How To Have The Right Job Find You

Make no mistake. Being found by the right job is not a passive job search tactic. Eliminate from your mind the vision of a job seeker sipping margaritas on the deck waiting for recruiters to call. There is a lot of work and thought that the job seeker must do to ensure she/he is a part of communities where hiring managers source for viable candidates.

There is much written about how to find the right job. One of the most overlooked items in a strategic job search plan is how to ensure the job seeker is searchable—or how to have the right job find you. With the prolific rise of the internet to source candidates by corporate and search firm recruiters, it is paramount that job seekers take steps to ensure they can be located and sourced for the positions they seek.

Posting an ad to recruit for an open position is one of the last tactics a recruiter wants to utilize. Too many resumes of ill- qualified candidates to sort through and many other time management inefficiencies arise. This is why it is often not most effective for job seekers. Recruiters source and recruit. Candidates that are present and active in those pools get attention. Be that candidate.

Here are things you can do to be found by the right job:
• LINKEDIN TITLE: Ensure your Linkedin Profile Title states your situation and what you are looking for in your next role. It helps your network help you. For example, do not have your title be simply “SVP – Strategic Marketing.” Instead, have it read, “Versatile Marketing Professional seeking new, strategic marketing opportunity in consumer products.”

• SOCIAL MEDIA STATUS UPDATES: Regularly update your social media status offering pertinent industry information, attendance to virtual and live tradeshows, participation in industry learning events, volunteer activities, or athletic / hobby achievements. Stay present in the information stream. This is important for two reasons:
o You stay in the mind of your connections/audience. Out of sight is out of mind. In order to be thought of for particular roles, you need to be top of mind. To stay to of mind, you need to be branded effectively to your audience.
o You are demonstrating you are a life long learner and active-in-the-world type of person. This is highly desirable to prospective employers.

• BE SEARCH TERM RICH: Hiring managers use search terms to locate candidates for the positions they are looking to fill. Ensure your online resume, social media profiles, status updates, user group discussions, blogs, etc all have relevant key words peppered throughout the text. The more search terms you have that are well placed, you increase your chances of being discovered in a recruiters search.

• YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY FRIENDS: Ensure you qualitatively maximize your connections, friends and tweeps. This is not to have impressive numbers, but to expand your reach within each of their networks. Specifically on LinkedIn, the larger your connection base, the exponentially larger your third degree reach is to search for prospective hiring managers within your target company list.

• JOIN RELEVANT SOCIAL MEDIA GROUPS: If you have exhausted your connections for the moment, you can increase your reach through joining relevant social media groups. You can join groups in your discipline, previous industries, industries you have interest in pursuing, geographical relevance, etc. This optimizes your search results by expanding the pool in which to search.

• JOIN LIKE-MINDED USER/INDUSTRY GROUPS: This can be done both virtually and physically. Financial recruiters often recruit executives through groups like Financial Executives International or Financial Executive Networking Groups. IT recruiters source candidates in online user groups on gaming, specific programming languages, products, shareware, etc. Become an active participant in the in-person events and virtual discussions and see how you get noticed for your knowledge and generosity. Follow up with new and previously-known contacts after the group’s get-togethers. Contribute to online publications and newsletters. Stay visible so you can remain top of mind.

• ANSWER QUESTIONS & INQUIRIES: Offer insight to specific questions posed by individuals inside and outside your network. Often it can be awkward for some to just introduce yourself to someone. But if a person you would like to engage poses a question in an online forum, feel free to offer your expertise or insight to break the ice. And you never know what recruiter is reading your answer and seeing what you may have to offer.

• GIVE TO GET: This is a universal networking mantra. All the previous tips have this underlying philosophy as its basis. When applied to job seeking, give job leads to fellow job seekers that are not fully suited for you. Offer candidate referrals to corporate and search recruiters. Post resources that can be helpful to those in your industry/discipline. You can be helping people within your network. Then, in turn, when positions applicable to you arise, your network will keep you in mind. Metaphysically speaking, if you are giving to the world, somehow the world gives back. So it may not comeback to you reciprocally from sources to which you gave, but it will come back.

 
Written by Lisa Rangel, Executive Resume Writer

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