Section 13: Searching and Applying to Jobs
With countless companies and career paths to choose from, where do you start?
Most people entering the job search find themselves in one of two buckets. They're either overly specific and find little to no opportunities, or they're too broad and become overwhelmed by the number of options.
Your mission is to land in the sweet spot between the two, following the steps below:
Pre-Search Tasks
Before starting your search, spend time devising your strategy. You might be tempted to skip this step, but don't. The work you put in here will set the stage for the coming weeks and months.
Download the worksheet to organize everything in one place.
This like a living document that evolves as you learn more about your interests, preferences, and life circumstances.
Task 1: Where to Work / Live
You wouldn't accept an in-office job in California if you planned to live in Virginia. The first task is to determine where you want to live. Do you plan to relocate? If so, when do you plan to move? What locations are you willing to move to?
Worksheet Action: In the Location box, list up to 3 locations where you would like to work / live.
Task 2: Target Companies
The next step is to narrow down the top companies you're interested in. Compare these against the locations listed in Task 1. Do your top companies have an office in those locations? If not, do they offer remote roles?
Between location preferences and top companies, you need to decide which is more important. You may be willing to consider additional locations for the right company.
Alternatively, location may be more important and you'll need to research the companies in that area. Go back and forth until you have a refined list that matches your needs.
If you're open to multiple locations, another option is to create a list with the top 5 target companies in each location.
Worksheet Action: In the Target Companies box, list up to 5 top companies you want to work for. Bookmark the careers webpage for each company. This will make it easier to navigate to during your job search.
(Optional) You can also add LinkedIn job notifications for your target companies. On LinkedIn, click "Jobs," then add the company name in the search bar. You can include a specific location or leave it blank to show all jobs nationwide. Toggle the "Set alert" slider to on.
If you go to Jobs -> Preferences -> Job alerts, you can edit the frequency and delivery method for these notifications.
Task 3: Superpowers
Now it's time to think about what you do best. What topics, skills, and tasks you really enjoy? Maybe you love solving problems, or finding trends in complex data, or outlining tasks to complete a project.
Another way to approach this is by thinking about job postings. What qualifications and responsibilities listed in a job posting would really excite you? Think about the ones that would be a perfect fit and motivate you to apply immediately.
Worksheet Action: In the Superpowers box, list your top 5 interests and skills. Examples include planning, data analysis, organization, attention to detail, computer programming, and leading a team.
Task 4: Career Paths
The final step in your pre-search planning is to gain clarity around potential career paths. Instead of focusing exclusively on a single job title, which may have limited opportunities, you're purposely keeping your options open.
Each career path starts as a general business area, such as Finance, Marketing, Human Resources, or Sales. As you research and learn more about each area, you'll often find yourself being pulled to a few particular job titles.
If Human Resources is an area of interest, specific roles that interest you might include Recruiter, HR Business Partner, and a Project Manager for HR-focused initiatives.
Worksheet Action: Research general business areas to find the ones that are most intriguing. Add your top business areas to the bottom half of the worksheet (1 per section).
Next, write down the top job titles to pursue in each business area. Use job sites like LinkedIn and Indeed to review job postings with these titles. What keywords keep showing up in the job descriptions? Do you possess the necessary qualifications? If not, which ones do you need to acquire?
You can also find common keywords using an online word cloud generator. These create a visual representation of the most common words (the more common they are, the larger they appear).
If you're targeting Recruiter roles, add the job description for 3-5 Recruiter job postings into a word document. Paste the document into the word cloud generator and analyze the results.