The Ultimate Guide to a Job Search

March 17th, 2009

Here is a collected personal experience of job hunting throughout the years. This guide is to help those in need of finding a job and how to come out on top.

After being out of a job for an allotted time of almost 2 years throughout my career and since the economy is slowly starting to come back (SLOWLY!), I thought this would be a great time to offer tips and tricks on how to actually perform a job search.

Initial Shock

After finding out the first time that I was laid off, I was completely devastated and upset with myself. I started thinking that everything I did was for naught. Not so!

It's all about choices!

Now, stand up, dust yourself off, hold your head high, and get ready to make your next move. You have two choices:

I won't go too much into the working-for-yourself aspect since I already talked about this in a previous post (5 ways to turn your layoff into an opportunity).

If you have enough money in your account to sustain a lifestyle for a 3-6 month period of time, by all means, go for it!

If not, well...continue reading. :-)

Create your resume portfolio.

Let's focus on your resume. As I said, your resume is your greatest weapon when looking for an opportunity so you need to make your resume look outstanding.

You are now ready to start marketing yourself!

Network, Network, Network!

Let's get cracking! You have to find a job!

  1. Prepare your Job Search Journal/Log

    Open Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer and save a blank document as Job Search Journal - 2009. Your Job Search Journal should look like this.

    3/16/2009
    -------------
    8:00p - Contacted Mrs. Doe from recruiting company @ 999-999-9999 regarding position at Marketing, Inc.

    9:30p - Received call from Jeff about an interview for Friday
        .
        .

    3/17/2009
    -------------
    * Found a new job posting on Indeed.com for a CIO position.
      .
      .

    I know this sounds like a pain in the @$$, but trust me, your contact list is very valuable.

  2. Make yourself visible to recruiters

    One thing that recruiters look for are people who show some initiative and are in constant contact with them. As my father used to say, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease."

    My job search site of choice is LinkedIn.com. Over the years, I have accumulated a large number of recruiters in my address book so this was a great place to start.

    LinkedIn.com makes this a VERY simple process. Since you can tag all of your contacts with a particular keyword, I've tagged certain contacts with the "recruiter" keyword and sent an email to all of them with the click of a button.

    After sending out an email to these recruiters, 80% of the recruiters wrote back within 30 minutes telling me about opportunities and wanted to schedule an interview to get a better "feel" for my skills. This entry would be added to my Job Search Journal as:

    • Sent emails out to my list of recruiters from LinkedIn.com
      • Joe at blah blah
      • Phil at blah, blah
  3. No vacation time on this job.

    Just because it's called "Job Search" doesn't mean you stop now and wait for people to call you. It should be called the Job Search "Job."

    Understand that this is a JOB in itself. You wake up in the morning, you sit at your computer, (or go out) and you start networking through email, phone, and setting up interviews.

  4. Don't forget the Job Classifieds section

    Your job search should also include newspaper classifieds. Even though we live in a digital world, that doesn't mean that we need to disconnect ourselves from people.

    At one point on a Sunday, I gathered all of the possible jobs that fit my skills from the Sunday paper. I looked through my contacts and tried to find any name that was inside that company (here is where LinkedIn.com comes in handy) and wrote a personalized cover letter to that particular person and included it with the resume portfolio. I woke up the next morning and went out with a stack of "resume portfolios" and MapQuest maps. I went the quickest route to hit all of the companies on my list, walked into the company, and handed my resume to the person responsible for hiring individuals.

    Yeah, I hear you, "Oh, that is soooooo old school."

    I say, "The street ain't that harsh."

    The funny thing about doing this, half of the people I met that day remembered me and kept me in mind for future positions or opportunities. They noticed I got off my @$$ and wanted to make an effort of helping them to fill positions instead of projecting an image that I was at home waiting for people to come to me.

    And of course, each company I stopped at would be entered into your Job Search Journal/Log.

The Digital Job Search

Of course, we couldn't have a complete job search without Internet activities. Here are some possibilities for a thorough job search on the Internet:

LinkedIn.com "Plug"

I'm sorry, but I have to mention this. One other quick note about LinkedIn.com, they have a utility offered on their site called the Jobs insider.

This extension is absolutely amazing. It's offered as either an Internet Explorer or Firefox extension. It's free, so download and install it.

Let me give you an example of how it works.

I was on a job site looking through a list of jobs and found one that was really interesting. I clicked on it for additional details.

Immediately, the LinkedIn.com Jobs insider Sidebar appeared and notified me that the company on the job detail page that I was looking at had 6 contacts connected to that job and they could help me get that particular position. I clicked on the number 6 and it immediately took me to LinkedIn.com's web site with people I could contact to help me with this position. Amazing!

Job Search Schedule


Now that you have a general understanding of how a REAL job search works, here is an overview of my schedule that I wrote while looking back over my Job Search Journal:

Conclusion

I've covered everything in this guide from initially knowing about losing your job to making an actual job out of it. In this economy, you need to have a creative side of finding work, whether it's freelance or full-time.

Two other pieces of advice I have to offer. One is a product. A book actually. A book called What Color is Your Parachute? (affiliate link) This book is definitely the handbook for determining what you want to do with your life, whether it's working for someone or working for yourself (an entire chapter is dedicated to that). By all means, pick up a copy to expand your job search abilities.

The other piece of advice I have is don't be hard on yourself and don't wallow in self-pity. You literally have a job to do. Start networking and prepare yourself for a career, regardless of what you decide. You control your life. No one else does.

I hope this guide gave you an idea of how much work goes into a job search. This guide was primarily for people who are out of a job for the first time and need some guidance and help. I hope I've provided that assistance.

If anyone has other suggestions for other job seekers out there, please post them in the comments below.