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Wild West time for job hunting
By Steve Dalton |
May 17, 2013, Friday
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OVER the next few weeks, millions of students from around the world will graduate with a twinkle in their eye and the hope of a bright future. Unfortunately for many of those students, the new beginning will prove a rude awakening.
As the excitement of graduation ends, the job search begins. Most graduates will waste their time on tactics that won't work. Here are three pieces of advice to ditch:
1. Job search is a full-time job
No job seeker realistically has 40 hours a week for job searching. More importantly, 40 hours a week simply isn't necessary.
Forget focusing solely on online job postings.
A full day spent surfing online job postings brings a job seeker no closer to employment. A full day spent reaching out to potential advocates does.
In reality, most people will not be helpful in the job search, but a minority of contacts (a group I call Boosters) provide a majority of the help job seekers will enjoy. Job seekers may need to kiss a few frogs to find their booster at a particular employer, but that resilience is what separates the sincerely interested from the casually interested.
The easiest way to join the conversation is to find LinkedIn groups covering your target industries, functions, and locations. Once you share a group with a target contact, you are able to see their activities to look for common ground, as well as e-mail them for free.
2. Sell yourself
Branding statements, personal objectives, and elevator pitches all fall under the general category of "selling yourself."
They are wrong.
People tend to raise their defenses when they sense they are being sold to. Instead, build advocacy. The easiest way to do that is to ask people to share their experiences and insights with you. It's a big paradigm shift, but a critical one in an era where "selling" never stops.
3. Things will improve
Frankly, I'm not sure there's ever been a better time to be looking for a job - not because the market is strong (it isn't), but because the proficiency of the average job seeker right now is terribly low.
The market may improve, but so will job seekers once they evolve beyond the black holes of online job postings. In a sense, this is the Wild West period of the job search. Whoever figures out how to thrive in this new employment arena fastest will succeed.
In many places around the world, the job market is terrifying right now, but that terror has created a golden opportunity for people willing to think differently about how to get a job. In the end, graduates who focus on building relationships won't just land a first job but will be equipped to succeed in job searches for a lifetime.
Steve Dalton is senior associate director of career management services at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. He is the author of "The 2-Hour Job Search." Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
As the excitement of graduation ends, the job search begins. Most graduates will waste their time on tactics that won't work. Here are three pieces of advice to ditch:
1. Job search is a full-time job
No job seeker realistically has 40 hours a week for job searching. More importantly, 40 hours a week simply isn't necessary.
Forget focusing solely on online job postings.
A full day spent surfing online job postings brings a job seeker no closer to employment. A full day spent reaching out to potential advocates does.
In reality, most people will not be helpful in the job search, but a minority of contacts (a group I call Boosters) provide a majority of the help job seekers will enjoy. Job seekers may need to kiss a few frogs to find their booster at a particular employer, but that resilience is what separates the sincerely interested from the casually interested.
The easiest way to join the conversation is to find LinkedIn groups covering your target industries, functions, and locations. Once you share a group with a target contact, you are able to see their activities to look for common ground, as well as e-mail them for free.
2. Sell yourself
Branding statements, personal objectives, and elevator pitches all fall under the general category of "selling yourself."
They are wrong.
People tend to raise their defenses when they sense they are being sold to. Instead, build advocacy. The easiest way to do that is to ask people to share their experiences and insights with you. It's a big paradigm shift, but a critical one in an era where "selling" never stops.
3. Things will improve
Frankly, I'm not sure there's ever been a better time to be looking for a job - not because the market is strong (it isn't), but because the proficiency of the average job seeker right now is terribly low.
The market may improve, but so will job seekers once they evolve beyond the black holes of online job postings. In a sense, this is the Wild West period of the job search. Whoever figures out how to thrive in this new employment arena fastest will succeed.
In many places around the world, the job market is terrifying right now, but that terror has created a golden opportunity for people willing to think differently about how to get a job. In the end, graduates who focus on building relationships won't just land a first job but will be equipped to succeed in job searches for a lifetime.
Steve Dalton is senior associate director of career management services at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. He is the author of "The 2-Hour Job Search." Shanghai Daily condensed the article.
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