6 steps to build an effective job-search

The objective of this tutorial is to identify the areas that you need to work on to develop your job-search strategy-national or international market-. Some common aspects are shared, so the post can become a useful guide for both.

Each step belongs to a stage of the journey; you will be able to find detailed posts produced by career professionals.

Choose your option here: A or B– where do you see yourself?

You can be more aware of the work you need to do or not but whatever your current situation or stage of process I hope you can find some guidance and tips.

A. Are you taking some time to do a professional career analysis?

1. Listing achievements, competencies gained and an exercise of identifying values and priorities.

2. Some time to reflect transferable skills– if you want to switch to another professional role or business sector-.

B. Are you only updating your CV and starting job- searching online for job positions?

The 1st stage mentioned on option B is key to make the most of your marketing tools: your CV/Resume and your professional profile on social media.

1. Professional Career Analysis

If you feel you need to take some time aside for this area, there are tests and exercises that can help you out. You will find some resources and ideas in the following links. All the information you can gather about yourself will help you to produce your CV and your professional profile-to have a clear view of what you want and where you are heading-. As you might already know career professionals and coaches can help you to speed up the process.

The 11 Best Career Quizzes to Help You Find Your Dream Job

https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-11-best-career-quizzes-to-help-you-find-your-dream-job

3 things you need to know about personality type and your career

http://mashable.com/2015/08/02/personality-type-your-career/#DAiy0FARUPkU

Career Orientation Inventory

http://www.acdp.pt/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Career_Orientations_Inventory.pdf

2.What type of CV/Resume is the best for me?

As you already know there are thousands of templates and plenty of internet advice to produce a CV. However it´s not easy to reflect your professional career path selecting the right information and using the right key words for your sector and job position. If you are actually job-searching abroad then you need to invest more time in adapting your CV/Resume to the country in a professional manner.

These 3 posts can give you a hand to your CV writing process. You will also find some online templates.

Why is important to personalize your CV?

https://www.international-careers.com/en/important-write-personalized-cv/

What achievements should you list on your resume?

http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/achievements-list-resume/

5 key to today´s resumes

http://www.careerealism.com/todays-resumes-redefined/

Online resume templates

http://www.doyoubuzz.com/uk/

3. Your professional profile on Linkedin is key. Assuming you are already there you might find yourself in:

You have added your job position and company name– minimal information that needs further development-.
You have completed everything; adding courses, job roles, education- might be there is too much quantitative data and you need to do some re-work – adding the right key words and reducing your profile extension.

As well as you have done with your CV/Resume you need some time to reflect– to identify your target role and market and the country you are aiming for-. If you have done your work to create your CV, it will help you to build your LinkedIn profile. However my recommendation is to participate on courses online or offline to learn about its use, this is a long term investment that will pay off. The fact that you know how to use LinkedIn for your job-search will mean that you will be reaching to your target market easily. You can learn by yourself while you work on it but if you can get some tricks and essential guidance from LinkedIn professionals you can get ahead faster. LinkedIn features are constanly changing and it´s challenging to keep up-to-date.

Here you have 3 useful links that will provide you with some practical advice.

4. What is your social media estrategy ? Are you positioning yourself with a professional brand image?

It might be that you are clear in your online strategy, who to invite and how to do it. However so many times I recive LinkedIn invitations lacking personalization and people asking for help without knowing them, no formal introduction or minimal content profile or a poor professional photograph-. The following links can help you to know how to and why your behaviour in social media is key to achieve good results.

5. The job-search path

You have reached this point where you know you have a great CV and a professional profile adapted to your objectives and you also know who to contact and how to do it. However the path of your job-search is a long running exercise. Every day you need to motivate yourself and you need to face rejections and challenges – how are you working on your follow up strategy and how are you tracking your efforts-. There are some tools that you need to know how to manage: cold calling, networking and following-up.

7 tips about cold calling

http://www.social-hire.com/blog/candidate/4000/how-to-network-for-a-job-7-tips-about-cold-calling

Networking: it´s not about instant wins

https://www.international-careers.com/en/networking-its-not-about-instant-wins/

How to follow up during the selection process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6RhRz-GOBE&linkId=17082763

6. Interviewing Stage

You are getting job interviews, skype or face to face. How are you preparing ? What type of questions do they ask?What type of interviewing process is common in that country? For example in the UK is common to use competency-frameworks and strenghts based interviews while in Spain you can find non-structured and chronological interviews, depending on the company and the professionality of the hiring manager/human resources professional.

If you feel that you need further guidance don´t hesitate to search for professional advice in your job market or the destination market where you are heading. Feel free to contact me by email marta@martapuigsamper.com