As is the case with anything in your personal or professional life, when you embark on a new adventure, you need a plan. The same can be said when you set out on a path to find a new job. Having a written plan (on paper) will greatly increase your chances for success, not only in landing a job but landing a job that best fits you and your skills. Having a plan allows you to more clearly articulate what you are looking for in your job search and how you are going to go about executing this plan. By not establishing a plan before you embark on this journey, your job search will seem disorganized, confusing, and time consuming, resulting in nothing but wasted time and frustration on your part.
The act of the job search, in its simple form, is identifying your marketability, coupled with your ability to “sell” yourself to the recruiters and hiring managers you target. One way to do this is by creating a “job search marketing plan” for yourself that is based upon the concept of the “marketing matrix” and the four “Ps” of marketing: Product, Place, Price and Promotion. This marketing plan will help you identify your knowledge and skills, assist you in outlining a clear path of action, and will define your job search strategy in an easy and organized way that will be simple to follow and communicate to others.
Product
The “product” in your job search is you, and you are the commodity that needs to be sold in this case. In order for this to happen, recruiters and hiring managers need to know what they are “buying.” As a result, you need to define your product features in order to create the marketability that you seek. To do this, first you must identify and write down your most impressive skills that you will bring to a future employer. It is important to be as specific as possible in this phase so as to match your skills to those that an employer seeks. For example, do you possess high-level Excel skills? Do you have any key certifications that pertain to the position you seek? Are you skilled at project management or key software language? Also, what industries and functions are you knowledgeable in? Where does your subject matter expertise lie? All of these things make up the “product” section of your job search marketing plan that you will ultimately present to a future employer.
Place
“Place” refers to the geographical area you are willing to work, along with the industries you are targeting (separate them into two separate categories within this step). It is important to target specific regions and industries for your job search in order to narrow down your search to manageable buckets. This way, your target market research on companies, job functions and industries will be that much easier to manage. It will also allow you to conduct targeted networking in that market, which is a very crucial part of your overall job search. It is okay to have a few different geographical regions to work with, but avoid having an “I’ll work anywhere” approach, as this will only lead to a never-ending road of job applications with no responses.
Price
An important part of your job search is to identify those positions that are in your ideal range of compensation, or “price,” as it is referred to in this exercise. By identifying what your “ideal range” of compensation is, along with your “willing to accept” range, you will avoid applying to jobs that are under your expectations (those positons that you are probably overqualified for), along with those that are over your expected range of compensation (those positions you are probably underqualified for). It is very important to possess selfawareness in this stage and be realistic with yourself and your compensation expectations. There are job seekers who often think they are worth more than their actual marketability based upon their experience and skills. A few good resources to research salaries for specific companies include Glassdoor.com, Salary. com, Indeed.com, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Occupational Employment Statistics portion of its website. These sites have specific information on company and functional salaries that will allow you to manage your expectations and clue you in to the range of “price,” prior to submitting an application.
Promotion
One of the most important categories of your job search marketing plan is “promotion.” Along the same lines of how a company promotes its products, what are you going to do to promote yourself? You can spend a lot of time preparing yourself for the job search, but if you don’t spend time marketing yourself, no one will know. Considering joining an association that aligns well with your background. This way, you meet and network with people who you have something in common with. For example, if you are a marketing executive, join the American Marketing Association. If you are a human resources executive, you should consider joining the Society for Human Resource Management. Another effective way to promote yourself is to reach out directly to your personal and professional network with a personalized, brief email (eight to ten sentences) informing them of your current job search, a summary of your background and a copy of your resume, asking them to forward it along to those they think appropriate.
As you set out to develop your job search marketing plan, think of yourself as a marketer. You are the one who knows yourself the best. Develop and write out a plan that identifies the marketability of your product (you), which will result in the “sale” — your new job.
CRAIG W. PETRUS joined the Hough Graduate School of Business in June of 2009. As Director, Craig is responsible for the day-to-day operations of Graduate Business Career Services and ensuring the delivery of quality career development programming and services to students within the Hough Graduate School of Business at the University of Florida.