your job search moving again?
If you want new results, you have to do things differently. First take a realistic audit of what you’ve done so far:
Do you work on your search daily or do you work in spurts across the week? When and how you do your best work matters and is different for everyone.
Are you researching most of your leads online or relying on live networking? You need both but jobseekers invariable favor one over the other.
Do you follow up after you meet someone? If so, how often and what is your approach? The amount of follow-up and the style is your secret sauce. You need to consciously cultivate an approach that makes sense for your market and for you.
Do you inquire about your interview status? If so, how often and do you call or email? Interview follow-up protocol and strategy is different from general follow-up and needs to be handled accordingly.
Are you focusing on a specific industry, function, and/or geography? Do you have other targets? Job search is a numbers game, so you need to know what numbers to track and what they mean.
The above are just some of the questions to ask yourself so you can dissect your search and know what you can change. If something is not getting you results, then you have to change it. Perhaps you are networking like crazy but with no results. Yes, the popular career advice is that networking is effective (I am a big advocate myself) but if it’s not working for you, stop doing it till you can figure out why. In the meantime, try something else.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it. -- W.C. Fields
When your search is stuck, don’t just press on blindly. Take an honest assessment of what you are doing and the results they are giving you. It’s often tough to see your own mistakes, so work with someone on this process. Then be willing and ready to change. Change your target. Change your pitch. Change how you network and follow-up. Change yourself to change your search.