The Do’s and Don’ts of searching for a job

Have you outgrown your job and feel ready to shake things up? Has the pandemic disrupted your stability? Or are you the fresh college graduate, ready to take on the world ?

Whoever you are, searching for a job can feel overwhelming. But there are some things we can do to make it less daunting. To begin with, give yourself time, atleast 3-6 months, while you set the foundation and prepare for an opportunity.

“Careers are one of the most beautiful things you can build in your life. A career is not a job, or even a series of jobs. A career is an accumulation of experiences and skills. You can judge its success by how you feel in it. Its something you get to build, and if you ignore it, it gets built for you.

– Kerri Twigg

Whether you are looking for a job or not, its always best to be aware of where you currently stand in terms of your skill set, the value you bring to your industry, and a resume that tells a compelling story.

This is a long post. Please feel free to jump to any of the following sections you are interested in. I won’t mind 🙂

1. Assess your skillset.

If you are new to the job search melodrama, this is where you begin.

Think about what you do on a day-to-day basis. In your current role, in your previous jobs, in any volunteering roles. You have your core competency – the hard skill that is absolutely required to do you current job, and then you have the peripheral skills that you picked up to do your job. You can read more about the skill categories here.

Pay attention to the different ways you are contributing to your team and organization, in whatever capacity. Make a list of your skills and categorize them.

To give you an example, my core skill was mainframe development, but while I did coding, I was also managing my clients, leading a team, collaborating with vendors and different departmental stakeholders. I also participated in roadmap building and hiring among many other things.

So my acquired skills looked like this – cloud computing, vendor management, project management, stakeholder management, business analysis, customer management, budgeting, ROI analysis etc.

This is an important step because it will directly feed into your resume building. This exercise also allows you to check the lay of the land and imagine all the possible directions you can go from here, especially if you are feeling a wee bit brave 🙂

2. Explore job options, but leave the title behind

Once you assess your skill set, now is the time to make a list of possible job options.

Its important to not box yourself in a title, based on what you currently do. Many a times, different companies have different titles for the same responsibilities. Other times, with a little bit of training, you could be hired to do a slightly different job. So it’s important to not get attached to titles and keep an open mind when looking for opportunities.

Here are some steps you can take when shortlisting open positions that you may want to apply.

• The easiest way to find openings is to reach out to your friends and network.
• Select 4 – 5 companies that you aspire to work for, based on your goals(industry, location etc) and presence of contacts (referral opportunities). Having contacts who work there can be very beneficial and I will talk more about it in the upcoming sections.
• Most companies have a presence on Linkedin. Filter jobs by the company name and skim through all of open positions to figure out the most suitable openings for your skill set. Keep the search criteria as broad as possible.

• Repeat the above step for every company you shortlisted and come up with a set of suitable roles for yourself.

For example, for my skill set and interests, I narrowed down the positions to Service delivery lead, mainframe modernization architect, Technical project manager, Technical program manager, Technical business developer and the like. I never held any of these titles before. And I had no idea that a job called Technical Business Developer existed and now I live and breathe that role!

3. Dust the cobwebs from your resume

Having played a role in recruiting in my previous job, I have found this to be the most critical, yet overlooked step. Projecting your experience and value in 3-5 pages that the recruiter finds relatable in 10 seconds is no mean feat.

Whether you are looking for a job right now or not, spending some time to work on your resume goes a long way. Every few months, take out 15 minutes to update it with the new skills and experiences you have gained.

I spent months perfecting my resume. I sought feedback from my friends, ex-managers and others in my network. How much ever help you get, in the end, only you can tell your story.

Hiring managers and recruiters have short attention spans. Here are some quick tips for crafting a compelling resume.

Some examples:

Here is the format I used for my resume. Needless to say, this is not the only way to structure it.

4. Give it a shot!

One of the biggest lessons I learnt during my job search process was that you don’t have to check all the boxes in the job requirements in order to apply!

Some skills are easy to learn or acquired on the job. Although they are mentioned in the job description, they may not be “must-haves”. The trick is in knowing what those are. Many a time, the job qualification requirements are all encompassing, designed to attract candidates from various backgrounds. Remember that they are not set in stone.

When I applied for the Technical Business Developer position at AWS, there were gaps in my skill set. I had no experience in sales capture and responding to RFPs, although the job posting “required” those. I applied anyway. And I got the job, without faking anything.

So, go ahead and apply for that job, as long as you have the core skill for the role, even if you don’t meet all the requirements.

Congratulations for getting until here.

Now comes the hardest part. You may meet deafening silence and feel like you are applying in vacuum. Nobody gets back to you, or ghosts you after an initial conversation. This is when you activate your hidden superpowers – patience and perseverance.

5. Have a referral.

I cannot stress how important and useful it is to have a referral. Having someone to refer you means you have bypassed the robots and made your way to human eyeballs!

So if you know someone working there – a friend, or a friend’s friend’s friend, or even an enemy, find a way to connect with them and request them to refer you.

It doesn’t mean you will get the job, it only means you might get a chance to interview. The recruiter and hiring manager will still review your resume and determine if you are a good fit. If they think you are, they proceed with the interview process. There is no bias because you are a referral. You will get an offer only when you satisfy the interviewers.

6. Prepare for that recruiter call.

If you were able to pique the recruiter’s curiosity, then great job!

The recruiter might want to connect with you to know more about you and your work experience. This is to ensure you are a good fit for the role before he asks time from the interviewers. Also, it helps to know that in some companies, recruiter’s performance may be measured by the quality of candidates they bring in and the recruiter himself would do the initial screening of the candidates. So make sure you project confidence and expertise for the role you are applying.

Conclusion

Finding a job takes time. Spend time to carefully build your foundation ( steps 1 – 3 ) and leverage your network to find what you are looking for.