Sital Ruparelia

So what did you do last week as part of your job search?

• Spent about 30 hours at my desk busily searching

• Tidied up my CV / resume

• Took part in an online forum

• Did research on some companies I’d like to target

• Emailed a few people

• Trawled through job sites looking for jobs

• Spent 5 hours on an application form

• Read some interesting articles about job searching

You sound like you’ve been working hard. Okay, let’s get specific:

1. How many real jobs did you apply for last week? How many CVs/resumes did you send out?

2. How many follow up calls did you make to chase up jobs or leads that you have already applied for?

3. How many real people (contacts, clients, colleagues etc) did you have a real conversation with on the phone in relation to your search?

4. How many informal one-to-one meetings (breakfast, coffee, lunch etc) did you book in the diary during last week with networking contacts?

5. How many informal one-to-one meetings did you attend last week with contacts?

6. How many face-to-face meetings did you have with recruiters last week?

7. How many interviews did you secure last week?

8. How many follow-up emails or notes did you send to contacts who you have met or spoken to in recent weeks?

Your answers to these 8 questions tell me what you accomplished last week instead of the paper shuffling and web surfing that that you did.  These are the real performance indicators that give an accurate view of how effective you were last week.

If you’ve nothing significant in the pipeline, the activities at the top of the page are just fluff.  Whilst some of them are relevant ways to spend your time,  they are not the best way to spend your time – particularly if you haven’t many open opportunities.

If all you are doing is spending most weeks doing the things at the top of the page, then you are quite probably:

- Kidding yourself

- Wasting lots of time and energy

- Afraid to get of out the door and have real conversations

- Playing safe

- Missing lots of opportunities

If you’re like many people who think sitting in front of a laptop for 7 hours a day is job searching, please stop kidding yourself.

Start judging your effectiveness based on what you achieved (outputs) instead of how many hours you put in (inputs).

When you do that, you can easily spend just 10 hours a week job searching whilst spending the remaining time with your family and your hobbies without guilt. And still you’d be more effective than most people who spend 30 hours a week at their just desk shuffling paper and surfing randomly on the web.

Most of you will have very good intentions when it comes to exercising and keeping fit.

Some of you will have good habits and may be regular runners, swimmers or gym goers.

But I suspect that everyone reading with this will, at some stage, have fallen out of their exercise routine or got sidetracked by competing activities.

A busy work schedule, an injury or simply feeling lazy leads to several weeks (or months) without working out or visiting to the gym. Very soon you’re caught in a rut whilst promising yourself that “I’ll get back to the gym from Monday”- but Monday never comes.

Sound familiar?

The same thing often happens in our working lives and careers too.

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• Updating your CV/resume after days of procrastination

• Setting up or updating your LinkedIn profile

• Making a call you’ve been putting off

• Applying for a new job online

• Having a coffee with an ex-colleague or ex-client

• Finally securing a face to face meeting with that recruiter

• Following up a lead

• Getting a little more organised in your search

• Staying positive and upbeat despite a ‘bad week’

• Learning more about job searching from books, articles and blogs

None of the above actions or activities will on their own secure your next new job. They possibly won’t even result in an interview.

But they’re all baby steps in the right direction – they’re “small wins.”

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Trying to reactivate a relationship with an old contact?

Ask yourself “how can I best help them? What would be of value to them right now?”

Trying to strengthen your relationship with a recruiter?

Ask yourself, “how can I help my recruiters?”

Trying to ‘sell’ an idea or opportunity to an individual or group of individuals?

Focus on what challenges they’re struggling with. What is it they want to achieve? Now think how you, your idea or solution will help them.

Trying to engage a de-motivated team?

Focus on what challenges they’re struggling with (individually and collectively). What is it they want to achieve as individuals? How can you and your organisation help them?

Trying to increase the number of connections on LinkedIn?

Stop focusing on the numbers, and instead ask yourself “how can I help and be of value to my network?”

Trying to engage an awkward / difficult client or stakeholder?

Ask yourself, “how can I make life easier for them? What can I do that would be of value to them?”

Trying to build a stronger relationship with your boss?

Ask yourself, “how can I help him/her? How can I make them look good?”

Regardless of what your objective is, when you come at it from the viewpoint of helping someone, being of service and being of value – the ideas, strategies and opportunities will open up.

But come at it from the angle of “what can I get from him?”or “how can I turn this to my advantage?” and you’ll invariably hit the same roadblocks you’ve been running into in the past.

How can I help?

As we begin the second quarter of 2010, I recently interviewed the economist and media commentator Mitul Kotecha to get his views on the economy and employment market at the end of quarter one.

Mitul is a regular guest on TV news channels CNBC and Bloomberg TV to discuss his views on the global economy and is frequently quoted in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. He also shares his views on the economy and global markets at his blog, The Econometer.

As you’ll see from the transcript of the interview below, he’s still cautiously optimistic about the prospects for 2010 and predicts a slow drawn out recovery with plenty of hiccups along the way.

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Sital: Mitul, when we spoke in December to look at your predictions for 2010, you were cautiously optimistic about economic recovery in 2010. What’s your take on things after the first quarter?

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1. The Trigger

Something happens which stops you in your tracks:

• Major changes at work which make you think… “Is this what I really want?”

• Redundancy

• A major health problem (for you or a family member)

• The death of a close friend or family member

• A divorce or major a relationship break-up

• Financial difficulties

• Extended travel or volunteering activities that make you question what you’re doing

• External factors that move you (e.g. 9/11, the tsunami in Asia, earthquake in Haiti)

Tip:

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“Focus on networking with your warm contacts first”

- hardly rocket science is it?!

Yet so many people (particularly job seekers and career changers), seem to think that networking is all about spending time with “the right contacts” (whatever that means) and connecting with “key players” (a terrible buzz word).

This ‘Person X’ is the holy grail apparently. And whilst this sounds logical and sensible in theory, in the real world it’s completely the wrong approach if you want get connected to with the right people and opportunities.

Here are 5 reasons why you should focus on networking with your warm contacts rather than “the right contacts” (Person X)

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Next week I’ll be at the Vitality Show at London’s Earls Court to offer career advice to visitors as part of the Career Shifters Career Advice Clinics.

The Vitality Show is the UK’s largest health, beauty, fitness and well being event. And this year is host to the annual One Life Live event which is the biggest  annual UK event for individuals looking to make major changes in their life. Featuring a range of workshops, seminars and specialist career advice, it’s a unique event for anyone facing a big career decision.

So if you’re interested in shifting careers, taking a career break, starting a business and want some advice, come along to the free career advice clinics where you’ll be able to book a 15 minute session to get advice from some of the UK’s leading career coaches.

The career clinics run for all 4 days – Thursday 18th March to Sunday 21st March.

I’ll be running clinics on the following dates / times:

So if you are visiting the show next week, drop by and say hello!

For more details about the event and tickets click here.

During last week, I published 7 daily posts to answer 7 common questions I’m asked about using the professional networking site LinkedIn.com

In case you missed any of the posts, below is a quick summary. Just click through to read the post.

1.  The Number One Rule For LinkedIn Users

2.  Increasing The Number of Connections On LinkedIn

3.  How Well Must You Know Someone Before Connecting?

4.  Three Rules For Connecting With People You Don’t Know

5.  How To Get High Quality Recommendations On LinkedIn

6. Tips On What To Write In Your Status Updates

7.  What To Write In Your LinkedIn Profile When Job Searching

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A few months back I began working with a bright, talented lawyer shortly after he was made redundant. Like every client I work with in this market, from the outset I explained the importance of focussing his job search campaign via networking and contacts much more than targeting recruiters and jobsites.

Not because the other search channels were ineffective – but because in a tight job market a much larger proportion of roles are being filled by employee referral programmes and direct hiring from firms rather than recruiters and job sites. An abundance of candidates, smaller recruitment budgets and slimmed down HR teams (who manage and process applicants) being the main reasons.

Over the last few months he has made some progress – but hasn’t secured a job offer despite is impressive resume / CV. This is largely (in my opinion) due to the fact that he has been searching mainly via recruiters and job sites (i.e. the complete opposite to what I suggested) and so faces huge competition for a smaller pool of positions.

When we met 4 months into his search, I suggested he changed his approach to focus much more time and energy on networking and less time and energy applying to the same recruiters and job adverts that every other lawyer in town is applying to.

He told me that I was wrong.

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