|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
In my previous article on why losing your job is not the end of the world, I revealed the exact steps I took to secure another role during a period of career transition using LinkedIn and ChatGPT.
Now, I’m going deeper and providing more clarity on what activities you can engage in to secure your next role.
You will see some of the tactics can be executed now without having to be laid off, fired, or furloughed. However, do not underestimate the power (and freedom) of preparation—especially when it comes to your career. The habits you build in terms of updating your professional presence, networking, and acquiring new skills will reduce the wait time for that next role.
I would be remiss if I did not mention searching for another role can be a full-time job. While you are waiting for recruiters and hiring managers to respond (assuming you do not have another role immediately lined up and are unemployed), construct your day as if you are still working a full-time job. Building your schedule to reflect an actual workday will keep you engaged in the hunt and provide excellent talking points during an interview when a question arises regarding how you spent your time during this transitional period.
OK, let’s jump in. First up: create the structure for your job search.
1. Turn on LinkedIn job alerts.
LinkedIn has a great alert system to keep you abreast of jobs and role types you have expressed interest in through the platform. These alerts will be sent through LinkedIn notifications on your smartphone as well as via email. You will receive not only mobile alerts but also emails weekly. This is a practice I used to find an array of roles at different companies for a particular type of role.
How to Turn on Job Alerts
When you know what type of roles you want to apply for, navigate to the Jobs section of LinkedIn, and search by role type in the search bar. The search will produce a list of roles that fit under the category searched. Then, toggle the alert button to begin receiving alerts about roles in that category type.
2. Immediately reach out to trusted colleagues and LinkedIn first connections.
This step needs to begin almost immediately once your transition has begun. On LinkedIn, you have the capability to filter your connections by degree of connection (i.e.,1st-, 2nd-, or 3rd-degree) to find individuals with the most mutual connections in common. Concentrate on your 1st connections for your seeking insights into potential opportunities. Practice good outreach and be enthusiastic! Despite what could be a somber topic, communicate your excitement for seeking another opportunity to grow professionally and with an organization you align with.
How to Filter Your Connections
Navigate to the My Networktab at the top of LinkedIn and click on the Manage My Network dropdown on the left-hand side. Once you see your list of connections, click on the option to search with filters to see your connections categorized by degrees.
3. Get your LinkedIn profile search ready.
Your LinkedIn profile is an extension of your résumé. Accomplishments that cannot fit on a one-page résumé should definitely be included on your LinkedIn profile. Take some time to revise and update the core sections of your LinkedIn profile starting with your work history and projects section.
Specifically, include three to five bullet points articulating the results you garnered in your previous positions and/or projects. There is a great acrostic called SOAR, which stands for situation, objective, action, and result. This template will help write bullet points conveying the value you delivered in each position you have held. Plus, this is a key improvement in your résumé performing well through the applicant tracking system (ATS).
Lastly, write a compelling About Me section that draws viewers in and provides a glimpse of your professional persona. In addition, focus on a profile headline that includes keywords and your skill set.
4. Optimize your résumé to perform well in the ATS.
Most companies use some type of ATS to automate résumé initial screenings for keywords that match their hiring criteria. However, a lesson I learned was that formatting also influences how résumés are processed in the system.
Common résumé improvements that increased performance included properly structured bullet points, margin alignment, uniformed font type and size, and mention of key skills, to name a few. Tools such as ChatGPT and Quinnciahelp analyze résumés and provide suggestions on how to improve them. The other benefit of properly formatting your résumé is the autofill feature most online applications utilize to fill in the appropriate fields. Optimizing your résumé to seamlessly autopopulate the core fields of an application can make applying to a job fun and easy.
After making the necessary improvements to your résumé, navigate back over to LinkedIn and begin using your newly minted résumé for all Easy Apply applications. It will also be helpful to save a copy to your desktop and/or cloud service of choice (e.g., Google Drive, iCloud) so you can automatically access them wherever you are and instantly apply.
Let’s pause to examine the steps we have outlined so far. The first four steps were oriented toward creating a structure for your job search: improving résumés, updating professional profiles, and performing initial outreach. These activities can be accomplished in the first couple days of your job search.
These next three steps take more time because they focus on building new relationships, conducting informational interviews, and preparing for and executing interviews.
Let’s dive in!
5. Conduct informational interviews with individuals at a company of interest.
Start by constructing a list of companies where you are interested in working. Search your LinkedIn profile for 1st or 2nd connections with good standing at those companies. Then, reach out, prefacing your intent on learning more about the company, your role of interest, and express how the other person’s experience could be valuable in discerning if the role (and company) is a good fit.
A best practice is to receive a warm introduction from a mutual connection. This provides you with borrowed trust and an increased likelihood of connecting with your person of interest. But, if you have to reach out cold, put your best foot forward, be direct, and respect the other person’s time.
Don’t be discouraged if they do not respond back immediately. Show your due diligence by following up in a timely manner and even include preliminary questions to spark discussion. The worst case scenario is the individual never responds. The best scenario is you make a great first impression, and the person offers to give an internal referral for the role you are applying for.
6. Design a process for crushing your interviews.
Perfecting an interview preparation process you are comfortable with will give you confidence leading up to the interview.
If you aren’t sure where to start, here is my process that I have used since college to prepare for any prescreening, regular interview, or final interview:
- Research the company: about page, company values, major headlines, articles, etc.
- Research your interviewers: LinkedIn profiles, any articles written by the interviewer, affiliations, hobbies, etc.
- Conduct a self-evaluation: how do I align with the company, its values, and current trajectory?
- Prepare three to five insightful and relevant questions for each stage of the interview process.
- Show up fifteen minutes early, dressed your best.
- Show engagement by taking notes during the interview. If you move on to subsequent rounds, this will help you ask relevant follow-up questions and show your investment in the process.
- At the end of each interview, deliver a handwritten thank-you card in blue ink. This gesture will set you apart from other candidates, and it will communicate your sense for customer service and attention to details.
7. Use your downtime to upskill.
The wait between interviews can be painstaking, but it does not have to be unproductive. Use the time you have to upskill.
To kickstart your learning curriculum, utilize ChatGPT by copying and pasting the job description of roles you are interested in into the GPT with this prompt: “Extract the skills needed from the following job description: [paste job description].”
ChatGPT will analyze the job description and provide a list of skills found within the job description. Compare the results to your current skill set to identify which skills you need to perform the work of your interest role. Then, use the results as your first step in determining what skill(s) to focus on that are relevant to the role you want to pursue.
Interested to see what it took to secure a new role using the steps above? Below are metrics I personally tracked over a six-week period to view the effectiveness of my process and how I could improve:
- Applications Submitted: 83
- Number of Rejections: 40
- Number of “Ghosts”: 41
- Warm Outreach to 1st Connections: 33
- Number of Responses to Warm Outreach: 13
- Number of Cold Outreach: 27
- Number of Responses to Cold Outreach:7
- Moving Forward Notices: 5
- Number of interviews conducted: 9
- Number of Offers: 1
Humbly, I show you these metrics to illustrate the amount of work it took me to secure my role and to quantify my experience. Does this mean it will take you the same amount of effort to secure your next role? No, but it sets expectations for what it could take to secure another role that will change how you approach your plan during transition.
If you have recently been affected by a layoff, firing, or are in a transitionary period currently, please do not hesitate to reach out. I am happy to expand further on some of my own learnings and offer any additional help I can.
It takes a community to succeed and there is no better place to turn than your fellow Latinos.
Benjamin Gomez is a management consulting analyst at Sendero Consulting. In 2023, he was named an honoree of the NextGen Collective 30 Under 30 award. He also hosts BRÜTalks, a podcast that covers career success, business etiquette, and social networking.
