How to navigate the job market with a trusted partner

By September 30, 2021Blog

Recently I was catching up with a friend who is a senior executive at a major media company. He is looking to make a change but has found the “career discovery” (job search) process challenging. This is an extremely accomplished leader, with specific experience and skills that are in high demand in the marketplace. How could a talent like this be struggling?

  • Limited time. He’s busy and in demand in his current job and finding the time to put to an active search has proven challenging.
  • Uncertainty around which method is the best. Where should he devote his efforts? Networking? Tweaking his resume to give it a better chance of threading the AI screening needle? Personal outreach on LinkedIn to hiring managers? Surely it’s a mix of these, but what’s the right balance?

Questions around time, focus, and approach when looking for a new opportunity are not new, of course. But aren’t we in a “hot job market”? Isn’t the tech helping, with the new tools and technologies making life easier for job seekers? The answer to all of these is an unsatisfying “it depends.”

AI tools, for example, can help employers better screen and identify the right candidates. Tailoring a resume to match the AI can work, but that can be a challenging effort that does not always produce results. The ease of applying has increased the volume of applicants per job posting, and good people can fall through the cracks. It’s also true that jobs that are listed may not be still open or may be posted for compliance reasons even where the likely candidate pool is already known (internal, informally referred, or passively recruited).  So applying to postings can remain much the “black hole” it has often always been.

So what to do? The best approach is to take the mindset that a job search is a sales process:

  • Allocate dedicated time to your search
  • Clearly defining your ideal “customer” (role, industries, companies)
  • Investing in tools to set yourself up for success (LinkedIn Premium or even Sales Navigator, for example)
  • Getting professional advice in areas you aren’t comfortable in or can save time on. Doing one’s own LinkedIn profile or resume can seem straightforward, but an experienced advisor can set you up for success and speed things up considerably.
  • Researching and prospecting to develop a target list
  • Identifying key decision makers (hiring managers) and influencers (executives in industry or at target companies, recruiters, etc.)
  • Developing an outreach methodology (LinkedIn, phone, email, text, informationals, applications)
  • Creating and committing to a job search plan with milestones, activity metrics, and outcome benchmarks to which you can hold yourself accountable.

Bottom line, especially for busy executives: elevate out of the natural day to day routine. Eliminate the drift of on-off half measures and random sporadic action that does not produce results and leaves you discouraged and overwhelmed.

That is, create a plan and commit to it.

Having a trusted partner is a great way to get started. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to the team at TechTalent Squared. We are ready to help you on your journey!