Energize Your Job Search

The 6 step method contained below is logical fast track method to upgrading your career and is easy to sell to potential employers. With good people in short supply, companies are starting to focus more on skill sets and characteristics that easily transfer to their open jobs. It’s also a great way to change the direction of your career while utilizing your strongest assets.

Here are six pointers to get started:

1. Identify your skills. Ask yourself what skills companies find valuable, then list them in order of strength. Search openings by those skills. Focus only on jobs requiring some mixture of your strongest skills.
2. Create customized responses for each posting by expanding details on skills you have developed in past jobs that match their job requirements. Yes, this means every application you complete or every resume you send-out will be different from the last one to address your skill transfer to their opening.
3. Don’t Apply for Every Job. Instead, concentrate maximum effort on the best matches for you by skills listed.
4. Prepare for your interview before you get called. Though obvious, most people place little importance on it. In fact, research the company before you apply because your first call you receive will be a short phone interview. You will not have any advance notice and you must sound intelligent.
5. Preplan follow-ups, phone calls, and paperwork. Do your homework and sound informed by having something meaningful to say.

No matter what your background, during your job search it is in your best interest to stop focusing on job titles and start concentrating on your skills. Companies make this easier on you by listing in their postings the jobs skills they view most valuable. Start new job searches by looking for positions utilizing different variations of your strongest skills. This search will likely produce job opportunities that are skills compatible with titles you may not have considered in the past. “Prepare” to enjoy better results!