Do you plan out your Job Seeking efforts like a project? Chances are, you don't. Here is why it's important.

One thing I have learned in my life is that before you can be ready for anything, you must be ready for everything. Applying this philosophy to obtaining employment is critical. There will be many bumps in the road and you must acknowledge and document them to prevent making the same mistakes in the future. You must plan your strategy to attack the entire lifecycle of the job seeking process.

The job seeking process is, by all of its attributes a project and therefore must be treated as such. Look, in marketing your talent, you are more-less creating a professional campaign of yourself. Your campaign, whether you realize it or not has tasks to preform, subtasks that must be performed to complete those tasks and it also has milestones that are reached when tasks are complete. Your campaign has a start and end date. Your professional job seeking campaign IS A PROJECT and it must be treated as such to optimally win employment.

I find that Microsoft Project does a fine job as a tool to create and track project status, but then again I’ve been a project administrator for some of my professional life. If you happen to not have experience creating project plans and have absolutely no idea what Microsoft Project is, not to worry, Excel will do just fine. If you happen to not have knowledge of Excel, a pencil and paper will work just fine as well.

Here is a quick overview of the phase elements involved in planning your job seeking efforts:

 Finalize Resume

Finalizing your resume is really the first technical step of the job seeking process. And the most important! My teachings dictate that the results of your job search are only going to be as good as your resume. EVERYTHING matters. From the format itself, to the font size and style to the grammar you use. EVERYTHING matters. Crafting the “GREAT RESUME” makes the difference between being called for an interview or not. You could possess the best talent in the world, but in this very competitive employment market, if you can’t reflect your talent on paper, you’ve lost before you even got started.

Identify Key Campaign Outlets

Once you have crafted, THE GREAT RESUME, it is now time to market that resume. In essence, you are creating an online marketing campaign for employment and the online outlets provide you the free advertising space for your advertisement. In this day and age, there are several resume job boards to choose from. And it is up to you to decide which job board will be most effective. I HIGHLY recommend not concentrating on boutique niche job board sites. For example, if you are a nurse, I would recommend not concentrating on creating an outlet at bestnursejobs4you.com. Yes, I made that address up, and as of now, the URL is available. The reason being is that these boutique sites are often low traffic and low exposure. You want high traffic and high exposure. As of now, I recommend LinkedIn, careerbuilder.com, monster.com, indeed.com and dice.com. The vast majority of employers and recruiters post their open jobs to these five sources and search for qualified candidates accordingly. Sometimes, it is best to follow the crowd. 

Create the Campaign

Now that you’ve identified where you want to advertise your job seeker campaigns, you now have to create them. The job boards are typically self-explanatory and standard in terms of setting up accounts. You always have the opportunity to upload your resume to which, your resume must be consistent across the line. Employers and Talent Acquisitionists cross recruit against leading job boards to locate as much talent available as possible for their open job requirement. The last thing you want is to have inconsistent job titles, dates of employments etc. on various resumes. So, make sure your base resume is consistent across all lines.  

Start online Job Search

Starting your online job search can be a challenging yet fun experience if you’re in the zone to win employment. Across the spectrum of the online job boards we spoke about, there should be many new job opportunities to choose from. Each within their new beginnings in industries that you may or may not have experience working within. Jobseekers who utilize Online Job Boards typically search the Job Board’s database via key words that are related to their professional title and skillset. When conducting your online job search, it is important to think of all key words associated with your professional title and skillset. Including your title. So, for example, if your professional talent is Web Development, think of the various titles for a Web Developer.. I.e. Web Architect, Web Designer, Front End Developer, Back End Developer. Also search for your key niche competencies. I.e. CSS, LAMP, STACKS, JAVA, HTML, etc.     

Resume Submission Tracking

It goes without saying that when you see a position you qualify for, you submit an electronic copy of your resume to that position. It is vital that you track your resume submissions for the reasons of avoiding an accidental dual submission, which makes you appear incompetent as well as to ensure that you do not overlook the submission within the followup phase of your tracking efforts.

When tracking your resume submission in your jobseeker’s project plan, make sure to indicate the date you sent in your resume, the title of the position along with any personal notes that you wish to make about this position. You will also want to notate any contact information if presented in the open job’s advertisement.

Resume Submission Follow up

One of the biggest mistakes I see jobseekers make within the job seeking process is that they don’t follow up with their resume submissions. They mindlessly see a position online, attached their resume and click submit and move on. And then they wonder why their resume submission to call back ratio is low. Look, you have to realize that hiring managers, members of human resource and assistance are very busy people and have a lot of priorities that shift daily. These guys are very fast pace and it is easy for your resume to be overlooked, misplaced or even accidently thrown away! Anything can happen. This is why I teach so strongly to follow up with your resume submission.

I know what you’re thinking. Easier said than done. But, don’t let what may be your golden ticket to a paycheck go without a fight. Look at it this way, if the position you applied for had a sign on bonus of one million dollars, you would find a way to contact the holder of your resume. Even if you had to follow up in person. Which, in most cases should be your last resort.

How do you contact the holder of your resume submission? Well, there are a multitude of ways. Sometimes, you really have to dig into the trenches and provide some good investigative work. This quest requires being creative!

• Direct Contact Information on job ad
• Email Address of Human Resources or Hiring Department on job ad
• Human Resource contact on company website
• Phone Call to Human Resources
• Phone Call to Hiring Department
• Social Media (LinkedIn)
• In Person Visit

Remember, if you want the job you have to be extraordinary in the measures that you proactively take to secure your employment. Great things do not come to people who sit on their hands. 

Interviews

I can promise you this. If you use my methods to finding employment, you will earn interviews. The interview is your first opportunity to blow your competition out of the running. If you need consultation on how to conduct "The Great Interview" OR how to create "The Great Resume", I will gladly provide you my service for that, but know that your interviews must me tracked in your project plan. You must document:

• What company you interviewed with
• The names of the employees you interviewed with
• Topics of conversation
• Reflection Notes (What when right/wrong, highlight moments, key points and any concerns)

Post Interview Deliverables

Another big mistake that I see jobseekers make is that they literally do nothing after the interview except wait around for a phone call. I’m well within my rights to say that the majority of Jobseekers don’t understand that this phase exists. The deliverables that you produce post interview is a key factor of what is going to give you the advantage of winning employment.

Here, I can point to the example of my son, Robert and how post interview deliverables were so important to him winning employment. Robert had a HUGE disadvantage when he first interviewed for a highly competitive internship at Merrill Lynch. He was the first candidate to interview. For those who know, this is a bad position to be in. The first candidate interviewed is often the first forgotten.

After his interview with Merrill Lynch, I highly advised him to email the hiring manager of the position a thank you note. There are three reasons why this simple yet often overlooked task is critical. For one, it shows gratitude to the hiring manager for taking time out of his day to learn more about you. For two, it shows the hiring manager that you yourself have interest enough in the position to take time out of your day to compose a thoughtful email expressing gratitude. For three, arguably the most important reason for sending a thank you letter to the hiring manager is because it puts your name back in front of the hiring manager’s thoughts.

Listen, let’s face reality. For each position, a hiring manager interviews five to ten interviewees for the position over a two week, maybe one month period of time. Chances are you are not going to be the fortunate one who interviews last. You are most likely to be in front or dead in the middle of the process. This makes a lot of room for a hiring manager to forget you exist! Couple gratitude and interest with a little bit of strategy and you will greatly improve your chances of being hired!

Job Acceptance

Congratulations! You’ve followed my methods, greatly improved your odds of winning employment and today is your big day. You’re all set. Right? WRONG! Just like there was a strategic play to winning employment, there is also a strategic play to keeping employment. You have 90 days. Make each day count. I will write more about keeping employment in another article.

End

Every Project has a start and end date. And if you follow my model completely, you will complete a very successful project at the end of this. If this is your first project to where you are measuring your success and failure against time and accountability, I can promise you that you will look at the world a bit differently. You see, when you measure your life events, you become more accountable and therefore, have more successes.  

If you would like a free consultation about increasing your odds of winning employment, feel free to message me.

Kindest Regards,

D.K. Hartman - CEO - DK Lilly Human Capital - www.dklilly.com