How to Land Your Next Job

New Ways to Think About Your Career

nbrout@comcast.net How to Land Your Next Job
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Did you lose your job or decide to move on?

  • Are you in transition after losing a job you wanted to keep?
  • Have you stayed too long in a job you would rather lose?
  • Would you like to do purpose-driven work you care about deeply?
  • Are you considering a career change?
  • Are you a “Hard-to-Define Professional” with many transferable skills that are not easily categorized into a single, clearly defined vocation?

Inventive Career Transitions

These scenarios present opportunities to reinvent your career and find work you love. As you create your next career move, here are things to keep in mind about today’s job market. Learn more about conducting a successful job search in Losing Your Job & Finding Yourself.

Job Hopping: The New Normal

Your views about employer-employee relationships and loyalty might be based on endless waves of downsizing that have taken place since 2008. Believing anyone could be laid off at any time has led to a “free-agent” mentality across generations. A common way of thinking is “happy to stay; ready to go”—prepared to market yourself for new opportunities at a moment’s notice.

According to 2016 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median tenure with current employers was 4.2 years. While names and date ranges for generations vary by source, many studies report that the majority of Millennials (born 1977-1998) expect to stay in their jobs less than three years. This means they could have 15 to 20 jobs during their careers. Workers between the ages of 55 to 64 have averaged 10 years in each job, and many have changed jobs multiple times after age 48 due to one or more layoffs.

Contractor Mentality: Goes Both Ways

With job security redefined, each of us must maintain our employability. Rather than expecting companies to employ us for life and manage our training and career development, it’s up to us to take charge of our professional progression and keep our skills up to date.

Many companies are hesitant to add to their “permanent headcount,” relying more heavily on contractors. Using contractors allows employers to flex staffing levels up and down without the complexities that come with laying people off. Even before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took effect in 2014, companies used contractors and part-time employees to avoid the high cost of health insurance premiums for full-time employees.

Using contractors is a great way for companies to “try before they buy.” They can test drive potential new hires to avoid mistakes—and employees can decide if the company is a place we want to work.

Also from the employee perspective, we might avoid getting emotionally over invested in long-term employment situations that could evaporate at any moment. At the same time, an independent contractor mentality motivates many of us to add as much value as possible in each place we work.

The Next Move is Yours

In today’s job market, we benefit from deciding where we sell our services as “Me, Inc.” Portfolio careers with several concurrent employment arrangements are a growing trend. It’s increasingly common to have a central anchor that provides steady income, with several satellite endeavors—freelance and/or contract assignments that change over time.

Your next move is up to you. It could be any combination of full-time, part-time, or freelance arrangements. Perhaps you’ll join over 50 million Americans who are freelancing—most of them by choice.

Whichever work scenarios you want to create—ideally, to find work you love—you must conduct effective job searches. Learn how by reading Losing Your Job & Finding Yourself.

Laid Off or Moving On?

nbrout@comcast.net How to Land Your Next Job
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Mass layoffs continue, and millions of us feel lost at sea when we lose our jobs or want to change careers.

Whether losing your job by layoff or by choice, my story offers solace, insights, and actions to navigate an experience that can be traumatic, turbulent, and triumphant.

Dispelling Myths of the “Hidden Job Market”

  • How can you lose your job and find work you love?
  • Network less. Job hunt online more.

Having landed all of my positions by applying for advertised jobs, I crush pervasive myths about the “hidden job market” and networking. After 20 years in one company, I conducted four search strategies, discovered work I was meant to do, helped clients gain confidence and find new jobs, and landed in an amazing job of my own.

Conventional wisdom that 80% of jobs are never advertised is long overdue for extinction. At least 40% of new hires are found through online channels, and this is growing exponentially. Professionals who don’t use online job boards, social media, and company career sites to generate interviews and offers are missing primary pathways to land their next jobs.

Job seekers get results with my divergent Sweet Spot Job Search Method and tips on 25 Activities that are more and less effective for self-discovery, job hunting, networking, and finding work you love.

If you are:

  • Unemployed after losing a job you wanted to keep
  • Considering a career change to find work you are meant to do
  • A Hard-to-Define Professional who doesn’t fit into a clear vocation

My memoir and guide gives you:

  • Comfort, courage, and confidence during a stressful transition
  • Inspiration and methods to reinvent your career
  • Proven ways to land a job in your sweet spot

“Losing Your Job & Finding Yourself is a rare gift for professionals who want to figure out what’s next in their careers. When job loss and turbulence come with feeling like there’s nowhere to go, Nancy’s honest and insightful memoir is a beacon for possibility, and a roadmap for how to get to that job that means so much.”                               

— Dr. Paulette Gabriel, President of Key Leadership

Kindle and Paperback Editions Available on Amazon

Please post a review on Amazon for others who would benefit from reading the book.

You CAN Find Jobs Online!

nbrout@comcast.net How to Land Your Next Job
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Most people tell you to spend no more than 10-20% of your job search time online. Common advice is to spend the other 80-90% out of your pajamas and away from your computer to network with anyone and everyone you can.

I’m sure you’ve often heard that only a tiny percentage of jobs are ever posted online and that most jobs are landed through networking. Some people have always landed by networking and never applied for an advertised job.

My job search experience and advice are different. In fact, I have landed every position I ever had by responding to a job ad. In the old days, it meant responding to want ads in the newspaper by sending my resume and cover letter via snail mail.

Since then, I have landed many interviews and several job offers by responding to online job postings. More often than not, this happened without personal connections or introductions.

I know this contradicts almost everything others have told you. But, it can be done! Online applications, with superior quality resumes and cover letters do not always get lost in the black hole! Many are seen by human eyes. Think about it. Why would hundreds of thousands of jobs be posted online if nobody intended to hire this way?

Based on my job search experience, I recommend a balanced combination of three methods:

  1. Superior marketing materials: Resume(s), cover letters, LinkedIn profile, etc.
  2. Diligent online searches using key words and daily alerts: The power of doing this well is vastly underestimated.
  3. Networking with purpose: Contact and meet with individuals for specific reasons and with thoughtful preparation. Attend selected industry events and career transition meetings. Focus on quality vs. quantity of connections.

Now back to my online job search tips. Job boards can be a great place to shop for possibilities that will make you happy. This is especially true if you are not sure what you want to do next, or if you would like to change your career direction. Spend time at your computer browsing several job boards. I recommend searching Indeed, LinkedIn, and ZipRecruiter.

Experiment with a wide variety of key word searches based on different kinds of work you might enjoy. Don’t limit yourself to your geographic region. This is your time to explore and see what’s possible. Cast a wide net with new ideas. Later, you can narrow them down and focus your search on one or more clear directions within your target location(s).

When you find interesting jobs, capture key words and phrases from the descriptions that match what you can and might want to do in your next position. You can use these to refine your resume, LinkedIn profile, and cover letters.

If you find a job that looks like a match, go for it! The early bird catches the worm, so you could increase your chances of getting noticed by submitting your resume right after the job is posted. If you’re a strong fit and an early applicant, you might get a call or email from the employer within hours!

Networking With Purpose: Is Your Spaghetti Sticking?

nbrout@comcast.net How to Land Your Next Job
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Quality vs. Quantity of Connections

Are you throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks—or connecting with people for specific reasons?

Purposeful networking is critical for career management and business development. During a recent career transition, I learned how to cultivate meaningful networking relationships. These skills help me connect with ease and joy when I think we can help each other—now or in the future.

I believe it’s essential to aim for quality vs. quantity of connections. Each encounter is more meaningful and productive when I am thoughtful about who I connect with and why. Building a valuable network over time requires diligent preparation and follow through. In contrast, a scattershot approach to generating hundreds of random connections creates less value for everyone.

Here are three ways to build a more valuable network:

Always Customize Invitations to Connect. Rather than using boilerplate LinkedIn invitations to connect, I always write a personal note. I never downloaded my Outlook contacts to my profile because it would allow standard invitations to be sent to everyone in my database.

Responding to Boilerplate Invitations. When I receive a boilerplate invitation to connect with someone I don’t know, I reply with a message before I accept it. I thank the person for their invitation, then ask how they found me and how we might help each other. If they don’t respond, I don’t lose anything by not adding them to my network.

Prepare to Connect or Don’t Bother. It’s vitally important to respect the time and attention required to build genuine connections instead of aiming for large numbers by throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. Recognizing the time required to prepare and follow-up on valuable interactions means most of us have bandwidth to develop fewer, deeper connections vs. hundreds that lead nobody anywhere except to burnout.

With the thoughtful preparation required to network with purpose, I don’t believe super networking is possible to do well, nor beneficial to do less well. In job search, the further afield introductions are, without a clear reason for connecting, the less we can understand and help each other. In business development, contacting prospects with individualized intention is likely to generate more value than hundreds of random cold calls.

Networks are Treasures to Cultivate with Care. During my job search I heard many presentations about networking. One speaker boasted about having more than 400 face-to-face meetings in less than a year (and then crashing during the holidays). I was not convinced this odyssey produced much value for him.

What I considered “stranger networking” was likely to lead me too far from my sweet spot to be beneficial. This view is a departure from common networking advice. Some considered me foolish for declining introductions I thought were too far out of my wheelhouse and likely to point me toward places I had no interest in going. Instead of meeting with everyone I could, I connected when there was a clear purpose for doing so.

I continue to have mutually beneficial interactions with people I met in every stage of my career transition. I thoroughly enjoy meeting new people and making introductions to facilitate meaningful connections. I do this selectively and with clear intention. These interactions often lead to surprising and amazing ways to help each other over time. You never know who will lead you to someone or something valuable far into the future.

As I connect with purpose, my growing network is an invaluable treasure in my life.