Career Management
Friday, August 20th, 2010
We all know how to get a job? Or do we? It was only a few decades ago the internet was a thing of unbelievable fantasy! and long before that we thought the world was flat! career management has been an activity of fact and, for some, fiction for a good number of years.
For the majority financial stability depends on the salary provided by your employer and yet most people will spend more time each year planning their holiday than looking at their career management.
Most people perform their job / career search the same way they live their life…….fast, enthusiastic, energetic, slow, lazy, half hearted…… and the results show!
We have all in our working life managed to gain a new job or career path. The processes we have used to get there are well known e and when we need to find another job, or we have decided to find a better career, we often think we know how to go about it. This, like it not, is your 1st step into career management.
In only a few hours of interviews and probably only an hour with the actual decision maker, you will expect this person to invest a large amount of time and money in you for an indefinite period. Most people spend 40% of the time at work but only take a fraction of their time deciding the right or wrong move. If you equate the same % v time finding a house / car or partner! You’d make some serious mistakes.
The job seeker market is a marketplace like any other. There are people selling and people buying. In this market, as a job seeker, you are both the seller and the product.
You are realistically ‘selling’ your skills, experience, ability and your cultural fit into a group of strangers and will need to be someone the decision maker feels they can spend up to 40% of their time with.
For a lot of people competence and confidence lacks when it comes to job and career seeking.
The career management experts recommend these tips for you to help you do the right thing at the right time with the right information:-
- 65% of your activity should revolve around contacting people who are able to offer advice in and on your target sector and suggest new contacts I.E NETWORKING
- 25% of your activity should involve directly approaching decision makers in target companies I.E NETWORKING
- Up to 30 minutes a day should be spent on social networking sites, especially Linked In.
- 10% of your activity should involve targeting recruitment contacts who specialise in your sector
Notice the absence of the job boards? Posting your CV on a ‘Job Board’ is necessary but often ineffective.
The failure rate for job seekers of this kind is somewhere over 80%, so over ¾ of frustrated job / careers seekers searching in this way fail to find a job if using only this method.
2009, 2010 and probably 2011 will be the most competitive employment markets ever. The whole recruitment industry (all recruitment /employment agencies and headhunters) only account for 20% of vacancies filled in any year, often less in tough budgetary and economic times.
Remember
- There has never been a better time to get your career management strategy and activity right
- Most potential employers are going to ‘Google’ you
- Recruiters search for candidates on Linked In more than on the ‘Job Boards’
- A large majority of all recruitment decisions are made because someone has recommended the applicant or the applicant is already known to the employer
Happy Hunting
