How To Develop A Winning Job Search Strategy

Your job remit: What types of tasks would you perform in your ideal role? For instance, you might like creative tasks, but find the more operational ones less gratifying. Perhaps you would like to be given more responsibilities out of your comfort zone or, on the flipside, scale back and take on less.

 

Your work/life balance: Next consider your priorities in terms of work/life balance. Do you want a more demanding role, or something which allows you to focus on other priorities outside of work? Would your ideal organisation require you to be in the office at 8am sharp every day, or would it offer more flexible working hours? Perhaps it would even allow you to work from home.

 

The perfect company culture: What type of company culture suits your personality type? Are you outgoing and sociable and want a working environment where social events are common? Or do you want to log off Friday evening and forget about work until Monday morning?

 

Your preferred industry: Which industries interest you, and what topics are you passionate about, both inside and outside of work? For instance, I have always cared about the world of work, and felt passionate about the importance of having a job that you enjoy, hence why I ended up in the recruitment industry.

 

Practical considerations: Factor in what you need in terms of salary, rewards, location and commute.

 

Your career plan: What about your wider career goals? How would your ideal role and organisation help you achieve these? For instance, if you would eventually like to move into a senior people management role but need to work on your leadership skills, look for a role that provides you with basic leadership responsibilities outside your comfort zone, where there is room for progression and where a mentor could support your development? Whether you are looking to ramp up your career and continue climbing the same ladder, or looking to scale back and take on less, it is important that your next opportunity is aligned to your ambitions. Listen to our podcast on building a career plan here.

The support of a recruiter: An expert recruiter will help find the right roles for you, and put you forward for them. This can save a lot of time and they can introduce you to roles that may not reach the open market. Save your recruiter’s details on your phone and keep it close by. Hays’ Adam Shipley has written about building a relationship with your recruiter here.

 

Keeping on top of opportunities: Now that you know which type of organisations you are most interested in, follow them on social media and review their career sites. Keep an eye out for updates surrounding current vacancies, and set up job alerts on recruitment websites such as Hays so you can be quick off the mark when the right role does come up.

Save your CV across all of your electronic devices (except work ones): In doing this, you will be ready to apply as and when jobs crop up, wherever you are, whichever device you are using.

 

Be organised: Take note of all jobs applied for, what stage you’re at which each one and the name of relevant contacts. Add any meetings or interviews to your calendar and take notes. Refer to these before you make any follow up calls or emails. This can be very useful if you have multiple opportunities in the pipeline and you need to keep track of who you’re speaking to, about what and when.

 

Don’t lose hope: It is important that you keep your spirits high during your job search, even if you don’t get an interview for a role that you really wanted. Not every application leads to job search success, but don’t give up. It can help to talk about your next move and your search progress with mentors, friends and family. You should also take regular breaks and reward yourself for a productive job searching session. The key is to stay motivated – read more on achieving this here.