Job Search Tips

I’ve been talking about networking with respect to a job search. The best advice I can give is to just get out there and do it. Find an active local organization to join and get involved with. Become the kind of member who gets stuff done and is always looking for ways to help others. In addition to being an indirect source of job leads, this is also a great way to improve your resume.

Join some social networking sites (I recommend linkedin.com) and start participating. Find former classmates and coworkers and reconnect with them. If your choose linkedin I recommend that you participate in their answer’s module. You can build significant credibility by getting into the habit participating in the community.

This all comes down to developing the habit of networking. Spend one hour a day for 30 days on networking activities,  and I promise the second 30 days will be much easier to network.

If you are in the middle of a job search, you should consider utilizing social networking sites. The problem is that there are thousands of social networking sites so how should you proceed?

One thing I see people do and I don’t recommend is to create hundreds of accounts on every site you can get your little cyber fingers on. This is kind of like blasting your resume to thousands of employers on an online job board. Shotgun approaches like this tend to not work. I suggest you pick one (maybe two) social networking sites and focus your time and energy there.

I know of no better site, from a job search perspective, then linkedin.com. This site has a focus on professional networking, to that end it excels. Linkedin combines the elements of a job board with the tools of  a social networking site.

Getting started is simple. Point your web browser over to www.linkedin.com and create an account. Creating a linkedin account is almost the same as creating a resume. You will list your work and education history. Put as much information as possible as you will be using your work and education to find past classmates and coworkers.

The next step is to find people to link with. Linkedin will help you out by suggesting people based on your profile. For example if you worked at Company X five years ago, linkedin will suggest people who worked at the same company. Once you find people who you know simply send them an invitation t link with you.

Once they accept you can communicate with them and catch up. This is a great way to reconnect with people from your past and is one of the primary reasons I love linked in so much. You are able to reconnect with people from your past and build a network in almost no time.

Linked also offers some other features which you can discover yourself. I’ll write about them in future posts, but for know go out and start learning how to use linkedin. It’s a great tool for finding career leads.

Let’s talk about face to face networking and how it can be the best tool to end job search frustration.  Face to face networking iss, in my opinion, the most important type of networking for the simple reason that when someone meets you in person you are perceived as real. The odds of making a lasting connection with someone go up drastically when you meet in person.

If you are looking for a job and find yourself sitting at your computer for hours looking through Monster.com job ads, you must listen to what I’m saying. Get out the local paper and identify five to ten organizations that might be a fit for your life situation. Make a list of the organization’s name along with the location and date of their next meeting.

Besides the local paper, another good source of networking organizations is your friends. If you know anyone that is active in the community, ask them if they could recommend any organizations that would be a fit for you.

By the way if you are looking for a job then the best type of organization to join is a professional association related to your career. Don’t worry if there aren’t any, just find one or two organizations that have regular (at least monthly) meetings.

Put the meetings dates in your calendar (you do have a calendar don’t you) and start attending meetings. Here is what you are looking for. Does this organization appeal to you? Is the organization active? Are their enough active members? Are the club’s demographics a match? Can you attend the clubs meetings on a regular basis?

While you are at the meeting, attempt to meet as many people as possible. Keep in mind that you should listen to what others have to say and try to find ways that you can help them. If you can somehow hook them up with a customer you have just established a very strong connection. The idea is to always think about how you can give. When you do this they will feel indebted to you and want to do anything to help you out.

Pick one or two organizations and become an active member. Really invest your time. Attend the meetings and participates in their events. Most importantly find out what their signature event is and join the planning committee.

Attend the next planning committee meeting and identify a job or task that you could take on. Then volunteer for that task and do it. Put everything you have into this task and see it through to completion.

You will quickly gain a reputation as someone who gets things done. This will lead to countless opportunities to participate in events and to meet people.

If you follow these steps you will not be looking for work, people will be looking for you with job opportunities.

Imagine that you had a magic networking wand (I know the magic cash wand is better but humor me). With one wave of this wand you could become a master at networking. What would this mean to your life? How would your life be different?

If you were bored you could wave your wand and your phone would instantly ring with offers to attend countless events from parties to golf tournaments and everything in between.

If you needed a date you could wave your wand and your phone would ring offers to play matchmaker on your behalf.  If you had an interest in a particular you could ask your network for an introduction and someone would be able to give it to you.

If you were losing your job could use your wand to get nearly unlimited job offers. Your phone would ring off of the hook with friends and acquaintances recommending you’re for internal positions that would never appear on monster.com or hotjobs.com.

While you don’t have a magic wand you do have the ability to work on improving your networking skills. Networking is a skill like learning to drive a car, and can be learned and mastered with practice and persistence.

Do you know what the most import job search skill is? Here’s a hint its not resume writing or interviewing. By far the most important way to find your dream job is good old fashioned networking.

I’m not talking about strangers in chat room or the thousands of friends you have on Facebook that don’t know who you are. I’m talking about networking face to face with real human beings that you’ve met and who know and like you. I’m talking about people who when called for a reference could say something positive about you.

People hire people. They don’t hire resumes and they don’t hire interview performers. When job positions open companies reach out to employees for any candidates that they can recommend. I’ve seen this pattern over and over Its rare that you will find a quality job on monstor.com or hotjobs.com. You’re best source of a good job is your personal network.

Come back this week as I’ll be covering networking in greater detail.

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