Redefining “Success” During Job Search

During my first job search I equated success to landing a new position. It seemed a reasonable position, in that it’s what I was trying to accomplish.


Before continuing to read, how have you defined success in your job search?

As my search carried on, I never seemed to have a sense of satisfaction. When I was working, I gained satisfaction from completed items or witnessed success. But it took a meeting with a colleague to help me realize that I did not feel the same in search simply because of my definition of success.

A friend of mine, Jim Rasmussen, who has spent his career in Sales and Sales coaching, clued me into the mindset of a Rainmaker. While ultimately judged on completing the sale, the Rainmaker knows the sales cycle can be long – so they look at the accomplishments that get them closer to a decision as victories.

This viewpoint is important to maintaining your best work as the sales process can be long, tedious, filled with stalls and capricious behavior of the corporate buyers. (Feel familiar my fellow job seekers?)

Jim’s lesson was that these little victories add up over time and celebrating these victories is important to keeping your psyche strong. Once I adopted my new definition of ‘success’, I got greater satisfaction in networking and job search.

Professional sales folks have a variety of tools to track their success, so I tried to figure out how to ‘track’ my search. I searched around for a simple solution and found the Daily Point System devised by Jeffrey Fox for his book “How to Become a Rainmaker”. I made a few adaptations for search and sent a copy to Jeffrey and asked if could share it – thankfully he agreed.

The goal of the point system is time management and to help focus your networking on those that move you closer to a decision maker. After using it for about three weeks, I found my successes were more rapid – simply because I was networking with the appropriate people. I was doing the same amount of networking; I just got more out of it.

Another practice I adopted was every Friday to write down three successes I had during the week. I kept a running list and it served a good boost to the psyche as I added to the list.

To see Jim’s profile or the “Daily Point System”, please see the links below.

Good luck today!

Mark

Jim’s profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimras/

Daily Point System: http://candidateschair.com/tools/ - See Tool #11.

www.candidateschair.com – Tools and Advice from a Candidate’s viewpoint to help get past job search roadblocks and keep your spirit strong. Please take a visit.



http://TwitJobs.net The Career Community

View from CandidatesChair.com – Useful Job Search Sites

There are loads of sites out there related to job search, here’s a few that I frequently recommend to others (in alphabetical order, not priority). I like these sites for both their intent and content.

http://www.alisondoyle.typepad.com/
• Alison has been writing about job search for a long time and offers some great insight.

http://www.back-2-work.com/
• Resources provided by people just trying to help people in transition

http://www.businesscard2.com/
• Creates a virtual business card that can sit ‘above’ all of your social networks – allows you to attach
documents (resumes, references, proof of work, etc.).

http://www.careerrocketeer.com/
• This blog has great content - but also some excellent lists on who to follow on Twitter, etc.

http://www.careersuccessradio.com/
• More proof that networking is an international exercise - AnneMarie Cross and Keith Keller are career coaches from Australia. They have an amazing set of interviews on the site.

http://www.jobangels.org/
• This is a grass-roots organization where volunteer ‘angels’ try to help someone in transition

http://www.jobtalkamerica.com/
• Sure it says ‘America’ – but it offers great content for job search that will work anywhere!

http://www.job-hunt.org/
• 15,000 links to job search related sites. When it comes to finding items related to job search – you’ve now found it.

http://www.ilostmyjob.com/
• Besides a very ‘on point’ website name – this is loaded with videos – so gives you a break from reading, but no loss in the value of the content!

http://www.linkup.com/
• I did not think there was a new twist to job boards – I stand corrected. Linkup takes jobs from only corporate web sites. As a seeker, these are real jobs. Nice. For now, it’s primary markets are the U.S. and U.K.

http://www.thewisejobsearch.com/
• Harry Urschel is a recruiter who writes this blog – besides having lived through his own transition, he has been deeply involved with a job transition group.

http://www.twitjobs.net/ (Okay, you are here - you know it has value!)

Of course, there are loads more – but these will give you a good start!

Good luck today.

Mark Richards

www.candidateschair.com – Tools and Advice from a Candidate’s viewpoint to help get past job search roadblocks and keep your spirit strong. Please take a visit.


http://TwitJobs.net The Career Community

A Great Way to Learn – Teach Your Mistakes

One of the unexpected benefits of blogging and creating my CandidatesChair site was how much I learned from sharing my own mistakes.

I made some whopper mistakes and they have proved to be the best lessons for fellow candidates.

In addition to giving us a few good laughs, sharing my mistakes have saved my fellow candidates a boatload of time and potential embarrassment (like the time I forgot the name of the person who made the referral).

The benefits of teaching were greater clarity on how to fix my mistakes and spot other ones.

In teaching, you put things objectively, which is a good start. When you add the dialogue with fellow candidates, it makes for an excellent finish.

You don’t need your own blog to teach your mistakes. You can share at networking meetings with fellow candidates, offer to teach a seminar, answers questions on LinkedIn, submit a post to an existing blog, or participate in a discussion in a LinkedIn group.

I found that giving a seminar and writing blog posts are the best methods to give you clarity - as you are required to clearly layout your information.

Here’s the surprise benefit: When other candidates share their mistakes. Like me it is a mix of bonehead moves and things you wish people would have told you beforehand. Regardless of what it is, it’s all pure gold as it’s what really happens day-to-day when you search. (In fact, if it was not for the sharing of these fellow candidates, there would not be a CandidatesChair!)

A recent mistake: Just because you connect with someone on LinkedIn, does not mean they are on your contact list (e-mail or phone). I’m running late to a meeting, I look in my contacts to call them – rats! I’ll e-mail them – double rats!

Good luck this week.

Mark

www.candidateschair.com – Tools and Advice from a Candidate’s viewpoint to help get past job search roadblocks and keep your spirit strong. Please take a visit.




http://TwitJobs.net The Career Community