Guaranteed Job Search Success

HIDDEN JOB MARKET SECRETS
Six Newer P’s that Maximize Job Search Success
By Debra Feldman, the JobWhiz™ 2009
Your Executive Ascent – Personally Delivered. Swift, Discreet, Guaranteed.

Job hunting has striking similarities to a marketing project. The operative “P” words for a successful campaign are positioning, process, and persistence followed closely by performance, personality, and pricing. The product is the candidate. In order for a candidate to have the opportunity to sell their value to the targeted buyer/employer, the strategy driving the search has to be effective which means choosing the correct focus and developing the right approach. Your job search project may be one of the most demanding, and rewarding, campaigns you will ever manage. Let’s look at ways you can improve odds in your favor through savvy job hunting and best practices job search implementation skills.

1. Positioning: The first step to launching a successful campaign and propelling it forward is to identify what makes you a unique candidate. With such stiff competition, it is imperative that candidates distinguish themselves. This means creating a message or an identity that is remarkable and memorable, one that will separate you from the pack of resumes hitting recruiters’ desks. It is sometimes difficult to develop this for yourself especially if your career has depended on doing this for others. You may want to seek advice and counsel to establish your value objectively. What is it that you do better than others? What is it about you that enables you to succeed where others don’t? Is there something in your background that others easily remember? This bit of specialized, personal data is your tagline. If you get the positioning targeted correctly, your campaign will be focused on the right employer market with a message that the buyer will value generating more employer interest. Once you have captured an employer’s attention, then you have created a chance to demonstrate your abilities that eventually may produce a job offer, the goal of your job search campaign project.
   
2. Process: The swiftest route to a new opportunity is to identify your target employers and then address their needs in terms of how you can meet them better than anyone else. Don’t wait around for a company to advertise for a job that is perfect for you. Rather, go out there and seek out a company where you are confident you can make a positive impact, especially one measurable in dollars saved or made. Double back to ensure that your positioning vis a vis your target employers is consistent with your most outstanding ability or characteristic that an employer will instantly value. In other words, the better the match, the greater the likelihood for capturing the employer’s interest immediately to actually satisfy their needs and exceed their expectations. If you understand the dynamic between meeting employers’ needs first and then promoting your skills against these requirements, your chances of making a connection are much greater than if you concentrate only on your achievements and accomplishments without customizing them for an individual company in a way that unmistakably proves your value.Cite ways you can save money, save time, retain customers, reduce costs, increase sales or profits, etc.- this will offset their expenses of adding you to headcount.