If you’ve been following the 90-day job search challenge, you know this last week of spring is also the last week of the job search process I started outlining in late March. Of course, if you’re not quite employed yet, then the job search isn’t quite finished. But you’re close, right?
In this column, I’ll provide the last bits of information to complete the process, but first, here again are the basic rules: 1) Don’t think too much or you’ll delay action; 2) create a schedule emphasizing daily productivity; and 3) search five days a week.
The actual steps of the search are equally straightforward: Choose a job goal and build an action plan complete with daily quotas for calls and contacts to managers, regardless of whether they are advertising an opening.
Underpinning this hurry-up search is the belief that underemployment is better than unemployment, which means that the process is focused on finding a good-enough job, rather than an ideal position.
Here are the steps that can help you pour on steam.
1. Review your time logs to help answer this question: Have I put forward significant effort (at least two or three hours) each day? And, if not, why not?
2. Likewise, review your outreach to confirm you have been calling, writing or stopping in to meet with multiple employers each day (at least one, although five would be better).
3. Assuming you will correct any deficits in your search patterns, or that there are no deficits, the next step is to see where your contacts have stalled.
4. Triage the list of employers you’ve contacted. To the top of the list place those you most want to work for, as well as those who seemed most promising in your conversations. Next come those who seemed neutral or open, but didn’t have a spot open when you contacted them.
5. Reconnect, especially if some of them have received no second contact from you. For the sake of speed, make this a phone process.
6. Pay special attention to those who seemed receptive earlier. Ask what it would take to bring you on board, and offer to work on a contract basis or even part time if that would make the difference.
7. Broaden your list of potential employers. At this stage of a hurry-up search, the goal is to make as many contacts with department heads and decision-makers as you possibly can, mostly by phone or in person. Again, your goal is to be employed, even if the job is not ideal.
Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com or at 626 Armstrong Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102.
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