Along with your personal New Year’s resolutions, did you make any career resolutions for 2012? If you’re suffering from workplace woes, here are five resolutions to help you make your career work for you this year!
1. Give your Career a Health Check
Just as you need to look after your own health, you need to look after your career’s health to make it work for you. The start of the year is a great time to review your progress towards your career goals and make plans for the rest of the year.
Consider setting aside some time to think about:
- where you are now
- where you would like to be
- what you need to do to get there
and write a simple career management plan to help you keep on track over the next twelve months. Remember to include SMART goals and milestones; and don’t be afraid to change the plan as your circumstances change – just like strategic plans, career management plans should be living documents with built-in flexibility to be adaptable to changing circumstances.
2. Update your Résumé
Have you ever missed out on a job opportunity because you didn’t have a current résumé at the ready? Don’t let that happen again – spend some time this weekend getting your résumé up to date!
Some tips for a competitive résumé:
- Make it achievement focused, rather than a list of duties taken directly from your job description
- Consider carefully whether including a career objective is adding value – even résumé writing professionals disagree on this issue
- Try and keep it to 3 or 4 pages
- Use keywords liberally throughout your résumé
- Keep the format clean, simple and professional (no funny or suggestive email addresses please!) and
- Proofread and check it carefully
Also, remember that résumés need to be targeted to specific jobs, so always review your résumé from the employer’s perspective before submitting it, to ensure its content is specific to the job in question – recent research has found that employers take less than 20 seconds to decide whether a résumé is worth consideration, so it’s important that you showcase your suitability for the role from the start.
3. Review your Social Media Profiles
Be very careful how you present yourself on social media. It can be your best friend or your worst foe in terms of career branding, as increasing numbers of employers check candidates’ social media profiles when considering their employment application.
How would your social media profiles shape up against employer scrutiny?
When you’re engaged in a job search, it’s well worth looking through the eyes of a prospective employer at the image you present to the online world. Does your Facebook page contain content that might work against you in a job search? If so, you could consider making it private (at least temporarily). Is your LinkedIn profile up to date and keyword rich so it comes up in searches for people in your industry? Have you used LinkedIn to connect strategically, join groups and build up your profile as an expert in your field? Do you have an online CV? If not, it’s never too late to start – even spending a little time on developing a professional social media profile will provide you with a very positive return.
4. Access the Hidden Job Market
It’s been estimated that up to 85% of Australian jobs are not advertised publicly; constituting Australia’s “hidden job market”. And these jobs come with an added bonus. Industry estimates indicate that only 5% – 10% of candidates know of them, so there is much less competition for them – a real bonus for savvy jobseekers!
So how do you break into the hidden job market?
There are a number of strategies you can use. One of the most effective strategies is networking – making connections with people who can advise you of potential or current job opportunities, or who can introduce you to people who are aware of those opportunities. Personal and online networking are both very effective ways of gaining leads and introductions. In the online space, LinkedIn in particular is a great networking resource for people who are looking for a new job, especially when you approach your LinkedIn job search campaign in a focused and strategic way. A second strategy to break into the hidden job market is to undertake industry research to identify organisations you would like to work for; then either cold call the HR department, or if you find cold calling daunting, introduce yourself in writing, advising you’ll follow up with a phone call. Prepare what you’re going to say in advance, ensuring you highlight the ways in which you can add value to the organisation. Follow up by sending a short letter or email to the person you spoke to, thanking them for their time and reiterating your interest in working for the organisation – a small gesture that has a lot of impact! Registering with recruitment agencies is another effective strategy to access the hidden job market. Not only do professional recruitment consultants often know of jobs that aren’t advertised elsewhere, but they are skilled at promoting their candidates and can give you invaluable advice about presentation, branding and interview skills to assist you through the job application process.
5. Define and Promote your Personal Brand
In career terms, your personal brand is the way you present yourself and your unique value proposition to everyone you come into contact with who has the potential to impact on your career. This includes work colleagues, your employer, clients, recruiters, professional networks, friends and people you meet through your professional social media networks.
You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression
… so it’s important that you promote your personal brand professionally from the start. When you’re applying for a job, you start building your brand with your résumé and application letter and your performance at interview is also part of your branding – whether you dress appropriately, your body language, your confidence and mannerisms. As an employee, having a good, strong brand that clearly and consistently indicates your value to an employer in the ways they need the most will ensure you stand out from the crowd and have a head start in the competition to move up the career ladder. A final note – value congruence is an important part of branding, so don’t force yourself to apply for a position that offends your values, or in an organisation that clashes with your ethics – it won’t work – you’ll feel fake, make yourself unhappy and your brand will eventually fall apart. So there you have them – your career management plan, a targeted, updated résumé , a great social media presence, the hidden job market and personal branding – five career tools you can use this year to banish your workplace woes for good!
