6 Steps to Transform Your Job Search

The challenges that our clients bring to the job search are not just about their resume.

In order to effectively transform their job search, we need to keep in mind other common struggles that they are likely experiencing:

• Managing their time and priorities

• Feeling overwhelmed by making big career decisions

• Lacking confidence in moving their search forward

• Feeling awkward about asking for help

• General procrastination

You can see that our job isn’t just about job search strategy, per se.

It’s also about making sure our clients have new behavior to actually implement the strategies.

Our strategic framework is not just about landing a new job, but about helping job seekers successfully manage their time and expectations, build clarity and confidence, and take care of themselves along the way.

Here are the six steps of our framework that help people transform so much more than their resume and network:

Transform your job search with: Reflection

Have you ever thought, “Ok, I’m ready to start my job search!” 

So you log into LinkedIn (or wherever you prefer to search for jobs!) and you see:

• Jobs that you’re kinda interested in

• Jobs that you’re interested in but feel unqualified for

• Jobs that you email yourself or save (but never actually apply for?)

…So you get frustrated and log out? 

Maybe carefully reviewing and thinking about each role feels too overwhelming so you take a “spray and pray” approach, applying to as many jobs as possible?

Then our initial step of reflection is going to be perfect for you.

This is where we do a deep dive into your goals, document your experience and start to really understand your values and contributions.

It is also where we set priorities for your search based on those things.

This is also an opportunity to uncover transferable skills. It’s where we lay the foundation for strategically communicating your value.

Reflection gives our search integrity, it gives our search boundaries and constraints, and it gives us a chance to be honest about what we’ve experienced at work.

It’s also not a box we tick once and move on from.

Reflection is a constant thread in the work we do with our clients. 

Every time we gather more information - like an informational interview or an actual interview - we return here to re-calibrate.

This is about setting YOUR goals and criteria - and that often means unlearning or de-prioritizing criteria you’ve been told is critical.

You need space in your search to reflect on what matters to you. Revisiting this space shows progress! (Here are some resources we have if you need them for this step!)

Transform your job search with: Revision 

If reflection is about our internal process, revision is how we externalize it - effectively.

This isn’t where we focus on our goals or our needs.

It’s where we start writing, speaking and communicating about ourselves with other people’s goals and needs front and center.

We’re setting ourselves up to resonate with potential employers by taking the time to highlight our qualifications and relevant experience.

We do this by being strategic, clear and responsive to what other people (recruiters, hiring managers, etc) are looking for.

But rather, we work on understanding what other people may need to know about us in order to create opportunities for additional learning. 

Revision is the place where we work to ensure that resumes are easy to read (an underrated strategy, in my honest opinion!).

It’s where we use the Summary of Qualifications to customize our applications.

It’s where we create LinkedIn profiles that speak to the breadth of the roles that we want.

It’s how we learn to tell concise, relevant stories that highlight what people are looking for.

It’s so important to me that people learn to do this because doing this well is a huge asset to your career.

But it’s just as important to me that we don’t do this so we can cruise around to impress everyone.

Not everyone deserves to be impressed by you. 

I want my clients to look for connection, resonance in their interactions - and to have the communication tools to do so effectively.

Transform your job search with: Imperfect action

Knowing the thing you need to do - and doing the thing you need to do - are not the same thing!

One paradoxical strategy for working through perfectionism or uncertainty is to literally lower the bar on the expectations you might have for yourself.

Remember, there’s more than one way to write a good resume.

There are often awkward moments in interviews.

There are always learning and growth opportunities.

People get jobs without being perfect. 

This is why we often suggest applying to low stakes jobs, starting with just 20 minutes, or even aiming for rejection to help people bridge the gap from overwhelm to action.

This isn’t just about helping you land a new job

It’s to help you start to unlearn all of these behaviors and beliefs they’ve learned from toxic work environments that they bring with them into their search which may look or sound like:

“My resume isn’t good enough.”

“I’m not good enough.”

“I don’t belong.”

We are where we are and you’re here because you want to do better. That’s freaking fantastic.

It’s a step that most people don’t take! So let’s celebrate that.

Moving from inaction to imperfect action is a requirement for getting traction - and it’s a lot easier to move in the right direction when you make peace with messiness and uncertainty of it all!

Transform your job search with: Care

I remember a client once telling me “I’m sorry that I didn’t do what I said I’d do. My kid got sick and had to go the ER.”

She was apologizing to me - when she was taking care of her child.

When you don’t accomplish what you said you would, it’s often for very good reasons!

Over the years, our clients have been challenged by lack of childcare, balance side hustles, manage chronic health issues, and burn out.

So we also need to have a strategy where we take care of ourselves - and each other - along way, not just once we get a new job. 

When people feel pulled between priorities, they end up exhausted and resentful.

It’s best to start a job search, knowing that you’ll need to adjust course, shift priorities, deal with occasional setbacks along the way - and take care of yourself along the way!

Transform your job search with: Connection

The job search is fundamentally about communication and interaction. 

Nobody gets a job without these two things.

To that end, it makes zero sense to work on your job search independently - don’t you think?!

Connection can look like a lot of things:

• It can mean getting back in touch with your references

• Having accountability and encouragement

• Co-working

• People willing to share their resources, knowledge or network

And for our clients, it usually means all of these things.

A lot of people like to keep their search to themselves. 

It’s a process with a lot of ups and downs - and it can feel easier to keep that private.

It’s more fun and often more effective to do it in the company of other people, to realize that you have shared challenges and to work with others to come up with solutions.

We don’t want this process to be any more isolated than it needs to be. 

At the end of the day, people hire people. People encourage other people, people network with other people.

Job searching alone is not doing your process any favors.

Transform your job search with: Assessment

Once we’re engaged in the process and we have some work to show for it, it’s time to reflect on what we’ve learned.

Remember how I said we come back to reflection? Assessment is reflection with data!

Now that we’ve experimented and collected information, we get to review it.

This is really critical to helping you figure out what’s working and what’s now.

• Are you applying for jobs? 

• Are you getting interview requests?

• Are you building relationships?

• Are you clearer about what you want?

I recommend tracking the applications so you can keep track of your action.

This is an opportunity to consider expanding or reducing the scope of roles that you’re applying for, for doubling down on a strategy that seems to be working or even to reach out and ask for help.

It’s also an opportunity to check in and make sure that if you are generating opportunities, you are generating opportunities that you are genuinely interested in or curious about.

Don’t skip starting with reflection - and don’t skip assessing along the way. And write down what you’re doing and learning so that you can make decisions and have clear evidence for your choices. It makes a big difference.