Be a Shark in a Sea of Applicants

Job Search 2.0: Be a Shark in a Sea of Applicants By Dawn Rasmussen, CMP

In a sea of applicants, if you aren’t a shark, you’re chum. The job search and unemployment can be two of the most discouraging and ego-smashing experiences that a person endures. Rejection is common, and you end up depressed and unsatisfied. If you’ve worked most of your adult life in a full-time position, you’re used to the structure and routine of each day. Being out of work, you find yourself in a drifting miasma of what-do-I-do-today’s. Someone once told me: Looking for a job is a full-time job. Adopt that mentality. To create a sense of direction, develop a specific job search plan. Here are some suggestions on how to chart your course, add structure to your day and create definable goals to give you that sense of order you miss.
1. Appoint a job search buddy. This person will be someone you report to on a weekly basis. It’s going to be a lot more compelling for you to get off the sofa when you know you need to call this person on Friday and report back on your weekly activities. This person will hold you accountable and be your cheerleader at the same time.
2. Read a set number of industry articles every week. When you are unemployed, it is easy to feel that you are getting left behind on industry trends and issues. It makes sense to keep yourself informed and abreast of current events—not just so you can interject a useful bit of information in an interview, but also so you can have something to talk about when networking. It’s amazing when you have a clear command of what’s going on in the world how easy it is to find opportunities to talk about what you’ve read or learned.
3. Attend a set number of networking events every week. Shy? Get over it. The ocean is full of sharks, and you need to be one of them. That means getting out of the house, and getting out to networking events. Take a completely different approach. My friend Cleon Cox, founder of the Portland Job Finders Support Group, has this mantra: Meet people, learn something and have fun. If you go into a networking or business meeting with that attitude, the pressure is off and you are just there to find out about the world. Think of yourself as an explorer…you never know what you might uncover!
4. Keep up your education monthly. You fear you have fallen off the merry-go-round and have lost ground to competitors. Continuing education can be a great path to a new career, enhanced professional credentials or honed skills.
5. Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. Volunteering can provide exceptional opportunities to network, learn new skills, become a known quantity within an organization and even find out about industry or company job openings before they are posted. Plus, you’ll feel good while doing it!
6. Hang on to your association memberships. If you have a target industry, chances are that there is a related trade association (or two or three) that you can join. The benefit of these organizations is that they add to your professional credentials. Put your memberships on your resumé and take advantage of industry events to volunteer, attend educational sessions, gain industry certifications or network to meet other people.
7. Conduct a set number of informational interviews every week. Part of the getting-out-of-the-house aspect of this job search plan is to meet people—one-on-one in informational interviews. Many people mistakenly believe and take the approach that informational interviews are all about finding jobs. Wrong! Informational interviews are precisely about finding information. Tap into your network, and see if your friends and colleagues can connect you to people they know.
8. Talk to your friends daily. Who do friends know? People. Employed people. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your entire network. Circle back to people you haven’t spoken to in a while—maybe that close friend who dropped off a few years ago. The key is to tap into your social circle and refresh your connections. You never know what might happen.
9. Follow up on all sent applications. One of the biggest failures of job seekers is that they are constantly looking for the next job opening and they don’t follow up on the positions for which they’ve already applied.
10. Focus your resumé(s) on key themes. You probably have several themes that could develop into different resumés based on your background. During this downtime, explore how you might have different incarnations of your resumé, and take the time to develop these fully. You might be pleasantly surprised at how you can reinvent yourself and create new flexibility in your employment search. This seems like a whole lot of homework, but the goal is to provide structure, stability and goals in a time where there is a lot of chaos, unclear objectives and confusion. By structuring yourself and your time while unemployed, you will achieve the sense of purpose you need and a boost to being productive.

DAWN RASMUSSEN, CMP, is the president of Portland, Ore.-based Pathfinder Writing and Careers, which specializes in hospitality/meeting professional resumés. She has been a meeting planner for more than 15 years and an MPI member since 2001. Tags:dawn rasmussen job advice job searching resumes